Friday, January 09, 2009
We Muslims have work to do, by Salim Mansur
We have inherited a culture of denial, and too often we refuse to acknowledge our own responsibilities for the widespread malaise that has left most of the Arab-Muslim countries in economic, political and social decay.
In recent decades, reports and statistics intergovernmental have documented a gap, perhaps now irreversible, between Muslim countries and the advanced industrial democracies in the West.
A recent report on the index of states in disrepair, published in the journal Foreign Policy (May / June 2006), Pakistan, for example, is ranked among the 10 most failed states in the world - on top of Afghanistan. Pakistan is a Muslim country, a military nuclear power, but it can barely feed, clothe, educate and provide housing for its people.
Reports on the Arab countries is a sad list of entrenched tyrannies, savings into disrepair, squandered wealth, oppression of women, persecution of minorities and endemic violence. The system of religious leaders want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and threatens to destroy Israel, to suppress internal opposition and to seek confrontation with the West.
Instead of acknowledging the reality of Arab-Muslim world as a broken civilization, we Muslims have tended to give way and blame others for our ills and divert responsibility for the failures that have become breeding of violence and terrorism. "We have taught our children false pride, and have given them a sense of history that crumbles under the consideration of the review. We have imposed a conflict of loyalty and now some of them have become our nightmare.
We preach tolerance, but we are intolerant. We demand inclusion, but we are putting in practice the exclusion of women, minorities, those with whom we disagree.
We constantly repeat that Islam is a religion of peace, but too many of us display conduct contrary to what we profess."
We continue to reassure us and others that Muslims violate Islam are a tiny minority, but we can not hold this minority accountable in public.
A bowl of milk turns into curd with a single drop of lemon. This tiny minority that we are responsible for curdled ruined our Islam, but too many of us insist refute all the evidence against our belief that distinguishes us as better than others.
In Islam, we insist that religion and politics are inseparable. The result: The politics dominates our religion - and our religion has become a cover for tribalism and nationalism.
Salim Mansur, Canadian and Muslim
Lien
Labels: Arab World, Canada, Islam, Religion and fanaticism
# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 6:12 PM 
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