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Readers' column
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| Islam and the West | |
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| By Yassine Hichamm 05-02-2007 |
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| There is no gainsaying that a censured voice always wells up in each one of us, whether savant, crowned head, or simple common mortal; a badly revamped voice that needs a robust will to remove blinkers and open the blocked ears to see and discern all what intercepts the Message of God; that every single ounce in the universe is governed by Divine Law, Divine Wisdom, and the rotation of the days. However, there are some helpless people who fancy themselves as musketeers or rather as a latter-day Trojan horse; bigoted ones that it is hard to argue with them. This intellectual bigotry is highly represented in the dialogue taking place between Islam and the West or rather Modernity, given the difference in power between the two entities. |
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| When most people tend to use the term civilization, they are generally referring to a culturally and historically homogenous society. While the term civilization is extremely ambiguous, most again do manage to conjure some shared meaning when the term is used. Yet, will it suffice to initiate a real dialogue? Some do believe that Islam and the West are not that too easily distinguishable civilizations. Moreover, civilization for others is but a somewhat abstract notion aiming at simplifying a more complex reality: Modernity. |
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| The present set of values, tenets and normative preferences that constitute and sometimes merely adorn the old face of the West are traced back to the classical wisdom of the ancient Greeks and the Judeo-Christian ethic. This egotistic reading of the evolution of the West often denies the contribution of the Islamic civilization to the emergence of modernity in Europe. Though this intellectual bigotry is currently been defied by more and more scholars and reasonable minds either domestically in the Arabo-Islamic World or internationally, still many, like the gentleman Samuel Huntington of Harvard-the eminent ideologue of the clash between civilizations-and Bernard Lewis of Princeton, would like to posit Islam as a passive inheritor and transmitter of Greek values and wisdom to the West. The proximity of Islamic values to the Judeo-Christian real ones, however, cements my contention thoroughly that Islam is an unavoidable and a major philosophical stakeholder in the modern West. Obviously enough, while Western values and their socio-political processes were often imposed, they have been effective in instituting significant changes in the Muslim psyche; a change or rather a metamorphosis that has singularly undermined the political cohesiveness and communal unity of what used to be the Islamic civilization. Thus the West too has had a crucial share in shaping (or disfiguring) the character of the contemporary Muslim World. |
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| The West has however been partially successful in this endeavour and therefore the Muslim World manifests, simultaneously, fragmented forms of tradition and modernity. It has become a coalition and a mosaic of the past and the present. The various conflicts and crises in the Muslim World today represent an attempt by an ancient, once cohesive civilization to reconcile its internal incongruity and inconsistency. The mass migration of Muslims to the West and their remarkable success in not assimilating into the local culture has further added an Islamic hue to the various shades of culture that make the present West. Thus, to a great extent, the straightforward conclusion a person might deduce is that Islam and the West are "shared civilizations" as they have shaped and continue to reshape each other, but not for long; as only the real and the true who prevails and this is the days' rotation-wisdom. |
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| The distinction between the West and Modernity is often blurred, the fact which makes the West on the brink of an abyss. Imam Abdessalam Yassine; Murshid (General-Guide) of Justice and Spirituality Movement says that modernity, having detached itself little by little from its Judeo-Christian values, acknowledges nothing but Greco-roman origins. And as the dialogue is not based on a cross-pollination of ideas, power engenders domination easily. There is much talk about power-based relationships. The possibilities of real dialogue cannot be conceived in a power vacuum. Can weaker civilizations enter into dialogue with the West that so strongly intimidates the ‘other’? The West has displayed a tendency to prefer intimidation over dialogue when the power differential is heavily favourable. |
