Dear HumanDHS network friends
Please find below the Common Ground News Bulletin: 21-27 October 2008.
Kind regards
Brian Ward
Common Ground News Bulletin: 21-27 October 2008
Inside this edition 21 - 27 October 2008
Turkey and the EU: slowly but surely
by Liam Hardy
Liam Hardy, research assistant at the Turkish Business Roundtable (TUSIAD) in Washington, DC, considers the recent advancements Turkey has made and the obstacles it faces in its quest to join the EU.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 21 October 2008)
Better than a troop surge in Afghanistan
by Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer, author of A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It, outlines his suggestions for a change of course in Afghanistan and explains why a US troop surge in the country might not be the best way to win the war.
(Source: International Herald Tribune, 17 October 2008)
When did I become the “other”?
by Dilara Hafiz
Dilara Hafiz, co-author of The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook, speaks on the widespread misperception of Muslim Americans and explains why she’s responsible for speaking out against the current trend of religious prejudice.
(Source: altmuslim.com, 19 October 2008)
Islam in German schools
by Claudia Mende
Freelance writer Claudia Mende assesses Saphir, a textbook introduced in some schools in Germany, which “aims not at educating pupils to believe, but rather to make responsible decisions concerning faith”.
(Source: Qantara.de, 6 October 2008)
Female sportscaster in Gaza
by Olfat Haddad
Nelly Al-Masri is “a writer, an anchor, a producer, and arguably the most informed sports researcher in the Palestinian Territories”. Menassat correspondent Olfat Haddad explains how Al-Masri has managed to shatter the glass ceiling in a world of male sportscasters.
(Source: Menassat, 9 October 2008)
Featured Video
Richard Land and Ahmed Younis, members of the Leadership Group on the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project, appeared on Good Morning America Now’s “Focus on Faith” with Chris Cuomo.
Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Younis, Senior Analyst with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, discussed their involvement with the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project and the prospects for better U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
The interview aired on October 10, 2008 on ABC’s cable network, ABC News Now. It can be watched online at the Good Morning America Now website. To view, click here.
Click on the picture to the left to see a documentary about the US-Muslim Engagement project.
Turkey and the EU: slowly but surely
Liam Hardy
Washington, DC - When Turkey was granted official-candidate status for EU membership in 1999, neither the EU nor Turkey thought that the transition would be an easy or rapid one. And it has not been. Out of the 35 chapters - necessary benchmarks for accession determined by the EU – only six have been opened and only one, namely Science and Technology – has been completed.
Obstacles to Turkey’s accession as well as to the thawing of internal EU opposition to Turkey’s candidacy are gradually eroding, though about as slowly as a moving glacier.
A recent report by the Turkish Business Roundtable (TUSIAD) provides an exhaustive analysis of Turkey’s progress towards fostering “a deeper democracy, a more stable social structure, and a stronger economy”. The report outlines the reforms it would like to see percolated into Turkey’s society while providing a roadmap for continued progress towards accession.
The TUSIAD report highlights the parliamentary system, public administration, human rights and the judiciary as key areas of focus for developing the country’s democratic system further. Regarding social structure, emphasis is placed on education, labour market efficiency, gender equality and regional development. Finally, it says the economy could be strengthened through sustainable growth, production, competition, investment procedures, taming the informal economy and privatisation.
Recently, Turkey’s social security reform has been lauded, and the country has made great strides in creating an efficient online e-government system in the areas of health and pension benefits, education, legal services, transportation, commerce and tax collection. Improvements are also being made in the healthcare system, cultural heritage management and electoral procedures.
Human rights issues, a matter of concern for Europe, have seen improvement as well, although the report notes that sometimes “practice fails to follow legislation”, which has not yet been “internalised in the judiciary and administrative organisation.”
This became evident after it was revealed on 14 October that a leftist political activist died in prison after being tortured. The Turkish Justice Minister, ordering a full investigation into the incident, has promised appropriate punishment for the 19 perpetrators in accordance with Turkey’s official zero-tolerance policy for torture.
Much of what has been holding Turkey’s EU process back in addition to Turkey’s slow-moving reforms, though, has been the gradual weakening of Turkish-European public relations.
For one thing, eight out of 35 chapters of the negotiation process were halted in 2006 when Turkey refused to allow the use of its ports and airports by Greek Cypriot traffic. This followed the last-minute failure of the Annan Plan in 2004 that would have created a United Nations-backed Unified Cyprus Republic.
