Common Ground Newsbulletin: 31 August-6 September
September 3rd, 2010Dear HumanDHS Friends
Please find below the Common Ground Newsbulletin: 31 August-6 September 2010.
Kind Regards
Brian Ward
Common Ground Newsbulletin
Inside this edition 31 August – 06 September 2010
A rising Turkey without Europe?
by Fadi Hakura
A specialist on Turkey at Chatham House and United Nations Global Expert, Fadi Hakura challenges the widespread notion that Turkey cannot succeed as a liberal democracy without Europe’s help.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010)
Pakistani Christians more active than you think
by Haroon Nasir
Amidst news reports of devastating floods and spates of violence against religious minorities, good news in Pakistan is often overshadowed. Haroon Nasir, Director of the Gulshan Centre for the Study of Islam and Christianity in Pakistan’s Mansehra District, describes some of successful efforts to bring the country’s Christians and Muslims together in this second article in a series on religious leaders and interfaith dialogue.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010)
Arab world needs education in new media
by Rachid Jankari
Moroccan journalist and consultant Rachid Jankari considers recent plans by governments in the Arab world to regulate digital media but argues that their focus should instead be directed toward educating citizens on ethical journalism and encouraging greater adoption and use of online platforms.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010)
Take me out of your box, for humanity’s sake
by Sara Khan
Sara Khan, Media Manager at Search for Common Ground-Pakistan, shares an incident that occurred while travelling through a UK airport that forced her to reconsider her own stereotypes.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010)
World religions curricula in schools can help redefine the “educated person”
by Rahim Kanani
Harvard Divinity School Master’s student Rahim Kanani asks whether today’s “educated person” shouldn’t also have the knowledge to avert crises of misunderstanding, armed with the ability to build bridges across faiths and societies.
(Source: Huffington Post, 10 August 2010)
A rising Turkey without Europe?
Fadi Hakura
London – In the midst of European antipathy regarding Turkish accession to the EU, Turkey is attempting to chart an alternative path to secular democracy and economic prosperity. Yet Turkey should go one step further and question the unbridled axiom that, without Europe, it is destined to the scrapheap of Muslim radicalisation or unrepentant nationalism.
Since the end of the Ottoman Empire, the conventional wisdom that Europe is Turkey’s ultimate saviour implies that Turkey is unable or unwilling to become a liberal democracy absent of external agency. This fallacy is not rooted in cultural or political realities, but is an accident of history.
While the European Union accession process is comatose, Turkish society is undergoing a transformation to greater democracy, secularism and socio-economic rejuvenation. Surveys indicate that Turks favour a more spiritual vision of Islam, greater public accountability of government officials and state institutions, and a deeper engagement with the global economy. Not dissimilar to Western democracies, the population wants civilian authorities to deliver employment opportunities, high quality education and a world-class healthcare system. The ideological battles of yesteryear attract scant attention at best.
India’s economic success offers a sobering challenge to the belief that a Turkey unaffiliated with Europe is doomed to eternal stagnation. Only three decades ago, it was fashionable to envision India as an economic basket case condemned to low annual growth rates. Hindu culture was falsely seen as antithetical to economic growth, in sharp contrast to the galloping economic expansion of non-Hindu Southeast Asia.
Replace Hinduism with Islam and Turkey finds itself in a similar position to India. Culturally, the unspoken assumption goes, Turkey does not have the wherewithal to resolve the Kurdish problem, embrace a new civilian and democratic constitution, solidify secularism among a Muslim-majority populace nor accept social freedom as a bedrock of society. Yet, this viewpoint betrays the achievements of nation-building after only 87 years of Turkey’s existence, a mere drop in the ocean of history.
In fact, unlike the Balkans, Turkey has largely succeeded in integrating a diverse group of ethnicities after the disintegration of former Ottoman glory. It is also establishing a functioning legal system, entrenching quasi-secular and democratic traditions, and forging a class of entrepreneurs who are making waves in markets in Europe, Middle East, Russia, Central Asia and Africa in the areas of construction, agriculture and textiles.
