The Common Ground News Service, December 8, 2004
The Common Ground News Service, December 8, 2004
The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity, brought to you by Search for Common Ground, seeks to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations.
Please note: The views expressed in the articles and in CGNews-PiH are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.
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Article #1
Title: Van Gogh, European Purity and the "Muslim Problem"
Author: Naeem Mohaiemen
Publication: AlterNet
Date: November 23, 2004
Bringing some of the harsh verbal assaults againsts Muslims and other religious groups in Europe to light, Naeem Mohaiemen advices Muslims to "work vigorously to root out the tiny band of extremists in their midst who are distorting the message of Islam" and Europe to "look inward, and heal itself, in order to integrate its Muslim peoples."
Article #2
Title: Living proof of an emerging Euro-Mediterranean house
Author: Chris Patten
Publication: The Daily Star
Date: November 20, 2004
As the outgoing European commissioner for external relations, Chris Patten, passes the torch to his successor, he reminds readers of the Muslim contributions to European civilization both in the past and in the present. Speaking on behalf of Europeans, he worries about the hatred and fear caused by terrorist acts and argues that "we are not willing to contemplate a future where new dividing lines are created by the hatred of a minority of extremists."
Article #3
Title: The Lack of Understanding between Arabs and the West
Author: Tawfiq Abu Bakr
Publication: ~~Common Ground Series~~ in partnership with Al Hayat
Date: October 22, 2004
Tawfiq Abu Bakr's article is the fourth in a series on Arab/Muslim - Western Relations commissioned by Search for Common Ground that has been running in Middle Eastern publications over the last month. He advocates that intellectuals from the West and the Arab world plan for the future, rather than focusing on the past, and enage in face-to-face dialogue that occurs "away from text assaults, and focuses on life experiences and lessons."
~ YOUTH SERIES ~
Title: An American Living in Saudi Arabia
Author: Omar Noureldin
Publication: Partners in Humanity News Service
Date: December 7, 2004
Omar Noureldin is an American student at Dhahran High School in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. He and Saudi classmate Sara Al-Maashouq decided to work together to write a pair of articles about their experiences living in each other's country. Sara's article will be published in the next edition of CGNews - Partners in Humanity.
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An American Living in Saudi Arabia
Omar Noureldin
The day that changed my life started like any other. I was in 9th grade and it was a perfectly normal day. I woke up to go to school, went to school, came home, and next on the routine was dinner. When my dad came home from work he was very quiet, which is extremely unlike him. I found out the reason for his silence at the dinner table. Out of the blue my dad asked our family how we felt about moving to Saudi Arabia.
SAUDI ARABIA! That was halfway around the world. He wanted to take me from Los Angeles, California to a country with radically different customs and beliefs. Before then I did not know much about Saudi Arabia, it could have been on the moon for all I knew. I was overwhelmed with apprehension about what to expect; would I be able to adjust? My dad showed me a video about Saudi, which was put together by the company that hired him. The video portrayed Saudi as heaven on earth, much the same way hotels try to attract costumers by showing them only the pros and not the whole picture.
My friends also added to my anxieties; when I told one of them that I was moving to Saudi Arabia, she asked me, "Isn't that where Osama Bin Laden is from? Why are you moving there? They hate Americans in Saudi." In the western world, Saudi has always been portrayed in a negative light: a backwards nation where human rights are unheard of. As an American, this stereotype was hardwired in my subconscious, which did not help make the move easy.
"Do they have schools in Saudi Arabia? Are you going to learn in a tent? Will the teachers speak English?" were common question people asked when I told them that I was moving to Saudi. To be honest I did not know how to answer them; was I going to get a good education? I am a motivated person with high goals, I thought by moving to Saudi I would be sacrificing my education.
Despite my initial hesitation and anxieties about moving to Saudi Arabia, I left California with an open-mind. I knew that living in a foreign country would give me a new perspective, to better understand the world around me. Not many people get the chance to live in another country. I knew people who had never been out of Southern California. I was going to Saudi Arabia; Europe and North Africa were just a short flight away. I was being given a chance to see the world and I was determined to make the best of it, even if I had to make a few sacrifices along the way.
