Samira Shackle

Articles & posts by Samira Shackle

• "The legacy of the Enlightenment has to be protected"
• “The only way to fight a false story told well is to tell a true story better.”
• "The problem with the marketplace of ideas is that it is more like an oligarchy of ideas"
• "Ignorance really is blissful, especially for the powerful"
• "Laughing is not a political action"
• “If I had my way, we would drop the word ‘Renaissance’ from our historical lexicon"
• "There is no valid race science because race is not a valid scientific concept"
• "Privatising the causes of stress dovetails nicely with neoliberal ideology"
• "Science deniers embrace a double standard of evidence"
• "Terrorism is almost always male violence"
• "The opposite of philosophy is taking things for granted"
• "Nature can be made to march under almost any political banner"
• "Brute animals make better use of reason than men"
• "Apparently, wombs can be as dangerous as bombs"
• "Life hacking creates a type of tunnel vision"
• "Consent is a radical concept"
• "Insomnia does not equate to sleep deprivation"
• "China is actively exporting its model of the internet"
• "We often tend to automatically equate disability with suffering or tragedy"
• "The blanket framing of a group can fuel contempt and hatred"
• "This commonly held Western perception is actually profoundly misguided"
• "Secularism in India is almost a defeated force"
• "We have no real answer to the question 'what is consciousness?'"
• "Borders are man-made fictions, inequality is a man-made reality for millions"
• Atheist bloggers in Bangladesh are still under threat
• "The modern faith in democracy is sometimes perverse"
• "In Northern Ireland, many shy away from reliving the nightmare"
• Can we learn from history?
• What humans can learn from termites
• "To understand magnetism is to understand how the universe and Earth came to be"
• "The most important challenge of our day is to escape the borders of nation states"
• The problem with identity politics
• "We are in the middle of the fight": the globalisation of LGBT rights
• "Computers aren’t capable of using common sense"
• Why do we venerate CEOs despite their obvious inadequacies?
• "War is the way Americans learn geography"
• Is there a way back from sectarianism in Iraq?
• "Secularism is under threat"
• "The women of the past have traditionally been caricatured"
• Why does psychoanalysis use the couch?
• "We live in a culture of ignorance"
• What is behind the violence in Myanmar?
• Exit strategies
• Why do we use social media?
• The power of small acts of resistance
• "I’ve been told I’m going to hell. People don’t realise I don’t believe in it."
• The tragedy of Pakistan’s blasphemy law
• What is the point of education?
• What do algorithms know about you?
• "We are familiar with the other but only in negative terms"
• Why do we use reason to reach nonsensical conclusions?
• "Secularism isn’t about the absence of religion, it’s about the structure of the state"
• "Without the evolution of locomotion there would be no sex, no photosynthesis, no ecology"
• "Shyness is very difficult to define precisely because it’s so contradictory"
• What does it mean to be nonreligious in the modern era?
• How offence taking became a political weapon
• How can we make sense of death?
• Reforming Pakistan's madrasas
• What is Salafi jihadism?
• "Arabs are practising democracy, and we don’t even talk about it"
• The EU debate did not create racism in Britain
• "This is a predominantly English movement"
• Scrap the "toxic" Prevent strategy, says Andy Burnham
• How do people gain - and keep - power?
• "It would be good if we could learn to listen to reason again"
• Age of extremes
• "More needs to be done about mainstream racism and the practice of the state"
• What place is there for faith in public life?
• What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others?
• South Asia’s age of intolerance
• "Don't waste time on climate change deniers - put your energy into action"
• When was modern science invented?
• A deadly battle of ideas: murder in Bangladesh
• Bangladeshi militant group publishes international hitlist of secularists
• Indian rationalist murdered at his home
• What is wrong with the way we think?
• Can non-Europeans think? An interview with Hamid Dabashi
• Who is to blame for the current chaos in the Middle East?
• The Vatican: Ireland's gay marriage vote is "a defeat for humanity"
• A lesson in failure
• Another atheist blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh
• Africa's many Christianities
• How does the internet help religious extremism?
• Science and serendipity: famous accidental discoveries
• In western democracies, is reading a political act?
• MPs criticise official response to Trojan Horse allegations
• Saudi Arabia accuses international media of "politicising" human rights
• Atheist bloggers are under attack in Bangladesh
• How Boko Haram will impact the Nigerian election
• The west should stand up to Saudi Arabia's crackdown on dissent
• New campaign to end blasphemy laws worldwide launches
• "Humanism must go beyond aggressive atheistic denial"
• Support for the British far-right is at a 20 year low
• Muslims ethnically cleansed in Central African Republic, says UN
• In Germany, 18,000 people attended an anti-Islam rally. Why?
