Five global challenges: how might Hizmet respond?
Hizmet, the social movement inspired by the neo-Sufi thinker Fetullah Gülen, is currently being dismembered by the autocratic president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He accuses Gülen of ordering a coup attempt on 15th July 2016, saying it was was led by Hizmet members in the army. This is strenuously denied by Gülen and Hizmet, […]
Reflections on the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995
Qari Asim MBE, the Chief Imam of Makkah Mosque in Leeds, asked me to contribute to the community Iftar on 12th July 2015 which was dedicated to remembering the murder of 8,000 or so Muslim men and boys in Bosnia twenty years ago. I was given five minutes so I didn’t read the text I’d written […]
Diverse communities and the question of cohesion
Ages ago I was asked to write a chapter on diversity for a book on the Yorkshire and Humberside region put together by colleagues at Leeds Metropolitan University. I got tremendous help from Professor John Stillwell (Geography, Leeds University) who produced statistical maps for me at the drop of a hat. The chapter contains lots […]
Critical Public Scholarship: on emotion and ‘race’
Before I decided to stop writing as an academic I agreed with my friends Karim Murji and Gargi Bhattacharyya to try and write something about political engagement in the sociology of ‘race’ for a special edition of Ethnic and Racial Studies. I wanted to say something about the emotional work that goes on when we enter […]