It makes one glad to see the Muslims taking a unified stance in defense of our blessed Prophet (pbuh). It was about time to react after month of gross insults directed at the person of the Prophet from the Danish newspaper, and I hope that our boycott will continue in spite of the feeble and belated apologies from both the Danish government and the newspaper. What will give us the assurance that such insults against the Prophet or Islam will never reoccur in other Western countries where in fact they already have? Islam has been the butt of many a bad joke and the target of more insults in recent history, and it has become acceptable to insult Islam or Muslims — and I don’t include criticism since they can criticize us to their hearts content as long as they respect civilized codes of conduct.
However, one wonders why in recent times Islam and the Muslims have become easy fodder for such an aggression. Do recent events like the blatant aggression on Afghanistan and Iraq have anything to do with it? Or does the illegal abduction and imprisonment of Muslims around the world have any impact on the weakened situation of Muslims everywhere? Have we forgotten the many recurring incidents of the desecration of our Holy Qur’an in American prisons?
Also, I wonder why the insult of the Danish newspaper per se incurs such a strong reaction when crimes and insults just as great have descended upon Islam and the Muslims in recent history and passed by without any strong, unified and sustained reaction from the Muslims. Is the blood of innocent Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine not also sacred? Does the humiliation and torture of Muslims in Western prisons and illegal imprisonment count less in Muslim eyes than an attack on Islam and its Prophet? Do Muslims think that the Prophet will not be pained as much by the humiliation of Muslims as he would by the insults directed toward him? When will we hold our blood and dignity as sacred, or are we just reacting to this latest insult by the Danes because we can?
It seems we now not only choose our opponents but we choose also our insults; the weaker the perpetrator of the insult the swifter and harsher is our reaction. Why have we not boycotted the products of the nations that have been insulting and humiliating us far more than this measly little newspaper and the country it belongs to, or do our sacrifices stop at the kind of cheese we can eat? To sacrifice for Islam, the Prophet and his people should be on all levels and against every aggressor, not just against those whom we know will not demand from us great feats of bravery and sacrifice. I do not belittle the insult directed at our beloved Prophet, blessed be his name and being, by the Danish newspaper, but, I ask you, are the blood and dignity of Muslims not sacred? Why haven’t we seen such a united action against those who have inflicted greater pain and misery on our brethren for so long? When will we respect ourselves and demand of the world such respect?
Our dignity should be held equal in our eyes, not decreasing or increasing according to who is aggressing it.
As for the much talked about tolerance of Europe, which many there hold up as a shield to our faces hiding behind it many disparities, what does it mean truly in their eyes to be tolerant? Does tolerance in Europe mean accepting the other with his difference of culture and religion and point of view or do they only accept the “other” when the “other” becomes a European and loses his identity, then this is not tolerance but assimilation and it is easy to accept the other when the other is nothing more than a mirror image of yourself.
Let me take as an example a previous minority and an older one in Europe, which has lived, nay survived, in Europe for centuries.
This suffering minority has been the victim of European history more than any other minority, or at least for a longer period of time since other minorities like the Albigensian or the Celts and many more have simply ceased to exist. The luck of the Jews, or maybe their tragedy, is that they have survived in Europe for a very long period of time, and since early on have suffered the slights, insults, humiliation and finally the many massacres and pogroms throughout European history, which culminated into the Holocaust; by the way, for those who question the Holocaust as being an exaggeration I say that even if the Nazis threw one Jew in the oven it was still a crime of universal proportion. The Holocaust is a moral crime more than anything else, and even if many more have been killed in other races, the Holocaust should be held as an atrocious crime against humanity and a symbol for all those who suffer extermination everywhere else in the world like in Palestine.
Back to tolerance in Europe: The only reason the European accepted the Jews after the war, excluding the immense sense of guilt they felt toward them, is that the Jews of Europe ceased to be Jews and became European at least in every physical way that made them unique. The majority of Jews now living in Europe are either Jewish by name only or they practice their religion and culture in their homes and in some way in secret. Even many Jews today would say they have never felt more at home in Europe, but in truth what remains of the unique Jewish culture of Europe, in the external life and daily life in Europe? The Jews of Europe are now assimilated and that is exactly what is being asked of the Muslims of Europe. They are being told look how tolerant the Europeans are we want to accept you if only you abandon everything which makes you a Muslim and become a clone of the European then you will live happily with us. This is not tolerance but the farthest thing to it and Europe should learn from the tolerance of the East where religions and cultures of every sort have lived and coexisted together not just for decades but also for millennia. In our world, the Christian, the Jew, the Buddhist and the Muslim and many more minorities and religions have learned to live with each other while respecting each other’s uniqueness and difference. And we will continue to do so.
— Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer. She is based in Jeddah.
