Reverend Franklin Graham described the event as “sad”
Dr Sebastian Gorka at Breitbart
com accused the Muslim Brotherhood of taking over the cathedral, inexplicably bringing in the Armenian genocide during the Ottoman Empire; all this in the aftermath of the recent events in Pakistan, where a mob murdered Shahzad and Shama Masih, a Christian couple accused of burning the Quran
Meanwhile, Daesh, also known as ISIS, not at all moved by these prayers, on Sunday, November 16, declared they had beheaded humanitarian worker Peter Kassig, whose conversion to Islam proved useless
Between the paranoia of Reverend Graham and psychopathic religious chauvinism, how meaningful are interfaith gestures? All humanist ideology riffs on “treat others as one wishes to be treated,” but do we follow this? Even Ebrahim Rasool, when asked about his association with the Muslim Brotherhood, responded by saying that, “people like Menachem Begin” were “terrorists” that “massacred people”
The golden rule too often becomes, “They killed, so we kill
They are wrong, so we, also, will be wrong
” We live in a multi-cultural and multi-faith society
Most faiths come by the chance of birth, whether in Saudi Arabia, Ireland, or China
The three largest demographics, Islam, Christianity and non-religious, claim over a billion adherents, and these split into Sunni, Shia, Protestant, Catholic, capitalist, socialist, secular humanists; then we can include Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the rest
How can the individual process these divisions? When Islam dominates the discussion, as it seems these days, we non-Muslims often ask ourselves: how should we approach Islam? What Muslims do we know? I live in the West
This gives me a privilege denied to journalists such as Raza Rumi, who survived an assassination attempt in Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, where blogger Raif Badawi sits in prison for criticising the hypocrisy of the Saudi government
My grandfather, born in Iran, moved to Lebanon where he and my grandmother gave birth to my father, and subsequently moved to the United States
My grandfather died young and my grandmother remarried a Catholic
This explains my loaded Christian name, and is a starting point for my fascination with religion
My travels and jobs led me to Pakistan, Oman and the UAE, where I spent a year in the UAE teaching at a government high school
But even if I had never met a Muslim, not to mention a radical, I still hold that they deserve equal rights and freedoms
Yet I am sceptical of interfaith gestures, and doubt the large numbers of Muslims in Egypt, Sudan, or Pakistan who support blasphemy and apostasy laws will be consoled by Muslims praying at the National Cathedral
Harmony needs unfettered discussions of religions, the opposite of apostasy and blasphemy laws
And here we need to discuss culture
The culture that condones slavery is inferior to the one that abolishes slavery
Cultures follow laws
Saudi Arabia became the last country to abolish slavery, in 1962, a start for humanity but not an end to discrimination, as the US shows a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation
The horror of slavery does not end after the abolition of slavery, yet needs to happen before culture can improve
An oft cited PEW Research poll indicates Muslims in the West are, by far, more tolerant and less in support of blasphemy laws
While to say that apostasy and blasphemy laws are the cause of the tension between Islam and the West might be over simplification, we should ask what might happen when these laws disappear
And questions like these are at the foundation of changing culture
So what can non-Muslims do? We must recognise that we need interfaith gestures, despite resistance
This does not mean we equivocate about the problems with extremist ideology
Bill Maher, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Sam Harris may not be the most persuasive speakers, and so we need to support and highlight the committed Muslim leaders, instead, who speak against human rights violations
And we need to call out those, like Reverend Graham, who reject overtures for peace
We cannot play ‘Tag, You’re Evil’, and judge all of Islam based on what happens to Peter Kassig and Shahzad and Shama Masih, rather we should quantify accurately so we do not suffer from exception/rule dyslexia
Our interfaith gestures should not be platitudes made by those safe and comfy in a democratic society, but rather movements that lead to tangible change in culture
| Date: | 19-Nov-2014 | Reference: | View Original Link |
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