Pope Benedict’s recent remarks about Islam and last year’s humiliating cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by a Danish cartoonist coupled with the violence that is spreading throughout the Middle East clearly show that bridges between the Islamic world and the West is not that easy to build. The so-called dialogue of civilizations is hard to achieve; good intentions make people call for such a dialogue but the demand comes at the wrong time.
Before we both sit and discuss the points of discord, we should first take a look at ourselves in the mirror. Does the image we see really represent us?
Since 9/11 the West has been throwing away a lot of precious values it had long been fighting for. The world has been watching with surprise and shock Western elite defending abuse and torture inside an increasing number of detention camps on the pretext of fighting terror and safeguarding the values supposedly under assault from terrorists. We, maybe for the first time, hear about secret trials and oppressive laws formulated in Western capitals. Whenever Western press showed an inclination to attack faith and religious dogmas in the past, Western governments, intellectuals and courts took the lead to stop such irresponsible acts. But now, such irresponsible utterances and writings and heaping insults on other people’s religion and/or culture are being justified in the name of the freedom of expression.
In the past, if you told a Westerner in one of those democratic countries that somebody is eavesdropping his calls he would probably fight to retain his right to privacy. But now people in most democratic countries say it is OK if those I gave my vote and trust eavesdrop my calls — thanks to the war on terror!
Meanwhile, a fake model of democracy, the “tanks democracy”, is being practiced by the West in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq. Abuse and threatening policies have become the tools of security for Western governments. Justice has been disregarded and international laws cast to the wind at the UN and elsewhere. These ideas and practices are not genuine as they don’t reflect the liberal West, but unfortunately it is the West itself that has been denying them in its land for so long.
The Islamic world on the other hand looks so different. You can hardly tell whether a Muslim there would condone terror or not against Westerners and Western interests though his government may assure you that fighting terror is their priority. In the past, Muslims used to state their positions clearly and bravely on any issue, but things have changed. For thousands of years, the Middle East has been a very good model for religious tolerance under Islamic laws. Now, Muslim reaction to any sensitive issue is likely to contain violence and threat.
Burning flags and attacking foreign embassies have become common practices.
The West asks: Where is the moderate Muslim we have been continuously told of? Why don’t they stand up and say they are with peace and dialogue? The West is right. Moderate Muslims are contained and silenced, either by overwhelming radical trends or by their oppressive governments.
It is clear that a majority of Muslims are against terrorist crimes, but despondently neither they nor their governments state that position clearly enough. It is their governments’ inefficient policies that allow flow of radicals to Europe and other continents to project Islam in a wrong way to the world, while the rest of Muslims continue to talk about the glory of their past. They opened the space for extremists to appear in live talk show programs to confront and threaten Western ideas and identity. But the West’s abuse of prisoners has been partially responsible for arming criminals with hatred and abhorrence.
If some Muslim governments and people have helped create the violence and extremism they are fighting fiercely now, it is also the Western elite and their supporters who violated values of peace and tolerance the humanity so desperately needs. Both of them are in big trouble now. It is not therefore the time to sit and talk. If we talk now we will shout at each other and we will not hear each other because we are both angry. We need time to correct and regain our genuine and peaceful image.
— Hatem Y. Ezz Eldin, M.A. is a political researcher at Al-Madina newspaper ([email protected])
