A rchive Date
[ 22-05-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Palestine ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
Muslims can no longer keep silent
By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun
May 22, 2003
In June, 2002, some weeks after violence between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military peaked in the West Bank town of Jenin, an urgent appeal was published in the newspaper Al Quds in Jerusalem.
The appeal read, "We call upon the parties behind military operations targeting civilians in Israel to reconsider their policies and stop driving our young men to carry out these operations. Suicide bombings deepen the hatred and widen the gap between the Palestinian and Israeli people. They destroy the possibilities of coexistence in two neighbouring states. These bombings do not contribute to freedom and independence."
It concluded, "Pushing the area toward an existential war between the two peoples living in the Holy Land will lead to destruction for the whole region. We do not find any logical, human, or political justification for this end result."
There were 58 brave and honest Palestinian men and women who signed this appeal. They included Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem representative and president of Al Quds University, and Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, the widely respected female member of the Palestinian Legislative Assembly and human rights activist.
The recent spate of suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Casablanca, Morocco formed the bookends of the series of suicide bombings in Israel to coincide with the first meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas as they sat down last Saturday to discuss the U.S. "road map" for final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
SUBVERT THE PROCESS
The purpose of these lethal and terrifying bombings is clear and beyond debate.
It is, as the Al Quds appeal indicated, to subvert any promise of peace and accommodation between Israelis and Palestinians, between Jews and Muslims.
The unsettled political situation and unending conflict in the Holy Land also serves the larger ambitions of Muslim fascists striving for power - which they acquired for a while in Afghanistan - to construct an ideologically pure Islamist society of their own imaginings.
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization constitute the core contingent of contemporary Muslim fascism and international terrorism. But their supporters, sympathizers and fellow travellers are spread far and wide, while they recruit their foot soldiers among alienated and angry Muslims from societies burdened with grievances, inequities and acute sense of failure in providing for social justice and economic well-being.
Muslim fascists, as were their counterparts in Europe between the two world wars in the last century, are a tiny minority. Yet they have flourished, as did European fascists, by drawing upon support of powerful patrons such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Their religious establishments have promoted across the Muslim world the toxic brew of Wahhabism - a totalitarian ideology of medieval origin set against the modern values of democracy, liberalism and secularism in the West - as Islam.
In Islam, unlike Roman Catholicism, there is no central authority and, consequently, there is no one among Muslims who may speak for all who profess Islam.
Nevertheless, an overwhelming majority of Muslims share in a common understanding of Islam as the final divine revelation of peace and coexistence among people, and that any rendition violating this life-giving and life-sustaining message is un-Islamic.
BIGOTRY AND VIOLENCE
For Muslims troubled by the perils of Muslim fascism, and by the extent to which their faith and culture have been abused by bigotry and violence, the time is now long gone for remaining silent.
Muslims around the world need to embrace the appeal of those brave and honest Palestinians speaking out against suicide bombings directed against Israelis and for a just peace, and then take steps to drain the bitterness in the hearts of two peoples contending for land both consider holy.
They can begin by acknowledging without any ambiguity, or delay, that Jews have rights to a secure state in the Holy Land, and Jerusalem is as central to the faith of Jews as Mecca is central to the faith of Muslims.
Muslims know there is much troubled history in the Holy Land.
They cannot, however, allow peace to be held hostage any longer to this history, nor remain silent while fascists among them exploit the troubles of the Holy Land for their violently bigoted purpose.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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