The current pace of the peace negotiations between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities provides much hope for Turkish accession to the European Union. On 13 October the two sides met for their fourth round of negotiations, and the prospects for a positive outcome are good.
European-Turkish public relations, however, have meanwhile deteriorated because of rhetoric in opposition to Turkey’s EU membership from French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the current EU president, and Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. Both European leaders have often expressed support for something akin to a “privileged partnership” status for Turkey in the EU, although the exact meaning of this arrangement remains unclear.
In fact, this status appears similar to Turkey’s current standing since it already benefits from unrestricted trade with EU member nations through a customs union agreement.
Also, Sarkozy’s proposal for a Mediterranean Union for countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea was originally interpreted by most Turks as an alternative for the EU to avoid Turkey’s eventual full membership. Turkey became part of this organisation when it was created in March of this year only after receiving several assurances from the EU that membership would not be in place of full EU membership.
Turks were again angered when a measure was proposed in France’s legislature that would have made a national referendum by the French public mandatory for EU candidate countries with a population more than 5 percent of the total EU population – a move that might have blocked Turkey’s entry. Fortunately for Turkey, this measure failed.
When hearing such negative rhetoric from Europe, Turks begin to doubt the sincerity of European leaders and become jaded about the accession process. Some Turks have even begun to accept the idea of maintaining the so-called privileged partnership status. Like Puerto Rico, a US territory, Turkey might hope to benefit from the trade relationship but remain politically disengaged and independent.
If the EU continues to come up with additional excuses to prolong accession, such as that of “enlargement fatigue” or the idea that it cannot absorb Turkey because it is still coping with the effects of the rapid absorption of some Eastern European countries, the public could eventually lose interest in EU accession for good. Therefore, if the European Union is truly serious about Turkey’s accession, it must make sure that those voices issuing support and encouragement are heard loudly and clearly.
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* Liam Hardy is a research assistant at the Turkish Business Roundtable (TUSIAD) in Washington, DC. To view the report mentioned in this article, please visit www.tusaid.us . This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 21 October 2008, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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Better than a troop surge in Afghanistan
Stephen Kinzer
Chicago, Illinois - Despite their differences over how to pursue the US war in Iraq, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama both want to send more American troops to Afghanistan. Both are wrong. History cries out to them, but they are not listening.
Both candidates would do well to gaze for a moment on a painting by the British artist Elizabeth Butler called “Remnants of an Army”. It depicts the lone survivor of a 15,000-strong British column that sought to march through 150 kilometres of hostile Afghan territory in 1842. His gaunt, defeated figure is a timeless reminder of what happens to foreign armies that try to subdue Afghanistan.
The McCain-Obama approach to Afghanistan, like much of US policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia, is based on emotion rather than realism. Emotion leads many Americans to want to punish perpetrators of the 11 September, 2001 attacks. They see war against the Taliban as a way to do it.
Suggesting that victory over the Taliban is impossible, and that the United States can only hope for peace in Afghanistan through compromise with Taliban leaders, has been taken as near-treason.
This knee-jerk response ignores the pattern of fluid loyalties that has been part of Afghan tribal life for centuries. Alliances shift as interests change. Warlords who support the Taliban are not necessarily enemies of the United States. If they are today, they need not be tomorrow.
In recent weeks, this elemental truth has begun to reshape debate over Western policy toward Afghanistan. Warlords on both sides met quietly in Saudi Arabia. The Afghan defence minister called for a “political settlement with the Taliban”. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates would not go that far, but said he might ultimately be open to “reconciliation as part of the political outcome”.
Gates, however, struck a delusionary note of “can-do” cheeriness by repeating the McCain-Obama mantra: more US troops can pacify Afghanistan.
Speaking days after a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the United States was caught in a “downward spiral” there, Gates asserted that there is “no reason to be defeatist or underestimate the opportunity to be successful in the long run”.
In fact, long-run success in Afghanistan – defined as an acceptable level of violence and assurance that Afghan territory will not be used for attacks against other countries – will only be possible with fewer foreign troops on the ground, not more.
A relentless series of US attacks in Afghanistan has produced “collateral damage” in the form of hundreds of civilian deaths, which alienate the very Afghans the West needs. As long as the campaign continues, recruits will pour into Taliban ranks. It is no accident that the Taliban has mushroomed since the current bombing campaign began. It allows the Taliban to claim the mantle of resistance to a foreign occupier. In Afghanistan, there is none more sacred.