This in no way suggests that Turkey does not face major challenges. It surely does. To start with, Turkey has failed to adequately address the disenchantment of a significant segment of its Kurdish population over cultural rights and poverty. Its winner-take-all politics, which is dismissive of minority views; reactive nationalist sentiments; mistrust of non-Muslims; and enduring obsession with social control at the level of the ruling elite are at variance with a diversifying and modernising Turkey.
In other words, Turkey’s society and business community are uncharacteristically steaming ahead of its politicians in terms of adopting modern political and social values. Urbanisation, economic globalisation and democratic progress are changing societal outlook and traditions.
Despite its forward, albeit sometimes halting dynamism, Turkey is still categorised as a conflict-ridden country – whether between Turks and Kurds, Islam and secularism, or East and West. Witness the raging debates over Turkey’s alleged abandonment of Western alliances in favour of an Eastern orientation. These debates ignore public opinion, which surveys suggest prefers international cooperation with Europe, and particularly Germany, rather than with Saudi Arabia, Iran or Russia. So, there is little risk of an Eastward-looking or a religiously politicised Turkey in the absence of a credible EU accession process.
Europe is committing a major error in casting Turkey aside. Turkey stands out as a real beacon of hope and inspiration to many countries, both Muslim and non-Muslim, fashioning a future relying on its own wits. For Turkey, however, a reduced dependency on the European Union will finally debunk the myth that only Europe can spur the liberalisation of Turkey and, by extension, of the Arab countries of the Middle East.
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* Fadi Hakura is a specialist on Turkey at Chatham House and a United Nations Global Expert (www.globalexpertfinder.org). This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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Pakistani Christians more active than you think
Haroon Nasir
Mansehra, Pakistan – Where do you think Muslims and Christians celebrate Christ’s birth together? One of the answers is: where it is least expected, in Pakistan.
In December last year, the Gulshan Centre for the Study of Islam and Christianity in Mansehra partnered with a local madrasah (an Islamic religious school) to hold a well-attended carol service with local Christians and Muslims celebrating the birth of Christ – together. And during this Ramadan, the two are organising an iftar dinner, where Christians and Muslims will be breaking the fast together. The centre, which was established by Pakistani Christians in 2009, serves as a platform for Christians and Muslims to discuss both theological issues and everyday ones.
As a Muslim-majority country, Pakistan is often criticised for not caring enough about minority rights or ensuring minorities’ equal participation in political and social processes. There have even been incidents of discrimination, violence and hate against them.
But this is not the only reality in Pakistan. There have always been people and organisations from many religious communities working for communal harmony and interfaith understanding. Christians might be less than two per cent of the total population of Pakistan, for example, but they have undertaken many initiatives to promote interfaith dialogue in the country, especially between themselves and the majority Muslim population.
In 1935, when Pakistan was still a part of India, Jesuit missionaries used Loyola Hall in the eastern city of Lahore as a centre for interfaith dialogue. Another prominent ecumenical institution, the Christian Study Centre, was formed in 1968 in the city of Rawalpindi to provide a platform for Christian and Muslim academics to discuss religious and theological issues, and for people of different religions to converse and co-exist on the basis of mutual friendship, understanding and cooperation.
More recently in 1997, the Christian Study Centre started a project called Social Harmony at the Grassroots Level after buildings and churches in a Christian village, Shanti Nagar in Punjab, were burned and destroyed by a group of religious fanatics. This highly successful programme trains people from different religious communities to resolve conflict peacefully.
Another important partner in religious dialogue is the World Council of Religions (WCR) of Lahore. WCR connects Christian priests and Muslim religious leaders to carry out joint projects focusing on eradicating hate speech and violence in the country by first helping to break down their own stereotypes about one another. They learn about each other and visit each other’s places of worship, discussing common problems they face instead of simply claiming superiority over people of other faiths and encouraging their Christian or Muslim followers to do the same.
