Inter-faith conflicts need to be rejected

[Shooting Star]

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

Clash of Civilizations has long been a controversial thesis. Many books, articles and reviews have been written to disprove the contention by Samuel Huntington that twenty first century would beset with conflicts arising not from differing ideologies but from differing cultures. Francis Fukuyama's End of History heralding the ultimate victory of liberal democratic capitalism displaced Huntington's thesis in the intellectual world. But the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and President George W Bush's doctrine of preemption explosively illustrated through the invasion of Iraq reinstated the Clash of Civilizations thesis in the intellectual narratives of the neo-cons and in the actions of the Bush administration.

President Obama changed the US policy of unilateralism to multilateralism, by definition inclusive, to listen not only to the traditional allies but to other points of view with the exception of those who preach violence in the name of "purification" of a peaceful religion and establishing religion based global governance. In a recent address to the West Point military academy President Obama outlining his first National Security Strategy warned of extremists' efforts to ignite a war between America and Islam, and, he said "Muslims are part of our national life, including those who serve in our United States Army".

The 2010 NSS expunged terms such as 'Islamic extremism' and 'Muslim fundamentalism' from the US government lexicon and the US has just decided to join the Alliance of Civilization that had a meeting at Rio de Janeiro a few days back.

Iranian President Mohammed Khatemi proposed Dialogue among Civilizations in 1998 and Spanish and Turkish Prime Ministers proposed an Alliance of Civilizations in 2005 with the aim of forging international actions against extremism through intercultural and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation. To carry on the initiative UN Secretary General Kofi Anan assembled a High Level Group(HLG) of eminent persons HLG submitted a report that, interalia, concluded "politics, not religion, is at the heart of growing Muslim-Western divide". The report emphasized the urgent necessity of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report further added "assertions that Islam is inherently violent and related statements by some political and religious leaders in the West*including the use of terms such as Islamic terrorism and Islamic Fascism*have contributed to an alarming increase in Islamophobia which further exacerbates Muslim fears of the West"

The establishment of the Alliance of Civilizations (AOC) was necessary because, as of Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation cogently describes that "the general perception in the West is that Muslims are fanatical, violent and intolerant while Muslims in the Middle East see Westerners as selfish, immoral, greedy, violent and intolerant."(The false promise of the Alliance of Civilizations). This perception, however distorted, is validated by many opinion polls taken in the US and Europe attesting to the discomfort felt by average Westerner in having a Muslim as a neighbor.

Reservation shown by some European Union members to take in Turkey as one of them is a clear political statement. Addressing the Rio conference of AOC UN secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that three quarters of major conflicts in the world have cultural dimension and called for accelerated steps to bridge the divides. He, however, cautioned that AOC is a process and a work in progress. In other words it will take time to heal the wound inflicted by unwise muscular response by the Bush administration to unseat a tyrant that previous US administrations had been mentor to not because of regime change but because very little concrete fruits of "victory" reached the people who were liberated. Besides though AOC has now 100 members( US being the latest member) the firm belief in the minds of the West of millennial struggle between Islamic and Judeo-Christian civilizations, theorized by historian Bernard Lewis, is still deeply anchored in the minds of the West.

Despite current economic downturn West retains its position as knowledge-based society with possibility of outdistancing any nation or nations attempting to upstage its leading position in global political structure. At West Point President Obama made it clear, as did Nobel laureate Paul Krugman in one of his writings, that education must remain the foundation of power because in this "age knowledge is capital and the market place is global?.American innovation must be the foundation of American power*because at no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy". Therefore if the Western universities are to be regarded as citadel of learning it would naturally follow that students from Muslim countries should go in large number to these institutions to acquire knowledge enabling them to compete in a global market place.

The Chinese and the Indians realized this earlier than many. So one finds very large number of students from these countries studying in the US educational institutions. Given the very stringent visa regulations imposed by developed countries for entry of Muslims in general one wonders whether the Islamic world is not suffering for the crimes committed by al-Qaeda ad its affiliates not only relating to entry but also of Muslim immigrants living in the developed countries.

