Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
for constructive & vibrant Muslim-Western relations
28 November - 04 December 2006

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about Muslim–Western relations. CGNews-PiH is available in Arabic, English, French and Indonesian.
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Inside this edition

1) by John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed

John L. Esposito of Georgetown University and Dalia Mogahed from the Gallup Organization use polls and statistical data to explain what makes a Muslim radical and how such a person differs from his/her moderate counterparts. Disproving most of prevalent theories – that radicals are relatively poor, uneducated, hopeless, full of hate, religiously fundamental – they identify the real difference and the opportunity this presents for policymakers.
(Source: Foreign Policy, November 2006)

2) by Zachary Shore

Zachary Shore, associate professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, identifies a “counter-trend” beneath the surface of Europe’s seemingly right- leaning policies on Muslim integration and immigration. He introduces just a few of “Europe's smart steps” that can serve as alternatives to the “tough talk and burka bans” at the national level.
(Source: International Herald Tribune, 28 November 2006)

3) by James J. Zogby

James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, describes the outputs of a meeting between Arab American leaders and U.S. State Department officials. The discussion covered a range of topics including Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and U.S. public diplomacy efforts and initiatives promoting democracy and reform. Although the week-long talks were not without frustration, several key lessons and constructive outcomes demonstrate that goodwill is also present.
(Source: Jordan Times, 21 November 2006)

4) by Louis Werner

Louis Werner, frequent contributor to Saudi Aramco World Magazine, looks at domestic U.S. tactics for restoring law and order from the 1980s in search of new ideas for the U.S. military in Iraq. Citing examples of repairing broken windows and improving quality of life as part of “community policing” techniques that built goodwill in the United States, the author offers parallels that could be implemented by American service-men and women in Iraq.
(Source: Middle East Times, 17 November 2006)

5) by Ben Arnoldy

Ben Arnoldy, staff writer at the Christian Science Monitor, looks at a new attempt to include women in the issuing of fatwas -- the widely-respected opinions based on religious reasoning of learned individuals or committees. Like many efforts that aim to shift a long-standing custom within a religious community, this initiative has its fair share of critics; however, many also feel that it is meeting an important need in Muslim society.
(Source: Christian Science Monitor, 21 November 2006)
   

1) What makes a Muslim radical?
John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed

Washington, D.C. - Ask any foreign-policy expert how the West will know it is winning the war on terror, and the likely response will be, “When the Islamic world rejects radicalism.” But just who are Muslim radicals, and what fuels their fury? Every politician has a theory: radicals are religious fundamentalists; they are poor; they are full of hopelessness and hate. But those theories are wrong.

Based on a new Gallup World Poll of more than 9,000 interviews in nine Muslim countries, we find that Muslim radicals have more in common with their moderate brethren than is often assumed. If the West wants to reach the extremists, and empower the moderate Muslim majority, it must first recognise who it’s up against.

Fundamentally Similar

Because terrorists often hijack Islamic precepts for their own ends, pundits and politicians in the West sometimes portray Islam as a religion of terrorism. They often charge that religious fervour triggers radical and violent views. But the data say otherwise: there is no significant difference in religiosity between moderates and radicals. In fact, radicals are no more likely to attend religious services regularly than are moderates.

The Radically Rich

It’s no secret that many in the Muslim world suffer from crippling poverty and lack of education. But are radicals any poorer than their fellow Muslims? We found the opposite: there is indeed a key difference between radicals and moderates when it comes to income and education, but it is the radicals who earn more and who stay in school longer.

A Hopeful Future

Whenever a suicide bomber completes a deadly mission, the act is often attributed to hopelessness—the inability to find a job, earn a living, or support a family. But the politically radical are not more “hopeless” than the mainstream. More radicals expressed satisfaction with their financial situation and quality of life than their moderate counterparts, and a majority of them expected to be better off in the years to come.

Extreme Esteem

The war on terror is premised on a key question: why do they hate us? The common answer from Washington is that Muslim radicals hate our way of life, our freedom, and our democracy. Not so. Both moderates and radicals in the Muslim world admire the West, in particular its technology, democratic system and freedom of speech.

The Way Forward

What, then, separates a Muslim moderate from a Muslim radical? Although almost all Muslims believe the West should show more respect for Islam, radicals are more likely to feel that the West threatens and attempts to control their way of life. Moderates, on the other hand, are more eager to build ties with the West through economic development. This divergence of responses offers policymakers a key opportunity to develop strategies to prevent the moderate mainstream from sliding away, and to check the persuasive power of those who would do us harm.

