Common Ground News Bulletin for 22-28 January 2008
Dear HumanDHS network friends
Please find below the Common Ground News Bulletin for 22-28 January 2008.
Kind regards
Brian Ward
Common Ground News Service
Partners in Humanity for constructive & vibrant Muslim-Western relations
22 - 29 January 2008
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, Indonesian and Urdu.
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Inside this edition
1) Art, the universal language of religion by Naif Al-Mutawa
In this first article of a series on freedom of expression in religion, Naif Al Mutawa, the creator of the comic-book series The 99, reflects on art as “the only language that all humans share in common”, and explores how this concept pertains to the Qur’an.
(Source: Common Ground News Service, 22 January 2008)
2) Curbing Pakistan’s rising militancy by Abdullah M. Adnan
Islamabad-based researcher and political analyst Abdullah M. Adnan develops a three-part solution for curbing the pervasive threat of militancy to Pakistan’s stability and to Muslim-Western relations more broadly.
(Source: Common Ground News Service, 22 January 2008)
3) Brushing up on Iranians by Anisa Mehdi
Emmy award-winning reporter and producer Anisa Mehdi describes a conversation with her dentist over her recent trip to Iran. Responding to his question about the health of their teeth, Mehdi expands on her exchanges with Iranian cabbies, academics, shopkeepers, fellow partygoers, current and former government officials and religious authorities.
(Source: Everything Jersey, 23 December 2007)
4) It’s official: freedom of expression is sacred in Egypt by Abdullah Suleiman Ali
Abdullah Suleiman Ali, a Syrian lawyer, comments on Egypt’s 29 December 2007 Administrative Judiciary Court ruling to overturn a judge’s request to ban more than 50 websites that allegedly threatened national security, insulted the president and defamed his person. He considers the implications of this ruling for Syria.
(Source: Menassat.com, 15 January 2008)
5) Beyond literacy in the Arab world by James H. Roth
James H. Roth, Huron Consulting Group’s vice president of education and health consulting, lauds the steps the Arab world has taken to reduce illiteracy but urges Arab policy makers to take the next step by reforming their education system for the sake of domestic employment needs as well as regional stability.
(Source: Daily Star, 18 January 2008)
1) Art, the universal language of religion
Naif Al-Mutawa
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those that go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art mirrors. - Oscar Wilde
Kuwait City - It is neither a secret nor a surprise that the first manifestation of religion was in art form. Cave drawings and hieroglyphics shine a light on the mind of early man seeking meaning in life. The abstract pictorial representations were gradually solidified into idols and idolatry was born. But when the Abrahamic tradition took centre stage, idolatry was abolished throughout most of the world. Or was it?
Art is the only language that all humans share in common. Anyone can look at art and tell you what they think it means. A word can be written in hundreds of languages but each word only makes sense to those few of us who understand that specific language. Even then, words within a language can have various meanings based on the context.
Take the word iqra in Arabic. Iqra is credited as being the first word revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the Holy Qur’an. Ask most Arabs and they will tell you that iqra means “read”. They will also tell you that the Prophet was illiterate. And when asked why God would order an illiterate man to read, most will just shrug their shoulders. Why? Idolatry of the word iqra.
When people first communicated through the use of images, idols were – well, idolised. As methods of communication improved, the written word – in the form of holy books – often took the place of these idols. The more concrete the interpretation of a word, the more the actual image of that word is being idolised. Words communicate a depth and breadth of meaning that transcend the sum of their letters. For example, it just so happens that the word iqra can also be defined as “to spread”, as in spreading a message or a religion. In essence, then, a rigid interpretation of God’s words by man is nothing more than idol worship.
All Muslims believe that the Holy Qur’an is for all time and place. There are some Muslims who believe that the Qur’an is alive and is as adaptable to today’s society as it was in the day of the Prophet. But then, there are some Muslims who believe that there is only one interpretation of Islam, and like George Bush’s interpretation of democracy, we should export it in a one-size-fits-all box throughout the world.
As a writer, I have had to negotiate abstract representations of my work with various ministry officials in various countries. I have met with people whose thoughts are so set in stone that they would make the mountains proud. It is a real shame that censors are still the intellectual gatekeepers of the world, the high priests of the idols we worship.