Impact of Huntington's civilizational concept on Western mind is undeniable. He firmly believed that the failure of democracy in most Islamic countries is due to Islamic culture. He also refused to believe that the Muslims could be westernized due to primordial tendencies of 'Islamic culture' disregarding the fact that second or third generation Muslim immigrants adopt more the cultural traits of their countries of domicile than the countries from where forefathers had come or were invited to come to shore up an European economy in tatters after the Second World war. He targeted Islamic and Chinese civilizations as enemies of the West and demanded that their development and military power be limited.

Fortunately for the Muslim world many Western leaders realizing the mistake of taking on a religion instead of some deviants helped in starting a dialogue between Islamic and the Christian worlds. But if the media coverage on the Rio conference of Alliance of Civilization is any indication then one can safely assume that the necessity for interaction with the Islamic world is yet to catch the imagination of the people in developed countries.

One of the stumbling blocks is the unfettered conviction of successive US Presidents that global peace and tranquility can only be guaranteed by the US masculinity as proved again and again from Monroe doctrine to the 20th century great wars. A breach in this conviction is that the demise of communism and disappearance of Soviet Union occurred not due to US military power but because of the inherent weakness of the communist system. Still there are influential quarters in the developed world who believes that the single most significant factor in the repeated victory of the West in global conflicts has been due to the ruthlessness and finality with which the West has persecuted its military campaigns.

Western hardliners believe that only options facing Islam is either to reform itself or face lingering death. These fanatical extremists do not consider that the entire Islamic world is not bent upon to destroy Western way of life but only a few Jihadists who have been excommunicated by the Muslims themselves. The great majority of the Muslims, on the other hand, want cooperation of the Western powers for politico-economic development. Since cooperation is a two way street the restoration of confidence in the minds of the people in the West that the Muslims do not support terrorism and has no millennial rivalry with other 'civilizations' is essential for the Western leaders to cooperate with the Islamic world.

While the recent Israeli attack on the peace flotilla carrying food, medicine etc for the besieged Gaza population has been condemned by one and all; Islamic countries have to take into account the terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists on US embassies in East Africa and World Trade Center, Madrid and London train and underground carnage, failed bomb attack in Detroit, and the continuing terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan as reasons for Western suspicion of the Muslims in general. At the same time one has to be cautious about the neo-cons, new sovereigntists and hardliners who believe in subordination of international law to domestic laws of the major powers. There are also those who believe that "the system of Westphalian states never existed beyond a utopian allegory exemplifying the American experience of (opening up) the majestic portal which leads from the old into the new world in which states are territorial, sovereign and legally equal" (Deconstructing our Dark Age Future*Parameters Summer 2009).

Then there is the American sense of exceptionalism and her impatience to solve global problems quickly bringing her into conflict even with her allies. This was exemplified by former EU Commissioner Chris Patten's reply to Robert Kagan's criticism of European preference for negotiation instead of using military power. (Robert Kagan-- Power and Weakness).

As regards American exceptionalism American political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset quotes G.K.Chesterton describing America as the only nation in the world founded on a creed, elucidated by Lipset as belief in liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. Lipset adds that the notion of "American exceptionalism" became widely applied to account for the weakness for the working class radicalism in the US. (American exceptionalism: a double edged sword- Martin Lipset). Lipset and Stein Rokkan developing cleavage concept in explaining the bases of the constitution of European political parties have pointed out Church-State, Rural-Urban, Center-Periphery and Class cleavages as preeminent factors. These factors can equally define the current tension between Islamic and the Western worlds as religious, cultural, economic and consequent class based division of the world into developed and developing nations.

Kofi Anan's chosen High Level Group's emphasis on a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a constructive move towards lessening the existing tension is worth mentioning. At the same time the western leaders, particularly the US; have to be mindful of the disproportionate influence and power wielded by pro-Israeli groups in the Western nations despite growing realization in these countries that blind support of illegal Israeli occupation of captured Arab lands, making Gaza the largest open air prison in the world, Israeli aggression against Lebanon, and the most recent Israeli onslaught on the unarmed aid flotilla going to Gaza with food and medicine etc do not support Western strategic interests and fuels discontent in the Islamic world.