When I moved to Saudi Arabia, there were many things that I had to become accustomed to. The government of Saudi Arabia claims to run the country based on the teachings of Islam. For instance, in Islam, a person must pray five times a day at certain times of the day. When it is prayer time, everything closes, from banks to barber shops. This makes it very difficult to shop; I have to plan my schedule around the prayers. For me this was not a major issue because I understood the reasoning behind the law. The law was made to respect the prayer time and the sanctity of God. However there is a law I do not understand and causes me major distress: women are not allowed to drive in Saudi. Although this law did not apply to me, it was a constraint on my mom. It was very difficult to see my mom's way of life alter so drastically; she went from being a fiercely independent woman of the 20th century, to a woman who was subservient to the wishes of someone or something else.
Another restriction that is not necessarily imposed on me but more on my mom and sisters is the "abaya." An abaya is a long black gown that women are expected to wear when they go out in public. Although wearing the abaya is not required by law, women who choose not to wear one are often times stared at and sometimes harassed. The idea of the abaya is to promote modesty, a teaching of Islam, however Islam does not preach imposing one's religion on others. A teaching which is not Islamic is censored. Certain types of literature are not allowed in the country and someone who enters must be careful of what they try to bring in. The US State Department warns Americans traveling to Saudi: "Saudi customs and postal officials broadly define what is contrary to Islam, and therefore prohibited. Christmas decorations, fashion magazines, and 'suggestive' videos may be confiscated and the owner subject to penalties and fines."
While all these constraints seem to be daunting, they are not as bad as they seem, though they take getting used to. If you are able to respect the host country you live in and its culture, living there becomes a lot easier. I also want to point out that I was mistaken when I thought that I would be compromising my education by living in Saudi. To clear a few things up, I do go to school, an American school, with qualified teachers and a rigorous academic program. I have been to two Model United Nations conferences, one in Cairo and the other in Beijing. I would have never been given this excellent opportunity to learn about the world situation if I had stayed in the States. Even though my school is an American school, kids from 36 different countries are enrolled. This diverse atmosphere has made me become a more open-minded person, with respect for other cultures. I feel that I have been given a keen insight into the world around me that not many people have the privilege of seeing.
It may seem that the Saudi people have anti-American sentiments from watching American news channels,but this is not the case. Just because Saudis do not agree with American foreign policy does not mean that they hate Americans. They are sophisticated people who are able to make a distinction between the American government and the American people. Our family has been invited to Saudi homes and we have invited Saudis to our home.
I feel that I am privileged to be able to see the world, particularly Saudi Arabia, in a new light. I have erased all previous prejudices and stereotypes from my mind and am able to look through my eyes with a clearer, more pristine view of the world around me.
**Omar Noureldin is an American student at Dhahran High School in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. He and Saudi classmate Sara Al-Maashouq decided to work together to write a pair of articles about their experiences living in each other's country. Sara's article will be published in the next edition of CGNews - Partners in Humanity.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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Article #1
Van Gogh, European Purity and the "Muslim Problem"
Naeem Mohaiemen
The death of controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh has unleashed a brutal cycle of hatred, familiar from Europe's past, bringing the simmering xenophobia that lurks beneath Europe's genteel surface to boiling point. Through his brutal murder - he was shot and stabbed repeatedly by a Dutch Moroccan man on Nov. 2 - Theo Van Gogh has become the catalyst for the demonization of Europe's Muslim population and for a striking re-evaluation of the meaning of tolerance.
Van Gogh, who wrote fierce diatribes against European Muslims, recently created controversy with the short film "Submission." The film's images of Quranic verses, plastered over a naked woman, inflamed Muslim passions in Holland.
"Submission" was positioned as a film championing Muslim women. Women's rights within Islam are, of course, a long-debated topic. There are myriad crises in the way that Muslim peoples and countries treat women. But many of these issues are linked to culture, misogyny, poverty, and above all, male fear of female advancement - not religion. In fact there is very little in Islamic texts that condones such behavior. But Theo Van Gogh had little patience for such nuanced discussions. Instead, "Submission" is a jumbled attack on abuse of Muslim women, which makes no distinction between distortion of religion and actual theology.
