To my Muslim friends
Dialogue, not retaliation, is the answer
BY MYRON J PEREIRA
Television is often
our window on the world, and these days TV has brought us hundreds of pictures
from across the Muslim world — from Palestine and Egypt to Pakistan, Malaysia
and Indonesia — of men in their thousands protesting against the American
bombing of Afghanistan, and proclaiming that Osama bin Laden is their hero,
their leader and their saviour and how willingly they would give their lives for
him.
Leader? Hero? Saviour? A
criminal who has masterminded the deaths of thousands and who gloats that there
is even more death and destruction to come? A criminal who had arranged the
cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocents in the WTC bombings, and other
similar incidents in Tanzania and Lebanon? A criminal who has financed the
enduring terrorism of thousands of Muslims in Kashmir, and who has funded the
Taliban to destroy Afghanistan? And thousands of Muslims proclaim this man as
their saviour?
Is there something
distorted and misguided in the Muslim mind that so many should arise in support
of him?
This is no defence for the
bombing of Afghanistan. War is messy, violent and destructive. Thousands of
innocent lives are lost. And if the Americans are responsible for this, let us
also state candidly that the Afghans are equally responsible for holding their
own people hostage, and for killing thousands of their own fellow Muslims in the
internecine civil war which followed the Soviet withdrawal.
Thousands came out into the
streets to protest against the Americans. I did not notice as many coming out to
protest against the slaughter of innocent Muslim Kashmiris by Pakistani and
Afghani terrorists. I did not notice as many applauding the Americans when their
bombs stopped the “Christian” Serbians from slaughtering the Muslim Bosnians. Is
there a double standard here?
There is. And this has to
do with the medieval framework of the ‘Muslim mind’.
There is probably no
uniform Muslim mentality. Nevertheless in the tense and war-torn atmosphere of
today, the fundamentalist ulema have succeeded in creating an image of “Islam
under threat”, which demands that Muslims everywhere must come to its defence.
The average Muslim sees himself as belonging to the ummah (community) of
believers to which he has obligations, and distanced from all “others” (kafirs)
to whom he has no obligations whatever.
This not to say that the
Muslim world is united, as is commonly believed. It is split geographically,
religiously, socio–economically and along gender, as any other group. It appears
to act in solidarity, but this solidarity is only in the united resolve to
destroy. This is why all that Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda can promise is to
destroy the West. He has no ability to build, to create, to bring prosperity and
peace. This is also why the Taliban, which pretends to rule by the “pure” laws
of the Quran has in fact not brought peace and stability to the Afghanistan it
controls, but only savage oppression, violence against women and minorities, and
a bankrupt economy.
This should answer anyone
who happens to think that returning to “pure Islamic” teachings is a guarantee
for happiness and prosperity. To be fair, even the Communists for all their
organized violence and their concentration camps, were more beneficial to the
common people.
To return to the Muslim
mindset, I said it was “medieval”. It believes sincerely but erroneously that
all Muslims everywhere belong to one spiritual and political realm, just as
Christians in medieval Europe (the only comparable example) believed that all
Christians owed a political loyalty to the Pope as their spiritual and temporal
sovereign. That was “Christendom”, and as a reality it is obsolete. No Christian
today believes in it anymore. Because, in the intervening years, the violence of
the wars of religion, the persecutions of Christians by other Christians, the
awareness of other religious traditions and other Scriptures, the impact of
science, technology, commerce and ecology have wrought a sea change in the
Christian mentality. Today modernity challenges each religious tradition with
rationality, economic development, social equality and pluralism.
Today, the values of
secularism (which most Muslims abhor) teach that this world has a value even
though its values are not total and absolute. Total and absolute values belong
only to God, whose will is ascertained through the primacy of one’s personal
conscience. However , secular or “this worldly” values also teach us to respect
the consciences of others, not to inflict violence on oneself (suicide,
masquerading under the delusion of martyrdom), not to inflict violence on others
through persecution, terrorism or war.
The Muslim world looks at
the West as a homogeneous “Christian” world, which is actually a false
perspective. The West is no longer inspired by “Christian” values, even if its
tourist attractions relate to a Christian past. The West looks at the Islamic
world as homogeneously barbaric, violent and hostile — and this, too, is false.
Both sides traffic in stereotypes and delusions. When will each learn to
jettison such erroneous thinking, and appreciate the plurality of community,
class, ideology and national interest which exists in each bloc?
Only when responsible members
from each community challenge their own brothers as well as encounter the
“other” side in a spirit of dialogue.
Unless dialogue takes the
place of confrontation, each side risks tearing the other apart, and destroying
the entire world as we know it.
In this, both Christians
and Muslims may have to learn from Hindus. Both Islam and Christianity have
traditionally seen themselves as perfect and complete religions, and feel they
have nothing to learn from anyone else. In fact others are “unbelievers” to whom
they have no obligation, only the obligation to convert. This is the most
important attitude which must change. If there is conversion, let it begin with
oneself. In today’s world, dialogue means the obligation to listen with respect,
even if one does not change one’s opinion. Dialogue implies an openness to
change.
There are pressures on the
Americans not to act hastily and to temper their desire for violent revenge.
There are small but persistent peace movements in the West which run counter to
the official policies of the governments. Is there openness to debate and
discussion in Islam without the fear of turning violent, without the fear of
being assassinated for one’s outspokenness? Islam is too great a religion to be
held in bondage to a defective interpretation which originates in the
hate–filled mind of a terrorist. n
(Myron J. Pereira is
director, Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai).
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