november & december 2008

CONTRIBUTORS

Ariane Sherine is a comedy writer and a regular contributor to the Guardian. on page 7 she tells the story of the Atheist bus campaign.

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Kerem Oktem is a research Fellow at St Antony’s college, oxford. visiting Turkey in october, he found a country caught between an increasingly Islamist government and the secular “deep state”.

18] Fifty years of solitude After castro, what will the cuban people believe? roger davidson reports from Havana

columNs 7] Diary Ariane Sherine invites you on board the Atheist bus campaign 15] Opinion rabbi Jonathan romain makes the religious case against faith schools 38] Thinker Thomas Aquinas was no man of reason, argues Shadia drury

book reviews 44] Michael Binyon is impressed by Gilles Kepel’s analysis of Jihad 45] Philip Womack finds redemption in a norwegian classic 46] Nina Power takes philosophy lessons from a wolf 46] James Crabtree is not quite convinced by Jeff Sharlet’s family 48] Jenny Bunker rues a missed opportunity 48] Stuart Sim visits George Pelecanos’s mean streets

Roger Davidson has been visiting cuba for many years. reporting from Havana on page 18, he looks at the humanist origins of the revolution and explores the role of the catholic church in the post-castro nation.

Norman Doidge is a clinical psychiatrist and is on the faculty of the University of Toronto. on page 24 he draws on his bestselling book The Brain That Changes Itself to explain the new world of neuroplasticity.

Conor Gearty is rausing director of the centre for the Study of Human rights at the London School of economics. commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal declaration of Human rights on page 32, he calls for a renewed commitment to the disadvantaged.

november december 2008 New Humanist 5