Longtime readers of Van Gogh's weekly column in the Dutch newspaper "Metro" know very well that his intention was not to reform male chauvinism, but rather to express crude bigotry. In his columns and interviews, Van Gogh called Muslims "goat fuckers" and "the Prophet's Pimps." His latest book, which lampooned Muslims as backward obscurantists, was defiantly titled "Allah Knows Best." His collaborator on "Submission," Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was equally florid, calling the Prophet Mohammed a "pervert" and a "tyrant." Theo Van Gogh's attacks were not limited only to Muslims. He blithely attacked Christian and Jewish symbols, once saying, "It smells like caramels - they must be burning Jewish diabetics."
All of these prejudices found full expression in "Submission." The film came about through Van Gogh's collaboration with right-wing Dutch-Somali MP Aymaan Hirsi Ali, an "ex-Muslim" who now denounces her former religion. Telling the story of a Muslim woman who is pushed into a forced marriage and then raped by her uncle, the 9-minute film intersperses a voice-over with images of Quranic verses on a praying woman. The woman is completely naked, only her face is covered with a veil. Across her breasts, navel, and thighs is a thin diaphanous cloth, through which text from the Quran is clearly visible on her body. Nude to the camera, she repeatedly bows down to pray. The camera lingers with a fetishist's eye over her nakedness, at one point zooming in on her raised finger (used during prayer to indicate the one-ness of God).
European fascination with the veiled (and unveiled) Muslim woman is nothing new. During the colonization of North Africa, the eroticization of the "harem woman" was a trope of European art and literature. Van Gogh's film is a modern version of the same colonial male fantasy - a vision where the European male is the only liberator of Muslim women. The nudity in the film adds nothing to a critique of Islam, but it applies a calculated slap to the face of Muslim piety. There are many valid critiques of women's status in different Muslim societies, with their own specific colonial histories. Such work is already being spearheaded by Muslim theorists, activists and academics such as Fatima Mernissi, Asma Jahangir, Asma Barlas, Sachiko Murata, Leila Ahmed, Amina Wadud and Kecia Ali.
Though Van Gogh's work was irresponsible, damaging and filmed with contempt, nothing can justify his murder. Just as Van Gogh was intolerant of Muslims, his murderer was intolerant of free speech. By pushing society into chaos, Van Gogh's killer also hoped to spark a conflagration between the Netherlands and its Muslim immigrants. In the weeks following the murder, there were fire-bombings and attacks against 20 mosques and two Muslim schools. During the Bosnian conflict, Shabil Aktar wrote, "The next time they build gas chambers in Europe, it will be for Muslims." While that comparison may be excessive, anti-Muslim hysteria, eerily similar to the judeophobia of the 1930s, is steadily rising in Europe. Already, there is talk of developing a national database that will track the 'risk profile' of immigrants in the Netherlands. The Dutch government has also said it will close all mosques teaching "non-Dutch" values. What exactly those "Dutch values" are is left unclear.
Of course, not all the trends are negative. A proposal to require mosque imams to give sermons in European languages, instead of Arabic, has been supported by local Muslim leaders. In another positive development, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende urged the European Union to work harder on integrating ethnic minorities. Citing the frenzy of reprisal attacks, he said, "The strong reactions and counter-reactions after the death of Van Gogh shows there is tension in our society. In Europe, we have to learn from one another in the area of integration of minorities." While Balkenende is a rational voice, there are equal numbers of voices that are pushing for extreme measures. In a Dutch government with prominent right-wing demagogues like cabinet ministers Rita Verdonk and Gerrit Zalm, and Members of Parliament Gert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, there is a strong possibility of excessively zealous legislation being pushed through. The American experience, where decades of civil
liberties gains where jettisoned in the post 9/11 hysteria, can serve as a blueprint for European right-wingers.
Beyond the controversy and the senseless murder, the bigger issue for Europe is to confront anti-Muslim racism. Dr. Tariq Ramadan has argued that European Muslims are simultaneously a distinct entity and part of the European fabric. But Europe continues to treat Muslims as permanent outsiders - inassimilable and hostile to "European values."
