The tradition of republicanism offered us civil religion, a foundation of belief that could counter any politics or policy that demands sacrifice in this world to be compensated in some “beyond”.
Cabinet minister Josh Frydenberg has accused Australia's grand mufti, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, of seeking to "cover up" his failure of leadership in the wake of the Paris attacks.
France is looking for answers.
Reuters/Pascal Rossignol
People sometimes overlook their profound differences if social forces unite them in a common, often ill-defined desire. Hostility to Muslims is creating an imagined solidarity that Islamists can exploit.
The Camp Speicher massacre was one of Islamic State's earliest and worst mass killings – but it was nearly buried under a tide of misinterpretation and denial.
Recently in Aleppo, Syria, the Jabha Shamiya militia has started carrying out a new urban warfare strategy: tunnel bombing. Aside from the human damage wrought by this tactic, it is also extremely damaging…
Scene of an earlier clash between government and Boko Haram forces.
EPA/Deji Yake
The recent fall of the town of Baga, north-eastern Nigeria, to Boko Haram is one of the militant group’s most serious assaults against the Nigerian state. The consequences are severe: it claims heavy civilian…
French police storm the Jewish supermarket where hostages were held.
Ian Langsdon/EPA
The hunt for the two killers who attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo is over, after a three-day chase and a standoff at a warehouse outside Paris. The two suspects were killed, and the hostage they took…
The shocking events at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris did not happen in a vacuum. They are not the actions of a few outcasts on the edge of society. These brutal murders, apparently in the name of…
Praying before an IS banner in a Mosul Mosque.
EPA/STR
In the late summer of 2014, the international community watched helplessly as Islamic State (IS) unleashed widespread human rights abuses against civilians across Syria and Iraq, with little standing in…
A protest against the killing of journalists by the Islamic State
Mast Irham/EPA
Over recent weeks there has been a constant background noise that Islamic State and its ideology are some sort of throwback to a distant past. It is often framed in language used last week by the deputy…