Common Ground News Service (CGNews)

The Common Ground News Service (CGNews) aims to promote constructive
perspectives and dialogue on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-
Israeli & Muslim-Western relations. CGNews is available in Arabic,
English, French, Hebrew, Indonesian and Urdu. To subscribe, click
here. For an archive of past CGNews articles, please visit our website
at www.commongroundnews.org.

Inside this edition 12 - 18 August 2008

The power of a Jewish-Muslim narrative
by Jan Hjärpe
Professor emeritus Jan Hjärpe of Sweden's Lund University discusses
the importance of narratives in this third article in a series on
Muslim-Jewish relations. Hjärpe considers whether it is possible to
transform divisive "us" and "them" worldviews into common narratives.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008)

~Youth Views~ Looking back at media coverage on Fitna
by Anne Holtkamp and Fatima Ibrahim
American University of Sharjah student Fatima Ibrahim and University
of Amsterdam student Anne Holtkamp examine both the Dutch and Arab
media coverage of the film, Fitna and ask whether the media impacted
Muslim and Western responses to this event.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008)

The Common Word forms a Muslim-Christian bond
by H. A. Hellyer
Generally unenthusiastic about the "interfaith movement", director of
Visionary Consultants Group, H. A. Hellyer, explains why a recent
interfaith conference at Yale University is different.
(Source: The National, 2 August 2008)

Afghanistan's future depends on its people
by Conor Foley
Conor Foley, a humanitarian aid worker, considers whether the future
of Afghanistan can rest on the shoulders of its civil society.
(Source: Guardian, 5 August 2008)

New German intercultural magazine goes beyond integration
by Nimet Seker
Freelance writer Nimet Seker explores the pages of a new German
intercultural magazine, Mikses, with a predominantly Turkish-German
staff, created as an "antidote to the country's mass media, which tend
to show only the extremes".
(Source: Qantara.de, 11 August 2008)

The power of a Jewish-Muslim narrative
Jan Hjärpe

Lund, Sweden - Crises in the Middle East are seen and interpreted
differently depending on whom you ask. For example, Israel's
perception of and reaction to Hamas and Hizbullah is coloured by the
historical trauma that the Jewish people suffered over the centuries.
Unfolding events there are perceived as part of the struggle against
anti-Semitism, which continues to form an integral part of the Israeli
contemporary worldview.

Another example of diverging interpretation would be the Muslim
tendency to view conflicts through a dualistic worldview. In Muslim
circles, and since the 1970s, tensions in the world have often been
described as conflicts between the "arrogant ones" and the
"disrespected ones". For some Muslim extremists in the 1970s and 1980s
the United States and the USSR were arrogant devils, or even "the
great Satan".

When the interpretive narratives between conflicting parties are so
different, communication – and ultimately the resolution of conflict –
suffers as a result.

A huge part of one's cognitive universe is shaped by narratives – the
stories told in one's family, among friends, in a history class
lesson. These narratives constitute the "historiography" of the group,
nation, religious community, or whatever circles the individual
belongs to. History is always a selection of what is regarded as
significant. Furthermore, very few historical events are preserved
unless they relate to a group's identity. This has to do with
belonging, identity and the "us" and "them".

The narratives of what has happened to "us" in the past affect our
perception of events today. To us, these stories are true in the sense
that they are formed by historical fact, and are seen as especially
significant because they are perceived as having happened to "us",
even if we were not born at that time. "They" – people in the past –
have become "us"; in illo tempore – "at that time" has become "now".
This phenomenon to appropriate our ancestor's history as our own is
especially pertinent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I recently read a short book on Palestinian history written for youth.
The book conveyed historical facts, but its main purpose was to create
a feeling of belonging, the idea that "this is our history". Lacking
were the narratives of "the other". Facts seen as significant in
Jewish history were not there. Likewise, in Israeli historiography the
Palestinian narrative of "the other" is also very much absent.

