The Common Ground News Service, August 9, 2005
Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
August 9, 2005
The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) is distributing the enclosed articles to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If publishing, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org.
**********
ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:
1. "The Inequality of Empathy" by Samir Shehata
Samir Shehata, an Egyptian-American professor at Georgetown University, asks why Americans find it easier to identify with the suffering of Londoners than with the suffering of Egyptians, Saudis or Iraqis, in the hopes of improving collective security based on a common humanity.
(Source: Al Ahram, August 4-10, 2005)
2. "Beyond the condemnation of terrorism" by Louay M. Safi
Louay M. Safi, author of Peace And The Limits Of War: Transcending Classical Conception of Jihad, Tensions and Transitions in the Muslim World and the Challenge of Modernity, admires the "strong stand taken by American Muslim leaders against indiscriminate violence as a testimony of a remarkable maturity and the clarity of vision in dealing with a complex issue" and points out where both Muslim leaders and Western policies do not go far enough.
(Source: Middle East Times, August 2, 2005)
3. "Muslims in Europe: Cultural Integration Is a Two-Way Street" by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Senior Researcher at the Foreign Policy Centre and writer of a weekly column in the Independent, talks about how fear and racism are preventing positive integration of minorities, particularly Muslims, in Europe. She warns readers that "[w]ithout socializing, real and virtual ghettoes soon form blotting out the common humanity we all share."
(Source: The Independent, August 2, 2005)
4. ~ Youth Views ~
"The U.S. Should Step up Cultural Exchange Programs" by Rebecca P. Tollefson
Rebecca P. Tollefson will be attending the American University's School of International Service this fall. She explains why exchange between the United States and the Arab world must increase, arguing that "[the West] must do far more than welcome immigrants and sponsor study programs for others to come to us. We must also push ourselves to try and understand cultures that are markedly different from our own." This is particularly important as our world becomes much smaller and its people much closer.
(Source: CGNews-PiH, August 9, 2005)
**********
ARTICLE 1
The Inequality of Empathy
Samer Shehata
When bombs explode in London killing dozens of commuters they attract far more attention in the United States than explosions in Egypt that kill even greater numbers of innocent civilians. Why is it that American television programmes, media commentators and elected officials spend more time discussing the recent bombings in London than the more recent terrorist attacks in Sharm El-Sheikh? Why do Americans find it easier to identify with the suffering of Londoners than with the suffering of Egyptians, Saudis or Iraqis?
We know the answers to these questions yet we are seldom prepared to talk about them openly. Simply put: some lives are worth more than others. Western European lives are worth more than Arab, African or Asian lives. American life is the most precious of all. Even in death there is little equality.
I can say this because I am both Egyptian and American. Born in Egypt, I grew up in Ohio. I've lived in New York City, London (directly off Russell Square, where the No 30 bus blew up), Cairo and now Washington, DC. I've vacationed in Sharm El-Sheikh on many occasions. I empathise identically with the victims of 9/11 and the London and Sinai bombings. Death really does make us all equal.
Of course, there are perfectly reasonable explanations for the discrepancy in US media coverage of the London and Sharm El-Sheikh bombings. The London bombings took place on a weekday morning. By the time most Americans awoke on Thursday 7 July, news of the attacks was already on the radio and the major networks. As Americans prepared to go to work, they witnessed familiar images of violence and destruction. The attacks in Egypt, by contrast, took place early Saturday morning, local time, making it already past 6pm on the east coast of the United States. The news cycle in America has its own logic and weekend coverage is notoriously slow. For example, when the White House wants to bury a story, they release it on a Friday evening, ensuring it gets little coverage until Sunday TV talk shows are broadcast, or the Monday papers printed. And London is the British capital, after all, in addition to a financial and media hub. Adding to the media focus, Prime Minister Blair, President Bush and other leaders -- as well as their usual media entourage -- were assembled in Scotland for the G8 summit. Sharm El-Sheikh, by contrast, is a resort town on the Red Sea, home to holidaymakers and the occasional Middle Eastern summit.
But there's also something less reasonable about why Americans pay more attention to death in London than in Egypt, not to mention Palestine or Iraq. Americans find it easier to sympathise with Western Europeans, and particularly the British, than with brown, yellow or black peoples. They feel their pain more easily; they understand their grief quite literally. The attacks in London, like the attacks on New York City and Washington DC on 11 September 2001, were perpetrated by the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda -- products, it is said, of an alien culture and an adversarial religion. As Europeans and Christians, the British suffered the same barbarism as the Americans.
