Analysis/Comment
Clash of Civilizations: Europe caught in new war of religion
By Michael Hennigan
Feb 4, 2006, 22:34

The Grand Mosque, Mecca

The burning of the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus on Saturday, to protest at the publication of newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper last September, has without doubt the sanction of the Syrian government, that has been enmeshed in allegations of involvement in the murder of the late Prime Minister of Lebabon, Rafik Hariri.

Protesters stormed the Danish site amid chants of "God is great", before moving on to attack the Norwegian mission.

Remember, this has happened in a country that in 1982, killed between 10,000 and 25,000 Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the town of Hama.

The cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage across the world, following their publication in the Danish paper last September and the reprinting in other European papers in the past week .

One depicts Muhammad as a terrorist with his turban as a bomb. Any images of the Prophet are banned under Islamic tradition.

The publications have prompted diplomatic sanctions, boycotts and death threats in some Arab countries.

Devout followers of any religion generally take offence at the ridiculing of their religion.

However, while the publication of the cartoons in question reflected an insensitivity to followers of Islam in Denmark, the reaction of Arab governments and violent protesters, has been both an over-reaction and opportunistic.

The Danish newspaper's culture editor, Fleming Rose, says his intention was simply to test cartoonists to see if they were self-censoring their work, out of fear of violence from Islamic radicals.

"One extreme triggers the other," said Jonas Gahr Store, Norway's foreign minister, saying that both sides want to polarize the debate at the expense of the moderate majority. "These issues are dangerous because they give the extremes fertile ground."

Compromise between economics and religion

Muslims from Pakistan or the Arab world, many of them nurtured from a young age, on the notion that Europe is a decadent place with too much freedom, make a choice when deciding to move to Europe that involves a compromise between economics and religion. Praying 5 times each day and in a mosque on a Friday is not as easily arranged as in an Islamic country.

For some, the compromise is not a problem and acceptance that children will grow up as part of a Western culture is viewed as part of the bargain. For others, they want to have it both ways - banking the economic advantage while feeling alienated and repulsed in the new society that they have chosen.

I have often argued that Muslims should also confront the issues in their own societies including the ongoing situation in Sudan where an estimated 200,000 African Muslims have been murdered by Arab Muslims with the support of Sudan's government.

Contrast between Saudi Arabia and Malaysia

National Commercial Bank in downtown Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

On the modern highway leading south from the Saudi Arabian Red Sea port city of Jeddah, a large exit sign carrying the message "Christian By-Pass" can be seen some kilometers north of the holy city of Mecca. No non-believer is allowed enter Mecca and the public practice of any religion but Islam is prohibited in Saudi Arabia. At Christmas time, religious police known as the muttawa, zealously ensure that stores carry no evidence of the Christian festival. Newspapers are not allowed even make positive reference to it. I do recall The Riyadh News' publication of an article denigrating Christmas by analysing why it was grafted onto an existing pagan ritual.

The Saudis have an odd attitude to other religions. They have in the past refused a business visa because the applicant wrote "none" in answer to a question on religion, in the application form.

In contrast to Saudi Arabia, Christmas Day is a public holiday in Malaysia where 65% of the population is Muslim. Last Christmas Day, the King and Prime Minister published Christmas greetings and the King attended a Christmas Day function. Christmas carols were played in shops and hotel lobbies and on Christmas Eve night, thousands of young people, including Muslims, packed downtown Kuala Lumpur to celebrate Christmas as they do for the Muslim festivals at the end of Ramadan and the Hajj, the Chinese New Year and the Hindu Diwali festival.

Issues cannot be reduced to choice of support or opposition

The Islamic world is not a monolithic one and even in the Middle East, it's interesting to observe that the European Union is the principal external financial supporter of Palestine rather than the oil-rich kingdoms, emirates or Iran.

I do agree that while the hurt of religious people can be recognised, Muslims should also appreciate the importance of certain fundamental freedoms for Europeans.

In addition, in the Middle East, leaders look externally to blame or criticise others when there are many issues to address in their own societies in particular fundamental rights, including religious freedom.

In 2004, the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell showed that some issues in respect of the Middle East cannot be reduced to a simple choice of support or opposition.

In May 2004, Peter Tatchell together with lesbians and other gay men joined a demonstration in London to support the human rights of the people of Palestine. But they also urged the Palestinian Authority to halt what they said was the arrest, torture and murder of homosexuals.

They marched with placards reading: "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine! Palestine: stop persecuting queers!"

It was reported that as soon as they arrived in Trafalgar Square to join the demonstration, the gay protesters were surrounded by an angry, screaming mob of Islamic fundamentalists, Anglican clergymen, members of the Socialist Workers Party, the Stop the War Coalition, and officials from the protest organisers, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). They variously attacked the gay activists as “racists”, “Zionists”, “CIA and MI5 agents”, “supporters of the Sharon government” and “dividing the Free Palestine movement”.

One gay protestor was quoted as saying: "Having experienced the pain of homophobia, we deplore the suffering inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli government”.

Too often chairborne commentators in the West, have a default mechanism, which lays all the faults in our imperfect world at the doors of America or Europe. Arab leaders, both political and religious, find them convenient fellow-travellers when they should be forced to address issues of freedom, rights and tolerance in their own societies.

Arab world in doldrums

Fareed Zakaria

Newsweek International Editor, the Indian-born Fareed Zakaria is an incisive observer of the Middle East and wrote in an article The Politics of Rage: Why do they hate us? after the 9/11 attacks: if concern for the Palestinians is at the heart of the problem, why have their Arab brethren done nothing for them? (They cannot resettle in any Arab nation but Jordan, and the aid they receive from the gulf states is minuscule.) Israel treats its 1 million Arabs as second-class citizens, a disgrace on its democracy. And yet the tragedy of the Arab world is that Israel accords them more political rights and dignities than most Arab nations give to their own people. Why is the focus of Arab anger on Israel and not those regimes?

The disproportionate feelings of grievance directed at America have to be placed in the overall context of the sense of humiliation, decline and despair that sweeps the Arab world. After all, the Chinese vigorously disagree with most of America's foreign policy and have fought wars with U.S. proxies. African states feel the same sense of disappointment and unfairness. But they do not work it into a rage against America. Arabs, however, feel that they are under siege from the modern world and that the United States symbolizes this world. Thus every action America takes gets magnified a thousandfold. And even when we do not act, the rumors of our gigantic powers and nefarious deeds still spread. Most Americans would not believe how common the rumor is throughout the Arab world that either the CIA or Israel's Mossad blew up the World Trade Center to justify attacks on Arabs and Muslims. This is the culture from which the suicide bombers have come.

Saudi Arabia is the area where Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab founded a violent movement in the eighteenth century, which had the goal to purify Sunni Islam. In modern times, the Saudi government used its oil riches to modernize the country while allowing the religious authorities a relatively free rein to impose their strict version of Islam in both schools and throughout the society.

The Koran accounts for about 40% of the Saudi school curriculum and where there is an interpretation presented, that is likely to stoke up suspicion of non-Muslims while virtually everything in a modern life in the country is made by the non-believers, it is hardly surprising that some people would end up with a confused outlook.

In the 1980’s Saudi Arabia funded and supported the sending of its nationals to fight the Russians who occupied Afghanistan. It was riding a tiger for a long period and in the year of the Iranian revolution in 1979, hundreds of armed extremists had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca.