The Common Ground News Service, December 22, 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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UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL ARTICLES ARE AVAILABLE FOR RE-PUBLICATION.

Article #1
Title: The Muslim society in Europe
Author: Johann-Volker Peter
Publication: The Daily Star
Date: December 3, 2004
"Surely, only on the basis of a truthful integration can the foreigners stay in Europe and enjoy the right to follow their religion and traditions as guaranteed in the European Constitutions." On this note, Johann-Volker Peter discusses whether Muslims themselves are gradually shutting themselves out of Europe.

Article #2
Title: Political stirrings, in the ancient and modern Arab worlds
Author: Rami G. Khouri
Publication: Jordan Times
Date: December 15, 2004
Rami G. Khouri considers whether the first Egyptian demonstration opposing its president and UAE defence minister and Dubai crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed Ben Rashid Al Maktoum's recent comment that if fellow Arab leaders did not change, they would be changed, are indicative of real reform in the region.

Article #3
Title: The Tension between East and West
Author: Shafeeq N. Ghabra
Publication: ~~Common Ground Series~~ in partnership with Al Hayat
Date: October 24, 2004
In the fifth in a series of articles commissioned by Common Ground News on Western-Islamic relations, Shafeeq N. Ghabra, an Arab who has lived in the West for significant periods of time, worries that "the East and the West seem almost to have accepted a future of endless conflict" and suggests means to overcome this deterministic viewpoint.

~ YOUTH VIEWS ~

Title: A Saudi Arabian Living in the United States
Author: Sara Al-Masshouq
Publication: Partners in Humanity News Service
Date: December 22, 2004
The following article by Sara Al-Maashouq, a student at Dhahran High School in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, is the second of a pair of articles that Sara and American classmate Omar Noureldin decided to work together to write about their experiences living in each other's country.

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A Saudi Arabian Living in the United States
By Sara Al-Maashouq
Have you ever lived in a foreign country and felt a cultural gap? I have. Last year I moved to Washington, DC to attend a boarding school. I had been exposed to American culture all my life through movies, books and schools. I spent most of my summer holidays in the United States, so I was quite familiar with the lifestyle. I did not feel the difference between cultures until I actually moved to and settled in the US.

Being a Saudi girl in a post-9/11 world, I was anxious about traveling alone for the first time...especially to the United States. I was naïve to think that people would be suspicious of me: I suffered from extreme paranoia. I had visions of being harassed by security at the airport. Luckily for me, I was proven wrong. As a young female traveler, I was treated with as much kindness as airport staff are capable of giving.

My biggest fear about moving to the US was that I would have to constantly be on the defensive about where I came from. Not too many people have an accurate understanding of Saudi Arabia, and it tends to be portrayed as a country with anti-American sentiments. Sadly, it is the notorious aspects of Saudi Arabia that the media emphasizes. I worried that my new American peers would isolate me because of their negative perceptions of Saudi Arabia. I was not a stranger to American youth. In fact, I spent six years living in the Philippines, attending an International School with many Americans. However, the Americans I grew up with were highly cultured and well-traveled expatriates. This was the first time I would face American youth in America itself. I was determined to prove to my new classmates that Saudi Arabia is not like what they've been led to believe.

Being a well-traveled Saudi girl, I had grown accustomed to what I like to call The Five Most Popular Questions People Ask Me Upon Learning I am from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
1. Do you wear that black thing from head to toe? (Referring to the abaya or hijab)
2. Will you have an arranged marriage?
3. How many wives does you father have?
4. Are you allowed to talk to boys?
5. Are there any buildings in 'South' Arabia? (Yes, it has been referred to as South Arabia several times...)

Sure enough, my new American classmates, teachers and most people I came to contact with asked one or all of the above questions. Their questions were never malicious. They only proved how little the world knew about us. I mostly blame ourselves for not making the effort to expose our culture to the world. We have not allowed the foreign media to get very close to our people in order to truly reflect who and what we are. There are many more misconceptions that would be to tedious to include. I was never offended by these questions because people were genuinely curious about Saudi Arabia. I consider myself quite liberal and I disliked how people would associate my liberal mindset with the fact that I studied and traveled in America, or, in their words, I had been "Americanized." In reality the reason I studied in, and traveled to, America was in the first place due to my, and my family's, liberal mindset. Therefore, I was a girl with a mission: to educate the mistaken on the real nature of Saudi Arabia. I did so by being as honest as possible when answering questions. I also tried to be a good model by being tolerant, respectful and open to new and challenging ideas. While practicing this I also held on to and preserved my beliefs, values and traditions.