In Cairo or Riyadh, it's much harder to differentiate the victim from the victimiser. They're all Muslims after all; they're all Arabs. According to the US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Lt General William Boykin, "I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol -- they all worship Allah." New Yorkers and Washingtonians can literally understand the cries of horror and agony of Londoners. They can imagine themselves in their situation. After all, they suffered similarly on 9/11. But so did Egyptians and Pakistanis, and Palestinians, well before 11 September. Suffering and horror know no nationality. And no one has a monopoly on injustice.
The sad irony, of course, is that those who died in London were Muslims and Christians, whites and blacks, and everything in between, as were the victims in Egypt. The killing of innocents is grotesque whether it takes place in Israel or Palestine, Iraq or the United States. The London bombings were acts of barbarism and savagery irrespective of Tony Blair's policies in Iraq. The Sharm El-Sheikh bombings were equally barbaric regardless of our assessment of the Mubarak regime.
But until we can sympathise with the victims of terrorism regardless of their nationality, skin colour or religion -- whether they are Egyptian or British, Palestinians or Israelis, Iraqis or Americans -- all of us are in store for a great deal of more anguish. Our ability to empathise with "the Other", whoever he or she may be, to see the world from a different perspective, to feel other people's pain, share their grief and understand their injustice, better enables us to address the misunderstandings, as well as the practical problems, that divide us. By acknowledging the legitimacy of other peoples' grievances, their disappointments and frustrations, we demonstrate to the world that we care not only about ourselves. We also come to see the world differently and act in it accordingly. Recognising our common humanity is the first step towards creating a better future for all of us: a world with less violence, less suffering and possibly even less terrorism. It might make us collectively safer. It will also make us more human.
###
* Samir Shehata is an Egyptian-American professor at Georgetown University
Source: Al Ahram, August 4-10, 2005
Visit Al Ahram at weekly.ahram.org.eg
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
**********
ARTICLE 2
Beyond the condemnation of terrorism
Louay M. Safi
London terrorist bombings elicited familiar response: Islamic organizations and Muslim communities in Europe and North America condemned the terrorist attacks and stressed the dissonance between the deplorable acts of the terrorists and the humane principles of Islam. Tony Blair paid tribute to the intrinsically peaceful teaching of Islam and reminded his countrymen that British Muslims are law-abiding and contributing members of the British society, as he condemned the militant ideology espoused by the terrorists.
"We know that these people act in the name of Islam," Blair stressed, "but we also know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law-abiding people who abhor terrorism every bit as much as we do".
Pundits of the militant Right found in the London attacks another opportunity to equate Islam with terrorism, to question the sincerity of the Muslim rejection of terrorism and to incite the public against Islam and Muslims. Given the loud and extensive condemnation of terrorism by Muslims, particularly in North America and Europe, the militant Right cry has shifted from "why Muslim leaders do not speak out against terrorism?" to "are Muslim leaders sincere in their condemnation of terrorism, or are they doing it to deflect anger and prevent a backlash?"
Clearly, Muslims are genuinely appalled by the brutality of the terrorist acts, and some are going the extra mile to make sure that their condemnation is made loud enough, and is repeated enough, so that they can be heard by the deafest of their critics. The fatwa issued by the Religious Council of North America, and supported by major Muslim organizations, is the latest effort in this regard.
The strong stand taken by American Muslim leaders against indiscriminate violence is a testimony of a remarkable maturity and the clarity of vision in dealing with a complex issue. The loud condemnation of terrorism is important to cut through the anti-Islam rhetoric and to reassure the public that Muslims reject indiscriminate violence and the killing of innocent civilians.
Muslim leaders cannot, however, stop their quest for justice at condemning atrocities committed by few misguided Muslim youth. They must do more to show young Muslims how to turn their moral indignation into a positive force that brings more balance and justice to the world, instead of exploding in anger. Muslim leaders must work more to shed light on the double-standard approach adopted by many Western governments and institutions toward Muslims.
This is not only the right thing to do, but also the only path to ensuring that Muslim leaders continue to speak for the values and interests of the larger Muslim community and address Muslim concerns. The expression of justice and compassion should not be reserved to atrocities committed by the terrorists against Western civilians, but must also address Muslim pain and suffering visited on them by the action of Western democracies.
Muslim leaders must do more to expose the harsh reality of many Muslims throughout the world and speak for the Muslim suffering; they must do more to pressure political leaders and leaders of public opinions to address the roots of anger and frustration that breed militancy and give rise to terrorism.
The key here is the foreign policy of Western powers, particularly the United States, toward Islam and Muslims. Ignoring legitimate grievances and applying double standards in dealing with Muslim societies and issues must stop if the war on terrorism is to bear fruit.