The US war in Afghanistan also serves as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. It is attracting a new stream of foreign fighters into the region. A few years ago, these militants went to Iraq to fight the “Great Satan”.
Now they see the United States escalating its war in Afghanistan and neighbouring regions of Pakistan, and are flocking there instead.
Even if the United States de-escalates its war in Afghanistan, the country will not be stable as long as the poppy trade provides huge sums of money for violent militants. Eradicating poppies is like eradicating the Taliban: a great idea but not achievable.
Instead of waging endless spray-and-burn campaigns that alienate ordinary Afghans, the United States should allow planting to proceed unmolested, and then buy the entire crop. Some could be turned into morphine for medical use, and the rest destroyed. The Afghan poppy crop is worth an estimated $4 billion per year. That sum would be better spent putting cash into the pockets of Afghan peasants than firing missiles into their villages.
Deploying more US troops in Afghanistan will intensify this highly dangerous conflict, not calm it. Compromise with Al Qaeda would be both unimaginable and morally repugnant, but the Taliban is a different force.
Skilful negotiation among clan leaders, based on a genuine willingness to compromise, holds the best hope for Afghanistan. It is an approach based on reality, not emotion.
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* Stephen Kinzer is author of A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from International Herald Tribune.
Source: International Herald Tribune, 17 October 2008, www.iht.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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When did I become the “other”?
Dilara Hafiz
Phoenix, Arizona - Being the “other” is a fairly new concept for me. While I’ve never liked being referred to as “the other daughter”, I’m accustomed to the label of “the other Fed Fund trader”, “the other parent volunteer” or “the other Sunday School teacher”. And I’m certainly proud of the fact that I’ve never been “the other woman” or “the other wife”.
But do I want to be the “other” when it implies that I’m somehow less trustworthy, less American – even less human? I read Nicholas D. Kristof’s excellent editorial, “The Push to ‘Otherize’ Obama”, with equal parts horror and dismay. While I realise that politics is a dirty game, the latest dirty tactic of “turning the candidate into a Muslim, maybe even the Antichrist” strikes me as wrong on so many levels that I’m left speechless.
Now that I’ve taken a deep breath and digested the implications of the current social environment, I can’t afford to be speechless any longer. Being identified as a Muslim is now officially considered a smear. Why should I have to speak out against this new form of religious prejudice? Well, if I don’t, then I can’t blame anyone for misunderstanding me. And there’s plenty of wilful misunderstanding going around these days.
The human tendency to “otherise” those whom we fear is nothing new, historically speaking. We just have to examine our treatment of Native Americans, African-Americans, Japanese during World War II, Jews, Catholics, and each successive wave of immigrants – the list is a long one. So it seems that today it’s the turn of Muslims to receive this dubiously-preferential treatment – this time singled out as a religious group based upon the extremism of a few fanatics.
I am troubled by this push to single out Muslim Americans because it’s not being done to applaud our ingenuity or intelligence, but is rather based upon the notion that otherising us will make it easier to discriminate against us. If we’re not American enough, then we don’t deserve the civil liberties accorded to each citizen under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
In the past year of participating in book presentations associated with the publication of The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook, my teenagers and I have had the unique opportunity to field questions from a cross-section of Americans – from students to seniors, from religious youth groups to lawyers, from interfaith activists to cynics.
The number one question asked by my fellow Americans is always the same: “Why don’t Muslims speak out against or condemn the acts of 9/11?” Seven years later, this question remains the biggest complaint against Muslims. Irrespective of our continual response – “Muslims did speak out, you just never heard us” – what more can we do to convince the average American that Muslims did not condone 9/11, that Islam is a religion of peace, that Muslim Americans believe in democracy and civil rights for all people?
It’s clear that mainstream America hasn’t heard us, even though many of us continue to emphatically denounce 9/11. But we need to move beyond the definitions of who we are not in order to better articulate who we are.
More troubling is the latest round of e-mails that seek to invalidate any Muslim spokesperson based upon the vastly misunderstood notion of taqiyya, or self-protection. I’m a Muslim, and I had never heard this term until last year, when someone from the audience during a book presentation said, “I know you’re lying because your religion tells you to deceive non-Muslims until you’ve taken over the world.”
Hmm, where in the Qur’an is this claim made? The verse, “Whosoever denies having once believed, unless he is forced to do so… will suffer the wrath of God” (Qur’an 16:106), is twisted to support the claim that the Qur’an encourages Muslims to lie, though the intent of this verse clearly states that the act of concealing one’s belief in Islam is only permissible when one is under threat of harm.