The "us" feeling is strengthened by ritual commemoration. Young Jewish
people, born decades after World War II visit concentration camps.
They experience a sense of belonging and feel that the Holocaust
happened to "them".

In Palestinian history, the nakba, or catastrophe has a similar
function: the trauma of those who were driven from their homes belongs
to all Palestinians. Similarly, in Shi'a Islam, we know of the
enormous role played by the commemoration of the Karbala tragedy (more
than 13 centuries ago). Alternatively, the story of the martyrdom of
Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussein, functions as an interpretation
of the tragedies in Iraq today.

So, what can be done to address these disparate perceptions of
history?

First, in order to promote peace and good relations, it is necessary
to be aware of and interested in the narratives of the "other". A
healthy mental exercise in this respect is to identify the perception
patterns in one's own brain, and then see if events could be seen
through other interpretations.

Then we search for commonalities shared in past narratives, and act to
reclaim them. We can see that dynamic present in the Barcelona Process
– a reconciliation project between the 26 countries of the
Mediterranean – which was inspired by Andalusian history when there
was peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Jews, and Christians under
Arab rule for eight centuries.

And perhaps most important is making an effort to foster new
narratives through mutual endeavours. We can see this played out in
the story of conductor Daniel Barenboim's friendship with Edward Said,
and their co-founding of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a symphony
orchestra comprised of young Arab and Israeli musicians.

Hearing stories about what different groups have achieved together can
create new patterns of perception and interpretation. Such cooperative
narratives are alive and functioning today, and remain a vital part of
peacemaking.

###

* Jan Hjärpe is professor emeritus of Islamic Studies at Lund
University, Sweden. This article is part of a series on Jewish-Muslim
relations written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008,
www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Return to top

~Youth Views~ Looking back at media coverage on Fitna
Anne Holtkamp and Fatima Ibrahim

Sharjah/Amsterdam – There was vigorous debate before and shortly after
the screening of the controversial Dutch film Fitna, which portrayed
Islam as inherently violent. While the worldwide attention generated
from the film has since died down, it is worth taking a look back to
examine what role, if any, the media played on the impact of this
event on Muslim-Western relations.

On 23 March Dutch politician Geert Wilders released his highly
politicised film about the Qur'an and Islam called Fitna, or strife.
In it, Wilders coupled phrases from the Qur'an with pictures of Muslim
fundamentalists and terrorist attacks in an effort to prove that the
Qur'an inspires hatred of non-Muslims.

Months before its release, the predicted content of the movie and its
anti-Islam message were debated around the world as people feared the
implications the movie could have on the relationship between western
and Muslim societies. The film was feared to bring about the same
backlash and riots that had been stirred by the Danish publication of
the Mohammed cartoons and the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo
van Gogh, who had directed another film, Submission, with a similar
anti-Islam message.

Though concerned with different aspects of the film's release, the
media coverage of the film in the Netherlands and in the Arab world
drew interesting similarities.

In the Netherlands, the release of the 15-minute movie was associated
with risks and security measures. The newspapers cited politicians'
concerns about possible terrorist attacks on Dutch targets, such as
Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq. Newspapers also published
stories voicing concern about the possibility of economic and
political boycotts by Muslim countries, a legitimate fear given the
effective boycott of Danish goods after the Mohammed cartoons. At the
same time, Dutch newspapers also focused on the need for freedom of
speech and religion in the Netherlands.

Following Fitna's release on a website called LiveLeak, Dutch
newspapers expressed relief about the fact that Wilders had not shown
expected scenes of himself ripping out pages and burning the Qur'an.
Often citing the phrase, "peaceful co-existence", the newspapers
condemned the movie's offensive message frequently. The fact that the
Dutch government, along with the United Nations and the EU, had
condemned the movie and rejected Wilders' views on Islam was also a
point of note in many newspaper articles.

