baithak: Baithak World Jun 10: Muslim Activism, William Dalrymple, Indonesia and Ahmedis, News & Views, Cartoons, RealNews

TORONTO -- Muslims must "demand that right to participate" in national media, Khurrum Awan, the primary witness in the Maclean's magazine hate speech hearing, told a weekend conference of the Canadian Arab Federation. "And we have to tell them, you know what, if you're not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it's time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars," he said. On a discussion panel with Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and Haroon Siddiqui, editor emeritus of the Toronto Star, Mr. Awan described his increasingly high-profile struggle "against particular elements in media that are misusing and abusing their responsibility" in writing about Islam.Muslims told to insist on equal voice in media

It was not, therefore, during the Islamic period that the dramatic break with India's erotic traditions occurred; instead that change took place during the colonial period with the arrival of evangelical Christian missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century. Responding to the evangelical diatribes about "Hindoo immorality," a new generation of British-educated Hindu reformers began critically to reexamine their own traditions. A movement arose advocating the banning of courtesans, and chastity and modesty were elevated as the ideal attributes of Hindu womanhood. Today, there is much embarrassment and denial about both the role of the erotic in pre-modern Hinduism and India's history of sexual sophistication. When asked to come up with a response to the growing Indian AIDS crisis a few years ago, the health minister of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party proclaimed that "India's native traditions of chastity and fidelity were more effective than the use of condoms." The Place of Sex By William Dalrymple reviews four books:

Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India
catalog of the 2007 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, edited by Vidya DehejiaLondon: Royal Academy of Arts, 157 pp., $65.00

The Book of Love: The Story of the Kamasutra
by James McConnachie
Metropolitan, 267 pp., $27.50

Kamasutra: A New, Complete English Translation of the Sanskrit Text
by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar
Oxford University Press, 231 pp., $12.95 (paper)

Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in Its South Asian Contexts
by David Gordon White
University of Chicago Press, 372 pp., $25.00 (paper)

_____________________

Thousands of Muslims threatened on Monday to launch a holy war against Ahmadiyah in protests outside police headquarters in central Jakarta. The protesters carried banners calling members of Ahmadiyah "infidels" that should be "exterminated". Critics will see the step as a failure by the government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president, to uphold the young democracy's secular values. In Indonesia the Ahmadis number only about 200,000 people out of a total population of about 230 million. They have been peacefully practising its faith in Indonesia since the 1920s. Indonesia unveils curbs on sect

News & Views

Huffpollstrology: Candidates' Horoscopes, Polls And More For June 10

In Gitmo's Legal Otherworld, 9/11 Trial Defendants Cry Torture
US Wants 58 Bases In Iraq, Shiite Lawmakers Say

"Strategic Alliance" Between the U.S. and Iraq Makes a Mockery of Iraqi Sovereignty

Women and the New Economic Revolution

Salman Rushdie A Writer, Not a Martyr

Water Scarcity: The Real Food Crisis

Race the top motivator for hate crimes in Canada: report

Yellow Journalism

Blue sky, toxic sea

Photostory: The month in pictures, May 2008

Obama: Hope & Disappointment

Carl Pope: The Curious Senator John McCain

Pakistan Trained Taliban Insurgents, Betrayed American Troop Movements: US Think Tank