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Last week, Guardian-organised event at which more than 100 young British Muslims were brought together at University College London. The delegates came from all walks of life, and held a wide range of views.
The one thing that came across very clearly was that the media are often wrong to refer to "the Muslim community", when the 1.54 million Muslims in the UK have roots as far apart as Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan. More than half the attendees were women; some wore the Hijab, but others looked very "western".
In some ways, the event raised more questions than it answered.
Is deprivation the main obstacle to progress for Immigrant Muslims? Why should Immigrant Muslims always be called on to condemn what goes on abroad? On integration, one delegate asked: "What are we integrating into? People feel well integrated, thank you very much. Why aren't the BNP asked if they're well integrated?"
On table 6, the main subject was : The widespread perception is that Islam discriminates against women. Why is that so?
Out of all the opinions, I was particularly impressed with one of the panellist, Abdurahman Jafar of the Muslim Council of Britain. His answer was:
We agree that Islam doesn't discriminate, but men do discriminate, and men control society," he said. "Muslim men seek to justify that oppression under the guise of Islam.
Although men control all societies. IMHO, in the Arab world, the number of illiterate may be one of the main reasons. According to UNESCO's Global Monitoring Report 2003/04:
The Arab States have some of the world's lowest adult literacy rates, with only 60% of the region's population of 15 and over able to read and write in 2000, well below world average of 80%. The rate is less than 50% in some countries (Iraq, Morocco and Yemen). Woman account for nearly two-thirds of the region's illiterate, a figure not expected to change much by 2015.
As far as eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education, the report states:
Countries that have already achieved gender parity:
Primary education: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Palestine, Qatar and United Arab Emirates Secondary education: Jordan Kuwait and Oman. Gender parity prospects:
Countries likely to achieve parity in 2005: Egypt, Mauritania, Oman. Contries likely to miss parity in 2005 but achieve it by 2015: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria Countries that may not achieve parity by 2015 either at primary, secondary or both levels: Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates.
What do you think?
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{ 3 } Comments
I loved Abdurahman Jafar’s opinion. People must finally realize that the bad acts of some Muslims come from misapplications of Islam, it’s not something wrong in Islam itself. All acts are results of a pure personal perspective, or is affected by the environment surrounding the individual, which is affected by individual opinions as well. And although men still control societies in many countries, the situation differs in others. And whether or not men are the ones in control, I agree that illiteracy is the main cause for any negative actions. Yet I would like to ask, why are Muslims blamed for actions resulting from illiteracy, while non-Muslims -who consider themselves literate enough- and who keep spreading rumors about Islam without knowing the least information about it, are given the right to condemn and insult Islam all the time! Another question is why do Muslims all around the world have to pay for the actions of bad Muslims all the time! Why do Muslims have to keep justifying and explaining wherever they are, while gatherings of Americans for example in Muslim countries, to talk about the War On Terror and express personal opinions are rare, if any that is.
It’s always Muslims –from all nationalities as you mentioned- who have to pay for everything!
The more they try to convince the world Muslims are bad and Islam is full of injustice, the more I believe they are so illiterate and shallow. They must know the religion well before jumping into conclusions. As for Muslims, they must try to spread the right word, but they’re not obliged to keep defending themselves, coz they’re not doing anything wrong in the first place.
You know Haitham, I’m fed up of people insisting on spreading this cliché about Islam discriminating against women and being such a pointless strict religion. While in Germany, I was the only Muslim in my course level, my whole course ended up me answering many questions, and spending my whole time inside and outside the class explaining the many misunderstandings they have about Islam. No problem with that as long as the other part is willing to listen and as long as they’re open-minded, but it really sucks when they ask for no reason but pissing you off, with no will to understand or know!
Interesting post
Iman you raise some good points, I think that people in the west do not have a clear understanding of Islam, just as most of the Islamic world has no understanding of the other religions out there.
I also think and agree that a Muslim in Canada should not have to explain the actions of a Muslim from Afghanistan who decided to blow himself up for what ever reason, nor should he apologize ….
Having said this I think when we see the reaction in the Islamic world, regarding the Cartoons, and when we see that when a woman in Pakistan is raped and then punished by the police for a mans savage act., it does not make one think…."Hey Islam is a great religion, I should convert…" instead it send the wrong massage to the world that Islam is intolerant and extremely strict and oppressive.
I have read the Quran and do not believe that Islam is a savage intolerant religion but unfortunately that is not the massage that is sent out from the Muslim world…instead we get people in Lebanon destroying a church because some stupid news paper in Denmark published some dumb cartoons.
