Sometimes you may come across what sounds like a fascinating thesis but it has been submitted in some far-flung place that’s going to take money and time to get a copy (although happily, more and more theses and dissertations are being put online).

Luckily, these days any aspiring academic doctoral student needs to get some journal articles under their belt to get future post-grad work. So, combining your *theses* searches with *journal* articles published by the same name, may get you a taste of that thesis straight away (well… so long as your library has a subscription to the database but that’s another issue).

Whilst searching for theses on religious identity I came across references to the Molokans. So in the interests of learning at least one new thing a day, did you know this Christian unitarian sect that broke away from the Russian Orthodox church in the sixteenth century rejects the Trinity and the concept of priest as mediator between God and man, reject the use of icons, advocate social justice and equality of human beings, men wear beards and the women usually a lacy head shawl, adhere to Jewish dietary laws and do not eat pork, shellfish, or other “unclean” foods, and men and women sit apart in their services. However, apparently only around 20,000 people ethnically identify as Molokans, living in Russia, America and Australia. (Ref and ref)

An advisor to the Pope has advised Muslims (you’d think he’d concentrate on advising the Pope) that they should be more outspoken in condemning war in the name of religion. (A bit rich coming from a representative of the Catholic church). I’m curious, how much condemning is enough condemning, given that acts of violence are committed by criminals outside of the vast majority of Muslims’ control?

What’s the point of condemning, we don’t get the airplay when we do. In 2006 I was involved in the organisation of the first conference of Australian Imams. My role was to co-ordinate the people who were minuting all the meetings, and at the end of it help produce a statement for the Imams to ratify and release to the public. If memory serves it was the second paragraph (after the opening necessaries) where the statement read that Australian Imams have condemned all forms of terrorism in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The Imams ratified the statement and it was released to the press.

Guess which media outlets reported the condemnation. Which newspapers had it screaming on the front pages of their daily editions? NONE OF THEM!!! That’s right, you have a representative gathering of Australian Imams, sponsored by the government of the day, and they all get up and say “we condemn all forms of terrorism” and the next day the media choses to report that Andrew Robb complained his speech had to be translated into Arabic and Turkish.

So don’t give me, Muslims have to condemn terrorism more.

At anyrate, there’s no such thing as ‘bad jihad’ in the Qur’an. The Qur’an talks about different types of jihad including the basic ethic of what we in the West call ‘just war theory’. I do hope the Pope gets a better advisor.

Actually the scarf has come to symbolise the Palestianians’ struggle for liberation and autonomy, but heavens we can’t advertise THAT!

Poor little critter.