Common Ground News Bulletin 12-18 August 2008
Monday, August 25th, 2008Dear HumanDHS network friends
Please find below the Common Ground News Bulletin 12-18 August 2008.
Kind regards
Brian Ward
Common Ground News Bulletin 12-18 August 2008
Inside this edition 12 - 18 August 2008
The power of a Jewish-Muslim narrative
by Jan Hjärpe
Professor emeritus Jan Hjärpe of Sweden’s Lund University discusses the importance of narratives in this third article in a series on Muslim-Jewish relations. Hjärpe considers whether it is possible to transform divisive “us” and “them” worldviews into common narratives.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008)
~Youth Views~ Looking back at media coverage on Fitna
by Anne Holtkamp and Fatima Ibrahim
American University of Sharjah student Fatima Ibrahim and University of Amsterdam student Anne Holtkamp examine both the Dutch and Arab media coverage of the film, Fitna and ask whether the media impacted Muslim and Western responses to this event.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008)
The Common Word forms a Muslim-Christian bond
by H. A. Hellyer
Generally unenthusiastic about the “interfaith movement”, director of Visionary Consultants Group, H. A. Hellyer, explains why a recent interfaith conference at Yale University is different.
(Source: The National, 2 August 2008)
Afghanistan’s future depends on its people
by Conor Foley
Conor Foley, a humanitarian aid worker, considers whether the future of Afghanistan can rest on the shoulders of its civil society.
(Source: Guardian, 5 August 2008)
New German intercultural magazine goes beyond integration
by Nimet Seker
Freelance writer Nimet Seker explores the pages of a new German intercultural magazine, Mikses, with a predominantly Turkish-German staff, created as an “antidote to the country’s mass media, which tend to show only the extremes”.
(Source: Qantara.de, 11 August 2008)
The power of a Jewish-Muslim narrative
Jan Hjärpe
Lund, Sweden - Crises in the Middle East are seen and interpreted differently depending on whom you ask. For example, Israel’s perception of and reaction to Hamas and Hizbullah is coloured by the historical trauma that the Jewish people suffered over the centuries. Unfolding events there are perceived as part of the struggle against anti-Semitism, which continues to form an integral part of the Israeli contemporary worldview.
Another example of diverging interpretation would be the Muslim tendency to view conflicts through a dualistic worldview. In Muslim circles, and since the 1970s, tensions in the world have often been described as conflicts between the “arrogant ones” and the “disrespected ones”. For some Muslim extremists in the 1970s and 1980s the United States and the USSR were arrogant devils, or even “the great Satan”.
When the interpretive narratives between conflicting parties are so different, communication – and ultimately the resolution of conflict – suffers as a result.
A huge part of one’s cognitive universe is shaped by narratives – the stories told in one’s family, among friends, in a history class lesson. These narratives constitute the “historiography” of the group, nation, religious community, or whatever circles the individual belongs to. History is always a selection of what is regarded as significant. Furthermore, very few historical events are preserved unless they relate to a group’s identity. This has to do with belonging, identity and the “us” and “them”.
The narratives of what has happened to “us” in the past affect our perception of events today. To us, these stories are true in the sense that they are formed by historical fact, and are seen as especially significant because they are perceived as having happened to “us”, even if we were not born at that time. “They” – people in the past – have become “us”; in illo tempore – “at that time” has become “now”. This phenomenon to appropriate our ancestor’s history as our own is especially pertinent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I recently read a short book on Palestinian history written for youth. The book conveyed historical facts, but its main purpose was to create a feeling of belonging, the idea that “this is our history”. Lacking were the narratives of “the other”. Facts seen as significant in Jewish history were not there. Likewise, in Israeli historiography the Palestinian narrative of “the other” is also very much absent.
The “us” feeling is strengthened by ritual commemoration. Young Jewish people, born decades after World War II visit concentration camps. They experience a sense of belonging and feel that the Holocaust happened to “them”.
In Palestinian history, the nakba, or catastrophe has a similar function: the trauma of those who were driven from their homes belongs to all Palestinians. Similarly, in Shi’a Islam, we know of the enormous role played by the commemoration of the Karbala tragedy (more than 13 centuries ago). Alternatively, the story of the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, functions as an interpretation of the tragedies in Iraq today.
So, what can be done to address these disparate perceptions of history?