On one occasion, while doing a unit on the Middle East at school, I became aware of how little my American classmates knew about the Middle East and Islam. It seemed very difficult for them to grasp the radical differences between my culture and their own. I remember thinking how sad this was considering how the American influence is embraced in cultures all over the world. They seemed openly willing to criticize and debate issues regarding the Middle East and Islam when they had very little knowledge about the subjects. This experience taught me the value of exchanging information in a non-aggressive environment. By maintaining my composure and respect I was able to reach my classmates and open their minds, allowing them to learn about and respect other cultures.

Part of what I learned from my experience in America was to live independently. Coming from a culture that is centered on tight-knit families and friends, I was on my own for the first time. I enjoyed the freedoms that I can not experience at home, such as going to the movies, shopping, and even walking around unchaperoned. I also learned that the differences between countries are mostly with governments and not the people. If given the opportunity we would all realize that we are all similar in aspirations and dreams.

** Sara Al-Maashouq is student at Dhahran High School in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. She and her American classmate Omar Noureldin decided to work together to write a pair of articles about their experiences living in each other's country.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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Article #1
The Muslim society in Europe
Johann-Volker Peter
Surely, only on the basis of a truthful integration can the foreigners stay in Europe and enjoy the right to follow their religion and traditions as guaranteed in the European Constitutions. If the Muslims in Europe do not take this chance, it is obvious what they choose instead. They close Europe's doors on themselves.

From time to time the apologists of a multi-cultural society in Europe use the buzzword 'Fortress Europe.' This is meant to accuse Europe of adopting a dismissive attitude towards foreigners for social and economic reasons. After the murder of Theo van Gogh the phrase could appear in a different light. Could it be that it is not Europe that closes its doors on the foreigners but the Muslims who gradually shut themselves out?

Consider the case of Germany which has the highest Muslim immigration rate in Europe. Since the end of World War II, the German population has increased from 63 million to 82.51 million. Almost 3.2 million Muslims live in Germany. The nearly 1.9 million Turks are the largest ethnic group in the foreign population, making up 26.6 percent of all foreigners in the country.

Recent surveys indicate three things: First, the German share of the population has declined. A major reason for this is that the proportion of German women wanting to give birth is less than foreign women. Germany therefore needs young immigrants. Else, the society risks having a lopsided demography with too many elderly people. Second, Germany is not the only European country having a low birth rate. The entire West-and Middle-Europe suffers from the problem. In the long run, therefore, people from countries with high birth rates could replace the indigenous populations of Europe. Muslims in Europe, who have the highest demographic increase for cultural and economical reasons, could spearhead the change. Some Muslim leaders claim that there is no doubt that Europe will be 'Islamised' - it is merely a matter of time. From their perspective, Germany - on account of its constantly increasing Muslim population - is the gateway to Europe's 'Islamisation'. Third, the integration of Muslims into the European societies has not been successful. According to a survey, 83 percent of all Germans associate terror with Islam and 82 percent think of Islam as a "fanatic and radical religion" while only 6 percent sympathise with it (Passauer Neue Presse, November 8, 2004).

To find out why Germans have this attitude towards Islam, let's look at Berlin, which - after Ankara and Istanbul - has the third largest population of Turks in the world. Not only about 200,000 Turks live in
Berlin - which comes to the population of a large city in Europe - some districts are actually dominated by Turkish shops and mosques and Muslim culture rules the daily life. Here a number of Muslims live without knowing a single word of German or having any contact with the Germans.

This becomes more of a problem when Muslim families send their daughters to their homelands for a Muslim education and bring them back in the nubile age for marriages which are often forced on the girls. This re-import of the Muslim lifestyle excludes the young from the German society for ages.

