[wvns] Islam In Western Mirror
Islam In Western Mirror
By Dr Nasir Khan
Countercurrents.org
Present-day images of Muslims and Islam in Western
media vary considerably. However, since the collapse
of the Soviet Union the general drift of Western
concerns has been to portray Islam as the main enemy
of the West and the Muslim world as a hotbed of
terrorism that threatens Western civilisation and its
democratic values. Thus in the present-day hegemonic
world order -- under which all norms of civilised
behaviour in the conduct of foreign policy have been
discarded by the Bush Administration and its allies in
London and Tel Aviv -- Muslims are associated with
terrorism. We have seen over the last few years the
expansion of President Bush's destructive war, the
inhuman treatment of captive population of Iraq and
Afghanistan, rampant abuse of prisoners from Muslim
countries by American and British forces, total
indifference towards the human rights of prisoners of
war or of those suspected of resisting or opposing the
American occupation of their countries and false
propaganda to cover up the real objectives and crimes
against humanity of the neocon rulers in Washington
and London.
Needless to say, the so-called `Islamic challenge' is
based on assumptions that have no basis in reality.
They misrepresent, distort and mislead rather than
enlighten and inform. Over the last fifteen years a
number of publications have appeared that have borne
sensational titles like `Sword of Islam', `The Islamic
Threat', `The Roots of Muslim Rage', `Islam's New
Battle Cry' and `What went wrong with Islam?'. They
reveal the sort of preconceived image of Islam their
writers had intended to convey to their readers.
According to such projections, Islam is a challenge to
Western values as well as to West's economic and
political interests. But in view of the real power
wielded by the West in general and America in
particular throughout the Middle East and beyond, the
so-called `threat of Islam' is quite groundless.
But right-wing political manipulators and Christian
fundamentalists can very easily provoke major crises
between the Muslim world and the West; we have only to
recall the case of the cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad. The real aim of some Danish and Norwegian
right-wing newspapers to publish these cartoons was to
provoke hostile reactions from Muslims and thus cause
more bitterness and resentment between Muslims and
Christians. They tried to cover up their anti-Islamic
campaign behind the smokescreen of the argument that
publishing the cartoons was a demonstration of the
West's freedom of expression. They were xenophobic,
racist and disrespectful of immigrant cultures in
Europe and the Islamic culture in particular. How
could hurting the feelings of over one billion Muslims
was to serve the interests of free Press, freedom of
expression or civil liberties? An anti-Islam
fundamentalist Christian by the name of Mr Selbekk,
the Norwegian editor of Magazinet reprinted the
cartoons which were first published in Denmark. He was
asked if he would also publish any cartoons that
insulted Jesus, said: No. Thus this gentleman's
vaunted ideal of `freedom of expression' was limited
to insulting the Prophet Muhammad and obviously did
not extend to insulting the gods, prophets and
spiritual avatars of any other major religion.
However, it is important to look at the strategic
goals of such editors and publishers. They did succeed
in their objective, which was to cause maximum
provocation to Muslims worldwide and to create an
atmosphere of contempt and hatred towards them among
the followers of other religions. Muslims were
predictably and understandably offended and their
reactions led to some horrible incidents in various
parts of the globe. What those who reacted violently
did not realise was that they had fallen in the trap
of anti-Muslim mischief-mongers, who, through
provocation had achieved their goal. Now the stage was
set to repeat the old charge: Muslims were fanatics,
volatile and irrational — they were `terrorists'! The
divide between `us' and `them' as cultural opposites
was reinforced and widened.
The anti-Muslim media keep on churning out the common
stereotypes that portray Muslims, compared to
Westerners, as more prone to conflict and violence.
These media publish accounts of conflicts in the
Muslim countries as self-evident truths to reinforce
the image. There is a general tendency to oversimplify
or ignore altogether diverse trends and complex
socio-economic factors that lead to instability and
conflicts in various Muslim countries. The
explanations offered and conclusions drawn sometimes
are based on implicit, but more often, explicit
assumptions about the superiority of Western,
`Judaeo-Christian' culture, while the Islamic world is
thought to be an epicentre of brutality and
disharmony.