Note:Respondents who said 9/11 was unjustified (1 or 2 on a 5-point scale, where 1 is totally unjustified and 5 is completely justified) are classified as moderates. Respondents who said 9/11 was justified (4 or 5 on the same scale) are classified as radicals. The data for this poll were obtained during 2005-06 from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Approximately 1,000 in-home interviews were conducted in each country. The sampling mix of urban and rural areas is the statistical equivalent of surveying each nation’s adult population, with a statistical sampling error rate of +/- 3 percent.

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* John L. Esposito is professor of religion and international affairs and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Dalia Mogahed is executive director of Muslim studies for the Gallup Organization. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Foreign Policy, November 2006, www.foreignpolicy.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

2) Europe's quiet integration
Zachary Shore

Monterey, California – Lately, European leaders seem seized by acute Islamophobia. First, President Jacques Chirac perceived a threat to French identity posed by schoolgirls decked in head scarves. Then Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain spoke of outlawing the veil from public view. Now, after calling for a nationwide burka ban, Christian Democrats in the Netherlands have won the most seats in Parliament.

Most Western European nations are tightening their immigration laws while fretting over free speech in cartoons, plays and print. All the while, right-wing xenophobic parties are on the rise across the continent. One year after riots set French housing projects ablaze, Europe appears to be shifting sharply to the right.

Just below the news media's radar screens, however, a counter-trend is under way, which promises a kinder, gentler and potentially more successful approach to Europe's Muslim quandary.

While right-leaning ministers at the national level are talking tough to Muslims, progressive officials and private citizens at local levels are spearheading innovative programs to aid Muslim integration.

In Berlin, Renée Abul-Ella runs Al- Dar (The Home), an organisation dedicated to helping Arab women and their families integrate into German society. Al-Dar provides language, typing and computer training to Muslim women and counsels them on issues they cannot discuss in most contexts. Abul-Ella told me that nearly every family she knows has had some incidence of domestic violence.

Al-Dar works with fathers, too, some of whom have prevented their daughters from attending school. "We don't make the people who come to us feel ashamed about their culture," Abul-Ella said. "Instead, we show them that what is appropriate in one country may not be appropriate in another.

At the other end of Germany, Michael Blume is at work in Stuttgart pushing through a series of radical policy shifts in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Blume had not even finished his doctoral thesis on comparative religion when he received a call from the state's minister-president. It was just after the 9/11 attacks, and the minister-president was repeatedly being asked about his government's policies toward Muslims, who comprise 5.7 percent of Baden-Württemberg's population, and whose numbers are swelling fast. He had no policies, and there was no one on his staff to handle it.

Having heard about Blume's provocative research, the minister-president invited the young Ph.D. student to tea, and in the course of their discussion asked Blume to join his staff. Since then, Blume has initiated a pilot program in 12 public schools serving large concentrations of Muslim children. With the schoolteachers' and parents' consent, these schools now offer classes in Islam as well as the usual courses on Christianity. Religion has always been taught in German schools, but the study of Islam had never been part of the curriculum. The aim is to encourage a sense of Muslim inclusion within German society and discourage the all-too-common development of a parallel society existing outside the mainstream.

Further west, the French city of Strasbourg is also experimenting with new integration strategies. Here sits the European Parliament, with its ornate marble stairways and plush voting chambers, and the Council of Europe, devoted to ensuring human rights and social cohesion throughout the continent. But travel just a few minutes to the other side of Strasbourg, to the neighbourhood of Neuhof, and you will see dilapidated housing, shattered windows and crumbled streets.

Drugs have plagued the neighbourhood, but the city is attempting to revitalise it, not just by constructing decent housing. Outside the Ecole Maternelle Reuss, scores of immigrant children play tag with all the boisterous energy you would find in any playground. Behind the playground, a more serious course is under way inside a prefab concrete two-room structure where the mothers are learning French. Many came from Bangladesh, Turkey, Morocco or Algeria with little education. All say they are grateful to learn the language, and their courses are paid for by the city if they cannot afford to pay themselves.

These are just a few of Europe's smart steps toward Muslim integration. There are many others. In Berlin, the Aziz Nesin Europa elementary school is completely bilingual. Half of all courses are taught in German; the other half in Turkish. Most policy makers insist that only by mastering European languages can immigrants and their children prosper. The Aziz Nesin school is proving that early bilingual education enhances cognitive ability, fosters curiosity about other cultures, and may even improve academic performance. And the school is not just for Turkish children. It is mixed between Turkish-German and German kids, fostering bonds between cultures at a very early age.