First, in order to promote peace and good relations, it is necessary to be aware of and interested in the narratives of the “other”. A healthy mental exercise in this respect is to identify the perception patterns in one’s own brain, and then see if events could be seen through other interpretations.
Then we search for commonalities shared in past narratives, and act to reclaim them. We can see that dynamic present in the Barcelona Process – a reconciliation project between the 26 countries of the Mediterranean – which was inspired by Andalusian history when there was peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Jews, and Christians under Arab rule for eight centuries.
And perhaps most important is making an effort to foster new narratives through mutual endeavours. We can see this played out in the story of conductor Daniel Barenboim’s friendship with Edward Said, and their co-founding of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a symphony orchestra comprised of young Arab and Israeli musicians.
Hearing stories about what different groups have achieved together can create new patterns of perception and interpretation. Such cooperative narratives are alive and functioning today, and remain a vital part of peacemaking.
###
* Jan Hjärpe is professor emeritus of Islamic Studies at Lund University, Sweden. This article is part of a series on Jewish-Muslim relations written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
~Youth Views~ Looking back at media coverage on Fitna
Anne Holtkamp and Fatima Ibrahim
Sharjah/Amsterdam – There was vigorous debate before and shortly after the screening of the controversial Dutch film Fitna, which portrayed Islam as inherently violent. While the worldwide attention generated from the film has since died down, it is worth taking a look back to examine what role, if any, the media played on the impact of this event on Muslim-Western relations.
On 23 March Dutch politician Geert Wilders released his highly politicised film about the Qur’an and Islam called Fitna, or strife. In it, Wilders coupled phrases from the Qur’an with pictures of Muslim fundamentalists and terrorist attacks in an effort to prove that the Qur’an inspires hatred of non-Muslims.
Months before its release, the predicted content of the movie and its anti-Islam message were debated around the world as people feared the implications the movie could have on the relationship between western and Muslim societies. The film was feared to bring about the same backlash and riots that had been stirred by the Danish publication of the Mohammed cartoons and the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had directed another film, Submission, with a similar anti-Islam message.
Though concerned with different aspects of the film’s release, the media coverage of the film in the Netherlands and in the Arab world drew interesting similarities.
In the Netherlands, the release of the 15-minute movie was associated with risks and security measures. The newspapers cited politicians’ concerns about possible terrorist attacks on Dutch targets, such as Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq. Newspapers also published stories voicing concern about the possibility of economic and political boycotts by Muslim countries, a legitimate fear given the effective boycott of Danish goods after the Mohammed cartoons. At the same time, Dutch newspapers also focused on the need for freedom of speech and religion in the Netherlands.
Following Fitna’s release on a website called LiveLeak, Dutch newspapers expressed relief about the fact that Wilders had not shown expected scenes of himself ripping out pages and burning the Qur’an. Often citing the phrase, “peaceful co-existence”, the newspapers condemned the movie’s offensive message frequently. The fact that the Dutch government, along with the United Nations and the EU, had condemned the movie and rejected Wilders’ views on Islam was also a point of note in many newspaper articles.
Arab media also extensively covered the film’s release. Al Jazeera English devoted two articles to the movie. Far from being inflammatory, the articles commented on a letter from Wilders, published in a Dutch newspaper, in which he compared the Qur’an and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The articles also relayed to the Arab world that television networks in the Netherlands refused to air the movie.
The Gulf News, a United Arab Emirates-based newspaper, reported on certain Egyptian Muslim clerics who were urging Muslims around the world not to react to the movie with aggression, but rather to use the opportunity to educate the West about Muslims and Islam.
Another article documented how a Dutch delegate had been sent to Arab countries to explain why the Dutch government could not prevent the release of the movie due to the country’s adherence to freedom of speech laws. In a Gulf News article titled “Hypocrisy over free speech issues”, writer Linda S. Heard argued that freedom of speech should be limited because “we live together, and one man’s freedom of expression is very often insulting and hurtful to someone [else]“.
Looking over these articles, we see how the Dutch and Arab media played a positive role in preventing a further escalation of tensions. Both focused on the Dutch government’s condemnation of the movie and emphasised that the movie’s message reflected the opinion of one individual, not an entire nation. In both regions, newspapers argued that violence is not the right response to anti-Islamic rhetoric.
