Editorial
From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
Kofi Annan’s Plain Talking
Kofi Annan has at long last spoken,
boldly and grittily, as becomes the Secretary General
of the United Nations. Addressing a seminar at the
UN Headquarters in New York, he did not mince words
to censure the current tide of Islamophobia plaguing
the West.
“When a new word enters the language, it is
often the result of a scientific advance or a diverting
fad. But when the world is compelled to coin a new
term to take account of increasingly widespread
bigotry, that is a sad and troubling development.
Such is the case with Islamophobia,” Annan
observed.
The Secretary General’s address entitled “Confronting
Islamophobia: Education for Tolerance and Understanding,”
was part of a UN-sponsored series on “Unlearning
Intolerance.” The first seminar in the series,
“Confronting Anti-Semitism: Education for
Tolerance and Understanding,” was held on
June 21.
Spurning restraint and inclined to calling a spade
a spade, Mr Annan spoke with rare perspicacity:
“Islam’s tenets are frequently distorted
and taken out of context, with particular acts or
practices being taken to represent or to symbolize
a rich and complex faith.
“Some claim that Islam is incompatible with
democracy, or irrevocably hostile to modernity and
the rights of women. And in too many circles, disparaging
remarks about Muslims are allowed to pass without
censure, with the result that prejudice acquires
a veneer of acceptability.” True.
As stated in these columns earlier, a flurry of
insinuations against Islam have become almost a
norm of daily life in the US. Day in and day out,
misguided commentators and right-wing observers
provide fresh proof of unfeigned disdain for Islam
with remarks that are caustic and biting and have
a telling effect - both on the naive non-Muslim
viewers as well as followers of the faith. Not surprisingly,
a recent Cornell University survey reveals nearly
half of all Americans interviewed believe the US
government should restrict the civil liberties of
Muslim Americans!
The name of Islam has been sullied, wantonly and
willfully, as newscasters lay undue stress on a
select group of words - Islam, Qur’an, Muslims,
terrorists, Islamists, and more regrettably, Muhammad
- in their display of a singular contempt for Islam.
“No one should underestimate the resentment
and sense of injustice that members of one of the
world’s great religions, cultures and civilizations
felt as they looked at unresolved conflicts in the
Middle East, the situation in Chechnya and the atrocities
against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia,”
said Annan. And so saying, the UN Secretary General
seemed to identify the root cause of the present
seething unrest in the Muslim world.
“But we should remember that these are political
reactions - disagreements with specific policies.
All too often, they are mistaken for an Islamic
reaction against Western values, sparking an anti-Islamic
backlash,” Annan seemed to furnish a convincing
explanation. And here a restatement of what we have
written in these columns:
How did an average Muslim perceive the United States
of America in the pre-September 11 period? A country
to envy and despise? A bulwark of Christianity?
A sworn enemy of Islam? Undisputed leader of the
West on a collision course with the Ummah?
The answer to all such questions is in the negative.
Despite many misgivings about US foreign policy
and Washington’s ambivalent posture on crucial
issues such as Palestine and Kashmir, Muslims have
been generally appreciative of America - a country
on the march.
I have vivid recollections of my childhood impressions
of the United States. The stagecoach winding its
way on a dusty trail, eager prospectors panning
for gold, the rush for California, and entrancing
characters - Buffalo Bill, Daniel Defoe, Kit Carson,
Monte Hale, Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Lash
Larue, Rocky Lane, bounty hunters et al. - stalking
the ‘Wild West’.
With time, I came to identify the US as the epitome
of anything and everything quintessential with its
glittering Ivy colleges that were soon to be the
focus of all our pursuits. Not many of us could
make it to Cornell or Harvard. But the unrivalled
excellence of American institutions continued to
exercise a magnetic pull on professionals, including
the men in the khaki, who were keen to avail of
an opportunity to train at Fort Benning or West
Point. A closure exposure to American academics
and Nobel Laureates had a singularly beneficent
influence on my formative years. Professors Donald
Glaser, Nicholas Negroponte, Hofstadter, Michael
Moravscik et al. were fine human beings. Their wives
seemed to complement their values.
Come September 11 and the scene dramatically alters.
The media churns out story after story to suggest
that Islam and the West are on a collision course!
There is a concerted effort to lend credence to
Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations.’
A negative perception of Islam is aired day in and
day out through newspapers, TV, radio, and films.
We are more than familiar with the ridicule that
Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington and
a host of others hurled on the Muslim world without
the slightest call of compunction.
Which brings us to the oft-debated debate: Are Islam
and the West on a collision course? Professor Ralph
Braibanti, an eminent scholar who has been on the
faculty of Duke University since 1953, makes the
incisive point in his illuminating essay Islam and
the West: Common Cause or Clash? published by the
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown
University. An excerpt: “The ecumenical decree
of Vatican Council II, Nostra Aetate (In Our Times)
1965 was a stunning repudiation of an attitude towards
Islam regnant for more than half a millennium. It
erased in a few poetically elegant sentences the
imagery in Dante’s characterization of Mohammed
as seminator di scandalo e di scima. Its newly sensitive
appraisal of Islam eclipsed the somewhat less felicitous
but more potentially powerful final sentence of
paragraph 3: ‘On behalf of all mankind, let
them [Muslims and Christians] make common cause
of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral
values, peace and freedom [et pro omnibus hominibus
justiciam socialem, bona moralia necnon pacem et
libertatem communiter tueuntur et promoveant].’
