Girls in headscarves is not exactly what you would expect to see walking through the doors of a Catholic school in London. Yet for young people living in London today interfaith encounters are not as rare as they used to be. While opportunities to meet people from other cultures are increasingly common, meaningful learning doesn’t [...]
This last month sees the official marking of three years after the end of the 28 year old war that plagued Sri Lanka, killing thousands and setting the country back in terms of development and prosperity. Yet three years on, it seems that not much has changed. Whilst Sri Lanka has tried to portray [...]
April has been an educative month, so far. In the first week of April, white-vanning reached new levels of omnipotence and omnipresence. The sudden disappearance and the equally unlooked for reappearance of Premakumar Gunaratnam and Dimuthu Attygala has compelled even the generally soporific opposition to bestir itself, and ask for a parliamentary debate on abductions. [...]
The contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt, has developed a compositional system that—reduced to its sparest minimum—consists of the dynamic interplay of two musical lines in a field of silence. The melody, which proceeds mainly in steps up and down the scale, might be compared to a child tentatively walking. The second line underpins each note of [...]
I recently had a heated discussion with some of my colleagues from Islamic Relief about the religious terminology called Jammat. Jammat comes from Jummah – a holiday on Friday where people come together in congregation and worship in a congregational prayer at midday, with a sermon also delivered. The blessing of a Jammat is in the togetherness it brings as a community. From togetherness [...]
The biggest part of Thanksgiving is sharing and caring. It is a day to express friendship and kindness to those who are struggling with the difficulties of life. It ought to bring out the best in us for others. Why should we do that? The Native Americans believe that the world is one large family, [...]
It was a Deepavali day on 21 October 1987, 68 innocent Tamils were shot and killed by the IPKF inside the Jaffna Hospital compound, including 3 Doctors, 3 Nurses, 17 Hospital staffs. The next morning Dr.Sivapathasuntharam, who unknowingly came into hospital premises in an attempt to save his injured staff, was killed by the ‘peace [...]
At the end of June, Google Ideas, a new thinktank set up by Google, hosted the Summit Against Violent Extremism in Dublin. The event was slick, and it was clear that a great deal of time, effort and money had been expended in making the event look and feel like a glamorous Hollywood operation – and [...]
This is the Friday Sermon given by Dr Mustafa Ceric on the Occaision of the 16th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacres. On the Occasion of 11th of July, 2011, the Day of Burial of the Shahids (Martyrs) of Srebrenica Genocide, 1995 Dear brothers and sisters in Islam and in humanity around the world, This is [...]
After 26 years of war which cost thousands of innocent lives and the displacement of an equal number, with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka is at a cross roads. Yet despite the victory, there has been widespread international criticism about how the war was handled coming from many [...]