Talking about Europe's continued marginalization of its Muslim citizens, Abu Rishe Al-Mawali wrote, "Muslims are not the Borg. There is no central hive mind where all Muslims are controlled. I tire of Muslims always having to apologize for their very existence." Unlike America, which is an immigrant nation at its core, the European psyche is still obsessed with notions of purity. Muslims are seen as foreign bodies that are contaminating Europe. The most strident voices against "foreigners" come from Europe's best-known cultural figures, who have made this ugly racism fashionable. Best-selling French author Michel Houllebecq has made a career out of literary complaints about "French women who only sleep with Algerians and Moroccans." Former sex symbol Brigitte Bardot has been fined four times by French courts for inciting racial hatred, including her statements about France being over-run by "sheep-slaughtering Muslims" and opposing interracial marriage. In England, former Labor MP and BBC presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk caused an outrage after he called Arabs "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors."
The most piercing voice comes from Italian legend Oriana Fallaci, who came out of a 10-year exile to write the post 9/11 diatribe, "The Rage and the Pride." Calling Muslims "vile creatures, who urinate in baptistries" and "multiply like rats," Fallaci mourned how they were invading and violating her native Florence ("Terrorists, thieves, rapists. Ex-convicts, prostitutes, beggars. Drug-dealers, contagiously ill"). After the book became a runaway bestseller in Italy, she expanded her critique to encompass all of Europe, and its "kindness" towards Muslim immigrants: "Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors."
These cultural commentators have helped to create an environment in which far-right and neo-Nazi politicians like Jean Marie Le Pen, Jorg Haider, Pia Kiaersgaard, and the late Pim Fortuyn have entered the mainstream of European politics.
The key factor that drives fears of Muslim immigrants is the plummeting birth rate among white Europeans. Similar to Israel, it is the "demographic time bomb" that is today the specter haunting Europe. The Dutch government estimates that, by 2010, at present rates of immigration, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht would have Muslim majorities. Recent opinion polls have shown Islam, immigration and integration to be the top three concerns for the Dutch voter. In addition, Turkey's entry into the EU accelerated the fear that Europe's borders, which kept it white and Christian for centuries, were finally crumbling. Each far-right politician has made paranoia about "Muslim hordes" a central platform of their appeal.
Writers, filmmakers, and politicians are only the most naked expressions of Europe's simmering xenophobia. Much more prejudice hides below the surface, waiting to explode. The frenzy of violence after the Holland tragedy revealed the monsters lurking in Europe's backyard. Theo Van Gogh's tragic death should be mourned, and his killers apprehended. Muslims must work vigorously to root out the tiny band of extremists in their midst who are distorting the message of Islam. But Europe must also look inward, and heal itself, in order to integrate its Muslim peoples. There can be no better reply to those who want to throw up the walls of Fortress Europe.
**Naeem Mohaiemen is editor of Shobak.Org and director of the documentary "Muslims or Heretics?".
Source: Alternet
Visit the website at: www.alternet.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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Article #2
Living proof of an emerging
Euro-Mediterranean house
Chris Patten
An architect working to restore the Medina of Tunis, a Moroccan farmer developing new ways to make best use of his land, an academic from Jordan attending a seminar in Europe, an Algerian NGO promoting civil rights, an Egyptian official learning how to enter the EU internal market: All these people are living proof of the cooperation that now exists between Europe and the Mediterranean, and the wide scope of our work together.
As I end my term as European commissioner, I am satisfied that the Barcelona Process has come a long way over the past five years, but there is still much to be done.
The Mediterranean is for Europe much more than a geopolitical concept; it is the origin of three basic components of our culture: the monotheistic religions; Greek philosophy, with its anthropocentric ideas of human freedom; and Roman law. Our Arab and Jewish neighbors made a significant contribution to the expansion of these ideas in Western Europe. In the most obscure decades of the Middle Ages, Avicenna, Averroes or Maimonides enriched and transmitted Greek philosophy to Western Europe, and their work on algebra and medicine deeply influenced Europe's development and identity.
It is important not to lose sight of this historical perspective in the face of recent events: the stalled Middle East peace process, the war in Iraq, and the terrible terrorist attacks that, since September 2001 in New York, Istanbul, Casablanca or Madrid, have seen terrorists try to drive a wedge of fear and mistrust between Europe and the Arab world. They must not succeed. We are not willing to contemplate a future where new dividing lines are created by the hatred of a minority of extremists. The determination of our governments and, more importantly, of our civil societies on both sides of the Mediterranean, must prevent it. These years have shown how crucial is our cooperation across the Mediterranean, how essential our engagement with our southern neighbors.