The Dutch and the Arab newspapers did, however, differ in their estimation of freedom of speech. While the principle of freedom of speech is sacred and therefore without restraint in the Netherlands, Arab newspapers argued that it should be limited if used to hurt and insult others.
The coverage of Fitna’s release is one example of how different societies relate to values, such as freedom of expression, in different ways. And while these differences exist, so do the commonalities: violence was and is condemned both in the West and in the Arab world. Although we might disagree on important issues, even values, we have to find a way to accept each other’s beliefs without diminishing the importance of our own. The release of Fitna and the constructive way in which our societies conducted themselves prove that this is possible.
###
* Fatima Ibrahim is a student at the American University of Sharjah and is majoring in international studies with a concentration in international relations. Anne Holtkamp attends the University of Amsterdam and is majoring in international relations. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
The Common Word forms a Muslim-Christian bond
H. A. Hellyer
Coventry, England - Different parts of my extended family are atheist, Christian and Muslim, with my ethnic background being somewhat more complicated. But I am not particularly enthralled with the “interfaith movement”; it served to establish good relations between small numbers of people, but they have always been held back in two ways.
The first is that religious authorities never took the same route as the interfaith community in terms of dialogue. The second is linked to the first. Often, due to the absence of high-level authorities in interfaith discussions, the groups come to a hodge-podge of well-meaning but ultimately meaningless positions of “multi-faith eclecticism”. The essential message: we are all the same, and there are no real differences between us.
That’s a theological confusion that does not satisfy any believer.
But the interfaith movement has taken a new turn of late. In the aftermath of Pope Benedict’s regrettable statements about Islam in 2006, a number of Islamic scholars and intellectuals wrote a letter to the Vatican. The same small group that initiated the Amman Message, a first in history, bringing Sunni and Shi’a together in a way that had never been done, led this. In 2007, they had another “first”: the Common Word.
Hundreds of the most senior Muslim scholars signed a message to the leaders of the most significant Christian churches. Muslims and Christians, it said, were united on two solid principles – love of God, and love of the neighbour, and it called for dialogue on the basis of real commonalities at the highest levels. It received a resounding reception.
As one of the signatories, I travelled last week to Yale University for the first conference dedicated to the Common Word. I wondered, as I flew across the Atlantic, what I might find. Would this be an initiative that would go down in history: the first high-level, sustainable, interfaith discussion between the world’s two largest religious communities? Or would it be yet another “talking shop”? The stakes were high. If some of the highest religious authorities and intellectuals could not make progress, what hope was there for the laity?
There was a very particular specificity to the Yale conference: a strong evangelical component. Many Christian intellectuals argue that non-Christians can find salvation without accepting Christ. Not so for the evangelical movement; on the contrary, the basis of their movement is to proselytise to the “heathens” to save their souls.
This is somewhat different from the Muslim tradition, where there exists an urge to deliver the message, but it is less of an essential sacrament and more of a side effect of living a sacred life. Moreover, Islam admits possible salvation for those who do not believe in the Prophet Muhammad.
Throughout the conference, there was an underlying query on this point; in the midst of good interfaith relations, what possibilities were there for evangelicals to send missions to the Muslim world? At least one evangelical leader defended his participation on the basis that one could “bear witness” through dialogue. There were probably many who shared his view. (Though I suspect not all: Christian minorities within the Muslim world are usually the most avowed opponents of missionary activity. And that’s not surprising; they’ve been Christian for 2,000 years and don’t take well to being told they got it “wrong” by modern evangelical movements.)
None of these issues were resolved at Yale. And they weren’t meant to be. These were religious people; they weren’t interested in diluting their faiths. And in that, a type of sincerity emerged that was perhaps the greatest benefit of the initiative. That was combined with a healthy respect for each other as people who believed in a loving God and loving one’s neighbour.
Never in human history had that happened before. For that alone, the Common Word is significant – whether it stays as such is down to every faithful Muslim and Christian. But one thing is sure: it’s long overdue. The UAE can be proud that it was due in no small part to a Muslim scholar, Al Habib Ali al Jifri, who has found a home within its borders.
The Muslim and Christian delegations, represented by Prince Ghazi of Jordan, and Miroslav Wolf of the Yale Divinity School, ensured that this initiative did not come away without concrete achievements. A declaration affirmed the unity and absoluteness of God, and declared: “No Muslim or Christian should… tolerate the denigration or desecration of one another’s sacred symbols, founding figures, or places of worship.”
