The Year That Was 2007: The Glory & the Gloom
By Azher Quader
Community Builders Chicago
Chicago, IL
We have come to the end of another year. 2007 had its moments of glory and its moments of gloom. We saw the American judicial system stand tall in defense of an American Muslim charity (Holy Land Foundation) charged for aiding Hamas when it found no credible evidence for it (although the case ended as a mistrial). We also saw another part of the same judicial system unfairly punish professor Sami Al Arain , making him a scapegoat in our government’s hunt for terror suspects in their quest for domestic security. This was also the year when the paradox of Gauntanamo continued. The nation’s top lawyer was forced out of office for his willingness to torture terror suspects to get information from them.
Our hopes with the Democrats victory at the polls earlier in the year, neither translated into meaningful immigration reform, nor a deliberate effort to wind down an unpopular foreign war. This was the year also when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama captivated our imagination as real choices for the presidency, in a way none had done before, surmounting the barriers of race and gender in our nation’s political consciousness. This was also the year when Isra Bhatty, a Chicago Muslim, got chosen as a Rhodes Scholar, proving that neither hijab nor heritage matter, but what matters most is preparation and passion. This was also the year of the sub prime debacle, the housing downturn and the foreclosures fiasco.
As John Edwards went around the campaign trail talking of the two Americas that he sees, the rich and the poor, we saw more. We saw the insured and the uninsured, the documented and the undocumented, the profiled and the privileged, the monitored and the trusted. We saw Islamophobia raise its ugly head in college dorms and campuses spreading the neo-con venom, pitching student against student. Yet the event that cast the longest shadow and the greatest hurt came in the final days of 2007.
As the world witnessed in broad daylight, a violent political convulsion ended the controversial and eventful life of Benazir Bhutto, our own courageous daughter of destiny. She was on a suicide mission, some would say, from the time that she decided to return to Pakistan after a self-imposed exile of several years. Notwithstanding what she stood for, it was another person with another suicide mission that finally took her down in an act of hate and anger. While the full story may never be known, a tormenting question comes to haunt us today. Is this our manifest destiny? How many Muslim leaders will have to die before people of faith and conscience in Pakistan will stand up and rise to take back their country. As we mourn her loss and as we remember the loss of so many lesser known who have perished in the violence that has consumed the nation these past several months, one has to be struck by the violence that similarly visits our communities of faith in other places around the globe as well. Why are we so violent and so angry? Why are we so full of hate not only for those that are outside the faith but also for those that are within the faith?
The anger that Muslims have against the long-standing hostile foreign policies of certain Western powers is easily understood. Acceptable is the anger they feel for being called terrorists when they are not, for being profiled when they are peaceful, for being suspect when they are loyal. One can fathom the anger that comes from poverty, hunger, lack of resources and isolation. The anger however that we have against our own kind is different and is a lot more perplexing to know. Ironically, our own American Muslim community is slowly revealing this not so happy face of anger and anguish within, that was thus far hidden to the public eye. This issue of anger is not only widespread but cuts across all socio-economic and ethnic boundaries as well. Particularly disturbing is the degree of anger that seems to smolder beneath the surface in our mosque assemblies and Islamic Center circles where the politics of control are center stage. The promise of democracy that so many hope to see happen at our religious institutions, has not materialized and is often hostage to this rage. We often speak of the failure of democracy in far off Muslim lands. How about here in America, among the brightest and the best, surrounded by all kinds of freedoms, the spirit of democracy cannot survive within our community. While democracy dies in Muslim lands at the hands of fanatics and war lords, it gets disabled here in our mature institutions, run by our educated and our pious, through the disputes of pre-election ghost voters, identity fraud and post-election grid lock the kind we have seen this year. Dare we mention the other institutions where this journey has not even begun?
We seem to be continuously keyed up, strongly opinionated, often working with very short fuses ready to explode at any moment on a variety of issues, mostly religious and not infrequently political as well. We talk about tolerance but rarely show that in practice. We talk about forgiveness but demonstrate precious little of that capacity in real life experiences. We will hug and embrace one another in public but privately will not hesitate to back bite and bad mouth those we claim as our brothers and sisters. We will sing the song of a united ummah and Muslim unity from the public stage but when we march we will only march to the drumbeat of our own particular and narrow ideological drummer. We will speak of pluralism in our interfaith discourses but when we retreat behind closed doors our expressions are less generous. We will announce our belief in the acceptance of all faith traditions under the banner of the ‘kalima’ but indulge in distancing ourselves from those that practice our faith rituals with even the smallest of variances. Yet in our business and professional engagements we are mostly cool and collected, inclined to courtesy and respect for the opinions of others however dissimilar they may be. So why this duplicity and why this dichotomy. What feeds this fire and what fuels this anger? The roots of rage are sadly quite deep and widespread.