The human mind follows the same rules as the rest of nature. In all living things, diversity is the key to success and losing diversity is equivalent to certain death. For example, the less diverse the gene pool from which one selects a mate, the more likely the offspring will be diseased. The human intellect works in the same way: the less access to a variety of ideas, the more “diseased” the intellect.
I grew up in a part of the world where George Orwell’s Animal Farm was banned. It was also banned in the former Soviet Union. The Kremlin banned it because as a totalitarian regime, it did not want democratic messages to be spread within its borders. The censors in the USSR chose to go beneath the surface of the allegory, understand the message in the book and ban it accordingly. In my neck of the desert, it was banned because there was a pig on the cover. Go figure.
The Holy Qur’an was revealed in an Arabia that was alive with the richness of Jahiliya (pre-Islamic) period poetry. The miracle of the Qur’an was not only in its message, but also in the complexity of the syntax used to communicate that message. Its prose is unmatched in the history of the Arabic language. It is an absolute shame that the Qur’an continues to be held hostage by those who favour the idolatry of words over the depth of their meaning and the elasticity of the human intellect.
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* Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa is the creator of The 99, the internationally acclaimed group of superheroes based on Islamic archetypes. For more information, please visit www.the99.org . This article is part of a series on freedom of expression written for the Common Ground News Service.
Source: Common Ground News Service, 22 January 2008, commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
2) Curbing Pakistan’s rising militancy
Abdullah M. Adnan
Islamabad - Military rule and the “war on terror” are the two main culprits for the rise of militancy in Pakistan. A third factor, a dictator-foreign nexus – whereby a Western power covertly or overtly supports dictators or military rulers – adds fuel to the fire.
Militancy surges under military rule. By putting restrictions on genuine political activity, dictatorial rule shuts the doors on peaceful expressions of dissent. It attempts to establish its writ by sheer force, and as a reaction, it gives rise to an urge among certain segments of society to advance their cause through strong-arm tactics. In this vein, militancy is not restricted to extremists; it becomes a prevalent mindset – although in varying degrees – among the general population.
Religious political parties in Pakistan have been working rather unsuccessfully toward an “Islamisation” of the political system. They have succeeded neither in persuading the government to accept their demands, such as complete implementation of shari’a (religious law), nor in coming to power themselves. The inability to make significant political advances in a democratic process, together with the militarised government setup, gives cause to those referred to as the “local Taliban” and to al Qaeda-influenced elements.
The Lal Masjid episode illustrates this problem. In April and May 2007, I met with Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy chief of the mosque and its adjacent school, who was killed in the ensuing siege. I asked him about the legality and effectiveness of the methods employed by his students, like taking hostages and threatening suicide attempts against government targets.
He responded, “Our struggle may be viewed as a natural alternative to the almost complete failure of religious political parties and their approach.” Referring to the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Action Forum), an alliance of religious parties, he said that the ruling elite would never meet their real demands – and would instead try to placate the religious parties by agreeing on peripheral issues such as writing an individual’s religion in his/her Pakistani passport.
Claiming that the Lal Masjid episode will lead the way for other such protests, Ghazi, also a university graduate and former United Nations official, assured me that although he threatened the use of force, he did not intend to resort to it.
Hopefully, I thought.
Eventually, however, the government used force and the students responded in kind, giving extremists yet another excuse for increasing ruthlessness.
Also contributing to the rise in militancy is the widespread resentment against US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many Pakistanis feel that the United States invaded a sovereign Muslim country on the pretext that it was providing refuge to Osama bin Laden, without having established his guilt in a court of law. Moreover, some contend that the United States invaded Afghanistan even though the Taliban had offered to hand bin Laden over – as was reported at length by the media – to a third country, a group of countries, or to the Organisation of Islamic Conference. Furthermore, the alleged reason for invading Iraq – their development of weapons of mass destruction – proved baseless.
This lack of legal process, many extremists believe, justifies attacking American targets.
With de facto military rule at home and two wars in the region, the situation in Pakistan is dire. The people of Pakistan love their army, but they do not approve of its meddling in politics. They do not hate the United States, but they are angry with some of its policies.
An end to the “dictator-foreign nexus” between the United States and President Pervez Musharraf may also greatly help control and minimise the spiralling problem of militancy.