We get some Muslims issuing fatwa to kill westerners everywhere…even when some of them are in the country to assist and not to fight. (Aid workers and the like). It is also counterproductive when you see a group of Muslims celebrating in the streets when a terrorist attack happens in the west killing many innocent people who have nothing to do with any of the conflicts and in some cases killing people who support the cause of the people the terrorists claim to fight for, even if the group is only a small one it sends the wrong massage.
Last point I would like to make is this, you said that the west does not get Islam nor do they wish to understand it, well the reality is that all the western countries you mentioned allow anyone the freedom to practice their religion, they allow you to build a mosque, or whatever you wish even your own schools, they allow you to freely express your religion no mater what it is, and in Canada even celebrate it with you. In fact I have seen many documentaries on our national broadcast network (CBC) about the Islamic world which was meant to explain the religion and it’s history in a positive way. Even in Israel Muslims freely practice their religion and are free to build mosques and churches right in the middle of Jewish communities.
In direct opposition a Christian is not even allowed to wear a cross or even posses a bible in Saudi Arabia, in most Muslim countries Christians are often mistreated and are the first to be attacked by an angry mob.
As you can see the Muslim world is just as guilty and even more so, in not understanding or even caring for understanding other points of view, even though the Prophet himself encourages greater understanding and education.
So until the moderate Muslims begin to speak out openly against the extremist elements in their world the only view the west will have is the one we have now.
I sort of agree with Mougly, but not completely. Maybe it is based on my understanding of the word 'tolerance', maybe not.
I think 'tolerance' and 'understanding' are two completely different issues, because one can easily be 'tolerant' (as in accepting the right of somebody else to be different) without 'understanding' (as in knowing ALL the subtle aspects of how the person one tolerates is different).
I may understand more about Islam and Muslims than many other 'Westerners', but there are definitely a lot more 'Westerners' out there who have a much better understanding than I have. But my lack of full understanding does not make me incapable of tolerance.
Whether I am interested in understanding something or not has nothing to do with tolerance either. For example, I really don't care about the nitty-gritty details about how Jewish or Muslim religious rituals are caried out or how homosexual men stimulate each other, but I am still tolerant. For me, 'tolerance' means that I accept their rights to being Jewish, Muslim or homosexual but it only works if it is mutual, so they have to accept my right to not be Jewish, Muslim, homosexual…
I think it would be a lot more constructive if the 'Muslim World' changed their focus from asking or demanding the 'West' to understand Islam and instead worked on a dialog to create MUTUAL tolerance.
If Muslims find it offensive or intolerant that 'Westerners' says "No, we do not want to know about Islam", then the communication stops right there and then the 'Muslim World' and the 'West' can only continue to dig their trenches. And it doesn't really matter whether the "No" is based on that somebody is not interested in learning about Islam or religion at all or whether there is one of millions of other reasons behind it.
Actually, I suspect, that the idea that the 'West' does not understand that Islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion is more based on the lack of understanding on the part of the 'Muslim World' than on the 'Western' part.
There is an old saying that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people!" in this discussion it could be changed to "Islam is not violent and intolerant; Muslims are violent and intolerant!". I think everybody understands that it is not the gun itself that kills and the same thing goes for understanding that Islam is not a violent and intolerant religion in itself. Even if there are a few who thinks that Islam is a violent and intolerant religion, then it is not worth wasting time and energy on, because a discussion about whether Islam is a violent and intolerant religion is just as irellevant as discussing whether guns kill people on their own.
The interesting or problematic part of both statements is the second half. Most people (except for schizophrenics and people living in a war zone) realize that the chance of running into somebody who will shoot you is small and that if somebody shoots somebody else then there is always one of many different reasons for it; ranging from frustrations or anger to being a short sighted quale hunter.
The problem with the statement about Islam is that there are a lot of people who think that a majority of Muslims are violent and intolerant and they do not understand the reasons why. As I see it, the misperception is not about whether Islam is a peaceful religion or not, but that it seems to many that a majority of Muslims (who happen to practise the religion of Islam) are violent and intolerant.
Of course it could be interesting to make a list of why it is the fault of the 'West' that many Muslims are violent and intolerant, but that would be just as big a soft fluffy pillow of denial as the excuse about the 'West' not wanting to understand Islam.
As Mougly points out, it is the moderate Muslims who must take charge and speak out against extremism in the Muslim world, because telling me or any other 'Westerner' about how peaceful and tolerant Islam is does not change the fact that a very large portion of Muslims are considered violent and intolerant by a very large portion of 'Westerners'. In the 'West' agression and violence is not tolerated as a way of communicating disagreement, so the more violence by Muslim extremists the less tolerance can be expected towards Muslims in general.
Regardless of whether we talk about Europe, the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world, the silent majority will always be interpreted to support the loudest minority!
SILENCE IS CONSENT!!!
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