MANILA: Arab News Editor in Chief Khaled A. Almaeena yesterday exhorted Filipino Muslims and other Muslims living as minorities in other countries “not to wallow in self-pity” and to strive for higher education instead of complaining of discrimination.
In a keynote speech at the opening of the International Symposium on Muslim Education at the Manila Hotel, Almaeena said Muslim minorities “should try to absorb themselves and be part of the system ... rather than say that we are being victimized.”
“They may be victimized but through education they can achieve anything ... while maintaining one’s identity, one can try to be part of the system,” he said.
Other highlights of his speech included the important role the Muslims have to play in promoting global peace and understanding and the presence of Filipino expatriate workers in the Middle East.
Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, while acknowledging that Muslims in the Philippines do face discrimination, echoed Almaeena’s exhortation saying education is the best way to combat such discriminatory practices.
Official Philippine government statistics place the number of Muslims in the country at 3 million, a figure disputed by some groups as the number remains static for the last 20 years.
Filipino Muslims are no longer confined to the southern Philippines and in enclaves in Metro Manila. They have also spread to the northern Philippines, notably in the country’s “Summer Capital” of Baguio, where a big number of Maranao traders have become key players in the city’s economy.
Government records show that the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is among the most depressed regions in the country, with a big percentage of the population considered to be either uneducated or undereducated.
Education for Muslims in the Philippines is really a challenge, added Lim in a brief message delivered by lawyer Adel Tamano, a Filipino Muslim who is the spokesman of the United Nationalist Opposition and president of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod Manila, or the City College of Manila.
However, he said, the problem is not insurmountable so long as Filipino Muslims strive for higher education.
Lim said the symposium was important for participants to play a proactive role in promoting understanding as he lamented that while there are some 1.8 billion Muslims around the world, Islam remains the most misunderstood religion.
In calling for the symposium, organizers hoped to pinpoint the problems faced by Filipino Muslims and to come up with constructive and practical measures and plan of action. Its theme was “The role of higher education in fostering Islamic understanding for global peace and sustainable socioeconomic development.” The symposium was attended by some 300 Muslim educators in the Philippines and some foreign delegates. The event was organized by the Commission on Higher Education (ChED) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) led by Norma M. Sharief, PhD.; the Wisdom International School for Higher Education Studies (Wishes) led by its president, Mamarinta Omar Mababaya, PhD; and the Integrated Mindanao Economic Forum led by Aleem Abdul Hannan Tago.
Tago, who is based in Riyadh, introduced Almaeena during the symposium as no stranger to the Philippines. Almaeena visited the country in the early 1980s when he was working with Saudi Arabian Airlines. Almaeena has also been constantly in touch with the Filipino community in the Kingdom, he said.
Yesterday, Almaeena was conferred an honorary doctorate degree by one of the prestigious universities in the southern Philippines.
In his speech, Almaeena stressed that higher education “is a must for everyone because education brings about religious tolerance.” He said dialogue and religious tolerance are all the more important as “global understanding is a must for peace.”
In fact, he said, the quest for world peace was the very reason Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah initiated the interfaith dialogue, which the United Nations later endorsed at a special session of the General Assembly last November.
The first interfaith dialogue was held on July 16, 2008 in Madrid, where King Abdullah met 300 religious, political and cultural leaders from 50 countries representing not just the three monotheistic religion — Islam, Christianity and Judaism — but also Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism.
Before that, the King met with some 500 Muslim scholars from around the world during a conference in Makkah on June 4, 2008 and asked for a common platform.
“The aim was to set an agenda for the building of better relations between Muslims and peoples of other faith,” Almaeena said.
He suggested people representing the Muslim world should really come out in the open and help show the true nature of Islam as a tolerant religion.
Almaeena also cited the role Filipino expatriate workers play in socio-economic development, not just of Saudi Arabia but in the Gulf region as a whole.
He said Filipinos are among the most hard-working expatriates in the region, “braving the hot sand and the cold weather.”
Because of the presence of Filipinos and other expatriates, he said, “we have achieved a high degree of comfort.”
There are an estimated 1.2 Filipinos in Saudi Arabia alone and more than a million more in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Jordan.
A substantial number of Filipino Muslims are also in Saudi Arabia and many of them have graduated from the Kingdom’s universities.
A good number of the graduates have returned to the Philippines and are either engaged in business or are working with private companies or with the government.