Musharraf relinquished his military position only after being “re-elected” by the outgoing assembly. He then imposed emergency rule, dismissed the Supreme Court’s judges – including the Chief Justice – and amended the Constitution. To many, Pervez Musharraf acted with the tacit support of Washington during and after the imposed emergency. Without playing favourites, the US-led West has to be seen as sincerely championing the cause of democracy, instead of patting dictators on the back in self-interest.
Addressing these three issues is the panacea for curbing militancy in Pakistan – and the sooner it is employed, the better.
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* Abdullah M. Adnan is an Islamabad-based researcher and political analyst. He can be contacted at abdullahmadnan@hotmail.com . This article is written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Common Ground News Service, 22 January 2008, commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
3) Brushing up on Iranians
Anisa Mehdi
Maplewood, New Jersey - After my teeth were professionally scraped, polished and flossed, I told my dentist about my recent trip to Iran. In the midst of waxing on about chadors and secularism, gas lines and fabulous chicken kebabs, he asked, “How are their teeth?”
I’ve been to Iran four times already and no one’s asked me about teeth before. But he, of course, is my dentist.
A moment’s reflection and then I answered, “They’re generally good.”
“It’s the diet,” he said without hesitation. “Less refined sugar.”
It’s true that in Iran people still sometimes sip their tea with sugar cubes clamped between their front teeth; it’s true that Coca-Cola has a vast following and that cakes and pastries are often the gift of choice when you’re invited to someone’s home. But fresh and dried fruit dominate the sweets tables; dried cranberries and currants join saffron in flavouring the rice; meat is broiled; and water is a staple at meals. In addition, it’s fine to drink the tap water in Iranian homes and hotels. Like so much about Iran, diet is a combination of past and present, historic and contemporary, Persian pride and planetary pop culture.
I went to Iran just after Thanksgiving to attend a conference called “Women as Peacemakers Through Religion.” The group was comprised of 20 women, half from Iran and the rest from Senegal, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Pakistan and the United States. The conference was co-hosted by Tehran’s Institute for Interreligious Dialogue (www.iid.org.ir) and Geneva’s World Council of Churches ( www.oikoumene.org).
It had been six years since my last visit and it was a treat to visit with old friends and make new ones. But most important, it gave me a sense of place and possibility: Is American reporting on Iran reliable? Is our government’s view valid? How do Iranians reflect on future relations with the United States, in public and in private?
Not shy to say where I’m from, I introduced myself as an American – to the cabbies, to academics, to people at parties, to shopkeepers, to current and former government officials and to religious authorities.
For a nano-second, surprise slid across the eyes of half of the people I met. Then, inevitably, it was, “Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here.” The other half had either visited or lived in the United States and began reciting stories.
None of us, once we got into deeper conversation, was surprised to find that we hoped a change in regime in both countries would ameliorate tensions.
It seems to me that as a whole, Iranians value the daring, vigour and success of the Iranian Revolution. They are glad to be free of the dictatorship of the Shah. Their pride in Persian culture and history swells to know it is not a puppet state. I know people who returned to Iran from the United States in the early 1980s specifically to be part of this momentous time in their national history.
At the same time, many are unhappy with their country’s current politics and policies. They are anxious about the rhetoric of President Ahmadinejad. Even if Iran does have a right to explore uranium enrichment for peaceable purposes, why would US and Iranian leaders taunt one another with nuclear weapons talk? Hasn’t the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, criticised nuclear weapons as anti-Islamic? Why doesn’t that simply put an end to this game? Why do both parties not acquiesce to UN-established terms for the time being and defuse tension? The fact that the United States is already bombing Iran’s neighbours to the East and West makes this a high stakes game.
What else causes concern among the people I met? Iran’s economy is flagging. The number of university graduates is up and the number of jobs is down. Young people put off marriage and children, fearing they cannot support a family. And there is intellectual oppression; political opposition is curbed, newspapers closed and some writers, jailed.
Iranians are also tired of gas lines and rationed petrol. Everyone gets only so much per month. Cars inch toward pumps for hours, reminiscent of mid-70s America during the now forgotten oil embargo. Energy savings are also apparent in the energy saving light bulbs in use throughout Iran’s public buildings and hotels.