Tough talk and burka bans may win votes at the national level, but municipal governments cannot afford to let their Muslim residents remain closed off from the community and open to extremism. If any of the progressive local projects succeed, they will eventually be adopted nationwide. Europe's leaders have no other choice. If they keep fiddling with the politics of exclusion, Paris will again be burning.

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* Zachary Shore is associate professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and the author of "Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe.” This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: International Herald Tribune, 28 November 2006, www.iht.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

3) Lessons learned
James J. Zogby

Washington, D.C. - With the Middle East in turmoil, the State Department convened a two-day meeting for Arab American leadership last week. Over 100 community leaders from across the United States responded, some travelling great distances at their own expense to participate in the sessions. Eleven State Department officials participated and topics ranged from Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, to U.S. public diplomacy efforts and initiatives promoting democracy and reform.

Because the region is in a mess, and because many Arab Americans fault U.S. policy miscues, the sessions were bound to be tense. Contributing to the tension was the fact that this was the administration’s first such mass outreach effort in years (whereas during the last decade, similar meetings were convened on a more regular basis).

If there was frustration in the room, there was also goodwill. The fact that the State Department organised the twelve hours of meetings and brought senior diplomats to provide briefings and engage in discussions was significant. Also important was the fact that many, though not all, of the presenters, made it clear that they genuinely wanted to hear what the community leaders had to say. Some of the diplomats sought direct Arab American input and encouraged the attendees to participate in future outreach efforts, work with public diplomacy initiatives and help the department recruit more Arab Americans to join the Foreign Service.

The Arab Americans at the conference came seeking to provide input, because they were concerned about the damage U.S. policy has done not only in the Arab world but also to the understanding and appreciation of American values in the region. Iraqi Americans, Lebanese Americans and Palestinian Americans, in particular, testified to the painful experiences of their families and friends. Their testimonies were eloquent and moving.

The Arab Americans who participated not only wanted to share ideas, they also sought to offer themselves as a bridge between the United States and the Arab world. They put forth several important ideas as to how to improve U.S. outreach and public diplomacy efforts. Other lessons, though unspoken, came through loud and clear.
- U.S. policy in the Arab world is in deeper trouble than some policy makers either understand or can admit. Listening to the comments of many of the Arab American attendees, some elected officials from parties, as well as public servants and/or professionals, it should have registered that if this group is frustrated with U.S. policies, the Arab world must be much more frustrated. They were adamant in their belief that a real policy change is desperately needed before public diplomacy efforts can succeed.

- Observing how the attendees responded to different presenters, another lesson became painfully clear: if you talk at or dictate to people, refusing to listen to them or admit even self-evident problems, people will talk back at you. But if you engage with understanding and respect, then real dialogue can take place. This, of course, is a lesson not only for some U.S. officials who deal with Arab Americans and the Arab world, it also applies to how some Arabs and Arab Americans deal with American officials.

- For understanding to occur, relationships must be cultivated. Neither Arab Americans nor the State Department were well served by the failure during the past several years to convene more regular meetings. The State Department could have done more, but the community’s efforts can be faulted as well, since despite progress made, Arab Americans have so much more to do in the area of political empowerment.

What also became clear in the discussions was how important it is for the State Department to recognise Arab Americans as a resource for ideas and for outreach assistance.

- Finally, this meeting established that despite internal complexities (that are based on generational differences, country of origin and political outlook); Arab Americans are a cohesive community and deserve to be treated as such. This recognition is important, in and of itself.
For a number of years, there were some ideologues working within the administration who sought both to deny this reality and to impose their own definitions on the community. Specifically, denying that an “Arab American” community existed, they did attempt to convene other outreach efforts under the rubric “Middle Eastern”. In an effort to sideline the established Arab American community organisations, these officials instead invited a variety of religious organisations, “exile” political oppositional movements, and those who shared the administration’s ideological outlook. These meetings failed. Their failures provided the opportunity for more savvy officials to take charge and convene this “Arab American Leadership Forum”. This was important.

Given all this, the meetings of the past week, frustration included, can be deemed a successful beginning. What must now occur is to build on this effort and the lessons, I hope, we are all learning.

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* James J. Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Jordan Times, 21 November 2006, www.jordantimes.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

4) “Community policing” and U.S. diplomacy
Louis Werner

New York, New York - Back in the 1980s, when crime had reached epidemic proportions in American cities, a new idea was tested to restore law and order. “Community policing” rolled a number of different tactics into a single strategy - posting patrolmen in neighbourhoods where they live; prosecuting non-violent, quality-of-life crimes; walking the beat more, driving the squad car less; and repairing broken windows and streetlights. Each of these innovations recognised one thing - that police were most effective in their own neighbourhoods and could focus better on community concerns.

It is regrettable that the foreign and military policy parallels of this lesson have been ignored in Washington.