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| One needs to develop a more nuanced understanding of power per se to be able to explain it. Perhaps stepping out of the limited notion of power as military and economic capability may give us a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of power relations. "Does the West’s intransigent campaign against Islam" Imam Yassine puts the question, "represent the strategic positioning of a frightened West that will find itself in the near future confronting an islamo-confucian coalition? Or is it the infamy of colonialism still ringing in the European consciousness, keeps keen its bitter memory, honing it anew with atrocities?" It is pointless to dream of much results from a futile and sterile dialogue as the ‘cultural and civilizational differences between Islam and the West were explained by two separate histories, two states of mind, two conceptions of humanity and the universe.’ Before this quo-status the West has had but one solution: Myth-making. ‘The American expression "self-fulfilling prophecy"’ Imam Yassine proceeds, ‘perfectly illustrates the ingenious spawning of the clash argument: I huff and I puff until it occurs as predicted, and there you have it.’ And so the West not only howls its fears in theories, like Huntington’s, but also in concrete facts: the first Gulf wars and the second is taking place. |
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| For Samuel Huntington the problem is that the West, and the American West in particular, which has always considered itself an evangelical nation and a civilization with a message has, following the fall of communism, become more convinced that its ideology which is based on liberal democracy has triumphed and has, therefore, become universal, and that non-Western societies must adopt it. The dilemma is, however, that some aspects of what the West considers universal are to others nothing but colonialist. There is also the inescapable problem of double standards. This is the language of Huntington. |
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| Following his ideas on the clash of civilizations, S.Huntington announces, in his second thesis: ‘The West, Unique but not Global’, the end of Western civilizing hegemony, and the American West in particular. It is a declaration of the end of the American dream, not only in the United States but also worldwide. It is also a call to keep non-Western societies outside the West and to complete the westernization of those living inside it, and a call to unite the West against the rest of the world. |
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| ‘It is useless,’ Imam Yassine affirms avowedly, ‘to cry out against scandal or to rant against preconceived ideas, we must reason calmly and patiently. To glimpse what such hostile purpose and ill-intentioned theorizing is concealing, it is necessary to lift the veil so as, having discovered the cause, to put a stop to the scheming that strives to discredit Islam and misinform the world.’ The dialogue proves itself to be nothing but a mirage and a means to set oneself up in opposition. No one can deny the fact that the Muslim World at present is in dire need of modernity to be on equal footing with an arrogant West. Yet, shall we accept it without undue questioning with the pretext of ingratiating ourselves with a cogent enthralling West? Notwithstanding the ‘unquestionable acceptance’, communicating with Western modernity at once stunning and stunned surely runs aground and culminates in deadlock; simply because we are Muslims, unclassified human beings. This, however, will never dishearten our wills and endeavours to avail ourselves from modernity, that untamed horse. ‘Islamiser la Modernité’ is the phrase used by Professor Imam Yassine who is considered and long acknowledged as the first and the forerunner to use it, some twenty-five years ago. ‘Islamiser la Modernité begins with a warning cry addressed to modern man, whose life is feverishly blinkered by the here and now. I intend to jolt down him out of his torpor and prevent him from stumbling and reeding, waylaid as he is by nonsense at every turn. Indeed the poor victim stumble, reels-plunges in! |
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| The only outlet from this dilemma is reading Qur’an. ‘But that, my brother, my sister, will certainly prove difficult for you, whatever your ideological formation, your religion, or your political inclination, because you are scattered by a thousand preoccupations, forever distracted, or depressed, and rarely in the proper state of mind. Still I tender my suggestion that you open the Qur’an; perhaps it will find you in a privileged moment when the inquietude that inhabits us all, and which we suppress in order to affect unconcernedness, comes once again to the surface. Perhaps then you will be disposed to listen to the Message. Read a page—just one! Perhaps you will find there an answer to the question regularly posed by an interior voice and always wells up in you: who am I? And what’s life for?!’ |
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| Bibliography : |
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| A.Yassine, Juin 1998, Islamiser la Modernité. (Translated from the French by Martin Jenni, under the title: Winning the Modern World for Islam, J.S. Publishing, INC. USA, 2OOO.S. Huntington’s ‘Foreign Affairs.’ (Nov-Dec 1996). Article: The West, Unique but not Global.The Diplomat’s Symposium on the Dialogue of Cultures and Civilizations, June 1996, London. |
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