These efforts are also being recognised by educational institutions in Pakistan, where there is a growing interest among the student population to learn about other faiths directly from their representatives. For instance, Punjab University in Lahore and Peshawar University have recently started inviting Christian leaders to give talks for graduate students about Christian beliefs and practices.
As a Christian leader, I too have also been asked to be part of the faculty of Islamic and Religious Studies at Peshawar University’s Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre, as well as a faculty member for Islamic and Religious Studies at Hazara University in the newly named Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Such initiatives are helpful in correcting misperceptions and creating a peaceful environment for Muslim and Christian coexistence in Pakistan.
Interfaith efforts are also present outside of academic or religious institutions. For instance, the Akash Christian Society works toward interfaith harmony by providing medical services, along with other projects, to people in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Their Kunhar Christian Hospital (KCH) and Cirin Christian Clinic in the Mansehra District, both of which have Christian staff, provide medical services to their patients – mostly Muslims – on a non-profit basis.
These organisations, educational institutions and religious leaders are trying to educate people so that prejudices are removed, making increased interaction possible at every level. Christians, alongside their Muslim brothers, are trying to bring about peace, harmony and love in this beautiful country. Success may come slowly, but if we work hard and work together with sincerity, it will surely come.
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* Haroon Nasir is Director of the Gulshan Centre for the Study of Islam & Christianity in Mansehra and a Fulbright alumnus. This article is part of a series on spiritual leaders and interfaith dialogue written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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Arab world needs education in new media
Rachid Jankari
Casablanca, Morocco – A number of public figures and governments in the Arab world are advocating for the implementation of specific legislation to regulate the content and use of digital media. Specifically, they want to implement a system in which blog or website creators must “declare” that they are creating a blog or website before doing so, and to establish a specific penal system for infractions committed in the virtual world.
Underlying these measures is the intention to restrain what are being called “digital freedoms”, especially as activists capitalise on the features of cyberactivism to champion their causes of political opposition and change.
Without a doubt, blogging has fostered the emergence of citizen journalism across the Middle East and North Africa, which has successfully circumvented social constraints and the restrictions imposed by political regimes in the region on mainstream media outlets. Over the years, social media has been instrumental in broadening the scope of citizens’ expression and offering alternative sources of information to so-called “traditional” media.
This gradual adoption of information technologies by individuals and groups at the civil society level has occurred over the years thanks to a sustained growth in internet access and improvement in information infrastructure. In addition, free and pluralistic expression now extends beyond blogs to social networks such as Facebook, and microblogging platforms like Twitter.
Legal regulations strictly for digital media do not make sense, because online expression is no different from other traditional modes of expression. Internet postings do not require new and specific legal provisions to define the limits of written or multimedia expression. It is sufficient to apply the same code of ethics as for print and broadcast media, such as steering clear of slander and libel.
Any attempt at regulating this activity is bound to be read as an attack against a whole spectrum of freedoms, especially freedom of speech, in the digital universe. Yet this is precisely what a number of countries in the region, like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, are doing by shutting down and censoring internet sites.
Greater adoption of information technologies and innovation in the digital space are dependent on the existence of a free and unfettered cyberspace for internet users in the region. As such Middle Eastern and North African governments should instead foster greater adoption of information technologies and more content development by a broad spectrum of Arab internet users.
In addition, the future of blogs and social networks depends strongly on the quality of the content on the internet. Regrettably, the Maghreb and Middle East regions suffer from an editorial deficit; very little original content from countries in these regions is available on the web.
To fill this gap, artists, writers and scientists should be encouraged to publish their work on various digital platforms, like blogs, microblogs and social networks. Digital activism should not be a privilege reserved for political stakeholders and civil society activists. Efforts should be made to empower civil society actors to go online in large numbers. A massive handover of digital media space to users with the potential to express themselves and get their work published will promote the sharing and dissemination of scientific, literary and artistic content.
The educational system could play a driving role in the dynamic promotion of the information society. Rather than new regulations, education in “digital expression” for the young and teaching best practices for online publication should be promoted.