• Robin Ince: "Don't be scared of ideas!"
• Legal recognition of humanist weddings blocked
• The right to non-belief is under threat
• Mapping extremism
• Is atheism a "British value"? The Department for Education doesn't think so
• “People care about their own rights – it’s other people’s that are more challenging”
• What does it mean to be an Arab atheist?
• Religious extremism is now the main driving force of terrorism worldwide
• Rowan Williams, the face veil, and the controversy that wasn't
• Group of Pakistani private schools holds "I am not Malala day"
• Are atheists as moral as anyone else?
• Faith schools censured for failing to promote "British values"
• Homeopaths offer to help contain Ebola outbreak
• UK to deport Pakistani activist who has received Taliban death threats
• Is the Vatican changing its stance on homosexuality?
• Northern Ireland's new health minister says he will not abandon his religious principles
• Can prejudice ever be eliminated?
• India's High Court rules that people have the right to "no religion"
• Will US airstrikes stop ISIS?
• Will the deaths of 700 migrants at sea prompt change in border policy?
• After the "Trojan Horse" scandal, Ofsted announces snap inspections of schools
• Why Greece's anti-discrimination bill is unlikely to stop hate crimes
• Top human rights activist detained in Bahrain
• Nigerian "witch-hunter" sues BHA over distinction between Satanic and vampiric possession
• "There are two places for an atheist in sharia communities: the closet or the grave"
• Schools for scandal
• How inhumane laws make things easier for people-smugglers
• Wole Soyinka: "The scroll of faith is indistinguishable from the roll call of death"
• Maoist cults, "sextremists", and pacifism: the best New Humanist summer reads
• Where is the line between protest and abuse?
• Founder of Britain First quits over "counter-productive" mosque invasions
• 9 things we learned this week
• The problems of policing FGM
• What is it like to be excommunicated from the Mormon Church?
• Are religious leaders out of step with their congregations on assisted dying?
• Why is Kenya beset by terrorist violence?
• The ripple effect of the US ruling on corporations' religious freedom
• Should compulsory worship in schools be scrapped? The Church of England thinks so
• Does the Catholic Church believe it is "above the law"?
• Nigerian atheist "drugged on a daily basis"
• What is a caliphate?
• How Britain First aims to polarise communities
• How many Syrian refugees has the UK taken in? Just 24
• How did militants seize control of Iraq's second biggest city?
• Is India serious about tackling sexual violence?
• How blasphemy laws have exiled India's miracle-buster
• What is Hindu nationalism?
• Is Bhutan still the "happiest nation on earth"?
• Peter Tatchell: "Same-sex marriage is a great victory. But it isn't quite equality"
• India's election: is secular democracy under threat? Writers, artists and businessmen give their views
• How Saudi Arabia is seeking to censor the web
• Has Spanish minister gone too far by giving a policing award to the Virgin Mary?
• Rescuing the missing girls, not sectarianism, must be the priority in Nigeria
• Will Iraq's election ease sectarian tension?
• Who are Boko Haram - and how can they be stopped?
• Why is Britain deporting LGBT asylum seekers to Uganda and Nigeria?
• Does Britain have a problem with Islamophobia?
• Would a Hindu nationalist election victory threaten India's religious minorities?
• Saudi Arabia's "atheism = terrorism" law is part of a wider crackdown on dissent
• How Turkey's Twitter ban backfired
• The strange story of Burkina Faso's "pleasure hospital" tells us about the difficulties in eradicating FGM
• Should Hamlet travel to North Korea?
• What risk do foreign fighters in Syria pose on their return?
• War without an end
• Thirteen years after the invasion, how much have women's lives improved in Afghanistan?
• Anti-abortion 'counselling' services peddling misinformation to vulnerable women
• Why is it so difficult to secure convictions for rape?
• UK agrees to take in 500 Syrian refugees - but is it enough?
• "Benefits tourism": myth or reality?
• Nigeria's gay community needs our help
• The case of Masood Ahmad reveals how blasphemy laws in Pakistan are used to persecute minorities
• What is modern slavery?
• Girls can't do physics? How schools are failing to tackle gender stereotypes
• Budget cuts push domestic abuse services into a 'state of crisis'
• We still can't talk about sex
• The hidden cost of Qatar's World Cup
• Is bribery the best way to encourage breastfeeding?
• Female Genital Mutilation is child abuse
• War will always traumatise soldiers, so why do we ignore it?
• The Maryville rape case raises questions about online vigilantism
• Why conspiracy theories about Malala won't go away
• Pakistan bombings are an attack on everyday life
• Britain's fear of being seen as a soft touch has led to inhumane asylum policies
• Most Pakistanis are horrified at attacks on Christians - now it's time to speak out