Wisdom gleaned from this recent trip teaches that patience is the road to reconciliation, both inside Iran and among its global neighbours. Blustering, boasting, bullying and jockeying for position come far more easily to the human tongue than straightforward and mature communication. New governments in 2009 for both the United States and Iran shimmer on the horizon, and I’m not alone in hoping they both see the benefit of dialogue.
Teeth are just one indicator of human capacity for good sense and endurance, but combined with others they provide reliable information about real people to sink our public opinion and policy-making teeth into.
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* Anisa Mehdi is an Emmy Award-winning arts and culture reporter/producer. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Everything Jersey, 23 December 2007, www.nj.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
4) It’s official: freedom of expression is sacred in Egypt
Abdullah Suleiman Ali
Damascus - It was not quite the outcome Judge Abdul Fattah Murad had in mind when, on February 28 of last year, he asked the Egyptian authorities to ban more than 50 websites, claiming that they threatened national security, insulted the president, and furthermore, defamed his own person.
When the responsible government branches refused to abide by the judge’s demands, Murad brought the case before Egypt’s Administrative Judiciary Court.
But on 29 December 2007, Case No. 15575 – “The Case of the 51 Websites” – made history when the Administrative Judiciary Court ruled against Judge Murad based on Article 47 of the Egyptian Constitution, which states that “freedom of expression is sacred.”
Two principles governed the historical verdict, which was ten months in the making. The first one was that the government is allowed to ban websites but only when they genuinely endanger national security or the supreme interest of the state. The second one was that cursing, insults and defamation cannot be considered valid reasons to ban a website, even if they are subject to criminal or civil liability.
When reading the court’s decision, one notices immediately that the court ruled with the constitution in mind, and that it tried to get to the essence of the constitution, as it was intended by the people who wrote it.
The court based its ruling on Article 47 on the constitution, which states, “Freedom of expression is sacred. Every citizen has the right to express his opinion, verbally or in print or through any available means, respecting the law, self-criticism, and constructive-criticism to ensure the well-being of the state.”
(It is worth noting that this article is the same as Article 38 of the Syrian Constitution.)
In a thorough explanation of its ruling, the court boldly declared freedom of expression as essential, and that the restrictions imposed by the legislator on that freedom contradict the constitution, which guarantees the protection of freedom of speech, and thus should rarely be used, except for emergencies.
In accordance with this ruling, the court considered that the administration’s rejection of the judge’s demand to ban the websites shows that the administration leaned towards the court’s own interpretation of freedom of speech, and that the emergency exception did not apply to this case.
Article 19 of the International Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone “has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and import information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”, as long as it abides by the law.
The court noted that Article 49 of the Egyptian Constitution was in accordance with the International Declaration of Human Rights.
The court did acknowledge a constitutional gap in dealing with websites; however Egyptian law does not mention websites and has not set any rules for banning websites.
In this regard, the court stated that “this constitutional lack does not deny the right of the government to ban these websites, when they threaten the national security or the interests of the state, considering the power of the government to impose administrative restrictions to protect the general order reflected in the general security, general health and general peace.”
But in the case of Judge Murad’s demand, taking into consideration the constitutional gap and respecting the rule of priorities in case of conflict, the court ruled in favour of freedom of expression.
The court also took into consideration that the accusations of defamation could be tried in criminal and civil courts, but ruled that they were not sufficient reasons to ban the websites.
The ruling of the Egyptian Court is a reminder of how dire the situation is in Syria, where more than 100 websites have been banned in the past few months due to a memo issued by the Minister of Communications. The memo allows for the banning of websites without the need to offer proof of defamation or obtain a court ruling.
The Egyptian ruling, by contrast, is a true expression of the legislator’s will and is thoroughly explained. We can only hope that our own judiciary will one day follow the example of the Egyptians, and choose the side of freedom of expression, in accordance with the constitution.
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* Abdullah Suleiman Ali is a lawyer and Syria correspondent for Menassat.com. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Menassat.com, 15 January 2008, www.menassat.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
5) Beyond literacy in the Arab world
James H. Roth
Chicago, Illinois - Education in the Arab world is a mixture of good and bad news. On one hand, literacy continues to improve across the region, with some countries progressing more than others. On the other hand, the Arab world continues to lag behind most of the world and is producing citizens ill-equipped to participate in the rapidly evolving global market. As a result, structural unemployment is a major dilemma. Educational reform is urgently needed.