Muslim leaders and organizations have been repeatedly asked to condemn terrorism and repudiate individuals and groups connected with terrorist acts. This is a fair demand and Muslims should respond positively and take unequivocal stand against the violent attacks by angry Muslim radicals against innocent civilians and bystanders. By the same token Muslim leaders should put similar demands on Western leaders and insist that the same set of standards be applied to all.
It does not help addressing the problem of terrorism when someone like Thomas Friedman put all the blame for terrorism on the Muslim world and feel that the West might be justified for treating every "Muslim living in a Western society" as a suspect and "a potential walking bomb", and in cracking "down even harder on their own Muslim populations".
Friedman conveniently forgets that Western governments must take responsibility for befriending brutal dictators throughout the Muslim world, and supporting the daily humiliation of Palestinians in occupied Gaza and the West Bank.
It does not help when American leaders press hard to liberate European societies and Christian minorities in western Indonesia and southern Sudan from the yoke of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, but remain passive in the face of authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world, or in the face of the Israeli, the Indian or the Thai aggression against Muslim populations that live under their control.
Similarly, Muslims do not hear loud condemnation when critics like Ann Coulter, Daniel Pipes, Franklin Graham, Michael Savage or Pat Robertson use venom to demonize Islam and Muslims, incite the attacks against both Western and eastern Muslims, or openly call for violation of the basic human rights of all Muslims.
Muslim leaders must continue to speak against violence, brutality and injustice, as they reject terrorism and indiscriminate violence against civilians and demand that the Islamic respect for the sanctity of human life, and the Islamic injunction against the killing of innocents be strictly observed.
But this is not enough. Muslim leaders must go beyond the condemnation of terrorism to become more active in the roots of violence, hatred and terrorism. They must reject exclusivist ideologies that privilege particular religious or ethnic communities whether it takes the form of Jewish, Christian or Muslim exclusivism.
###
* Louay M. Safi, Ph.D., is the author of Peace And The Limits Of War: Transcending Classical Conception of Jihad, Tensions and Transitions in the Muslim World and The Challenge of Modernity. Acknowledgment to Media Monitors Network (MMN)
Source: Middle East Times, August 2, 2005
Visit the Middle East Times at www.metimes.com.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
**********
ARTICLE 3
Muslims in Europe: Cultural Integration Is a Two-Way Street
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
As you know, I think the bombers and plotters wrecking the spirit of London are scum - men without hearts or heads who, after they have been properly tried, should be put away for life. I think most Muslims in Europe have heard the call to attend to the pestilence of violent hatred which has spread among some of their own around the world.
We may be at an extraordinary, momentous turning point, as Muslims feel a surge of emotional loyalty for our violated capital and the country which has been home to so many over so many decades. The bombs were an electric shock to the confused brain of the Muslim collective, which has led to saner, wiser counsel and a recognition that our British identity defines us profoundly; that we want to belong and must belong to this complex, multiracial nation with dreams that stirred the Olympic Committee and inspire the world - in spite of racism, nationalism and the battles between traditionalism and modernity.
We must make this mix work; the prophets of doom will be buried, including the ghost of Enoch Powell - who today haunts the nation again, holding up his spectral arms in grim victory. But it won't be easy nor fast. Not when the public is in such a state of dread and rage and leaders are proving to be unreliable masters of our destiny.
I am revolted by the political sanctimony and the casual demonization of all Muslims, all Asians and blacks, all immigrants, all asylum-seekers - all under the false pretext of national interest. Leading white commentators, left and right, are exploiting this moment to push retro-jingoism, as if the bombers will vanish as soon as Muslim Britons are forced to kiss the Union Flag and sing God Save the Queen in Urdu.
Blood did run down the streets in London - more probably will - but our citizenry must grow closer in joint cause to beat the murderers who would divide us. The protests against the war in Iraq brought us together; this crisis must deepen the bonds. We Britons of color, Muslims in particular, understand our responsibilities. Do white Britons understand theirs? Sir Max Hastings, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard is one the few prepared to ask that question and to answer it truthfully: "I acknowledge an embarrassing truth. In the course of my life I have entertained only perhaps a dozen black guests at parties and never had a Muslim to dinner in my house. The same must be true for many British middle-class people. Until interracial experience finds a path into our own lives, it remains hard to boast that we are contributing much to the assimilation we deem vital to our future. This is a two way street." Amen I say. And yes, Sir Max, do ask me to that next shooting party. I like pheasant.
Research by the Commission for Racial Equality bears this out. Mixed race and mixed faith love is blooming; much less so is friendship between the tribes of Britons. Without socializing, real and virtual ghettoes soon form blotting out the common humanity we all share.