In parallel, the school system could also explore the positive aspects of blogs and social networks to encourage youth to take advantage of various online forums and their potential to foster interaction. The challenge to involve a wide variety of internet users in the spread of knowledge online is a far higher priority than crafting a legal framework that would have to be continually revised anyway to keep up with technological innovations and the emergence of new communication media.
The Arab online scene does not need new regulations. What it needs is increased freedom and engagement by diverse bloggers, beyond the activists and militant and political groups. This can only happen if it is made more accessible to a greater number of contributors and readers rather than catering only to the few.
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* Rachid Jankari is a journalist specialising in information and communication technologies (ICTs) and a consultant on online journalism and new media. He is also CEO of MIT Media (www.mit-media.com) and blogs at www.jankari.org. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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Take me out of your box, for humanity’s sake
Sara Khan
Islamabad – Travelling alone as a Muslim Pakistani female hasn’t been all that easy in a post-9/11 world. In fact, being “Muslim”, “Pakistani” and a “woman” simultaneously can be too many red flags attached to one identity.
While pursuing my education abroad I had many experiences dealing with airport security and immigration staff – particularly during my travels between Costa Rica, the United States and Pakistan. But I also learned through these experiences that sometimes a little act of kindness can go a long way in transforming our view of the “other”, helping us to realise and appreciate the inherent good in people.
In my mind I had put airport authorities everywhere in a box labelled “Ruthless-officials-securing-their-country”. And the box they might have had for me was, well, “She-must-be-up-to-something”. My interaction at the airport served as a microcosm of the larger Muslim-Western relationship, rife with stereotyped ideas and deeply held, hardly questioned beliefs about the other, further polarising the two groups.
My box guided my behaviour in front of airport security officials. This meant no extra talking, only brief answers, doing what they said and praying in my heart to come out of the question-and-answer session alive and kicking, and not detained somewhere in Guantanamo. Though this box helped me control my behaviour for the situation at hand, deep down I developed bitterness, fear, mistrust and anxiety of entering any country other than my own, especially a Western one.
It also compelled me to judge security officials I came across during my international travels in a negative way – as the “other”.
There was one particular occasion that at first bolstered this sentiment. I was waiting for a flight to Pakistan with a ten-hour transit in a UK airport. My hand luggage included nothing extraordinary except for a very unusual umbrella that a friend had given me during a visit to the Harvard Art Museum in Massachusetts. A professor at Harvard, this friend showed me the university and bought me an umbrella with an image of Harvard and the Charles River painted on it. That umbrella signified her kind friendship, love and belief in me. To me, it was not just an umbrella, but a connection to the world of knowledge that I admired and wanted to immerse myself in.
Afraid that I might lose it, I kept the umbrella as part of my carry-on. Though it passed through all the security checks in the United States, it was declared a “security risk” in the UK. Security officials asked me to throw it away before boarding the plane to Pakistan.
Bewildered by the seemingly random changes in security standards between airports, I tried in vain to argue. But I was not allowed to board the plane with the umbrella, and had to throw it away.
As I walked away, wiping my tears, I heard a security official yell out: “Excuse me, Ma’am! I have a solution!”
He took the umbrella out of the trash, a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and started cutting the ribs and stretchers off the canopy of the umbrella. He meticulously removed the canopy off the shaft of umbrella, neatly folded it and handed it over to me with a smile: “Now you can take this,” he said. “Please get it remade once you are back home.”
I certainly did not expect this kind of action from a white British security official. His act of kindness did not fit in the box I had created for him. I had cast him as the “other”. But he proved otherwise.
No matter how hard we try, today’s circumstances push us to box, stereotype, categorise and judge individuals or groups who are different from us. In recent times stereotyping has become the most comfortable response mechanism while dealing with security issues, both for Muslims as well as Westerners. Such stereotyping widens the gap that exists between Muslim and Western worlds. It limits both groups’ ability to allow for individuality and critical judgment when faced with challenging situations, generating further mistrust.