The phenomenon is not unique to Germany. In congested suburban areas of France and even in the multi-cultural society of Great Britain, the Muslims live in the same self-imposed ghettos. Worse still, in some districts of European cities and in several mosques 'preachers of hate' appeal for the subversion of Europe by an Islamic culture.

Finally, the 9/11 has revealed that Muslim fundamentalists have established their terrorist cells in Europe for an overthrow of the so-called 'Western societies'. Contrariwise, one must appreciate that in Cologne almost 20,000 Muslims recently participated in a demonstration against terrorism in the name of Islam and highlighted their will to integrate.

The conflicts are bound to increase if the European and Muslim population groups do not open up to each other. In their Constitutions the European states recognise all kinds of religions and cultures. According to Article Four and Article Two of the German Basic Law, everyone in Germany has the right to follow his religion, culture and faith. Similar freedoms can be enjoyed in other European states, too.

Furthermore, Germany supports the integration of foreigners. At the same time it is going to control further immigration. It has, therefore, like some other European states long before, passed an Immigration Act which will become effective on January 1, 2005. Henceforth, Germany offers "integration courses" to foreigners to become acquainted with its legal order, culture, and history and cope with the national language. In certain cases, foreigners are even obliged to join these courses. Political activities can be forbidden in case of immigrants who endanger the constitutional order of the state, affect the "peaceful coexistence of Germans and foreigners" or "use force for religious purposes". Moreover, an eviction order is the rule when some "facts justify the assumption that (the foreigner) is a member of a terrorist organisation... or has supported one", when he "endangers the security of the Federal Republic of Germany" or "appeals in public for assault or threatens with assault".

Surely, only on the basis of a truthful integration can the foreigners stay in Europe and enjoy the right to follow their religion and traditions as guaranteed in the European Constitutions - unlike oftentimes in their home states. If the Muslims in Europe do not take this chance, it is obvious what they choose instead. They close Europe's doors on themselves because every Muslim who rejects the states' integration policy provokes the European states to harden their immigration laws. It is these Muslim thus who contribute bricks to the walls of the 'Fortress Europe' gradually built up only by those who resist the open societies of Europe.

Source: Daily Star
Visit the website at: 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 #2
Political stirrings, in the ancient and modern Arab worlds
Rami G. Khouri
The debate on the need to reform and modernise the political, economic and social systems of the Arab world has become something of a new growth sector. It includes regular meetings and conferences, occasional declarations, intermittent new initiatives, and a regular flow of threats and pleas from usually sincere friends abroad. The talk of reforming Arab governance and economic systems is always fascinating and informative, but the corresponding action on the ground is always very limited.

Two events in very different parts of the Arab world this week offer a fascinating glimpse into the underlying dynamics of this matter, and should be pondered seriously by those who follow the Arab reform debate. One event took place in Cairo Sunday, where around 1,000 demonstrators gathered in the Egyptian capital to peacefully protest President Hosni Mubarak's plans to run for a fifth consecutive term as president. He has been in power for nearly 24 years in a closed political system dominated by the National Democratic Party to the effective exclusion of any other voice in governance beyond symbolic representation in a feeble parliament.

The demonstrators from Islamist, liberal and nationalist parties held up banners that read "Enough. No more extensions, no hereditary succession," expressing opposition to the likely possibility of Mubarak's son Gamal taking over as president after him. The demonstration was significant because it was the first time that Egyptians explicitly opposed the president in public in this manner, and we are likely to see more of this in the coming months.

In the Arab world, where governance authority is closely protected and preserved over decades and generations by efficient patronage and security systems, it is rare to see such explicit and personal political opposition to incumbent leaders.

The protest in Egypt is a powerful symbol of how ordinary people and political activists have become so fed up with their perpetual rulers that they have taken to the streets - even in small, symbolic numbers - to express their sentiments. This demonstration is fascinating and significant because it represents one of the few examples of ordinary Arabs demanding reform in a key category of their political life: term limits on executive leaderships.

This sort of behaviour in Egypt may well spread to other Arab lands, and if so, it could represent an important new turn in modern Arab politics. Most talk of reform in the Arab world has come from three sources that have been unable to move beyond the realm of talk: civil society and political activists, government officials and leaders, and foreign powers. For citizens to take to the street to express their demands for political reform is a novel political development that should be watched closely.