The internal divisions within our community have manifested through the ages with alarming force and ferocity. From the times of the ‘sahaba’ when angered by the principle of succession, the Shia split took place, our community has never been the same. There have been many more splits during the course of its checkered history. These breaks continue to occur even as we talk about the need for Muslim unity to fight the enemies of Islam.
A cursory look reveals the many pieces, the several strands, and the various divisions we have had. For starters there were the Shafis, the Hanafis, the Hanbalis and the Malikis among the Sunnis. There were the Twelvers (Asharis), the Seveners, the Fivers (Zaidis) among the Shias. Then came the Deobandis and the Barelvis among the ranks of the Hanafis. Of course there are the Sufis and the Salafis to reckon and the Wahabis as well. On top of these came another layer of socio-political subgroups that emerged, like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Jamat e Islami, the PLO, the Hamas and the Alqaeda. Refusing to be left behind the Shia boast a few divisions of their own. The Usulis and the Akbaris (from the Twelvers), the Ismailis, the Alavis, the Bohras, the Druz and the Khojas (from the Seveners). Their political key groups in recent times have been the Hizballah stretching their muscle in Lebanon and Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards who took over in Iran after overthrowing the Shah.
With each split came the groups argument of their truer understanding and their more authentic interpretation. Each group believing to be in the right. Each group passionately claiming its promised prize in the hereafter. Each group using selections from the Qur’an and the Sunnah to justify the rightness of their positions. Each group unwilling to embrace the others fully, frequently harboring a degree of suspicion and mistrust, occasionally bordering on a belief that the path others follow, is meandering in disbelief. Out of this paradigm of self-righteousness and this desire for others to see the moral code as they see it, is born the beast of intolerance. This same paradigm also stains their political views and seeks to sting and inflict serious harm and long lasting misery on anyone who sees their political ideology in a different light. The casual observer will call it fundamentalism. Those who know better recognize it as the phantom of intolerance masquerading under many guises.
The harshest reactions have come from those that see any change from the traditional as compromise, any acceptance of the ideas of the West as treason to the spirit and soul of our faith. From the father who could strangle his daughter to death in Toronto, to the husband who could lock up his bride in a car and set it on fire in Chicago, to a suicide bomber who takes down a political leader in Islamabad, the unmistakable rage of intolerance leaves its scary silent stamp wherever it goes.
Will we ever learn from our savage present that there is another way to resolve disputes, to settle scores? To discuss, to debate, to dissent without resorting to violence and mayhem. Will we ever learn from our historic past, that even in times of war the lives of the innocents were inviolable, the property and livestock of the non-combatants was protected? Will we ever learn to tame this frightful monster of intellectual arrogance that threatens to pounce on every idea that differs from it, with violent ferocity? Will we ever learn to argue with civility and courtesy, to exercise reason, to practice hearing the other point of view before passing judgment? Will we ever learn to let go this relentless pursuit for power to satisfy our egos, this rabid desire to control the lives of those who wish to be independent, this hunger to win no matter what it takes? Will we ever learn to see the big picture, one in which our life’s mission and purpose is framed; to seek common ground, to bring people together, to be peace makers, to build bridges of trust, to live with integrity, to lead with example, to help the oppressed, to join the just, to aid the ailing, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to protect the poor, to teach, to explore, to discover, to invent, to serve, to love, to show compassion and practice tolerance? Is this the neglected message of ‘tauhid’ that we seem to have forgotten? Is this the cherished dream for a chosen people that we have failed to realize?
Perhaps it is a vision that we need to open our eyes to. Sadly it will continue to remain in obscurity as long as we refuse to review our perceived values, our inherited beliefs and the behavior that emanates from them.
As the sun goes down on 2007 let us hope it rises again in the new year with new light and new promise for a healthier, happier, tolerant community and a better world where the ‘strong are just the weak secure and the peace preserved’. www.mycommunitybuil ders.com
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