This incident helped me realise that there are moments and spaces in which our individual actions can alter the stereotypes that we carry for one other. The action that I witnessed left an indelible impression on me, and a renewed belief in the inherent goodness of human beings. Individual actions that go beyond stereotypes might not be a panacea to problems that exist between the Muslim and Western worlds, but they are a step toward better understanding and harmony.
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* Sara Khan is Media Manager at Search for Common Ground-Pakistan. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 August 2010, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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World religions curricula in schools can help redefine the “educated person”
Rahim Kanani
Cambridge, Massachusetts – How can the United States guarantee multi-religious understanding, pluralistic tolerance and strong social cohesion amongst its citizenry of different faiths for generations to come?
The answer is simple, radical, urgent and necessary: incorporate the teaching of world religions into the curricula of secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. Such instruction should be mandatory, alongside mathematics, science, English and the humanities.
A so-called educated person in today’s society is uneducated if they do not have a basic grasp of, at minimum, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism. We must redefine what it means to be an educated person in the 21st century, and this redefinition begins in the classroom.
Approximately 83 per cent of Americans identify themselves with a particular religion – 78 per cent identify as Christian, while the other 5 per cent include Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and others. In particular, and at this moment of crisis and hostility towards the religion of Islam, Americans must make the extra effort beyond superficial portrayals of faith and willingly enter into substantive dialogue and discussion.
There is no substitute for engagement.
With 70 per cent of the world’s population – or 4.8 billion people – identifying with a particular faith, education about the “other” must not be a choice, but rather a requirement in the pursuit of both safeguarding American ideals and building bridges of international tolerance. Such instruction is part and parcel of building respectful and stable societies – domestically and abroad. And if the United States wishes to continue to set an example in the arena of religious pluralism, it must enact a radical change to its education system.
“What is the definition of an educated person today? Does that definition include some basic knowledge about the [Muslim] world or not? If it doesn’t, perhaps that needs to be corrected,” stated His Highness the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world’s Shi’ite Ismaili Muslims, on National Public Radio. In our forever-globalising world, the content of our education system must reflect the local, regional, national and international societies in which we will ultimately find ourselves.
The system must also prepare us with the knowledge and background to avert crises of understanding each other’s history, culture and religion, cementing our social structures as one grounded in intelligent discourse and voluntary engagement, rather than superficial knowledge and wilful ignorance. The latter, we cannot deny, has proven disastrous.
Imagine a world in which every student – more than 40 million – attending a secondary and post-secondary institution across the United States was instilled with a basic understanding of the world’s great religions, diving deeper into the histories, traditions, practices and beliefs as they climbed the ladder of academia. Imagine this cycle repeating itself, year after year after year.
The results would be astonishing: millions and millions of bridge builders acting as ambassadors of religious tolerance and understanding within their family, workplace, community and nation. This generational shift in education is a long-term solution, and it will not solve the immediate crisis.
With the media architecting discourse on a daily basis in which one pit-bull is pitted against another, and issues of Islam and politics, culture and tradition are debated in a do-or-die format, misperception, anger, hate and fear of the highest order triumph over reasonable and rational dialogue. This is a disservice to the American public, and fuels the very intolerance such programmes purportedly seek to address. They are complicit in endangering their fellow Americans to a future of internal religious strife – one that could cost more American lives.
In the immediate term, more Muslim Americans – imams, scholars and everyday Muslims – need to reach out to their neighbours, friends, communities and religious counterparts, and introduce them to the practices and beliefs of Islam. We are not a monolithic entity, and there are multiple shades of Islamic thought and practice.
Engagement is a two-way street, and we Muslims must be willing to extend a hand too in order for such dialogue to come to fruition. I urge my Muslim brothers and sisters to do exactly that, and I urge anyone on the other end of such a gesture to kindly accept and embrace.
Let us now educate each other.
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* Rahim Kanani is pursuing his second master’s at Harvard Divinity School in religion, ethics and politics, where he focuses on Islamic studies and international security policy. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from the author.
Source: Huffington Post, 10 August 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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