While newspapers have speculated about a clash between our civilizations, the Euro-Mediterranean partnership has made quiet, but concrete progress, with realistic steps toward the Euro-Mediterranean house envisaged by the original Barcelona declaration.
Take free trade: All countries of the region but one have agreed on a schedule of tariff reductions that will result in the setting up of a free-trade area with the EU, and an agreement with Syria has been completed but not yet signed. Alongside this progress on North-South trade, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan have signed in 2004 a free-trade agreement among themselves, an important step to free up South-South commerce. A great free-trade area from Rabat to Ankara and from Helsinki to Amman is gradually taking shape.
But our policies are not just about trade. The partnership developed through the Barcelona Process, and more recently and deeply, by the European Neighborhood Policy, is about reform, encouraging gradual change and stable transition in countries willing to engage with the European Union. With this partnership comes aid: Since 2000, the European Commission has deployed over $3.9 billion in the region, and we are ever more efficient at getting the money where it is needed. Over the past five years we have offered cooperation to help partners in the Mediterranean weather the challenges of globalization, modernize their legislation, adapt their social protection systems, improve their transport and their telecommunications, reform their judiciary or promote and preserve their cultural heritage. The new Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures will be a further demonstration of our determination to promote the principles of tolerance and mutual understanding.
All this has been possible because across the Mediterranean our partners feel the same need to build bridges with us. There is a new sense of urgency to deal with the challenges of the region from demographics to education, from unemployment to environment. A clear sign that reform is not a taboo issue for the Arab world are the declarations issued by civil society organizations in Alexandria and Sanaa, and more significantly, by Arab governments at May's Arab League summit in Tunis. Some measures still prove hard to take, including increased democracy and participation of the people in government. The process of democratic reforms in Mediterranean countries has been too slow and too modest, but reforms have to be driven by the people of the Mediterranean, and it is not for Europe to decide the pace and the sequence of change.
Democracy is not a luxury commodity for rich countries; it is the basic raw material with which developed and developing countries alike shape their future, tackle the demands of their societies, and avoid conflict by respecting the rights of minorities.
Democracy is one of the principles of European integration, and one which we hope will bring prosperity and peace to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Of course, to secure peace we need concrete measures, too. We want our children to inherit a Mediterranean free of weapons of mass destruction, and we are involved in a process of intense dialogue with our partners in the region, with the aim of building a region where all the countries fully respect their international obligations in this regard.
These are some of the building blocks of the Euro-Mediterranean house under construction: peace, prosperity and democracy. I am sure that in the skillful hands of my successor, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the commission will continue to do its building work with patience and determination.
**Chris Patten is the outgoing European commissioner for external relations.
He made these remarks on the Barcelona Process at the end of his term in office.
Source: The Daily Star
Website: www.dailystar.com.lb
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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Article #3
The Lack of Understanding between Arabs and the West
Tawfiq Abu Bakr
The relationship between Arab and Western intellectual elites is distorted, representing a major obstacle on the path to reaching a mutual understanding, where both sides would benefit. Many "revolutionist" intellectuals in our countries retreat from facing this obstacle, instead waging a daily war of words on Arab satellite TV stations, against American policy in the Middle East. This only expands the prevailing valley of misunderstanding. Bridging this gap requires even more extensive efforts and more intensive understanding and quiet strategic contemplation after the events of September 11, 2001, which were carried out by extremist groups hiding behind the cloak of Islam and holding distorted interpretations of its scriptures. Arab elites need to identify points of distorted understanding between us and the West, without the influence of what we call "Arab street extremism."
The League of Arab Nations had called for a special forum, attended by prominent Arab intellectuals, to study the misunderstanding between Arabs and the West. It was to open channels of dialogue with Western intellectuals and research centers that work to understand us through abstract research, where concepts are derived from concepts, without any interaction with humans. The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) held a similar seminar in Frankfurt, and another in Paris, in cooperation with the Arab World Institute (L'Institut du Monde Arabe). The main problem with these conferences is the practice of "text assaults," where each party throws what texts it has at the other, thus turning the conversation into a disputation, with each party rebutting the other party's accusations, and with participants addressing their Arab or Islamic audiences. Many Western intellectuals do the same. Dialogue should take place face-to-face, away from text assaults, and focused on life experiences and lessons. We should not debate Western intellectuals as if we were angels without sins; we should confess our sins and admit our shortcomings in their presence.
