North Africa

[31 July 2001] What started in Hassi Messaoud, Algeria on the night of July 13-14, 2001 is NOT one more crime/violence/violation in the wartime situation that our country has now become famous for. A qualitative change has taken place.

Islamisms, or diverse representations of political Islam, have become very difficult to ignore and even more difficult to categorize and explain satisfactorily. This is particularly the case when addressing a western audience, which is unfamiliar not only with the multifaceted aspects of Islam, but also with the crucial role Islamic faith plays, in the everyday lives of Muslim people.

Willy Claes, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), gave Western misperceptions and misrepresentations of Islam and Islamisms a new twist.

Introduction

This research is an examination of the relationship of the Sudanese state to issues of gender, religion and class.[1] It is one component of my interest in the mechanisms the state employs for achieving both political and cultural hegemony.

On January the 18th 1985, Ustadh Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was executed in Kober Prison in Khartoum Sudan after a short trial on the previous day. His trial reflected the collapse of the rule of law after the promulgation of the September 1983 Laws, the declaration of emergency and the "Prompt Justice Courts" of 1984. Ustadh Taha's trial was a classic example of an unfair trial.

Ustadh Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was born in a sufist family, in the town of Rufaa (160 miles south of Khartoum) in 1909. His mother died when he was one year old and his father died when he was ten.