Opinion polls in Arab, Muslim, and indeed almost all countries show growing numbers of people angry at American policy statements, American government behaviour, and even individual American citizens. Unfortunately, the mood in the rest of the world seems a lot like the American inner city once did, when blacks feared the predominately white police force more than they did the hoodlums next door. When George W. Bush is seen as a bigger threat to world peace than Osama Bin Laden, you know it is past time to change drivers in the diplomatic squad car.

At first glance, one might rebuke any suggestion that police work in urban America has any relevance to American diplomacy abroad. Still, one might benefit from teasing out the small lessons of past success and failure, rather than simply "scaling up" from the neighbourhood to the entire Middle East, from the street corner patrolman's beat to a cross-border invasion with massive lethal force, as some Americans now advocate for Iran.

So what are the lessons from a community policeman's point of view?

First, enlist local talent - not, obviously, as simply more policemen per se, but rather as new voices to give feedback, to answer such questions as, what do people really want from us? And if they don't want us, period, that should be known sooner rather than later. Tragically, candy-throwing American Humvee patrols mistook the smiles of children for a hearty welcome from one and all. Ahmed Chalabi assured Washington that Iraqis would receive U.S. troops with cold drinks and flowers.

Yes, there were vague warnings from some American military leaders that they had just six months "to get it right" in Iraq, but those six months have now stretched to three-and-a-half years, and these same top brass keep giving themselves another, and yet another, six months. Americans never once asked average Iraqis how they themselves wanted to "get it right".

Second, publicly disavow financially corrupt allies and associates, whether they be local strongmen taking 10 percent off the top, or foreign companies over-billing for shoddy work and basic needs. From an Iraqi's point of view, Bechtel and Halliburton are the equivalent of public urinators, defiantly thumbing their nose at authority as they charge the Iraqi ministry of finance $7 per gallon for gasoline trucked across the border from Kuwait to American military bases. Iraqi civilians meanwhile have to smell it, as they wait in daylong lines at near empty petrol stations.

Third, stop building armoured military bases and razor wire-topped embassies. Do the diplomatic equivalent of what the British Army did in Basra - take off the sunglasses and helmets, and show yourselves to your hosts as fellow human beings. As funding for US cultural centres and State Department-sponsored academic exchanges is cut, all that's left to be seen of America by the typical Egyptian strolling through Cairo's Garden City diplomatic district is the ugliest, scariest, most ungarden-like embassy in the world.

Fourth, repair broken windows, especially if that is what has been promised. In Baghdad, electricity and water supplies have still not returned to pre-war levels. Just as broken windows are a constant and highly visible reminder that something is fundamentally wrong in the American inner city, so are nonworking air conditioners in Iraq's 120 degree heat. When people from New York City's Harlem see only dirty sidewalks, while just a few subway stops downtown all are clean and tidy, they blame the mayor for not sending street sweepers up to where they live just as much as they blame their own local litterbugs.

It is ironic that former New York City Police Chief Bernard Kerik, a man once associated with his department's new and improved ideas for community policing, was sent to Iraq as an advisor to Paul Bremer. But rather than bringing with him the right lessons, he came on an ego trip, joining night-time raids to bust down front doors and handcuff suspects in front of their families - every counterproductive thing that community police work warns against. And that in a nutshell is the problem with American diplomacy - so much that has finally been gotten right in its own cities has been totally botched when taken overseas.

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* Louis Werner is a frequent contributor to Saudi Aramco World Magazine based in New York. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Middle East Times, 17 November 2006, www.metimes.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

5) A bid to bring the female voice to Islamic law
Ben Arnoldy

New York, New York - For centuries, devout Muslims have looked to the fatwa - an opinion based on religious reasoning of a learned individual or committee - for direction on how to resolve moral dilemmas ranging from the mundane to the sublime. And for centuries, Muslim women have conceded the ground, for the most part, to the men who issue these opinions.

That's beginning to change.

Meeting in New York over the weekend, Muslim women from 25 countries began laying groundwork for the first international all-female council formed to issue fatwas. Their idea: to ensure that women's perspectives on Islamic law become part of religious deliberation in the Muslim world - particularly on issues such as domestic violence, divorce, and inheritance.

"There's this growing sense on the part of literate Muslim women ... that there is a vital need for women to confront the Islamic tradition and to work on a par with men in interpreting the sources," says Ann Mayer, an expert in Middle Eastern law at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. "Otherwise you end up with a very sexist bias in the readings."