Apart from the political ramification of Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla an avalanche of legal opinion has resulted over the question of legality or otherwise of the Israeli actions. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights opined that Israeli blockade of Gaza is illegal and should be lifted. UN sponsored fact finding mission on Gaza conflict found Israeli denial of basic human rights to Gaza inhabitants as crime against humanity. Some experts have held the opinion that Israeli boarding could have been legal if it was necessary and was proportionate for the country's defense. Many other legal experts hold the view that given the fact that Hammas and Israel are in a state of armed conflict Israeli blockade and boarding of the aid flotilla are legal. (Legal assessment of the Gaza flotilla raid-Wikipedia). Notwithstanding these legal opinions the political fallout in the Islamic world has been overwhelmingly negative and the US veto of the tabled resolution in the UNSC censuring Israel for her actions has been severely criticized and is seen as another sign of the continuing US tilt in favor of Israel.

The June meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Obama marked a shift in the US policy as Obama called for narrowly tailoring Israel's broad blockade on goods entering the Gaza Strip so that arms are kept out, but not items needed for the Palestinians' daily life and economic development. He also termed the situation in Gaza as "unsustainable" and pledged $400 million aid package to the Palestinian President. Israeli occupation of Palestine, of course, does not justify Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorism or the distorted interpretation of Islam rejected by the great majority of the Muslims. But the fact remains that terrorism by Islamic extremists has pitched Muslims in an adversarial role in the minds of the Westerners. Therefore for global peace and security meetings such as Alliance of Civilizations and other inter-faith dialogues are essential to create understanding between them" and "us". In such interactions parties have to avoid insistence on the absolute superiority of their own creed over those of the others.

A belief that one creed has nothing to learn from another creed is a sort of false superiority complex that portends possibility of future conflicts between different creeds. The peace efforts of the Rio Conference were supplemented by the 3rd Summit of the on Interaction and Confidence in Asia (CICA) held recently at Istanbul. CICA consists of 20 members and observers from with the UN, Arab League, OSCE, Qatar, Malaysia, Japan, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. The quest for inter-faith peace and understanding must continue not only because conflict based on faiths is avoidable but also because the global peace is being threatened by rogue states that have to be contained.

The recent sinking of a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine compounding the already fragile ceasefire along the South-North Korean border to a breaking point is an added flash point in global conflict zones. Another disturbing factor is the recent UNSC resolution on additional sanctions on Iran for pursuing its alleged nuclear ambition. Possibility of sanctions on Iran fueling inter-faith tension cannot be totally discounted because the efforts made by Brazil and Turkey for a solution acceptable to the West were not given a chance to produce result strengthening impression in some quarters that the US is determined to teach Iran a lesson for her humiliation at the hands of Iran for incarceration of the US Embassy personnel following Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979.

While the optimists may hold on to their hope that the clash about civilizations may ultimately be resolved without resorting to brutal Hobbesian struggle and the mechanism of social Darwinism, the pessimists may have less confidence in a just international structure and believe in the thesis of former State Department official Mark Lagon that where consensus cannot be achieved in the United Nations, US efforts to enforce norms constitute leadership rather than"license". Some hold the view that it is a positive development now that the UN recognizes situations in which national sovereignty loses legitimacy paving the way for the Responsibility to Protect that was affirmed at the 60th UN anniversary World Summit of September 2005.

One cannot but wonder whether paying obeisance to Robert Kagan's thesis of US muscularity and Lian Ferguson's entreaty to the US to take up the call of history, as he sees it, would not after all bring anew the metropolitan-peripheral relationship of a different variety. Some day in the near future the developing countries (barring those who would be embraced by the First World) would have to decide on the course they would be taking for the welfare of the future generations. One hopes that the actions to be taken would be positive as many countries of the Islamic world, generally perceived as the adversary, suffer from poverty, food insecurity, adverse effects of climate change, political instability, and myriad other problems that cannot be solved without the cooperation of the developed world.

It is therefore, reasonable that the nations of the world band together to fight the challenges of the Twenty First century instead of fighting each other on matters of faith. After all leaders are elected to improve the lot of the people and not to convert people of other faiths into the one the leaders belong to.

The need of the world is multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, and multi-racial nations for the betterment of the humanity.

Source:Inter Faith Conflicts Need to be Rejected.