Suchergebnisse

Turkey has traditionally looked at the Middle East with caution ever since it's declaration of secular republic and tilted towards the West in its foreign policy formulation. However, the onset of 21st century brought Justice and Development Party (AKP) to rule the country straddling the two continents. The party, internally, has turned around the country putting it on the path of progress and development. On the international front, it has taken an active approach towards the Middle East, especially its neighboring countries in recent years. Ankara's approach towards Iran, Iraq and Syria – the three countries with which it shares land borders – as well as Israel has seen many ups and downs in the post 2000 period. Factors like Iraq War and the resultant autonomy of the Kurds; Israel's belligerent posture; the Arab Spring and more recently the emergence of the Islamic State have all played significant role in this transformation. The overall impact of this transformation and the future course of action, however, remain yet to be seen.

Terrorism is one of the menaces that inflicted huge human losses to the state and society of Pakistan. On December 16, 2014, the brazen attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar killed 141, including 132 children and nine members of the school staff. In reaction, on January 7, 2015, the government adopted the 21st amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, which entailed the establishment of military courts to punish the terrorists and their facilitators. This study gauges the opinion of young students towards this new counter-terrorism policy. The results suggest two outcomes: firstly, the public admits that terrorism is one of their main problems and secondly, there is an ethnically diverse view on the military-led public policy to curb terrorism.

In the wake of terrorist attacks carried out by radical Islamist groups such as Al Qaida, Bocco Haram and ISIS, there has been a growing tendency in the western societies to dub Muslims as illiberal and intolerant of religious minorities and Islam as a religion of terror. Muslims are presented as people oppressing cultures which they disapprove of. In this article, this negative portrayal of Muslims as intolerant, non-accommodative and discriminative is questioned in the context of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. The paper, firstly, surveys the liberal theories of multiculturalism and secondly, evaluates the attitudes of religious groups in KP towards religious differences by collecting 2977 questionnaires and conducting 80 personal interviews from four religious groups. The paper shows that as a Muslim majority entity, KP society is tolerant, accommodative and non-discriminative with majority of the respondents supporting state neutrality in term of religion.