Chaos and Victory: Reactions from the White House Celebrations
Al Talib contributor Adina Farrukh describes the celebrations at the White House, where she joined hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden.
A Small Rewrite
Amir Abdel Malik Ali’s new pledge of allegiance at the 2011 MSA West Conference caused quite a stir. Not only did it receive the routine, incendiary criticism from the usual suspects outside of the Muslim community, it caused many Muslims, including myself, to raise their eyebrows in concern.
Hafiz Sohaib Baig wins the 23rd Annual UCLA MLK Oratorical Contest
A hushed silence fell over the audience as he took his place on the stage and stood there quietly, surveying his surroundings, waiting for his cue to begin. A slightly apprehensive curiosity permeated the atmosphere, unspoken questions buzzed in the audience’s minds as they took in the person standing before them, a young man seemingly…
Hidden brutality in Iraq
It has been seven long years since the United States first invaded Iraq as part of the so-called Global War on Terror and it is the occupation’s continued duration that has caused it to recede somewhere into the fringes of American consciousness. Indeed, it is not at all uncommon for people to forget – if…
Going Back to My Past
Karachi, Pakistan can be summed up in two words: insufferable heat. The faint, bitter smell of sweat lingers in the atmosphere; the stifling heat is almost tangible. Clothes cling obstinately to bodies and the feeling of being perpetually filthy prevails, no matter the number of cold showers one takes. Karachi is also extremely polluted. An…
Celebrating Women
The idea of a day devoted solely to celebrating and recognizing women’s achievements, International Women’s Day, was first proposed a hundred years ago by Clara Zetkin at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark. This was in the midst of an era of turbulent and changing times in a rapidly industrializing world.…
Thank You Howard Zinn
I first picked up Howard Zinn’s A People’s History when I was eleven years old. I had been dared to do so by a friend of mine who declared that if I successfully completed it, I’d go down in history as the biggest bookworm that ever walked the halls of our school. 675 pages of…
Haiti: Need for Self-Empowerment
That Haiti was devastated by a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake – the largest to strike the small Caribbean nation in more than two centuries – on Tuesday, January 13th, is already well known. Since then, we have been confronted with a veritable deluge of distressing news and disturbing headlines, as the extent of the disaster…
“My Book is your Book”: UCLA Students Fund Raise for Literacy
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a student activist group on campus, recently undertook a unique – and ultimately, successful – endeavor to bring aid to children in refugee camps in the Middle East by attempting to diffuse knowledge through literature. They put together a two day event, co-sponsored by the United Arab Society, promoting…