“This is clearly an exhortation to act. The
errors of the past were acknowledged, animosities
were to be forgotten, and points of agreement between
the two religions were portrayed without animus
or condescension,” writes the erudite professor.
Nostra Aetate unequivocally spelled out the religious
affinity between Muslims and Christians: “Upon
the Muslims, too, the Church looks with esteem [respicit].
They adore [adorant] one God, living and enduring,
merciful and all-powerful, Maker of Heaven and earth
and Speaker to men. They strive to submit wholeheartedly
even to His inscrutable decrees, just as did Abraham,
with whom the Islamic faith is pleased to associate
itself. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as
God, they revere [venerantur] him as prophet. They
also honor [honorant] Mary, his virgin mother; at
times they call on her, too, with devotion. In addition
they await the day of judgment when God will give
each man his due after raising him up… Although
in the course of the centuries many quarrels and
hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims,
this most sacred Synod urges all to forget the past
and to strive sincerely for mutual understanding.
On behalf of all mankind, let them make common cause
of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral
values, peace and freedom.”
Viewed in this context, the visit of Pope John Paul
to the Ommayad Mosque in Damascus on May 6, 2001,
was an event of singular importance. He was the
first Pope to set foot on a mosque and his message
on the momentous day was truly befitting for the
occasion: religious conviction was never a justification
for violence. The Pontiff who gave a new dimension
to Judeo-Christian ties with his visit to Rome’s
synagogue in 1985, said it was now time to open
a new chapter in relations with the Muslims. “For
all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended
one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the
Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness…Better
understanding will surely lead to a new way of presenting
our two religions, not in opposition as has happened
too often in the past, but in partnership for the
good of the human family,” he said.
The Pope’s initiative could not have been
better timed. Indeed, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism
are three Abrahamic religions whose followers have
a lot in common. Blissfully, there are several shining
examples of Muslim and Christian communities demonstrating
a spirit of co-existence and mutual accommodation.
The Christian population in Jordan, for example,
barely makes up three percent of the country’s
total, yet it has been treated with love and respect
by the Muslim majority. The late King Hussain and
Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal made sustained strivings
to ensure a spirit of harmony to bring the believers
of the two faiths closer. The Royal Institute of
Inter-Faith Studies established in 1994 has hosted
several conferences and published insightful books,
including Prince Hassan’s Christianity in
the Arab World.
The year 1995 saw the establishment of the largest
mosque in Europe in close proximity of the Vatican
as a testimony of an attitudinal change between
followers of the world’s two major faiths.
Another significant event took place on September
12, 1997, when the Supreme Pontiff and Prince Sultan,
the Second Deputy Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia,
met in Rome.
Quite a few other developments testify to the wholesome
change. The establishment of the Center for the
Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations of
Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, England; the Center
for Muslim-Christian Understanding of Georgetown
and publication of its journal Islam and Muslim-Christian
Relations; the publication of Islamochristiana by
the Vatican’s Pontificio Istituto di Saudi
Arabia; the strivings of UMA, AMA, CAIR, ISNA, and
ISOC, recent PBS documentaries ‘Islam: Empire
of Faith’ and ‘Muhammad: Legacy of a
Prophet’ provide fresh proof of this trend.
The Oxford lecture by the Prince of Wales in 1993
was further indicative of the change. Prince Charles
affirmed, “Islam can teach us today a way
of understanding and living in the world which Christianity
itself is poorer for having lost.” Two years
later, the Prince reaffirmed this view in a televised
comment when he said that he would prefer to have
the Crown’s title “Defender of the Faith”
changed to “Defender of Faith.” He specifically
mentioned Islam as one of the faiths of Britain.
In his Iftar party address at the White House in
the post 9/11 period, President Bush rightly remarked:
“Islam is a religion that brings hope and
comfort to more than a billion people around the
world. It has made brothers and sisters of every
race. It has given birth to a rich culture of learning
and literature and science. Tonight we honor the
traditions of a great faith by hosting this Iftaar
at the White House…We see in Islam a religion
that traces its origins back to God’s call
on Abraham. We share your belief in God’s
justice, and your insistence on man’s moral
responsibility. We thank the many Muslim nations
who stand with us against terror. Nations that are
often victims of terror, themselves…”
Muslims, Christians, Jews and followers of other
faiths, have to act in unison to arrest the current
decline of civilization so as to make the world
a more livable place. Islam and the West are on
a coalition course and any suggestions of collision
are simply misleading. Let’s be seized of
our religious affinities and spurn unwarranted animosities.
afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
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