Word: islamism
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...feuding (18 U.S. soldiers died protecting a U.N. mission in Mogadishu in 1993, an episode that later became the subject of the book and film Black Hawk Down) and then the rise of a movement - the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Shabab in Somalia - that proposed an extremist vision of Islam as a solution to the lawlessness. The two countries are both poor and populated mostly, it can often seem, by men with a uniform taste for beards, AK-47s and pickup trucks. (See what the U.S. Army can learn from Black Hawk Down...
...tempting to dismiss Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi's call this week for a jihad against Switzerland as just another round in the feud between the two countries. But it would be a mistake to treat Gaddafi's rhetoric as mere theater. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's second-eldest son, who many suspect is Gaddafi's likely successor, tells TIME that Libya's row with Switzerland is evidence of a far more serious and urgent issue within Libya, which is grappling with how democratic and Westernized the country should become after decades of isolation...
...Switzerland banned 188 Libyans including Col. Gaddafi himself, from entering its country. Libya immediately retaliated, freezing all visas of citizens belonging to the 25 European countries (including Switzerland) that belong to the continent's shared visa system, called Schengen. The dispute rose above personal issues into an affront against Islam in early February, when Swiss citizens voted in a national referendum to halt the construction of minarets...
Unsurprisingly, Marine Le Pen, vice president of France's far-right National Front Party, whose power base lies near Roubaix, has been quick to jump on the issue. France, she says, needs to be defended from Islam's growing influence. Quick's halal option is "an Islamic tax" on diners. Not to be outdone, members of the ruling conservative Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) have also fretted over Quick's menu change. UMP secretary general Xavier Bertrand says it is undermining France's secular, integrationist social model, while UMP parliamentarian Richard Mallié salutes Vandierendonck's "republican combat...
Critics of Vandierendonck point out that Roubaix's Quick outlet is one of just eight in France to adapt its menu to its predominantly Muslim customers and claim that the controversy, coming after those about Muslim dress and religious symbols, is evidence of a deep prejudice against Islam. "Would there have been all these resounding denunciations had Quick decided to position itself in, say, the biological food niche rather than halal?" asks Muslim consumer blog Al Kanz. "Would thematic Quick menus offering only Mexican or Chinese food make such noise in the media? No, assuredly not." (See an article...