The second fascinating political development in the expanding Arab reform industry this week was the blunt statement by UAE defence minister and Dubai crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed Ben Rashid Al Maktoum, who hosts a three-day gathering in Dubai called the Arab Strategy Forum. In his comments, opening the meeting Monday, he spoke directly to his "fellow Arab leaders" and warned them that if they did not change, they would be changed. He said: "If you do not initiate radical reforms that restore respect for public duty and uphold principles of transparency, justice and accountability, then your people will resent you and history will judge you harshly."

The very explicit warning was that lousy leaders would be changed, presumably by their own people, but, in view of recent American military moves in Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps also by well armed, interventionist foreign powers.

This week represents an intriguing milestone of sorts in the very slow process of promoting or achieving Arab reform. Within less than 24 hours, we have witnessed in the oldest and newest parts of the Arab world - Cairo and Dubai - two very different signs of the urgent need for change. These expressions of discontent are signs of pressure building on established leaderships. They are especially noteworthy because they emanate simultaneously from the bottom and the top of Arab political culture - from the streets of Cairo and the ruling emiri palaces of the Gulf.

Dubai and its leadership offer the counterpoint to Cairo and its ancient political managers, custodians of an ancient historical legacy along the banks of the Nile that resists modernisation and power sharing. Dubai and the UAE have not undergone a formal political or economic reform process as such, because they are new, achieving independent statehood just a decade before Mubarak took office as president. They have built a modern economy from scratch, aided by considerable oil income, but in the past decade fuelled more by their human assets and business and marketing creativity.

Dubai and the UAE offer a new model of Arab development, in which the public and private sectors work closely together to promote national development and provide their citizens with opportunities for personal growth and economic well-being. These are apolitical societies, though, focusing on promoting business development and meeting the basic needs of their citizens, with no formal, public political dynamics that examine, for example, foreign policy, security or budgetary decision making in any appreciable manner. To date, the citizens of the UAE have accepted and appreciated this model of nation building, and their country is a magnet that attracts workers, entrepreneurs and investment from many Arab and foreign quarters.

It is a good sign that the Dubai leadership here would now speak out in such forceful and explicitly political terms about the lack of accountability among Arab leaders, at the same time that some Egyptians are saying the same things through peaceful street demonstrations. It is not clear where these twin dynamics may lead, but they are certainly worth watching in the months ahead.

Source: Jordan Times
Website: www.jordantimes.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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Article #3
The Tension between East and West
Dr. Shafeeq N. Ghabra
I find myself-an Arab citizen of the East who has lived for decades in the West-caught between two worlds. While I acquired my education in the United States and appreciate the western experience, some western approaches to Arab and Muslim issues trouble me. Something terribly wrong has led the East and the West down a road of mistrust and collision, pulling my soul in different directions. At this point, no region, nationality, or group of people has as problematic a relationship with the West as does the Arab Muslim world. The "eastern dilemma" is unique: while the peoples of the East hold great admiration for the West, they remain at the same time deeply suspicious and fearful of its intent. For a positive turn of events to take place, the West must reevaluate its assessment of the causes of eastern anger, protest, terrorism, and conflict with a goal of reformulating its polices. At the same time, easterners must confront the religious and political extremism within their societies. Without honest engagement on both sides, the current nightmare will continue for years to come.

The West's view of Islam is overly simplistic, assuming a natural link between Islam and violence while discounting the consequences of its own involvement or interference in major eastern conflicts from Ottoman times to the present. One of our first steps must be to recognize our collective responsibility for terrorism, for it is the product of a vicious cycle in which no party is wholly innocent. There is a relationship between what the West perceives as blind Islamic violence and the legitimate concerns of Arab and Muslim peoples. When, for example, Israel occupies Arab lands and kills or imprisons Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs beyond those immediately affected experience defeat, insult, and injustice. This situation has persisted for decades and has created in the East the feeling that the score needs to be settled. Terrorism is an expression of this poisoned environment. The West's misunderstanding of the Arab and Muslim worlds informs its policies and, coupled with past wars and western occupation, contribute to this desire for revenge, particularly against the United States.

