Kuwaiti, Dr. Shamlan Yousef Al-’Issa: Tolerance In The Arab World – Only After Implementing Democracy
MEMRI/November 16/15
In an article he published on the occasion of the International Day for Tolerance (marked on November 16), Dr. Shamlan Yousef Al-’Issa, a political science lecturer at Kuwait University, wrote that tolerance will only prevail in Arab societies once they embrace democracy and separate religion from state.
The following are excerpts from the article, published November 15 in the UAE paper Al-Ittihad: “Tomorrow, on Monday, November 16, the word will mark the International Day for Tolerance. We Arabs must participate in [marking] this day and benefit from the lessons that motivated the Western states to mark it, especially considering the rift we are experiencing in some of our countries that are in the throes of civil wars fueled by sectarian or religious factors or by tribal and regional interests. The devastating results of these [wars] are apparent every day, especially in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Lebanon. All this devastation results from the absence of national dialogue and from the rejection of tolerance and the failure to implement democracy.
“The concept of tolerance emerged in the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, and its principles were shaped by European philosophers of that period, including Voltaire, John Locke, [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau, John Stuart Mill and others. The need for tolerance arose mainly because Europe was devastated for 400 years by destructive religious wars between Catholics and Protestants. [This] caused a religious reform movement to emerge in the 16th century, whose activity led to the weakening of the Church after Christianity experienced many rifts that gave rise to several [different] sects and factions. The European kings also worked to diminish the influence of the Church because it had become riddled with corruption and materialism.
“Considering this Western experience, the question arises what is missing in our Arab Muslim societies that prevents the concept of tolerance from successfully [taking root] in the Arab and Muslim countries. Before [trying to] spread the ideas of tolerance in our Arab society, we need free ideological movements that believe blindly in freedom of religion and in absolute respect for the opinions of others – because the concept of tolerance has moral, religious, philosophical and legal aspects. These [aspects] do not exist in Arab societies because freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the acknowledgement of differing opinions and pluralism and of the need for coexistence and cooperation – all these can only exist in free, democratic countries, for tolerance is the opposite of fanaticism.
“Sadly, our societies suffer from religious and sectarian movements that reject religious and ideological pluralism, proclaim others to be infidels and fight anyone who disagrees with them. In the West, religion focuses on concepts like love, brotherhood and peace, whereas we have several movements of political Islam that [only] increase hatred and the exclusion of the other just because he differs in his beliefs or religion.
“Tolerance has political value in that it accepts difference, disagreement and dialogue instead of [advocating] political exclusion. It is also has legal value, in that it calls to avoid discrimination between citizens and to respect the law that sets out equal rights and duties to which everyone must be committed.
“Finally – is it possible for love, brotherhood, dialogue and tolerance to prevail in our societies? We say honestly and clearly: This can be achieved easily if the Arab homelands implement democracy and distance religion from politics. Or, in the spirit of the French philosopher Voltaire, [let us say that] religious tolerance in society requires confronting every kind of fanaticism by enshrining the value of [free] thought, eschewing extremism and respecting freedoms in every domain, especially the freedom of thought.”
Iraqi Adnan Hussein: The Arabs And Muslims Must Acknowledge Their Direct Responsibility For The Terror Sweeping The World
MEMRI/November 16/15
Following ISIS’s November 13, 2015 terror attack in Paris, the executive editor of the Iraqi daily Al-Mada, ‘Adnan Hussein, published a harsh article titled “This Is Our Terror, We Are Responsible,” in which he stated that all Muslims, Sunnis and Shi’ite, bear direct responsibility for the terror that is sweeping the world. He said that the curricula, the media and the mosques in the Muslim world constitute a platform for inculcating a barbaric kind of Islam that condones beheadings and bloodshed, whereas the voice of the other kind of Islam, which preaches peace and compassion, is barely heard. This religious extremism, which presents the Muslims as the best of nations and all others as infidels bound for hell, has pitched young Muslim into “a holy world war” against the rest of humanity, he stated. He called on Muslims to acknowledge this and to enact comprehensive reforms to change the rhetoric in the schools, mosques and media.
The following are excerpts from his article:[1]
“We cannot shake off our responsibility for the new and terrible terror attack that recently struck Paris, the French capital. We, the Arabs and Muslims, cannot renounce our direct role and our close connection to the terror attacks that have been flooding all the countries of the world, including our own countries, for two decades or more.
“In religion and history classes in elementary school, junior high, high school and later [even] in the university, they insisted on teaching us that we are the chosen [people], the best and most glorious of nations, that our religion is the true religion and that we are the right group that will be saved [from hell],[2] whereas others are people of falsehood, infidels who belong in hell and are doomed to hellfire, whose killing is permissible and whose property and wives are ours for the taking. In these classes they presented us with examples, such as Koranic verses and Prophetichadiths that had been taken out of their historical context, so that we got the impression that the ruling was absolute and must be applied in every place and every time until the Day of Judgement…
“At the mosque or the husseiniyya [Shi'ite congregation hall and place of worship], they would sharpen our sectarian inclinations by inciting against the members of other religions and even of other [Muslim] sects, [calling them] Khawarij,[3] rawafid[a Sunni derogatory term for Shi'ites], nawasib [a Shi'ite derogatory term for Sunnis], deviants and apostates.
“Today our children and grandchildren receive in their schools, universities, mosques and husseiniyyas very large and strong doses of [that] sectarian religious [drug] that is spiritually and mentally deadly, while the sectarian religious television and radio stations, which broadcast around the clock and receive funds at the expense of schools and hospitals, strengthen its [effect even further]. Our children and grandchildren are engaged in a holy world war against all others, no matter what their religion, sect or nationality. This environment gave rise to the extremist Islamic groups, which were fertilized by poverty, unemployment, marginalization, the usurpation of human rights and individual and collective freedoms, and the violation of honor, which were sometimes carried out in the name of pan-Arabism and sometimes in the name of religion or sect.
“We cannot escape our responsibility for terror, and no excuses will avail us. First we must recognize [our responsibility], and apologize to ourselves and others and correct our ways from now on. We cannot do this without thoroughly rethinking our curricula and changing them from the root, from elementary school to university [level]. There will be no forgiveness unless we change the way religion is presented in the curricula, in universities, in mosques and in husseiniyyas, and on the radio and television stations. For the religion [as presented there] is not a religion of tolerance, peace, harmony, mutual responsibility and compassion. The religion [presented] in our curricula, universities, mosques and husseiniyyas, and on the radio and television stations, is a barbaric religion characterized by beheadings and bloodshed and which incites to steal, usurp, enslave and rape. The other, [compassionate,] religion, which some of claim is the true religion, has no presence in our lives. At best, its voice is feeble and heard almost by nobody, especially among the oppressed new generation that is marginalized and whose humanity is being compromised by poverty, rejection and injustice, and by the crazy curricula and fatwas.”
[1] Al-Mada (Iraq), November 15, 2015.
[2] According to a hadith, the Prophet said that the Muslim nation would split into many different groups and sects, only one of which would be saved.
[3] The Khawarij broke away from the forces of Caliph ‘Ali bin Abu Taleb and formed Islam’s first religious opposition group.