Arab media also extensively covered the film's release. Al Jazeera
English devoted two articles to the movie. Far from being
inflammatory, the articles commented on a letter from Wilders,
published in a Dutch newspaper, in which he compared the Qur'an and
Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The articles also relayed to the Arab world
that television networks in the Netherlands refused to air the movie.

The Gulf News, a United Arab Emirates-based newspaper, reported on
certain Egyptian Muslim clerics who were urging Muslims around the
world not to react to the movie with aggression, but rather to use the
opportunity to educate the West about Muslims and Islam.

Another article documented how a Dutch delegate had been sent to Arab
countries to explain why the Dutch government could not prevent the
release of the movie due to the country's adherence to freedom of
speech laws. In a Gulf News article titled "Hypocrisy over free speech
issues", writer Linda S. Heard argued that freedom of speech should be
limited because "we live together, and one man's freedom of expression
is very often insulting and hurtful to someone [else]".

Looking over these articles, we see how the Dutch and Arab media
played a positive role in preventing a further escalation of tensions.
Both focused on the Dutch government's condemnation of the movie and
emphasised that the movie's message reflected the opinion of one
individual, not an entire nation. In both regions, newspapers argued
that violence is not the right response to anti-Islamic rhetoric.

The Dutch and the Arab newspapers did, however, differ in their
estimation of freedom of speech. While the principle of freedom of
speech is sacred and therefore without restraint in the Netherlands,
Arab newspapers argued that it should be limited if used to hurt and
insult others.

The coverage of Fitna's release is one example of how different
societies relate to values, such as freedom of expression, in
different ways. And while these differences exist, so do the
commonalities: violence was and is condemned both in the West and in
the Arab world. Although we might disagree on important issues, even
values, we have to find a way to accept each other's beliefs without
diminishing the importance of our own. The release of Fitna and the
constructive way in which our societies conducted themselves prove
that this is possible.

###

* Fatima Ibrahim is a student at the American University of Sharjah
and is majoring in international studies with a concentration in
international relations. Anne Holtkamp attends the University of
Amsterdam and is majoring in international relations. This article was
written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be
accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 12 August 2008,
www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Return to top

The Common Word forms a Muslim-Christian bond
H. A. Hellyer

Coventry, England - Different parts of my extended family are atheist,
Christian and Muslim, with my ethnic background being somewhat more
complicated. But I am not particularly enthralled with the "interfaith
movement"; it served to establish good relations between small numbers
of people, but they have always been held back in two ways.

The first is that religious authorities never took the same route as
the interfaith community in terms of dialogue. The second is linked to
the first. Often, due to the absence of high-level authorities in
interfaith discussions, the groups come to a hodge-podge of well-
meaning but ultimately meaningless positions of "multi-faith
eclecticism". The essential message: we are all the same, and there
are no real differences between us.

That's a theological confusion that does not satisfy any believer.

But the interfaith movement has taken a new turn of late. In the
aftermath of Pope Benedict's regrettable statements about Islam in
2006, a number of Islamic scholars and intellectuals wrote a letter to
the Vatican. The same small group that initiated the Amman Message, a
first in history, bringing Sunni and Shi'a together in a way that had
never been done, led this. In 2007, they had another "first": the
Common Word.

Hundreds of the most senior Muslim scholars signed a message to the
leaders of the most significant Christian churches. Muslims and
Christians, it said, were united on two solid principles – love of
God, and love of the neighbour, and it called for dialogue on the
basis of real commonalities at the highest levels. It received a
resounding reception.

As one of the signatories, I travelled last week to Yale University
for the first conference dedicated to the Common Word. I wondered, as
I flew across the Atlantic, what I might find. Would this be an
initiative that would go down in history: the first high-level,
sustainable, interfaith discussion between the world's two largest
religious communities? Or would it be yet another "talking shop"? The
stakes were high. If some of the highest religious authorities and
intellectuals could not make progress, what hope was there for the
laity?