Since 1967, the United States has played a major role in the Middle East. While aspects of its culture, values, and technology have been received positively there, U.S. political and military involvement in such major conflicts as those in Iraq and Palestine have undermined its credibility and negated the good it did in helping resolve the conflicts in Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo. That the East and the West often define or interpret economics and politics differently exacerbates the divide between the two worlds. The Cold War also played a role in this relationship. During that period, the United States often aided and abetted countries or movements that it is now accusing of being "against freedom." Were not the Americans and some Arabs on the same side as Osama Bin Laden before he found his latest enemy? In the Bush administration's war on terrorism, is the past repeating itself?

All these factors add fuel to the fires of anger and fanaticism and prevent political progress in those very countries where the United States would like to see democracy take hold. Although the Arab world desperately needs democratic political reform, as long as the United States refuses to see the situation as it truly is, the promotion of such an ideal will prove futile. Could the racial anger and strife that wracked the United States in the 1960s have ended without the promotion of civil rights? Could the violence in South Africa have ended without an egalitarian solution? Contemporary terrorism is rooted in injustice and it cannot be eliminated or lessened as long as the West views it merely as blind and vicious lawlessness that can be stopped with brute force.

The injustices perpetuated today do not in themselves justify militarization of the Intifada or the slaughter of innocent children in Russia or the kidnappings, bombings, and beheadings in Iraq. They do, however, offer only chaos and the continuation of the death, maiming, and destruction of the innocent. That such injustices are real does not mean that some supporters of Bin Laden harbor a hatred of the West that is anything but blind. What is important is that these wrongs point to masses of people in the Arab and Islamic world who are struggling to be heard. Failing to listen as Arabs and Muslims suffer yet another defeat and as Palestinians are reduced to prisoners in their own towns and cities amid Israeli settlements prevents us from addressing the real issues and leads only to more victims of terrorism.

The War on Terrorism has eroded the openness and personal freedoms previously enjoyed in the West and has made worse the conflict between East and West. Immigrants and visitors have and continue to bear the brunt of restrictive measures related to fears of another attack. Everyone is a suspect. Meanwhile, dictatorial leaders in the Arab world and elsewhere use the War on Terrorism as an excuse to oppress their citizens even more.

Though tragic, the events of September 11 offer the opportunity to sort through the causes of violence in the Arab and Islamic worlds. These include injustice, ignorance, occupation, repression, and limited rights. In the three years since al-Qaeda's attack on the United States, the West has espoused half-truths as analysis and responded with half-measures. Slogans about democracy ring hollow in the face of the ongoing strengthening of dictatorships in the region, anarchy in Iraq, and war and brutal repression in the Palestinian territories. Today antidemocratic forces in the East and the West have the momentum. The translation of anger into terrorism will not cease as long as the preaching of democracy is contradicted by the prevention of its practice for the majority of Arabs, sometimes with the complicity of the United States. Rather, continuing in the same vein will booster the attraction of Bin Laden and delay the march of globalization and peace indefinitely. It is not inconceivable that the internal and external pressures on Arab states today will lead to their collapse and the creation of a vacuum or anarchy ripe for al-Qaeda to pick.

The East and the West seem almost to have accepted a future of endless conflict. Such a deterministic view makes it easy for people from both sides to put great faith in religious interpretations of Armageddon and nihilistic destruction. What is needed, however, is an East-West cultural exchange. The overlap between their respective ways of life would become more evident through cooperation in administration, science, and education. The East is not the only home of terrorism or religious fanaticism, just as the West is not the only place of sometimes questionable morals and materialism. Extremism is not unique to Islam or to Christianity. Fanatical Christian beliefs are no different from fanatical Islamic beliefs.

Focusing on our common ground increases opportunities and possibilities for both worlds. It is important and necessary that the East and the West reevaluate their assumptions and opinions of each other. Neither western arrogance nor eastern righteousness is productive. Eastern religious values and western logic, economics, and science all have places in the world. It is in our common humanity that we must place our hopes.

**Dr. Shafeeq N. Ghabra is a professor of political science and the founding president of the American University of Kuwait.
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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Posted by Evelin at December 25, 2004 03:59 PM