Book Review
Building Bridges of Faith: Answer to Terrorism
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Canada
After Terror: Promoting
Dialogue Among Civilizations
Edited by Akbar Ahmed and Brian Forst
Published, 2005 by Polity Press
65 Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA
ISBN: 0-7456-3501-6
ISBN: 0-7456-3502-4(pb)
196 Pages.
Price: not given
It doesn’t take
the wizardry of a political pundit to conclude that
the cataclysm of 9/11 has changed our world like
no other contemporary event. The world history may
well be recorded, henceforth, in terms of ‘before-
and- after 9/11.’
The most notable fallout
of the apocalypse is consensus amongst the intellectuals,
academics, leaders, opinion makers et al that terrorism
is a global phenomenon and a collective challenge
to mankind. There is also agreement that the menace
must be confronted, and prevailed upon, in order
to safeguard our generation and future generations,
too from this scourge.
However, there’s
a definite parting of the ways between governments
and leaders—especially the ones with power
and global reach—and men of intellect and
vision over the ways of combating the evil. The
world’s mightiest military power, with military
bases strung across the globe, has chosen to combat
terror with terror. The American military intervention
in Afghanistan and Iraq is categorical evidence
of one country arrogating to itself the sole right
to punish ‘evil doers’ and even those
who had nothing to do, like Iraq, with the tragedy
of 9/11.
But the world must
be thankful that there is still a hard core of intellectuals
and visionaries around who think that force is not
the right answer to deal with the scourge of terror.
They are not prepared to pander to the prophets
of doom who have been prophesying, since long before
9/11, that a clash of civilizations was imminent.
They believe, instead, in the alternative means
and methods of defusing this global challenge to
the collective conscience of mankind.
Professor Akbar S.
Ahmed, hailed long time ago as the most notable
Muslim anthropologist since the legendary Ibne Khaldoon,
is one such intellectual who is not ready to surrender
to the neo con option of force against terror. But
Akbar is not just an armchair visionary pontificating
on the issue from a sinecure sanctuary; he is a
foot soldier in the world of academia actively engaged
in inter-faith dialogue over a wide spectrum. His
dialogue with Judea Pearl, the father of the slain
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has electrified
the academic world and other public platforms in
US and Canada. Akbar is also engaged with Bishop
John Chane, head of the National Cathedral in Washington,
DC and Senior Rabbi Bruce Lustig, head of Washington’s
Hebrew Congregation, as founder panelist of the
First Abraham Summit launched after 9/11. His bridge-building
is protean and versatile.
Together with his
colleague, Brian Forst, of the American University,
Washington, DC, Akbar has come out with a collection
of essays written on the theme of non-violent means
of combating terrorism by some of the most celebrated
names on our contemporary academic and intellectual
horizon. They represent all shades and hues of the
global intellectual rainbow. It includes world leaders
like President Khatami of Iran, UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan and Prince Hassan bin Talal of the Hshemite
Dynasty of Jordan; peace activists and Nobel Peace
Prize winners, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and
Jody Williams; renowned historians, writers and
political pundits, such as Bernard Lewis, Walter
Isaacson and Zbigniew Brezezinski; celebrities like
Queen Noor of Jordan, Rajmohan Gandhi and Ravi Shankar;
authors and political analysts, such as Joseph Nye
Jr., Edward O. Wilson and Benjamin Barber; and international
civil servants, such as Sergio Vieira de Mello (
the brilliant Brazilian killed in Baghdad in August
2003 while serving as UN watchdog there) and Shashi
Tharoor.
The 28 essays making
up the collection comprehensively diagnose the problem
of global terrorism from every possible angle. The
authors of these essays, writing concisely with
a fine-toothed pen, explore all those historical,
sociological, political, economic and religious
aspects that have spawned the phenomenon of terrorism
and confronted humanity with the gravest challenge
to the system of civilized interaction amongst sovereign
nations crafted over centuries.
The authors of these
essays agree, almost unanimously, that religion
has been misappropriated for political purposes
and honed as a weapon to convey political grievances
violently. However, this process is not confined
exclusively to this or that part of the world. Contrary
to the disinformation purveyed by those subscribing
to the fiction of clash of civilizations, politicized
religion is not the monopoly of one religion (Islam
in the eyes of many) but has become a universal
property. The rapid inroads of Evangelism in American
politics, as a force to contend with, point to religion
being tailored to a specific political agenda.
Intolerance is a major
by-product of politicized religiosity. However,
Kofi Annan is wrong in concluding that poverty and
illiteracy are the main sources of triggering intolerance.
Had that been the case, there would be no Evangelists
in America damning all other believers of faith
to eternal perdition.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
is certainly more to the point of objective reality
in asserting that religion is not so much the culprit
for intolerance as fear, ignorance (of others) and
exclusivism is. The Bush administration’s
response to the challenge of terrorism is incorrigibly
informed by intolerance for other viewpoints. Its
alarmist approach to combating terrorism has been
inculcating a psychosis of fear in the hearts and
minds of the American people.
The collection doesn’t
confine itself to only diagnosing the malady; it
proposes, in depth, a variety of remedies taking
cognizance of the nature of the problem and thoroughly
dissecting its strengths and weaknesses before coming
up with its cornucopia of stabilizing a highly charged
and emotive crisis of confidence.
There is near-consensus
in this elaborate intellectual undertaking that
the dogmatic aspect of all religions and faiths
will have to be de-emphasized in the interest of
a harmonious universal community of mankind. A constant
dialogue is the best shot at achieving a modicum
of universal understanding.
Ironically, Bernard
Lewis, the controversial Orientalist regarded as
intellectual mentor and guru by many a neo-con in
the Bush circle, comes up with, perhaps, the most
sensible remedy to bridge the religious divide.
He believes, correctly, that what unites the followers
of world’s major divine religions is much
more than what divides them.
That’s precisely
what Akbar Ahmed has been doing in his inter-faith
dialogue with Judea Pearl: building bridges to span
a divide in the Abrahamic faiths; a divide more
a product of ignorance than any other factor.
Former President Jimmy
Carter, an outspoken critic of the Bush policy of
unilateralism, also highlights the ineluctable need
for bridge-building, instead of bridge-burning,
in his pithy rubric on the title page of the book.
Benjamin Barber, whose
trenchant critique of the Bush global adventurism
( Fear’s Empire) in the name of combating
terrorism, was recently reviewed, conjures up the
ideal of a universal declaration of interdependence
to overcome fissures in the global community. However,
that’s an ideal whose time is, perhaps, still
far.
Likewise, Prince
Hassan’s romantic vision of a universal ‘melting
pot’ is equally idealistic. That would not
only be impracticable but undesirable. God Almighty
didn’t envision a melting pot of mankind.
Instead, the Qur’anic injunction is of a universal
community, purposely divided into tribes and nations,
but commanded to live in peace and harmony with
each other: O People! We have formed you into nations
and tribes so that you may know one another (Chapter
49:13 ).
As a good Muslim scholar
steeped in world history and well informed by current
international affairs, Akbar Ahmed knows that in
the wake of 9/11 the greatest burden of proving
their commitment to a universe of harmonious mankind
weighs on the Muslims of the world. Hence his endeavor
to promote an inter-faith dialogue among the followers
of Abrahamic faiths. This collection of essays is
an adjunct to that undertaking.
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