Word: seculars
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...heads the coalition of Shi'ite parties that controls Iraq's incoming parliament. It didn't go well. For more than an hour, Khalilzad tried to persuade al-Hakim to help revive the Iraqi political process, stalled in part because the Shi'ites refuse to bend to demands by secular, Kurdish and Sunni parties that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari not be given a second term. Al-Hakim didn't want to confront his fellow Shi'ite. But he had another idea: Couldn't Khalilzad nudge al-Jaafari aside? Khalilzad kept a straight face at the suggestion...
Whereas his predecessors Paul Bremer and John Negroponte often seemed remote to Iraqi politicians, Khalilzad, a secular Muslim who speaks Farsi and some Arabic, is informal and chatty. In meetings with Iraqi leaders, he sips sweetened black tea and indulges their speechifying without asking for translation. Iraqi leaders say they see him as one of their own, crediting his Afghan upbringing for his accommodating manner. Says Humam Hamoodi, a leading politician of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI): "The way he sits, the way he eats, we feel he's no stranger...
...moment is the deep division over who should be Iraq's next prime minister. The Shi'ite alliance that won the largest block of seats in the Dec 15 general election has nominated Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is prime minister of the interim government. But Kurdish, Sunni and secular parties have in recent days mounted a strong challenge, demanding that Jaafari's nomination be withdrawn. They blame Jaafari for the interim government's many failings, including its failure to act quickly and decisively to prevent the sectarian conflagration that followed the Samarra blast...
...Church.What exactly happened to “Church”? And where did Christ go? It used to be that Harvard had only one business—training young men for deployment into the ministry. And it wasn’t overnight that it transformed into the famously secular research university we know today. Rather, the movement gathered momentum gradually, propelled by intellectual leaders who, while using Christianity as an implicit foundation, believed above all in the advancement of scientific and academic knowledge.For the Puritans who founded the College, separating God from academia was unthinkable. “The whole...
...Oceanside, Calif., being a Democrat wasn’t an option. However, as soon as he arrived at Harvard, Krahel says, he realized that being a Republican wasn’t for him and joined the Harvard Dems. Krahel says that while Democrats are not irreligious, they are generally secular when it comes to politics.Lesser is critical of Republicans who insist that Democrats are profane atheists. “Nationally, Republicans do a good job of painting Democrats as being not religious, and Republicans are really good at labeling people,” he says. “That?...