The higher education sector is growing in most of the 22 Arab countries. This expansion tends to be the result of a combination of private and public initiatives geared toward educating the growing youth population in each country. Yet, with the exception of a few isolated cases, the vast majority of these institutions lack the necessary quality of instruction, independent leadership and progressive curricula that would train students to complement the needs of potential employers.
A study compiled by the International Ranking Experts Group and the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington ranked only one Arab university on a list of 3,000 universities worldwide – and it was at bottom of the list. It is not hard to conclude that Arab universities are not meeting international standards.
Arab graduates find themselves at an increasing disadvantage as they seek entry into their respective labour markets, where their skills are often mismatched with the needs of the marketplace.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, approximately 5.5 million foreign workers play an essential role in the Saudi economy – particularly in the service and oil sectors. Yet despite the government’s aggressive policy to encourage the employment of Saudi nationals, the official (and persistent) unemployment rate of Saudi males is 13 percent, and many independent experts believe that the rate may be as high as 25 percent. The substantial investment over many years undertaken by the Saudi government has not yielded satisfactory returns. The Saudi results are similar to the results in affluent Gulf nations. Statistics indicate that graduates are often not capable of integrating successfully into national economies. Leaders must question the relevance of the educational experiences they are providing.
Improving higher education in the Arab world will rest on reforming curricula and raising teachers’ expectations of students, not only at the university level, but also at the elementary and secondary school levels. As numerous international standardised tests continue to demonstrate, Arab students in primary and secondary schools are scoring among the lowest 20th percentile when it comes to math and science.
The elementary public school results are by far the worst. The chance that a public school student from Cairo, Damascus, or Khartoum will emerge as a corporate leader or specialised physician is extremely low. Considering the substantial amounts that many of these governments already spend on education, these dismal results and indicators are simply alarming and require immediate action.
Not only must the curricula be realigned in favour of math and science, but teachers should also be held accountable for their students’ performance.
One explanation for the poor math and science scores of Arab students is that teachers’ expectations are too low. As Arab leaders continue to seek ways to improve education, questioning the quality of teachers becomes essential. Are the vast majority of teachers qualified to be entrusted with the education of future generations?
Probably not. The recruitment and training of a new cadre of first-rate teachers who are well compensated requires serious deliberation.
In recent years, the Arab world has seen a dramatic growth of private universities. Jordan, for example, has at least 12 private universities. These recently established colleges will allow middle-income countries to rely more on private sources for expenditures on higher education. However, privatising alone is not the answer. Like public institutions, these private entities must be held accountable to produce students who meet national needs. Governments, perhaps on a regional level, will need to create performance standards that will allow educational institutions, whether private or public, to reach minimum levels of quality.
Eradicating illiteracy was an important mission of the post-colonial Arab world. The Arabs have made a serious dent on that front. Although about 70 million Arabs remain illiterate, that number is quickly decreasing. Yet, there is a difference between educating to achieve literacy and providing quality education. By and large, the Arab world has not yet transformed their educational systems from focusing on literacy into a system with the institutions necessary to integrate their young people into their own labour markets and to push their countries into the competitive global arena.
As Arab policy makers continue to address future development plans, they must focus on reforming and improving their educational institutions. Failure to do so will undoubtedly increase the millions of hopelessly unemployed who may threaten regional stability. Addressing educational reform must be a priority, today.
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* James H. Roth, vice president for health and education consulting at the Huron Consulting Group in Chicago, provides consulting services to educational institutions in the United States, the Middle East and Asia. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Daily Star, 18 January 2008, www.dailystar.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) provides news, op-eds, features and analysis by local and international experts on a broad range of issues affecting Muslim-Western relations. CGNews-PiH syndicates articles that are constructive, offer hope and promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news outlets worldwide. With support from the British, Norwegian, Swedish and US Governments, the United States Institute of Peace, the National Endowment for Democracy and private donors, the service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international NGO working in the fields of conflict transformation and media production.
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