There is no truth to the allegation that there exists an animosity against the West in the Arab and Islamic world for which there is no cure, and whose roots are religious and historical in nature. This is what a limited number of extreme forces on both sides, not all of which are fundamentalist, incidentally, wish to spread around. But Amir Tahiri, the Iranian journalist living abroad, writes that after American troops entered Afghanistan, a mere seventeen small demonstrations took place among the one billion Muslims throughout the world. There exists a distorted relationship with the West, but it is not one of deep animosity. Otherwise, we would not have eagerly received their scientific and technological products in our countries, with profound awe, in most cases.
Yes, we do have a problem with "modernism," for some extremists and some fundamentalists in our countries (not all of them) oppose "modernism" in general, and therefore oppose openness to the West. This is a major crisis from which we suffer, and which is not sufficiently challenged by advocates of enlightenment. But there are also opponents to modernism in the West, including those who deny that the earth is spherical, until this day. We have a problem with "culture relativism," because those who oppose openness to "the Other" in our Arab world hide behind the Arab and Islamic particularism, exaggerating it in order to prevent application of international values that harm their limited interests. I have myself seen representatives of the most oppressive and backward Arab regimes take turns at the podium at the International Conference for Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993, when I was Executive Director of the Amnesty International chapter in Jordan. They talked with great vigor about "culture relativism" in order to repulse attempts to universalize human rights and openness to "the Other," because that would put an end to their monopoly on control over their peoples. Arab people of enlightenment have a duty to confront this phenomenon.
We incessantly say that those who are extremists in our countries are limited in number and influence, and that the West generalizes the behavior of this strayed minority as representing Arabs and Muslims. Yes, this does happen. But in order for it not to happen again in the future, and in order for channels of communication and dialogue to open up, the Arab intellectual elite, which takes upon itself the mission of enlightenment, must assume its role and condemn, clearly and without a trace of ambiguity, the actions of those extremists and terrorists, without hesitation or bashfulness, and without connecting this to any other issue, along the policy of "yes, but." When a true dialogue with Western elites commences, the issue must be addressed openly and squarely: That the search for the roots of extremism and terror in our countries will lead to pro-Israeli Western policies, as well as socio-economic reasons, including poverty, depression, despair, and isolation.
Those in our nations who understand the West are very few. Our isolation started in the fifteenth century, with the delay of openness: a prerequisite for eliminating misunderstanding, and a condition for development, as well. The West cannot be understood from translated articles, sometimes in poor style, or through academic studies. Direct, fertile, and continued interaction is essential. Similarly, the West cannot understand us through partial readings of Sayyed Qutub's last writings, in which he deletes the role of the intellect in the making of civilization. Extremism in our countries has an educational side, and we should not be bashful to admit this openly. Some educational curricula in our nations promote isolationism, extremism, and animosity towards "the Other." Things will never get better unless we initiate, within Arab circles, a deep dialogue without "red lines." Europe did not enter the era of renaissance and enlightenment until it cancelled its "red lines," shaking the very foundations of what was taken for granted, and bringing down what was considered obvious. Things will never get any better, until we consider "the Other" inside the Arab house as an extension and not an antagonist.
It is true that considering "the Other" an "opposite" does exist in the Arab heritage. But excavating our heritage also reveals the presence of democratic calls for realizing "the Other" in a luminous manner. Nations do not prosper unless they look forward and plan for the future, taking an occasional peek backwards, in order to connect the past with the present. It is a method that includes openness, freedom, and the elimination of misunderstanding with "the Other," especially with the "West," if it is to be a process that will lead to a prosperous and promising future.
**Tawfiq Abu Bakr is a veteran political analyst, the director of Jenin Center for Strategic Studies and a member of Palestinian National Council. This article is part of a series of views on the relationship between the Islamic/Arabic world and the West, published in partnership with the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: This article is part of a series of views on the relationship between the Islamic/Arabic world and the West, published in partnership with the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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About CGNews-PiH
The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity, brought to you by Search for Common Ground, seeks to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. This service is one result of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal in June 2003.
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Editors:
Emad Khalil
Amman Editor
Oussama Safa
Rabat Editor
Juliette Schmidt
& Elyte Baykun
Washington Editors
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