If you Google this term, you’ll find a string of (anti-Muslim) websites which distortedly explain this concept in a manner intended to instil fear of all Muslims in the reader. Even Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica weakly define this term, but still imply a level of deception on the part of Muslims. Yet no Muslim I’ve encountered believes that their religion condones, let alone demands, mendacity in any form.
The mainstream media is largely silent on this topic. Maybe it hasn’t hit their radar yet. Maybe it’s just too confusing, especially to an outsider. Or maybe they’re still stuck on the “W” of journalism school (Who? What? When? Where? Why?). Instead of blaming Al Qaeda, somehow the entire Muslim population is in the cross-hairs. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to reduce the misconceptions about Islam that abound across America.
The excuse that “I’m not a scholar” or “I don’t know what to say” will no longer suffice. People are clamouring to hear from a Muslim – any Muslim – so speak up! Explain what little you know and admit what you don’t. The important thing is to begin the dialogue.
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* Dilara Hafiz is a retired investment banker, Sunday school teacher, interfaith activist and co-author of The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook along with her daughter, Yasmine, and son, Imran. This abridged article originally appeared in Altmuslim.com and is distributed with permission by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews). The full text can be found at www.altmuslim.com .
Source: Altmuslim.com, 19 October 2008, www.altmuslim.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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Islam in German schools
Claudia Mende
Bonn, Germany - Saphir, a textbook for Islamic religion classes, presents the fundamental issues of Islam in 15 chapters for fifth and sixth grade pupils. Themes include the concept of God, the Prophet Muhammad, and the structure of the Qur’an, as well as issues such as the rights of children and social responsibility.
Editions for grades seven to ten are currently being prepared. The graphic layout of Saphir is excellent. The textbook is part of an initiative to better educate Muslim students at Germany’s public schools about their Muslim faith.
Saphir stands at the forefront of contemporary religious education. For Islam in Germany, the new schoolbook is a step away from the fringes and into the mainstream of society.
The book “does not aim to educate pupils to believe, but rather to make responsible decisions concerning faith”, stressed Harry Harun Behr from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Behr, a German convert to Islam, teaches aspiring religion teachers at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Islamic Religious Education.
He is one of the authors of the teaching plan for classes in Islam at the Bavarian model schools in Erlangen, Bayreuth, Fürth, Nuremberg and, since the beginning of this school year, also in Munich.
Behr maintains that classes in Islam at school should encourage a “critical distance to one’s own religion”. The university lecturer feels that a literal understanding of the Qur’an as an instruction manual is “not a sustainable model”.
He regards the Qur’an as a literary text with a historical point of origin and development.
Islam as a regular subject at German public schools has, until now, only taken place on a trial basis. According to Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the German Constitution, Muslims have a right to religious education for their children under the supervision of the state, just as Christians do.
Yet for many decades, this right has not been implemented due to the lack of suitable partners on the Muslim side.
Since 1999, North Rhine-Westphalia has offered Islamic instruction in approximately 140 schools to some 10,000 Muslim pupils. However, the Islamic instruction does not correspond to religion courses as prescribed by the German Constitution. Such a course curriculum is only now being prepared in collaboration with Islamic associations.
Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate have had trial programs in elementary and high schools. As of last year, the state of Schleswig-Holstein has been testing Islamic education with a large measure of confessional participation. Since 2003, Bremen has developed its own concept for courses on Islam in public schools.
The model pursued in Berlin remains controversial, as here religious instruction is taught at around 30 public schools under the sole supervision of the Islamic Federation. The state of Berlin has no control over what is taught.
The Islamic Federation reputedly maintains contacts with Milli Görüs, an organisation under surveillance by the German security services. Critics claim that the religious instruction offered by the Islamic Federation does not comply with the educational goals of promoting responsibility and independent thinking among pupils.
In all of the other German states, the course curriculum is being developed by teams of experts and Muslim associations under the coordination of the education and cultural affairs authorities.
In March 2008, the German Conference on Islam under the chairmanship of Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble called for a comprehensive introduction of the teaching of the Islamic religion in public schools in the German language. Educational experts have stressed that the teaching of Islam in German by teachers trained at German universities would serve to promote integration.
By contrast, no one really knows for certain what is being taught at the religious schools set up in various mosques. Typically, students there merely recite passages from the Qur’an without any critical commentary.
