[Mb-civic] MUST READ: At the crossroad of Islam, the West - Tariq Ramadan - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  At the crossroad of Islam, the West

By Tariq Ramadan  |  February 9, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

IN COPENHAGEN last October, as demonstrations provoked by the Danish 
cartoons were starting, a reporter from the newspaper that published 
them told me during an interview how intensely the editorial staff had 
debated the issue and how many of the journalists were uncomfortable 
with the publication of the cartoons and surprised by the strong 
reaction from Muslims and the Arab embassies. At the time, the tension 
seemed to remain within Danish borders.

To the Danish Muslims denouncing a racist behavior, a provocation that 
was to be capitalized on by the expanding far-right political wing, my 
advice was to avoid reacting emotionally, to try to explain quietly why 
these cartoons were offensive and to neither demonstrate nor risk 
activating mass movements impossible to master. At the time, a 
resolution seemed to be at hand.

One might ask then, why is it that three months later, some are pouring 
fuel on the fire of a controversy with tragic and potentially 
out-of-control consequences?

A few Danish Muslims recently visited some Middle Eastern countries and 
fanned the flames of resentment. Governments, only too happy to prove 
their attachment to Islam, took advantage of this and presented 
themselves as champions of the great cause. On the other side, this was 
just what some politicians, intellectuals, and journalists needed to 
paint themselves as champions of the great struggle for freedom of 
expression and resistance fighters against religious obscurantism in the 
name of Western values.

Here we are, facing an incredible simplification, a simplistic 
polarization: It would be a matter of a clash of civilizations, with the 
inalienable freedom of speech in one corner and the inviolable sacred 
sphere in the other.

Presented in such terms the debate has, unfortunately, become a battle 
of wills. Who is going to win? Muslims want apologies, threaten to 
attack European interests, even to attack people; Western governments, 
intellectuals, and journalists refuse to bend under the threats and 
certain media outlets added to the controversy by republishing the 
cartoons. The majority of people around the world are perplexed about 
these excesses: What madness has gripped the world?

It is critical to find a way out of this infernal circle and to demand 
from those fueling this fire to stop their polemics and to create a 
space for a serious, open, and in-depth debate and peaceful dialogue.

No, this is not a predicted clash of civilizations. This affair does not 
symbolize the confrontation between the principles of Enlightenment and 
those of religion. What is at stake at the heart of this story is a 
measure of whether or not the parties have the capacity to be free, 
rational (believer or atheist), and, at the same time, reasonable.

The fracture is not between the West and Islam but between those who, in 
both universes, are able to assert who they are and what they stand for 
with measure in the name of a faith and/or a rational reason and those 
driven by exclusive certainties, blind passions, reductive perceptions 
of the other, and hasty conclusions. These character traits are shared 
by some intellectuals, religious scholars, journalists, and the ordinary 
people on both sides. Facing the dangerous drifts these attitudes 
entail, it is urgent to launch a call for wisdom.

In Islam, representations of all prophets are strictly forbidden. It is 
both a matter of fundamental respect and a principle of faith requiring 
that God and the prophets never be represented to avoid any idolatrous 
temptations. In that sense, to represent a prophet is a grave 
transgression. If, moreover, one adds clumsy confusions, insults, and 
denigration as it was perceived by the Muslims in the Danish cartoons, 
one can understand the nature of the shock and rejection expressed by 
large segments of Muslim communities around the world. To them this was 
too much: It was good and important for them to express their 
indignation and to be heard.

At the same time, it was necessary for Muslims to bear in mind that for 
the past three centuries Western societies -- unlike Muslim majority 
countries -- have grown accustomed to derision, irony, and criticism of 
religious symbols, the Pope, Jesus Christ, and even God. Even though 
Muslims do not share this attitude, it is imperative that they learn to 
keep an intellectual critical distance when faced with such provocations 
and not to let themselves be driven by passionate zeal and fervor, which 
can only lead to undesirable ends. On these cartoons, as much clumsy as 
they are idiotically malicious, it would have been preferable for 
Muslims to express their values and grievances to the public without row 
and to pause until a calm debate is possible.

What is welling up today within some Muslim communities is as 
unproductive as it is insane: Obsessing about getting apologies, 
boycotting European products, threatening violent reprisals are excesses 
that must be rejected and condemned.

Also excessive and irresponsible is the invoking of the ''right of 
freedom of expression" -- to give oneself the right to say anything, in 
any way, against anybody. Freedom of expression is not absolute. 
Countries have laws that define the framework for exercising this right, 
and that, for instance, condemn racist language. There are also specific 
rules pertaining to the cultures, traditions, and collective 
psychologies in the respective societies that regulate the relationship 
between individuals and the diversity of cultures and religions.

Racial or religious insults are not addressed in the same way in Western 
societies. Within a generally similar legal framework each country has 
its own memory and sensitivity, and wisdom requires acknowledgment of 
and respect for this reality. Western societies have changed and the 
Muslim presence has naturally changed this collective sensitivity. 
Instead of being obsessed with laws and rights, would it not be more 
prudent to call upon citizens to exercise their right to freedom of 
expression responsibly and take into account the diverse sensitivities 
that compose our pluralistic contemporary societies? It is not a matter 
of additional laws to restrain the scope of free speech, it is simply 
one of calling upon every conscience to exercise one's right with an eye 
on the rights of others. It is more about nurturing a sense of civic 
responsibility than about imposing legislation: The Muslim citizens are 
not asking for more censorship but for more respect. One cannot impose 
mutual respect by enforcing legislation; rather one teaches it in the 
name of a free, responsible, and reasonable common citizenship.

We are at the crossroad. The time has come for women and men who reject 
the dangerous divisions into two worlds to start building bridges 
between two universes that share common values. They must assert the 
inalienable right to freedom of expression and, at the same time, demand 
measured exercise of it. We need them to promote a necessary, open, and 
self-critical approach, and to refuse the exclusive truths and 
narrow-minded binary visions of the world. We are in dire need of mutual 
trust. The crises provoked by these cartoons show us how, out of 
''seemingly nothing," the worst can be possible between two universes of 
reference when they become deaf to each other and are seduced by 
defining themselves against the other -- a potential disaster the 
extremists of both sides will not fail to use for their own agenda. If 
people who cherish freedom -- who know the importance of mutual respect 
and are aware of the imperative necessity to set a constructive and 
critical debate -- are not ready to speak out, to be more committed and 
visible on the ground, and to resist the dangerous drifts of our times, 
then one can expect only sad and painful tomorrows. It is up to us to 
choose.

Tariq Ramadan, a visiting professor at Oxford's St. Antony's College and 
a senior research fellow at the Lokahi Foundation in London, is author 
of ''Western Muslims and the Future of Islam."

EDITOR's NOTE FOR MB-CIVIC:  Ramadan has been forbidden to accept a 
position as a professor for a year in the USA by the Bush Administration 
and its Dept of Homeland Security.  Unbelieveable!  He is clearly an 
eloquent and enlightened thinker - and a man with HUGE academic 
credentials around the world.  He is hardly a terrorist. Au cantraire - 
we might, Heaven forbid, learn something with him in our midst. He would 
clearly contribute in multiple ways toward improving relations between 
fanatical Muslim and "The West" (hardly a monolithic crowd, as he is the 
first to say). But he has been thwarted by the Bushies in the name of 
protecting us. Go figure...Bill

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/02/09/at_the_crossroad_of_islam_the_west/
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