There was a very particular specificity to the Yale conference: a
strong evangelical component. Many Christian intellectuals argue that
non-Christians can find salvation without accepting Christ. Not so for
the evangelical movement; on the contrary, the basis of their movement
is to proselytise to the "heathens" to save their souls.

This is somewhat different from the Muslim tradition, where there
exists an urge to deliver the message, but it is less of an essential
sacrament and more of a side effect of living a sacred life. Moreover,
Islam admits possible salvation for those who do not believe in the
Prophet Muhammad.

Throughout the conference, there was an underlying query on this
point; in the midst of good interfaith relations, what possibilities
were there for evangelicals to send missions to the Muslim world? At
least one evangelical leader defended his participation on the basis
that one could "bear witness" through dialogue. There were probably
many who shared his view. (Though I suspect not all: Christian
minorities within the Muslim world are usually the most avowed
opponents of missionary activity. And that's not surprising; they've
been Christian for 2,000 years and don't take well to being told they
got it "wrong" by modern evangelical movements.)

None of these issues were resolved at Yale. And they weren't meant to
be. These were religious people; they weren't interested in diluting
their faiths. And in that, a type of sincerity emerged that was
perhaps the greatest benefit of the initiative. That was combined with
a healthy respect for each other as people who believed in a loving
God and loving one's neighbour.

Never in human history had that happened before. For that alone, the
Common Word is significant – whether it stays as such is down to every
faithful Muslim and Christian. But one thing is sure: it's long
overdue. The UAE can be proud that it was due in no small part to a
Muslim scholar, Al Habib Ali al Jifri, who has found a home within its
borders.

The Muslim and Christian delegations, represented by Prince Ghazi of
Jordan, and Miroslav Wolf of the Yale Divinity School, ensured that
this initiative did not come away without concrete achievements. A
declaration affirmed the unity and absoluteness of God, and declared:
"No Muslim or Christian should… tolerate the denigration or
desecration of one another's sacred symbols, founding figures, or
places of worship."

That was put to a vote – and unanimously accepted. That's no small
achievement. If the Common Word had achieved nothing else, it would
have sufficed – but the conference opened up the possibility for much
more in the future. Time will tell.

###

* Dr. H. A. Hellyer is director of the Visionary Consultants Group
(www.visionaryconsultantsgroup.com) and a fellow of the University of
Warwick. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service
(CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: The National, 2 August 2008, www.thenational.ae
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Return to top

Afghanistan's future depends on its people
Conor Foley

Brasília - I met "Zakia" in the restaurant of the United Nations
compound in Kabul, partly because it was convenient and partly because
there are still not that many public places for a western man to sit
and talk to an Afghan woman alone.

Zakia (not her real name) is a former director of an Afghan non-
governmental organisation (NGO), the Humanitarian Assistance for Women
and Children in Afghanistan (HAWCA), established in January 1999. It
started as a simple humanitarian assistance group, helping vulnerable
women and children, but now lists its objectives as "promoting the
role of women in society" and "supporting the reconstruction of the
country".

If Afghanistan has a future, it will be due to the efforts of people
like Zakia who form part of a small but emerging civil society,
determined to challenge the warlords and fundamentalists who still
dominate the country's official politics.

"We need peace," says Zakia. "The Americans' bombs are not the answer.
The two sides will have to sit down and talk some day, so the only
question is how many of us have to get killed before that happens." I
press her about whether she would accept a role for the Taliban in
government and she paused before replying: "Yes, this would be a big
price to pay, but if they lay down their guns and accept the
constitution, why not? After all, people with the same attitudes are
already in the government. What is happening at the moment is worse
because while the conflict continues our whole society is being
Talibanised and corrupted."

Zakia has worked with a network of Afghan women's groups and human
rights organisations to press for legislative reforms, such as a law
on ending violence against women. Along with the Afghan independent
human rights commission, she was involved in a conference that drew on
the experiences of a number of other countries with shari'a-based
legal systems (meaning those which are based on Islamic principles of
jurisprudence) to look at best practices for a new law on family
relations.