Teachers of Islam at public schools, on the other hand, should teach an enlightened form of Islam, tailored to conditions in Germany.
The response of Muslim parents to Islam classes at school has been generally positive. They see the new school subject as recognition of their cultural background by the majority culture.
Yet, what is lacking most of all are the religion teachers. Some estimates predict that it could take up to ten years before a sufficient number of qualified teachers are available. At present, there are only approximately 150 teachers (80 of which are in North Rhine-Westphalia) in the whole of Germany for an estimated 750,000 Muslim pupils. At least ten times as many teachers are required.
Only universities in Münster, Osnabrück, and Erlangen offer programs to train religion teachers in Islam. As a result, it will take quite some time before courses in Islam are part of the normal curriculum at public schools throughout the country.
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* Claudia Mende is a freelance writer. This article, translated from German, is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from Qantara.de.
Source: Qantara.de, 6 October 2008, www.qantara.de
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
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Female sportscaster in Gaza
Olfat Haddad
Gaza City - She is a writer, an anchor, a producer, and arguably the most informed sports researcher in the Palestinian Territories. And she is the first of a kind.
35-year-old Nelly Al-Masri has spent the last seven years honing her skills as a sports journalist in the company of an old boys’ network of exclusively male sportscasters. Al-Masri says she has no regrets.
It is her love for sport itself that had allowed her to shatter the glass ceiling.
“I used to play volleyball with the Al-Ahli Palestinian club in Gaza in 1996 while I was still at university. I was a member of the first female group that played sports, knowing that our customs frown upon women playing sports.”
Her career as a sports reporter was not always an easy one and when she entered the field in 2001, her male colleagues in the Gaza Strip were less than encouraging.
But with three sisters who are also very active in sports and parents who pushed her to excel as a reporter, Al-Masri was able to ignore the criticism from the male sports journalists.
“I disregarded what they said to me, and in a year’s time I quickly moved from reporter to news editor at the radio station Sawt al-Hurriyeh (Voice of Freedom) in Gaza.”
She continued to move up the ranks, in large part because her peers saw the talent and diligence she put into her reporting. A position as an anchor for a sports show on a local radio station soon followed.
In 2002, Al-Masri attended the Al-Madar Centre for Information and Media Studies in Gaza to improve her skill-set.
“I love radio but I had to leave and move on to being trained in print and other media forms in Palestine”, she told Menassat.
But there was also a realisation that she had to keep honing her skills – perhaps more so than her male colleagues.
“I feel I have a great responsibility to the field of sports in Palestine, and on another level I feel that I have to enhance my knowledge of sports generally to keep up with my more respected colleagues”, she said.
Of course, the focus of most of the media in the Palestinian Territories has been on politics and humanitarian affairs, and it is the road chosen by most of the students coming out of the journalism schools in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
It has made Al-Masri even more determined to distinguish herself in the sports field.
“I gained this passion after I attended the second media forum for Arab female sports journalists, held in Cairo in 2005. I met Arab journalists there from all around the Arab world. I then got in contact with Asharq Alawsat, a newspaper based in Qatar, and I began publishing a series of articles about Palestinian sports and female soccer”.
The articles gained her a solid audience and provided her with an opportunity to attend the West Asian Games in 2005 in Doha. The Sports Journalists Association in Palestine then nominated her as the media representative for the female Palestinian football team, which participated in the first Arab Football Tournament for women in Alexandria, Egypt in April 2006.
Even though there has been resistance by her colleagues, Al-Masri said that she has also had a great deal of valuable advice from male broadcasters along the way.
As for women’s sports in Palestine, “there has been a more positive atmosphere for women to advance in most sports, both in the schools and outside. We’ve fielded teams that have participated in Arab and international tournaments, but they need more moral and financial support”.
Her biggest project has been a study of women’s sports in Gaza from the 1950 to date, which she said was the first of its kind ever conducted.
Like all Gazans, Al-Masri too is affected in her work by the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
“The blockade and the closure of the checkpoints have greatly affected my work. I had to cancel plans to participate in international workshops and conferences to exchange information and represent Palestine.”
But the internal strife between the feuding Hamas and Fatah parties has taken its toll on sports too.
“I hope all the branches of the Palestinian Sports Journalists Association will soon be united”, she said.
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* Olfat Haddad is a correspondent for Menassat. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from Menassat.
Source: Menassat, 9 October 2008, www.menassat.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.