成人论坛

CULTURES OF APOCALYPSE
A CNN Poll found that 20% of Americans 鈥� nearly 60 million people - believe the Apocalypse will take place in their lifetime.聽 In his new book Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World, Nicholas Guyatt claims that the growing constituency of Apocalyptic Christians have influenced American Foreign Policy, particularly in the Middle East; and also suggests that we should worry because the 鈥榚nd of days鈥� is not something they wish to avoid, but something they positively welcome. Laurie Taylor is joined by Nicholas Guyatt and religious commentator Martin Palmer to debate the issue.

POLITICS OF THE VEIL
In March 2004, after fifteen years of debate over the wearing of the hijab, all 鈥榗onspicuous鈥� signs of religious affiliation were outlawed in French public schools.聽 The Government claimed that it had done so in order to protect the secularism upon which the French Republic was based and to integrate Muslims into French society.聽 A number of the law鈥檚 supporters saw the headscarf, or the 鈥渧eil鈥� as it came to be called, as a means of oppression and believed the legislation would emancipate the girls from an Islamic patriarchal imposition.聽 But Joan Wallach Scott in her book Politics of the Veil claims that the controversy over the wearing of the veil in France is due to the country鈥檚 failure to integrate its former colonial subjects as full citizens. Professor Wallach Scott argues that the outlawing of the veil in public schools in France was a racist act and merely a means of avoiding the real issues facing modern France鈥檚 multicultural society.