Word: secularized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...inefficiency, ethnic and religious rivalry - that he had promised to combat. Questions about Abdullah's leadership came to the fore earlier this year when his deputy, Najib Razak, stunned the country by defining Malaysia as an Islamic state, going so far as to say the country had never been secular. (The nation's constitution is unclear about the issue, stating both that Islam is the religion of the federation and that freedom of religion is guaranteed.) Abdullah told TIME, "We are not a secular state, but neither are we a theocracy." But such hedging seems unlikely to satisfy all constituencies...
...every community gets a seat at the table when it comes to governing the country," he told TIME. "Everyone participates, and everyone's voice is heard." Many non-Malays don't agree - and their sense of alienation starts early. Government primary schools that used to be essentially secular now feature Islamic prayer halls. Today, only 6% of Chinese parents send their children to such schools, while in the 1970s more than half did. Chinese students have a much harder time securing places in Malaysia's public universities because of quotas, so those with sufficient funds head overseas. Many...
...house on a man who seemed to many a most unlikely Labor leader. At 49, Rudd was not only young but inexperienced: he'd been in Parliament for just eight years and shadow Foreign Minister for less than five. He was an active Christian in a resolutely secular party, and said the machinations of Labor's factional power-brokers "revolted" him. Known as Pixie for his fresh looks, and Dr Death for his cold stare of disapproval, Rudd was said to have few friends in Canberra. Former Labor leaders Paul Keating and Mark Latham described him, respectively, as "a menace...
Obaidat is lucky. The zoo where he works is regarded as the one place in Jerusalem where Muslims, Christians, secular Jews in shorts and tank tops and ultra-Orthodox Jews wearing their 18th century finery all co-exist happily; director general Shai Doron thinks that's because the presence of other animals reminds visitors that despite their differences, they are all members of the same species. And Doron has no tolerance for ultra-Orthodox visitors who demand that he fire Arabs in the cafeteria because they might be plotting to poison Jews...
...several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home...