The number of women officially sanctioned to issue fatwas is hard to pin down, but certainly tiny. The emergence of such women, known as muftias, usually makes headlines: a religious school in India installed three in 2003, and the Turkish government last year hired two assistant muftias, its first. Governments and schools try to license who can issue fatwas, but Islam stipulates only certain prerequisites, such as knowledge of the Qur’an and Arabic. As a result, the ranks of unofficial authorities are deeper and the barriers to women surmountable.

Whether the opinions of a women's council will carry any weight, especially in conservative cultures, is another matter.

Its advent is proving to be controversial even among Muslim women who share many goals of those launching the council.

“Advancing the idea of reinterpreting the texts has to be done, but I am totally against this initiative because it will have negative effects,” says Rebab al-Mahdi, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. It will be portrayed as part of “a Western cultural invasion," she adds. “This is what conservative clerics always say, and people listen.”

For others, doubt is mingled with hope.

"I share some cynicism, but at the same moment, symbols are sometimes important," says Pakistani-born Asma Barlas, a politics professor at Ithaca College in New York and a prominent advocate of jettisoning what she calls male-centric and incorrect interpretations of the Koran. "These little steps...even if they don't change anything, do send a message that women are getting together and trying to make their voices heard."

The group is also up against the inertia of tradition. Throughout history, few Muslim women were prominent jurists, though scholars are uncovering more, including, some say, Aisha, the prophet Muhammad's wife. Some question whether much within the religion is open to new interpretation and, by extension, reform. Others note that fatwas are nonbinding and may have little effect on civil law and state judgments.

Still, Muslim women have recently brought change by citing the Koran and other Islamic sources:
- In Malaysia, a group called Sisters in Islam used Qur’anic scholarship to rebuff efforts to exclude Muslims from a domestic-abuse law.

- In Saudi Arabia, an effort this summer to push women further back at a crowded holy site in Mecca was thwarted with the help of a female Islamic scholar's arguments.

- In the United States, the forthcoming English translation of the Qur’an by a woman, the first ever, finds an alternate meaning in a verse widely interpreted to give husbands authority to beat their wives as a last resort.
The New York gathering, called the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity, plans to seat the new council - perhaps seven members - within a year. Drawn from diverse schools within Islam, the members will be versed in Islamic law. The group also plans to give scholarships for more women to pursue advanced training - open to women in places like Morocco, Egypt, and Iran - in an effort to broaden the qualified pool.

"Islam is a religion of law, and it is important to express the principles of social justice within the framework of Islamic law," says Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement and leader of the effort. "This is why we need muftias, in order to do that. Otherwise, it falls on deaf ears."

Traditionally, religious legal authority was local, vested in muftis and other leaders who attained their status via government appointment or community esteem. But today's global communications are challenging that, as more Muslims seek religious opinions far and wide through the Internet. The women's council takes advantage of this: its members will be in different places, taking questions and conferring over the Web.

Given this wider marketplace of ideas, the new council's credibility will be determined by the quality of its legal reasoning, and whether its logic strikes a chord, say several scholars and observers.

"There is a sense among many Muslims - particularly, but not exclusively, women - that Islamic jurists are out of touch, that their guidance is not adequate to the modern world. And if this shura council succeeds in bridging that gap, it may be speaking to an audience that doesn't currently consider itself bound by the pronouncements of existing groups," says Kecia Ali, assistant professor of religion at Boston University.

"But this is going to be a tremendously challenging task because religious authority, even scholarly authority, has always been contested," she adds. "It is in matters related to women, marriage, sexuality that Muslim intellectuals on both conservative and modernist sides of the spectrum have chosen to wage their epic battle."

For others, the council has a credibility problem right out of the gate. "It should not have happened in New York, because it will set back the agenda of women given the current political upheaval [over the Iraq war]," says Mohammad Reda, a Syrian-American Muslim in the Boston area often sought out for his religious opinions. He supports the idea that "women should stand up and give their own opinions on women's issues," but says American efforts to force change in the Muslim world, as in Iraq, mean reformers now must avoid links to the US. The New York conference used money from nongovernmental foundations, some based in the US.

Conference attendees say a muftia council could prompt wider support for women's struggles. "The women who we're trying to help, for them religion is very important," says Zainah Anwar, head of the Malaysian group Sisters in Islam. "It's empowering for them to know that their desire to not be beaten by their husband can actually be justified in the name of Islam."

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* Ben Arnoldy is a staff writer of the Christian Science. Staff writer Dan Murphy also contributed to this story from Cairo. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Christian Science Monitor, 21 November 2006, www.csmonitor.com
Copyright © The Christian Science Monitor. For reprint permission please contact lawrenced@csps.com.

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Posted by Evelin at November 29, 2006 04:05 PM