Tweet me!| There are between 1.3 and 1.66 billion Muslims in the world compared to 2.1 to 2.2 billion Christians. When America says it is at war, as President Obama has just said, it is quick to say it is not at war with Islam but with its terrorists, and yet the impression grows exponentially every time America says it is at war that it is indeed at war with Islam. |
Cordoba Mosque - Southern Spain
Impressions count. America must redress this volatile impression. Nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we are not wanted, does not count as doing something about this impression. It exacerbates the problem simply because we are uninvited and unwanted and in denial about being unwanted.
And even that denial is not trusted, because it is far from innocent. We are in denial because it suits us, because bankers are making fortunes on war and contractors are helping us fight our wars and growing rich doing it. And none of this is lost on Muslims. They did, after all, invent modern banking.
But there is something we can do, something simple and honest, something in concert with our founding ideals. We can acknowledge out of a reading of history that Islam is as much threatened by fundamentalist terrorists as America is. And it always has been. And we can go even further by acknowledging that policy agendas driven by fundamentalists whether in Saudi Arabia or Israel or the United States amount to the tail wagging the dog and the dog drinking out of the toilet.
To the degree that honesty is hard such a transformation in our approach would be hard, but without it we have no authentic basis for speaking to Islam, no credibility, because we continue to demonstrate day after day that we lack an understanding of the history, the challenges and the triumphs of more than 1.3 billion human beings.
There were times in Muslim history—in Abbasid Baghdad, in Ottoman Istanbul and Umayyad Cordoba—when tolerance allowed civilization to soar to unprecedented heights. In Spain the time was called the Convivencia. It came to life under the Umayyad caliphs in Cordoba before Muslim Spain was fragmented. And it came to grief there. When this magnificent caliphate was threatened it called upon Berber mercenaries from North Africa for help. They helped. But they got a taste of the good life, and later the Berbers came back under their leaders, the Almoravids, to destroy the caliphate and the Convivencia. They imposed their special brand of fundamentalism, not unlike the Taliban’s or Al Qaeda’s. Maria Rose Menocal tells this tragic story in her Ornament of the World.
In all likelihood the Renaissance would not have happened were it not for a golden age of Arab science, mathematics and translation. This story is still unfolding as lost history at MuslimHeritage.com. But once again fundamentalist thinking, the impulse to level civilization with a handful of simplicitudes, played a destructive role. Our own response to 9/11 is essentially fundamentalist. By saying we are at war we have given credibility to criminals. We have turned them into a nation, and so they will become as long as we pursue this dog-eat-dog approach. Perhaps the truth lies elsewhere. Perhaps we would rather be at war than address our broken society and the criminal neglect of our people by Wall Street corporados. Perhaps this war against terrorism suits our briefcase criminals just fine.
What is difficult to understand about this? Perhaps it is hard for us to appreciate because we have so often allied ourselves with corrupt Muslim leaders who have not shared their wealth with their people, just as Wall Street now refuses to share its wealth with the rest of us. Perhaps it is because Christian fundamentalists in our midst have bullied us into thinking that to befriend Israel and defend her is to make enemies of Muslims. This is a particularly hideous canard because historically Christendom has done far more harm to Jews than has Islam.
The most accomplished and enviable civilizations built in the name of Islam have been repeatedly toppled by Muslim fanatics. But lest we think that Islam has cornered the market on such perversity we should remember that Christian crusaders murdered thousands of Jews and sacked Christian Byzantium. We should remember that Spanish conquistadors slaughtered native Americans and destroyed civilizations greater than their own. And we should remember that to this day in North America we are crushing Native American culture.
All this was wrought by fanatics. They are the scourge of civilization, and we are in fact in the same boat as Islam when it comes to dealing with them. Unless our policies reflect this fact, the impression that we are at war with Islam will continue to grow and become ever more dangerous.
Our task, even if we were to rise to the call of history, would be complicated by leadership in the Arab world that is even more oligarchic than our own. It is the kind of callous leadership that breeds revolt. Thanks to the teachings of Saudi Arabian madrasahs, there are plenty of fundamentalists to lead such revolts. What the Arabs desperately need is more leaders like Abd el Kader, the 19th Century Algerian emir who fought heroically against French colonization and was powerfully influenced by the enlightened teachings of the Sufi Ibn al Arabi.
We are in fact at war with ourselves because we refuse to accept that our response to Muslim terrorism is driven by our own fanatics.
Djelloul Marbrook - Algerianamericans.com - January. 13, 2010
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a guest
said:
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Terrorists ? You make me, harbour them, suppport them, protect them and defend them, against those in Algeria or rather in Kabylia who fight them. The proof is in the pudding - AL-Qaeda is your new lover.! Long live Kabylia |
a guest
said:
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Cesure me ! Impostures - You call yourselves Arabes, you speak Arbic and practice arab religion - You ignore your own identity, religion and language. It is a shame... A blasphamy to the god who created you, by rejecting whho he made you t be,or did he made you to that low... You can keep kissng Egyptian feet, and begg them to tell you what you are. Well they tell you what you are not ! As to America, yo are te shame for this land and liberty. No need to mascard yourself, and I am here to tell... that Algeria is a franco-egyptian fabrtication,for whc you neither fought or sacrificed... just impostures... |
a guest
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Fanatics threaten islam, too True, very true, the fanatics do; however, that being agreed with, terror is WRITTEN in the koran unlike the New Testament. Do not forget the moors were chased out of Spain which was a good thing. Where are Jews and Christians treated well in the islamic world? No where. Islam is problematic and should be routed of Europe and America. The day will come again. Tchuss |
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