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Cover of New Humanist Issue 4 July/August 2004

Volume 119 Issue 4 July/August 2004

Features

Why I'm glad my daughter had under-age sex
Amid the clamours for censorship, celibacy and an end to teenagers' rights to confidentiality, Sally Feldman fulminates against the misguided moral crusaders
Europe's Malcolm X
Dyab Abou Jahjah is thirty–two years old. He was born in Lebanon, which he left at the age of nineteen for ‘asylum’ in Belgium, even though he now happily admits that in reality he was an economic migrant. After holding a trade union position looking after the interests of migrant workers, he founded the AEL in February 2000. Rosemary Bechler met him in the old community centre in Borgerhout, the Moroccan district of Antwerp
Writhing on Ecstasy
Acid House inspired even the most unlikely ravers to brave the dance floor. So why is it, ponders Caspar Melville, that white men still can’'t shimmy?
Steal this idea
Frank Jordans welcomes an ingenious liberation from copyright law
Cultural obscenity or badge of honour?
David Dunkley Gyimah explores the myriad meanings of a forbidden word
The other side of the street: Laurie Taylor interviews Stan Cohen
He has spent his life analysing and opposing injustice and inhumanity. Sociologist Stan Cohen talks to Laurie Taylor about torture, social control and our extraordinary capacity to deny

Cover Stories

Driving out the demons
They brandish crosses, sprinkle holy water and have grown in number from 20 to 300 in ten years. Orlando Radice charts the renaissance of Italy’s exorcists

Culture

Baby talk
Jonathan Rée on the scientist in all of us
Burnt–out case
Stuart Sim descends into the murky world of the crime novel
Sculpted insights
Sally Feldman on Carol Shield's bid for immortality
Has doom had its day?
Andrew Tudor on the decline of the disaster movie
All men won't be brothers
A poem by Keith Morton
Good without God
Jim Herrick reconciles the mystic and the rational
Don't touch the product
Pádraig Reidy falls under the spell of a preacher man
Passing the time
Peter Cave is irritated by Gallic philosophy
A Heroine in Tibet
Julia Simpkins on a writer's journey to Tibet
Spreading freedom
Toby Saul keeps on rocking in a free world

Columns

Reaching the Untouchables
Ken Hunt calls for an end to a pernicious form of mind control
Moral Monopoly
Evan Harris warns of the dangers of religious lobbying
Pie in the sky
Laurie Taylor tastes the delights of a very creative city
Pyrrhic victory
Editorial
Courage and Commitment
Jim Herrick reports from Africa’s first humanist conference
Give us a sign
Why shouldn'’t humanists have their own code for conveying solidarity, asks Alan Brownjohn
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