The West Must Listen to Moderate Islam

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

After centuries of bloodletting, including two wars which enveloped much of the world, the nations of Western Europe finally discovered that there was a better way. It dawned on them that, in the words of Britain’s war-time leader Winston Churchill, “It is better to jaw-jaw than war-war.”

Still, some who today guide the destiny of humanity seem not to have learned that lesson. The ancient but failed policy of demonizing then seeking to destroy one’s enemy is still being enthusiastically practised in the early years of the twenty-first century.

If more enlightened leadership – political and religious – does not quickly emerge in both the West and the East, then the sad history of slaughter will continue.

The depth of the divide between the West and the Islamic world has been convincingly demonstrated by the wave of violent demonstrations taking place in the wake of the publication of cartoons denigrating the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

The crisis has been brewing for several months having started in September 2005 with the publication of the cartoons in a Danish newspaper. This event in a relatively small European nation of five million set off diplomatic skirmishes including protests from Muslim countries and recall of ambassadors.

The Danish newspaper apologized in late January 2006 but in February the offensive cartoons were published in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. This was followed by sustained and increasingly violent street demonstrations in Muslim countries as well as some European cities with sizeable Muslim populations. There has been loss of life, destruction of property and economic boycotts.

It is not easy for some western minds to understand the outrage of Muslims at having their prophet depicted as a terrorist or a sexual pervert. After all, the Christian churches in Europe are mostly empty and in the West’s mass media religious symbols are regularly and obscenely caricatured and ridiculed. Even here in the Bahamas where church attendance is high, few eyebrows are raised these days as loud obscenities are punctuated with the name of the Redeemer.

Some Muslims believe that it is wrong to depict the prophet at all in any kind of art. Others do not object to the reverent depiction of Muhammad, and both Christian and Muslim artists have done that.

Christian animosity towards Muslims has been demonstrated throughout the centuries from the Crusades to the war on terror which many Muslims see as a new crusade. This impression was validated when US President George Bush unfortunately referred to it as just that – a crusade.

In his classic poem The Inferno, the best know of his trilogy The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri places Muhammad in the eighth circle of Hell with his belly ripped open and his entrails exposed. This was Dante’s punishment for one he called the Sower of Discord. There are a number of paintings and drawings by Christian artists representing this scene.

Many of today’s Christians are as intolerant of Islam as Dante, and some misguided fundamentalists seem to be itching for an armed show-down between Christ and Muhammad.

So the demonstrations are not only about cartoons of the prophet, however distasteful. Muslims see the cartoons as just another manifestation of the West’s historic contempt and hostility towards them.

Some historians argue that Muslims have been generally more tolerant than Christians. They point to the legendary chivalry of the great Muslim warrior Saladin and his willingness to make peace with the crusader King Richard of England; the Ottoman Empire which included parts of Europe and was comparatively tolerant of both Christians and Jews; and the fact that up until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 more than a million Jews lived in Muslims countries and were allowed to practise their religion in peace.

There can be no doubt that today there is a great struggle within Islam between moderates and fanatical fundamentalists; between those who want an Islam of peace, compassion and tolerance and those who want an Islam of violence and oppression.

The West does not help by continuing its discredited policies, especially in the Middle East where it has always aggressively pursued its interests including religious and cultural dominance, trade and access to oil.

The one-sided policy favouring Israeli expansion at the expense of the Palestinians, and the ill-conceived and hopelessly bungled invasion and occupation of Iraq only confirm the worst fears of Muslims about the intentions of the West. It also serves to radicalize young Muslims.

The administration of President Bush, with the connivance of a captive and spineless mass media, may be able to convince many Americans that it is all about spreading democracy and freedom in the Middle East but the Arabs and Iranians do not believe that.

The Iranians well remember what happened when they were working their own way towards democracy with their national hero Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh.

Dr. Mossadegh nationalized the Iranian oil industry, then owned by the British, and was swiftly overthrown by the British and the Americans in 1953. They imposed on Iran the bloody and corrupt rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi.

In an article in The Guardian of Britain on February 8, Sami Ramadani, a political exile from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and now a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, criticizes Mr. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for what he calls the trough of deception and disinformation about the war.

“In reality,” says Mr. Ramadani, “the occupation and divide-and-rule tactics have spawned death squads, torture, kidnappings, chemical attacks, polluted water, depleted uranium, bombardment of civilians, probably more than 100,000 people dead and a relentless deterioration in Iraqis’ daily lives.”

The same newspaper on January 12 quotes a senior British officer, Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who criticizes US Army conduct in Iraq and accuses it of institutional racism. The US Army, says the Brigadier, “has developed over time a singular focus on conventional warfare, of a particularly swift and violent kind.”

But just last week at the height of the demonstrations, the British Army was also presented with its own hearts-and-minds challenge as the media exposed a video purporting to show British soldiers brutalizing a group of Iraqi youths.

The West would do well now to listen to moderate Muslim voices before this conflict spreads and deepens. Prime Minister Adbullah Badawi of Malaysia is an important moderate voice.

According to the BBC’s Jonathan Kent, Mr. Badawi is a modernizer who has been calling on Muslims world-wide to embrace education, science, technology and development.

At an international conference promoting dialogue between Western and Islamic thinkers, Mr. Badawi called on Islam and the West to stop demonizing one another, to curb extremism and to promote moderation.

“The demonization of Islam and the vilification of Muslims, there is no denying, is widespread within mainstream Western society,” says Mr. Badawi.

Muslims for their part had to avoid “sweeping denunciations of Christians, Jews and the West. The West should treat Islam the way it wants Islam to treat the West and vice versa. They should accept one another as equals.”

We can only hope and pray that the right people are listening to Mr. Badawi and that they are willing to talk with moderate Muslims instead of dropping bombs. That is the only way to escape the trap that past injustices has laid for humanity.

Comments

[bahamianworldcitizen]

This article is a good start. I would like to think that Bahamians are more culturally and religiously sensitive than the 'west'. Although I have heard some Bahamians make ignorant comments about Muslims and other religoius minorities in the Bahamas.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all trace their roots back to Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim). These monotheistic faiths have more in common than is perceived by the 'west'.

Prime Minister Adbullah Badawi has encouraged all Muslims to 'read in the name of your Lord' -- the first ayat revealed to Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. The 'west' often forgets that one in four people in this world are Muslim and the majority live in South East Asia in peace. Arabs account for a minority in the global ummah.

The Bahamas has close relations with both Indonesia and Malaysia. We have similar island cultures, colonial pasts and of course spicy seafood dishes (anyone who has travelled there knows- yummy). Next time you see Indonesian workers going for friday prayers from Paradise Island to Nassau great them with salaam- peace :)