That was put to a vote – and unanimously accepted. That’s no small achievement. If the Common Word had achieved nothing else, it would have sufficed – but the conference opened up the possibility for much more in the future. Time will tell.
###
* Dr. H. A. Hellyer is director of the Visionary Consultants Group (www.visionaryconsultantsgroup.com) and a fellow of the University of Warwick. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
Source: The National, 2 August 2008, www.thenational.ae
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
Return to top
Afghanistan’s future depends on its people
Conor Foley
Brasília - I met “Zakia” in the restaurant of the United Nations compound in Kabul, partly because it was convenient and partly because there are still not that many public places for a western man to sit and talk to an Afghan woman alone.
Zakia (not her real name) is a former director of an Afghan non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Humanitarian Assistance for Women and Children in Afghanistan (HAWCA), established in January 1999. It started as a simple humanitarian assistance group, helping vulnerable women and children, but now lists its objectives as “promoting the role of women in society” and “supporting the reconstruction of the country”.
If Afghanistan has a future, it will be due to the efforts of people like Zakia who form part of a small but emerging civil society, determined to challenge the warlords and fundamentalists who still dominate the country’s official politics.
“We need peace,” says Zakia. “The Americans’ bombs are not the answer. The two sides will have to sit down and talk some day, so the only question is how many of us have to get killed before that happens.” I press her about whether she would accept a role for the Taliban in government and she paused before replying: “Yes, this would be a big price to pay, but if they lay down their guns and accept the constitution, why not? After all, people with the same attitudes are already in the government. What is happening at the moment is worse because while the conflict continues our whole society is being Talibanised and corrupted.”
Zakia has worked with a network of Afghan women’s groups and human rights organisations to press for legislative reforms, such as a law on ending violence against women. Along with the Afghan independent human rights commission, she was involved in a conference that drew on the experiences of a number of other countries with shari’a-based legal systems (meaning those which are based on Islamic principles of jurisprudence) to look at best practices for a new law on family relations.
She also lobbied against a proposal in a draft penal procedure code that would have introduced a lower age of criminal responsibility for girls than for boys. After a meeting with President Hamid Karzai, he refused to sign these discriminatory proceedings into law.
HAWCA has also helped to establish refuge centres for women escaping domestic violence – an enormously controversial issue in Afghanistan, where many judges and prosecutors still consider “running away from home” a criminal offence. It also participates in the Afghan women’s network and a network of women parliamentarians.
It runs education projects as well as health and childcare, counselling and protection, emergency response operations and support for income-generating activities. With its main office in Kabul, HAWCA also operates in seven other provinces in Afghanistan and with refugee groups across the Pakistan border in Peshawar.
Voices like Zakia’s are still comparatively isolated, but they are beginning to make themselves heard. In a country where girls are only beginning to receive an education again, it is not surprising that there are so few women professionals and decision-makers. This will take time to change and social attitudes will take even longer.
Afghanistan is a proud country, hospitable to guests, but has seen off many foreign invaders. Its people are as unlikely to be subdued by western bombs as they are to accept the imposition of what they see as alien values. Zakia stresses that she is a Muslim and a patriot who is as sickened at the corruption of true Islamic values by the fundamentalists as she is by the continuing destruction of her country by foreign forces.
Many western liberals seem to have a particular problem understanding people like Zakia, but the views that she expressed are representative of hundreds of conversations that I have had with Afghan friends and colleagues over the years. These express relief at the overthrow of the Taliban – and real gratitude to the international community for its initial intervention – tempered by frustration that the opportunity was not used to break the grip of the warlords and gangsters who have consolidated their position over the last six years.
More recently I have also felt a growing anger at the ineffectiveness of the international community’s assistance strategy and the inept and brutal conduct of its military campaign. There is still a window of opportunity to change the broad direction of western policy towards the country, but it is getting smaller by the day.
###
* Conor Foley is a humanitarian aid worker who has worked for a variety of human rights and humanitarian aid organisations. This abridged article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org. The full text can be found at www.guardian.co.uk.
Source: Guardian, 5 August 2008, www.guardian.co.uk
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
New German intercultural magazine goes beyond integration
Nimet Seker
Bonn, Germany - The entrance of the international newsagent at Cologne’s main station is a tangle of people and voices. The store sells an almost infinite range of newspapers and magazines from Germany and elsewhere. You have to know just what you’re looking for to find it here.