She also lobbied against a proposal in a draft penal procedure code
that would have introduced a lower age of criminal responsibility for
girls than for boys. After a meeting with President Hamid Karzai, he
refused to sign these discriminatory proceedings into law.

HAWCA has also helped to establish refuge centres for women escaping
domestic violence – an enormously controversial issue in Afghanistan,
where many judges and prosecutors still consider "running away from
home" a criminal offence. It also participates in the Afghan women's
network and a network of women parliamentarians.

It runs education projects as well as health and childcare,
counselling and protection, emergency response operations and support
for income-generating activities. With its main office in Kabul, HAWCA
also operates in seven other provinces in Afghanistan and with refugee
groups across the Pakistan border in Peshawar.

Voices like Zakia's are still comparatively isolated, but they are
beginning to make themselves heard. In a country where girls are only
beginning to receive an education again, it is not surprising that
there are so few women professionals and decision-makers. This will
take time to change and social attitudes will take even longer.

Afghanistan is a proud country, hospitable to guests, but has seen off
many foreign invaders. Its people are as unlikely to be subdued by
western bombs as they are to accept the imposition of what they see as
alien values. Zakia stresses that she is a Muslim and a patriot who is
as sickened at the corruption of true Islamic values by the
fundamentalists as she is by the continuing destruction of her country
by foreign forces.

Many western liberals seem to have a particular problem understanding
people like Zakia, but the views that she expressed are representative
of hundreds of conversations that I have had with Afghan friends and
colleagues over the years. These express relief at the overthrow of
the Taliban – and real gratitude to the international community for
its initial intervention – tempered by frustration that the
opportunity was not used to break the grip of the warlords and
gangsters who have consolidated their position over the last six
years.

More recently I have also felt a growing anger at the ineffectiveness
of the international community's assistance strategy and the inept and
brutal conduct of its military campaign. There is still a window of
opportunity to change the broad direction of western policy towards
the country, but it is getting smaller by the day.

###

* Conor Foley is a humanitarian aid worker who has worked for a
variety of human rights and humanitarian aid organisations. This
abridged article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service
(CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org. The full
text can be found at www.guardian.co.uk.

Source: Guardian, 5 August 2008, www.guardian.co.uk
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Return to top

New German intercultural magazine goes beyond integration
Nimet Seker

Bonn, Germany - The entrance of the international newsagent at
Cologne's main station is a tangle of people and voices. The store
sells an almost infinite range of newspapers and magazines from
Germany and elsewhere. You have to know just what you're looking for
to find it here.

But one magazine stands out from the crowd: Mikses – the "magazine for
intercultural matters". Eighty-six high-gloss pages with professional
photos, an unconventional layout and an interesting mix of issues draw
the eye and awaken readers' curiosity.

Reports on prominent figures, universities, writers, twin towns, and
fashion designers – almost every subject is "Turkish", as is the
majority of the magazine's staff.

So is it a hip young Turkish magazine? No. Mikses defines itself as a
magazine for a new German generation, where various cultures are mixed
and matched together. And these "mixes" are nothing exotic, but a
perfectly normal part of everyday life.

The title story of the first issue sets the tone. In a ranking of the
30 "most important young new Germans", Mikses presents "movers and
shakers in Germany". The names on the list include Feridun, Joy, Tarek
and Aiman. Or Ikbal. "We think the German media need a new face," says
Ikbal Kilic, editor-in-chief and the woman behind Mikses, herself a
member of what's called the "second generation".

The 30 young "new Germans" with intercultural identities are
successful artists, television presenters, politicians and
businesspeople. These people are not anonymous individuals on the
margins of society; they have voices to raise and familiar faces.

The number one spot goes to the DJ and music producer Mousse T.,
pictured lounging on a hotel bed sporting a sly grin and an AC/DC t-
shirt.

