Letter From Europe
Islam from a Western perspective
IN a televised debate, the moderator asked Barack Obama for his reaction to the Internet rumours that he was a Muslim. The tone of the question, if not inquisitorial, was clearly accusatory -- as though Obama had done something heinous. Obama kept cool and simply replied that he was a Christian. Had he replied that he was a Muslim, his chances of ever becoming the president of the United States would have vanished completely.
This is a common phenomenon in the US and the rest of the West. There is an essentialist mistrust of Islam. The West seems to be engaged in an existential battle against Islam. So the obvious question, is: Why is the Western perception of Islam so negative?
Much of this negative perception is, unfortunately, due to the West's supremacist and self-aggrandising perception of itself and its propaganda machine. According to this pernicious propaganda campaign, Islam and violence go hand in hand, Islamo-fascism is about to destroy Western civilisation, Islam and democracy are incompatible, and in Muslim countries secular forms of government can not function.
In the wake of 9/11, Bush administration, in order to hide its own mistakes and to cover up its negligence in not taking appropriate actions to prevent the terrorist attack, adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy, hence the rhetoric of Islamo-fascism, axis of evil, war on terror, etc.
In Christianity, there are examples of autocratic rulers as well. But there is no such thing called Islamo-fascism. Islam is a world religion and fascism is a totalitarian political ideology. It is definitely not an Islamic concept. But there have indeed been Christian fascists like Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco.
The accusation that Islam is a violent religion is not new. Western politicians tend to focus on past and present violence perpetrated by the Muslims and conveniently forget violence perpetrated by the Christians. Last year, Pope Benedict, quoting from an obscure medieval text argued that Christianity represents rationality therefore, non-violent and Islam is not rational therefore, tends to be violent. (The pope later apologised for this statement.)
Without getting into a philosophical argument over faith and rationalism, a quick look at the history of Christianity will clearly show that ever since Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, tens of millions have been killed, nations subjugated, continents conquered, and entire races nearly exterminated in the name of Christianity and Western civilisation.
Today, if one opens a newspaper or switches on a television set, one would find that this violence is still being perpetrated in the name of war on terror in many Muslim countries. In a recently published book called A New History of the Western World, Roger Osborne writes: "We are drawn to wonder whether Western way of thinking and organising human affairs makes us incapable of gasing on and perhaps even learning from, another culture without needing to dominate and destroy it and make it part of the Western system."
It is an indisputable fact of life that violence breeds violence and in this globalised world it tends to have ripple effects across the world with dire consequences for many innocent victims. Paraphrasing President Clinton's speech at the 2008 Democratic Party convention, one could advise the West to lead the world by the power of its example and not by the example of its power.
Islam is one of the great monotheistic religions of the world, which accepts not only Muhammad but also Abraham, Moses and Jesus as its prophets. Its core values are mercy, kindness, religious tolerance and social justice. Islamism is a term, which is often used in a derogatory sense to mean an ideology, which wants to establish an Islamic state based solely on the Shariah (which version?).
The insinuation is that it would be an intolerant theocratic state, run by the mullahs where there will be no religious tolerance, no individual liberties, and where women will always be considered as second-class citizens.
Although in the Western press, it is often posited as a debate on the role of religion in politics, unfortunately, that is not the real issue. The real issue is Islam itself and the Western propaganda that: "Islam and democracy are simply incompatible. That Muslims are somehow intrinsically theocratic. That a party favouring Islamic values can not also favour democratic ones. That there could never be an Islamic counterpart to the countless Christian Democratic parties flourishing throughout Europe." (Reza Aslan)
This view does not take into consideration the fact that there are many predominantly Muslim countries like Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, etc where democratic system of government is functioning well. In most of these countries, the legal system, often based on core Islamic values, has been modernised, giving equal rights to all citizens.
True, in some of these countries laws governing the lives of women and children have not yet been completely modernised. The best way to change these laws would be to put social pressure on the legislators to bring them up to date. In this 21st century, it is inconceivable that a society, which calls itself modern, can tolerate discrimination against its own female population. It is also economically counter-productive.
It has been proven time and again that when political movements based on Islamic values --which often came into existence to fight Western colonialism -- are given the opportunity to operate within democratic systems as normal political actors, they generally accept them, and, in the process, moderate their positions.
But, as has happened in Algeria, Palestine and other places, Islamic movements often feel that there is no point in participating in the democratic political game because even if they win the elections, they will not be allowed to govern because the West, in order to protect its interests would manipulate its local puppets to rig the rules and impose military dictatorships.
Secularism in the strict sense of the term stands for a political system, which ensures separation of religion and state. It is not against religion. A country can be overwhelmingly Muslim or Christian but its system of government can be secular. The problem in some Muslim countries like Turkey is that the members of a minority of the electorate who call themselves secularists are openly anti-religious. They want to abolish all Islamic symbols and practices. Although Turkey's secularists describe themselves as guarantors of democracy, in recent years they have overthrown the democratically elected governments on four occasions.
In an ideal political system, an individual should have the freedom to practice his religion, no matter whether it is Islam, Christianity, or Hinduism, so long as he respects the rights of people of other faiths and those who have no faiths at all. In this context, it is worth mentioning that the recent decision by the Constitutional Court of Turkey not to dissolve the governing Justice and Development Party, which won the last general elections by an overwhelming majority, has been welcomed by Muslims all over the world.
The West tends to forget that it took hundreds of years of reforms, counter-reforms, and wars among the Christians to arrive at a political system, which is today known as Christian democracy, in which secularism is accepted as a preferable method of organising civil societies. So given time and patience, most Muslim societies will eventually emerge as Muslim democracies with secular governments
Writing recently on American values, Prof. Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton University advised the US government to "support liberal democracy and governments with institutions that are accountable to their citizens" and support political systems in which "parties of any religion and any ideology can participate as long as they are committed to the democratic process, recognise the rights of the opposition and bind themselves internationally to recognising minority rights and individual rights of all citizens."
The vast majority of Muslims will gladly accept these values as their own, no matter whether they are American or not. But the fact that a politician of the calibre of Obama, whose grandfather was a Muslim, has to prove continuously that he is a Christian, does not speak very highly of the supposedly secular nature of American democracy.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments