Monthly Archives: September 2012

My thoughts on freedom of speech

For Al Jazeera, I examine recent controversies over freedom of speech: The battle lines of free speech are often drawn over the banal. One strategy of those who seek to minimise the argument of the offended party is to scoff … Continue reading

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Why the phrase ‘The Muslim world’ is misleading

In my latest Al Jazeera column, I take on the misguided use of the phrase ‘the Muslim world’ to describe the very small number of Muslims participating in violent action against the West: It is time to retire the phrase … Continue reading

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A Heated Reaction to the Ramil Safarov Case

I have received a lot of emails and comments from Azerbaijanis critical of my Al Jazeera article on Ramil Safarov, The axe murderer who became a Facebook hero. Most of them were from Azerbaijanis saying that Safarov should be considered … Continue reading

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The homecoming of Ramil Safarov

For Al Jazeera, I write about the strange, sad case of Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijani officer who murdered an Armenian officer at a NATO camp in Hungary in 2004, was sentenced to prison in 2006, and was extradited last week … Continue reading

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Our Response to the American Anthropological Association

The same week my article The Closing of American Academia appeared in Al Jazeera, three other anthropologists published works criticizing labor conditions in the discipline. The American Anthropological Association responded with a blog post dividing our articles into “two camps”: one … Continue reading

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