The reason so many young Muslim and black men feel and behave like outsiders in the UK is because they have been made to feel outsiders from the time they were children. This does not make criminality inevitable, but it does make their integration impossibly difficult. This Friday, a young black man's life was brutally ended. He was 18-year-old Anthony Walker, a black A-level student walking with his white girlfriend. Police believe the killing was racist - and racism is, in itself, a rejection of integration.
These days, some of the most vile, racist e-mails arrive when I describe myself as British. You can never be one of us, they say, you "Paki", "Black Bitch" and so on. How integrated do I need to be to be accepted? Some middle-class acquaintances are getting bolder about confessing their distance from people like me. I can talk like them, think like them, dress like them, but this Muslim thing makes them uneasy, they say. I return the compliment by telling them I worry about them too and don't trust them not to turn treacherous.
Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister whose hard certainties scare me, is about to start a nationwide tour to meet Muslims. I understand the need for this. Only with wide-scale Muslim cooperation can the bombers be discovered and stopped. But is she also going to meet with Muslim professionals outside the "representative" circuit - the doctors, lawyers, teachers, writers, artists, journalists and others not part of the bearded and hijabi great and good, but people who have ease and modern, multiple identities? This outreach work is of no use if the government doggedly refuses to take seriously the anxieties and anger of Muslims who detest the war in Iraq and our blind loyalty to the neocons in the US. How dare Tony Blair lecture Muslims on the dangers of fundamentalism while remaining blindly insistent of the special relationship with the US? If integration means having to consent to that fundamentalist foreign policy, I'll have none of it. If it requires of me acquiescence in human rights violations, you can count me out.
Public unity is built on narratives. Successive British governments have done little to upgrade the national stories so that all Britons feel like equal stakeholders. Sadly, Muslim leaders have done nothing either to tell their young about the deep and long historical and contemporary engagement between Islam and the West.
We have been friends and allies as well as honorable and dishonorable enemies. Neither side would be what it is today without the other. Muslims brought coffee and geometric art to Britain; Britain sent liposuction and Shakespeare to Arabia.
In the 50s, the men from these families were lured here by factories which needed good workers without attitude. They worked well and more were welcomed. For some years, the profits kept rolling in. When the factories went, both white and non-white workers were left for dead. The neglect led to the rot we now see. British industrialists and politicians hold some responsibility for what has followed. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims volunteered to join the allies to defeat Nazism. Jews and Muslims who loathe each other today forget this fact. Yemeni and Bangladeshi lascars, Indian Muslim royal servants, brilliant Muslim lawyers and businessmen - they are as much a part of the story of Britain as American soldiers in World War II, Jewish writers and musicians and Italian cooks.
Integration is a team sport. Our nation will fall apart; the center will not hold, the bombers will win, unless we all play our part.
###
* Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is Senior Researcher at the Foreign Policy Centre and writer of a weekly column in the Independent.
Source: The Independent, August 2, 2005
Visit the Independent at www.independent.co.uk
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
First published in The Independent 02/08/2005. (c)Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
**********
ARTICLE 4
YOUTH VIEWS
The U.S. Should Step up Cultural Exchange Programs
Rebecca P. Tollefson
The latest program from the State Department to sponsor student exchange to promote cultural understanding to issue illustrates, ironically, exactly what is missing in such programs today in the US: exchange.
In a press release dated July 12, 2005, the State Department announced the creation of a new project under the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), "Study of the US". For the next two months, students from the Middle East and North Africa will study at three universities in the US: Benedictine University, University of Delaware and Montana State University.
Notably absent from the program is a real effort on the part of the government to send US students abroad. MEPI states that its key goal is to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the US, Middle East and Northern Africa." However, mutual understanding both implies and requires give and take; while it is certainly invaluable for Muslim students to come and experience America, it is equally important for students from the US to experience the Middle East and North Africa.
It is insufficient and oxymoronic to merely promote mutual understanding in a one-sided manner; it implies that Western-Islamic relations would be improved if "they" only understood us better, or perhaps even that they need to learn how to be like us. At this crucial juncture in modern history, with terrorism and religious fanaticism setting an agenda of divisiveness and hate, mutual understanding must also include first-hand American encounters with the rest of the world and the Middle East in particular.
Unfortunately, particularly when great distances separate two civilizations, myths about the "other" are continually perpetuated through ignorance and misinformation as a result of the lack of day-to-day contact that would otherwise lead to more mutual understanding. This forces both sides to depend on the media, stereotypes and political rhetoric to form their respective views of the "other." And despite the diversity within both the United States and Middle East, complexities and nuances are wiped away as both sides attempt to pigeonhole hundreds of millions of people as having this or that characteristic, this or that tendency, and this or that way of thinking. Instead they are "the other," and exhibit all the traits that we like least in ourselves - an exercise in collective psychological displacement.