But one magazine stands out from the crowd: Mikses – the “magazine for intercultural matters”. Eighty-six high-gloss pages with professional photos, an unconventional layout and an interesting mix of issues draw the eye and awaken readers’ curiosity.
Reports on prominent figures, universities, writers, twin towns, and fashion designers – almost every subject is “Turkish”, as is the majority of the magazine’s staff.
So is it a hip young Turkish magazine? No. Mikses defines itself as a magazine for a new German generation, where various cultures are mixed and matched together. And these “mixes” are nothing exotic, but a perfectly normal part of everyday life.
The title story of the first issue sets the tone. In a ranking of the 30 “most important young new Germans”, Mikses presents “movers and shakers in Germany”. The names on the list include Feridun, Joy, Tarek and Aiman. Or Ikbal. “We think the German media need a new face,” says Ikbal Kilic, editor-in-chief and the woman behind Mikses, herself a member of what’s called the “second generation”.
The 30 young “new Germans” with intercultural identities are successful artists, television presenters, politicians and businesspeople. These people are not anonymous individuals on the margins of society; they have voices to raise and familiar faces.
The number one spot goes to the DJ and music producer Mousse T., pictured lounging on a hotel bed sporting a sly grin and an AC/DC t-shirt.
Mikses aims to present a wide-ranging and authentic picture of young Germans, addressing subjects such as real lives, politics, campus life and LeitKültür, a distinctly Turkish-flavoured play on the much-discussed German idea of a “defining culture”.
The magazine sees itself as an antidote to the country’s mass media, which tend to show only the extremes – integration problems experienced by “people with a background of migration”. Mikses doesn’t just want to be authentic and genuine. Mikses is like a glossy ad in praise of diversity.
There’s certainly no lack of provocative photos and writing: “Help, I have a background of migration!” writes one author of nominally German descent. And the feature article, “Meet Your Prejudice”, presents an anti-discrimination project at Malmö City Library, which loans out “living books” once a year, which are actually people from Germany’s minority groups. Borrowers get to keep the “living books”, an imam, for example, for 45 minutes – much longer than a normal encounter in everyday life.
In its second issue, Mikses turns the spotlight on “Little Tokyo” in Düsseldorf. The local Japanese community is described as a group of “high-class migrants”. Yet hardly any of the individuals featured speak German, not even the young people. Most of them attend Japanese schools rather than German ones.
Parallel societies, voluntary isolation, integration problems – the German media have few favourite terms when it comes to reporting on migrants. “I wouldn’t talk about a parallel society. The fact is, certain cultures live together in close concentration in certain areas. That isn’t necessarily negative,” says Kilic.
Elvin Türk, a staff editor at Mikses, sees the issue slightly differently: “It’s nothing negative that people come together in certain parts of town; that’s not what makes the parallels. It’s that they have their own infrastructure, their own schools and kindergartens. And they really can’t speak German.”
Bearing this “exception” in mind, Mikses doesn’t talk about integration, but about post-integration. The word “integration” sets up barriers that simply don’t exist in the young generation.
For the makers of Mikses, the hurdle of integration is well and truly in the past: young people drink beer with their doner kebabs and dance to Mustafa Sandal in German clubs. Encounters between different cultures are a matter of everyday life. But the rest of the German media barely reflect this normality.
“The media are always talking about integration, but where are the journalists with Turkish backgrounds? Where are they on the editorial boards? Integration has to work both ways. You have to create acceptance by becoming part of society, but you also have to be accepted,” says Kilic.
The German media don’t exclusively portray the reality in the country’s society, which makes them come across as “artificial,” she says. There are a few strong voices in the media, such as the feminist academic Necla Kelek, but the young generation finds them far from authentic. “I don’t know a single Turkish-German woman who feels represented by Ms. Kelek,” comments Kilic.
There is actually no shortage of German journalists from ethnic minorities. The question is where they work and what topics they cover. “As a Turkish-German journalist, you get pushed into the ethnic corner and all you get to write about is integration issues – there’s no way to escape the whole subject,” says Kilic, adding, “But we’re all capable of much more!”
###
* Nimet Seker is a freelance writer based in Germany. This article, translated from German, is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
Source: Qantara.de, 11 August 2008, www.qantara.de
Copyright permission is granted for publication.