Contemporary scholars routinely argue colonialism and imperialism are indistinguishable. In this essay, I challenge this argument. While it is true the "colonial" and "imperial" overlap and intersect historically, I argue there is a central thread of modern colonialism as an ideology that can be traced from the seventeenth century to mid-twentieth century that was not only distinct from-but often championed in explicit opposition to-imperialism. I advance my argument in four parts. First, I identify key ways in which the colonial can be distinguished from the imperial, including most importantly the specific kind of productive power inherent in colonialism. Second, I examine how colonialism and imperialism evolve in meaning and are redefined by both champions and critics, in relation to each other in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Third, I examine the historical moment when colonialism and imperialism fully conflate after WWII through the UN process of decolonization as the "salt water thesis" delimits colonialism to mean foreign racialized domination, and it thus becomes synonymous with imperialism. I conclude with an analysis of why the distinction still matters in both theory and practice.

Tolerance is claimed not just as central to liberalism, but increasingly as the sole preserve of a liberal order. This essay opens up a critical space for examining the naturalized relationship between liberalism and tolerance by focusing on the political thought of Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (1951-), a prominent Pakistani public intellectual who is often labeled as a "liberal" Islamic thinker. Ghamidi has never identified himself as one. Using as an investigative opportunity the disjuncture between his self-identification and how his ideas are labeled, and placing Ghamidi's ideas within the wider tradition of Islamic thought, this essay elaborates on his vision of non-liberal tolerance predicated on individual responsibility infused with humility and shari'a-inspired state minimalism. Insight into the depth of nonliberal conceptions can facilitate a reconsideration of the relationship between liberalism and tolerance.

Homelessness is an obvious moral challenge, given the fact that it is a problem that millions of people in the developed world have to deal with on a daily basis. In the relatively scarce literature on this subject, there appear to be-roughly-three main approaches, namely, what I will refer to as the "difference approach," the "liberal approach" and the "care approach." In the paper I will critically review these three moral perspectives on the issue of homelessness. I will argue that the difference approach and the liberal approach in the end are unconvincing. Homelessness can hardly be interpreted in terms of an internally valued group identity nor in terms of autonomy and its preconditions. I will defend a version of the care approach instead, an approach that focuses on the concrete and particular needs of the homeless.