Needless to say, there is a great danger in this practice. For example, many people in the Middle East glean their information about the West from Hollywood movies. Often these movies contain violence and sexually explicit material and are denounced in Muslim countries and an assumption is made that the lifestyle depicted in movies is one that all Americans subscribe to. In reality, most Hollywood blockbusters are spectacles, carefully crafted to appeal to the largest number of potential viewers worldwide by indulging viewers' desires to watch things get blown up and the hero take the girl to bed.
On the other side, things are not much better. In US media, news items involving Arabs and the Middle East invariably feature acts of violence, terrorism and suicide bombers. Each edition of the evening news treats Americans to new grainy images of Arab suspects accused of horrific and terrifying crimes. Terror and violence sells in modern America. The point to be made here is not that these men don't exist, because they do, but that they do not by themselves represent the Middle East and the diversity of the millions of people who live there. Yet with few other depictions available, it is inevitable that such images become representative of Arabs and other denizens of the Middle East in the minds of many Americans.
Political rhetoric also contributes to this problem. On both sides of the clash, political leaders strive for simplification in their message and meaning. While it is understandable that leaders use layman's terms in their explanations to their populations of world events and national policy, there is an inherent danger in simplifying too much. For example, to denounce whole countries as an "Axis of Evil" automatically precludes any form of mutual understanding, and instead continues to divide the world into easily graspable categories of "good" and "evil."
The divisive problems that Americans and Middle Easterners face require more than one solution. However, one viable answer is cultural exchange programs. Experiencing a country firsthand can dispel cultural stereotypes and myths. It literally has a mind-opening effect. This new awareness can be transplanted back to the home country through viral marketing, as former participants challenge what is heard over the airwaves and seen on television. It can also lead to policy changes, and, with enough participation, can begin the laborious process of reducing the use of stereotypes and needless racism.
It should be a matter of some concern that there are few opportunities for students to study in places other than familiar Europe and Australia. To challenge firmly held beliefs, generalizations and stereotypes exchange programs need to be expanded to as many countries as possible, especially ones that do not share in the United States' Judeo-Christian heritage. Of course, safety concerns do serve as an important and necessary barrier to programs in some countries. However, there are still many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere that are both safe and willing to welcome American students, such as the Persian Gulf states, Egypt, and Morocco.
In the West, we must do far more than welcome immigrants and sponsor study programs for others to come to us. We must also push ourselves to try and understand cultures that are markedly different from our own. On the path to world peace, security screens, soldiers and guns will only get us so far. The remaining distance can only be covered by cultural exchange programs that help us discard dangerous stereotypes and find ways to share a globe that is becoming uncomfortably smaller at an ever increasing rate.
###
* Rebecca P. Tollefson recently graduated from Centre College in Kentucky with a degree in International Studies, and will be attending the American University's School of International Service this fall.
Source: Search for Common Ground - CGNews-PiH, August 9, 2005
Visit Search for Common Ground at www.sfcg.org.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
**********
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 outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal in June 2003.
Every two weeks, CGNews-PiH will distribute 2-5 news articles, op-eds, features, and analyses that aid in developing and analyzing the current and future relationship of the West and Arab/Muslim world. Articles will be chosen based on accuracy, balance, and their ability to improve understanding and communication across borders and regions. They will also reflect the need for constructive dialogue around issues of global importance. Selections will be authored by local and international experts and leaders who will analyze and discuss a broad range of relevant issues. We invite you to submit any articles you feel are compatible with the goals of this news service.
Partners in Humanity also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities through its Youth Views column. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write cbinkley@sfcg.org for more information on contributing.
We look forward to hearing from you, and welcome any questions, concerns, or comments you may have about this service. Please forward this message to colleagues and friends who may also wish to subscribe to the service. To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.
If you are a member of the media, please join us in promoting constructive dialogue to improve understanding and perceptions. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If you choose to republish any of the articles, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org
The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.
Common Ground News Service
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite #200
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Ph: +1(202) 777-2207
Fax: +1(202) 232-6718
Rue Belliard 205 bte 13
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Ph: +32 (02) 736-7262
Fax: +32(02) 732-3033
E-mail: cgnewspih@sfcg.org
Website: http://www.commongroundnews.org
Editors:
Emad Khalil
Amman Editor
Juliette Schmidt
Beirut Editor
Elyte Baykun
Washington Editor
Michael Shipler
Youth Views Editor
**********
This is a not-for-profit list serve.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would like to see these articles.
To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.