A very common stereotype in the Western media is that
Islamic countries are inherently prone to violence,
fanaticism, medieval ideas and prejudices. This means
that Islam, both as a religion and as a cultural
influence, is to bear the responsibility for all such
regional ills. The West is the harbinger of sweetness
and light (but occasionally also darkness and misery),
peace and civility (but occasionally predatory wars
and barbarism), rationality and open-mindedness (but
occasionally irrationality, racism and prejudice, and
always is focused on its own interests). All those who
have taken the trouble to look at the last few
centuries' history of Western colonialism, extending
from the time of the so-called `discoveries' of
America by Columbus in 1492 and of India by Vasco de
Gama in 1498 by sea routes, the `discovery' of Africa
by the European for slave trade show the `noble' hands
of Western nations that were extended to the people of
Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia have left their
marks on every continent. We cannot go into historical
details here. But the global expansion of Western
colonialism is the story of plunder and destruction
across continents. No doubt, the seeds of Western
civilisation were sown in this way. Within Western
societies, the internal conflicts, violence and wars
present us with a gory history. This superior culture
when seen in the limited sphere of geopolitics and
international relations in the last one hundred years
only leaves a legacy of two World Wars, more wars
(Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), invasions and
coups (Guatemala, Grenada, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia,
Chile, Argentina, Congo, southern Africa),
concentration camps, racist massacres undertaken on a
large scale by the flag-bearers of Western
civilisation.
It is obvious that cultural differences between
nations and peoples of the world are a fact of
history. And in this context generalising about
cultural differences is unavoidable. But in no way can
such differences be equated with mutual exclusiveness
or inevitable hostility between different cultures.
Where the initial instinct is not to enter into an
anthropological or historical study of comparative
cultures, but rather to foment strife and hatred
between nations and religions for ulterior motives the
consequences can be disastrous. Let us take the events
in the aftermath of the bombing of Oklahoma City in
the United States on 19 April 1995. The media rushed
to spread rumours that a `Middle Eastern man' [i.e. a
Muslim Arab] was responsible for the carnage. As a
result Muslims throughout the United States were
targeted for physical abuse, rough treatment and
social ostracism. Their mosques were desecrated,
Muslim women ere harassed and cars belonging to
`Middle Easterns' damaged. A British newspaper Today
published on its front page a frightening picture of a
fireman carrying the burnt remains of a dead child
under the headline `In the name of Islam'. Identifying
the perpetrator of such a reprehensible act alone
would not be sufficient; Islam also had to be brought
in to ignite the communal passions of people against
members of another faith. However, it soon became
evident that the bomber was a fair-haired American
soldier, a decorated Gulf War (1991) veteran. The
religion of this right-wing terrorist was not Islam
but Christianity. But no one in either American or
British media labelled him a `Christian terrorist' or
apologised to Muslims for the wrongs done to them.
Once again the freedom to tell the truth and report
events fairly had taken a back seat.
The second instance is the 11 September 2001 attack on
the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon by a few
persons, most of whom came from the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, a close ally of America. They saw the policies
pursued by the US in the Middle East and its support
for the anachronistic rule by the House of Saud as the
stumbling block towards a fair social order in their
country as well as the rest of the Middle East. No
matter what the nature of their grievances, I regard
this attack terribly wrong. It provided ammunition to
the neocons and right-wing fanatics in Washington to
unleash the reign of terror, war, death and
destruction in the Middle East and the petroleum
regions in the general vicinity. At the same time, we
ask a simple question: What had these bombings to do
with millions of ordinary Muslim citizens of Europe
and America? The answer is: nothing whatsoever. We
witnessed that they were victimised everywhere by many
white Westerners in the most grotesque and despicable
ways.
During my stay in Europe for more than four decades, I
have become acutely aware that the negative images of
Islam and Islamic civilisation need a serious
historical analysis for general readers as well as
academic scholars that enables us to rise above
oft-repeated and worn-out clichés of media and
partisan scholarship and thus show the facts of the
problematic relations between the two world religions
and their civilisations. My book Perceptions of Islam
in the Christendoms (2006) deals these themes and
issues. It is clear that both Islam and the West
suffer from the perceptual problems of adversary
relationship going far back in history. Their mutual
perceptions have been distorted by religious dogmas,
political developments and traditional prejudices. If
we take a look at the history of European colonial
expansion in Americas, Australia and in the East
(China, India, the Middle East and North Africa, etc.)
the old balance of power between the East and the West
had changed. The colonial power over other nations
also strengthened the collective consciousness of the
industrial West, or its assumption that it was more
powerful and therefore superior to the rest of the
world. The colonised and subjugated people also
started to perceive the West as materially,
culturally, and morally superior. It is true the West
was superior in producing machines, modern weaponry
and efficient armies to invade and subjugate other
countries of the world. This made Western nations more
powerful, but that did not mean they were morally or
intellectually superior. But the subjugated races were
not in a position to advance such challenging views.
In such uneven power relations under colonialism no
genuine communication was possible. The same is true
of the current neo-colonial war in Iraq by the Bush
Administration to achieve full control over the oil
resources and assert political hegemony over the
entire Middle East.
The Western ways to see Islam as a monolithic
religious and political force is against all
historical facts and contemporary political realities.
Islam is not a monolithic force; the diversity within
the Islamic world is wider than most Westerners think.
Within three decades after the death of the Prophet
Muhammad, Muslim community split into Sunni and Shia
factions following a civil war. This division proved
to be permanent, and further divisions within the two
main branches have characterised Islamic faith and
polity for fourteen centuries. The spread of Islam
followed different paths in different countries and
regions of the world. At present over one billion
people of all races, languages, nationalities and
cultures are Muslims. Their socio-cultural conditions
as well as their doctrinal affiliations show much
diversity and complexity. What this means is that
Islam as a universal religion, like Christianity, is
not a monolithic entity; this is despite the fact that
Muslims share some fundamental beliefs in One God and
His revelations through the prophets.
However, historical and religious traditions and myths
have a life of their own. Once they have become part
of a culture they continue to shape and restructure
the collective consciousness of vast populations. The
anti-Islamic tradition in the Christendoms has a long
historical pedigree and it continues to be a dynamic
factor affecting and determining international
relations. The study of history helps us to see facts
in their historical evolutionary process and thus
lighten the cultural baggage that has often poisoned
relationships between the two religious communities.
An honest and balanced study of the past and the
present-day geopolitical realities of the global
hegemonic world order means that we no longer have to
passively accept distorted legacies and close our eyes
to what is happening in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan,
and also in Pakistan at the hands of the United
States, its allies and the marionette Muslim ruling
cliques.
The question of `Islamic terrorism', the denial of
women's rights under Islam and the alleged
irreconcilability of Islamic and Western values appear
all the time in the Western media. But such
accusations reveal a deep-rooted ignorance and
confusion. They have no relationship to reality. We
should bear in mind that a follower of a religion is
not necessarily a true representative or spokesperson
of that religion. Neither can the individual acts of
terrorism, state-terrorism or superpower-terrorism be
imputed to religion whether it be Christianity,
Judaism, Islam or Hinduism. If an individual or group
from a Muslim community resorts to extremism in
political or religious spheres for whatever reason or
commits a crime, the general tendency is to hold the
whole Islamic tradition responsible. What happens if
someone from Western culture or a Christian right-wing
extremist resorts to violence or commits a crime? He
is held responsible as an individual and no one blames
the Western culture or Christianity for his actions.
Do we not have some powerful leaders in the West who
are Christian right-wingers and are responsible for
the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslim men,
women and children? Does anyone blame Christianity for
that? We ask these questions and expect our readers to
ask these questions and then try to find some answers.
With regard to women, the Qur'an gave them legal
rights of inheritance and divorce in the
seventh-century, which Western women would not receive
until the 19th or 20th century. There is nothing in
Islam about obligatory veiling of women or their
seclusion, either. In fact, such practices came into
Islam about three generations after the death of the
Prophet Muhammad under the influence of the Greek
Christians of Byzantium. In fact there has been a high
degree of cultural interaction between Christians and
Muslims from the beginning of Islamic history.
The fundamental values of fraternity, respect, justice
and peace are common in all the major civilisations
and the five major religions. To call democracy `a
Western value' is simply bizarre; the monarchical
system prevailed in Europe where the kings held
absolute powers under the divine right to rule. The
evolution of democratic and constitutional form of
government took shape much later. Contrary to what the
media and populist politicians assert, there is
nothing in Islam that goes against democracy and
democratic values.
Nasir Khan, Dr Philos, is a historian and a peace
activist. He is the author of Development of the
Concept and Theory of Alienation in Marx's Writings
and more recent Perceptions of Islam in the
Christendoms: A Historical Survey. He has written
numerous articles on international affairs and the
issues of human rights. He has his own blog at
http://nasir-khan.blogspot.com
through which he can be contacted.
*********************************************************************
WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE
To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
Need some good karma? Appreciate the service?
Please consider donating to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@yahoo.com for instructions.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:wvns-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:wvns-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
No comments:
Post a Comment