Mikses aims to present a wide-ranging and authentic picture of young
Germans, addressing subjects such as real lives, politics, campus life
and LeitKültür, a distinctly Turkish-flavoured play on the much-
discussed German idea of a "defining culture".

The magazine sees itself as an antidote to the country's mass media,
which tend to show only the extremes – integration problems
experienced by "people with a background of migration". Mikses doesn't
just want to be authentic and genuine. Mikses is like a glossy ad in
praise of diversity.

There's certainly no lack of provocative photos and writing: "Help, I
have a background of migration!" writes one author of nominally German
descent. And the feature article, "Meet Your Prejudice", presents an
anti-discrimination project at Malmö City Library, which loans out
"living books" once a year, which are actually people from Germany's
minority groups. Borrowers get to keep the "living books", an imam,
for example, for 45 minutes – much longer than a normal encounter in
everyday life.

In its second issue, Mikses turns the spotlight on "Little Tokyo" in
Düsseldorf. The local Japanese community is described as a group of
"high-class migrants". Yet hardly any of the individuals featured
speak German, not even the young people. Most of them attend Japanese
schools rather than German ones.

Parallel societies, voluntary isolation, integration problems – the
German media have few favourite terms when it comes to reporting on
migrants. "I wouldn't talk about a parallel society. The fact is,
certain cultures live together in close concentration in certain
areas. That isn't necessarily negative," says Kilic.

Elvin Türk, a staff editor at Mikses, sees the issue slightly
differently: "It's nothing negative that people come together in
certain parts of town; that's not what makes the parallels. It's that
they have their own infrastructure, their own schools and
kindergartens. And they really can't speak German."

Bearing this "exception" in mind, Mikses doesn't talk about
integration, but about post-integration. The word "integration" sets
up barriers that simply don't exist in the young generation.

For the makers of Mikses, the hurdle of integration is well and truly
in the past: young people drink beer with their doner kebabs and dance
to Mustafa Sandal in German clubs. Encounters between different
cultures are a matter of everyday life. But the rest of the German
media barely reflect this normality.

"The media are always talking about integration, but where are the
journalists with Turkish backgrounds? Where are they on the editorial
boards? Integration has to work both ways. You have to create
acceptance by becoming part of society, but you also have to be
accepted," says Kilic.

The German media don't exclusively portray the reality in the
country's society, which makes them come across as "artificial," she
says. There are a few strong voices in the media, such as the feminist
academic Necla Kelek, but the young generation finds them far from
authentic. "I don't know a single Turkish-German woman who feels
represented by Ms. Kelek," comments Kilic.

There is actually no shortage of German journalists from ethnic
minorities. The question is where they work and what topics they
cover. "As a Turkish-German journalist, you get pushed into the ethnic
corner and all you get to write about is integration issues – there's
no way to escape the whole subject," says Kilic, adding, "But we're
all capable of much more!"

###

* Nimet Seker is a freelance writer based in Germany. This article,
translated from German, is distributed by the Common Ground News
Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Qantara.de, 11 August 2008, www.qantara.de
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Return to top

About CGNews
The Common Ground News Service provides news, op-eds, features and
analysis on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-
Western relations. CGNews syndicates articles that are constructive,
offer hope and promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news
outlets worldwide. Read our past issues.

Comments? Please email us at cgnews@sfcg.org. Want to submit an
article?
We welcome contributed articles by local and international experts who
offer constructive insights and analysis on a broad range of issues
affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations.

If you would like to contribute, please submit an article online.
Want to reprint an article?
Unless otherwise noted, copyright permission has been obtained and
articles may be reprinted by any news outlet or publication. Please
acknowledge both the original source and the Common Ground News
Service. The views expressed in these articles are those of the
authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.

We respect your time and privacy. You are receiving this email at %%
%%emailaddr%%%%.
Visit our website to unsubscribe from our mailing list.

The Common Ground News Service is headquartered at 1601 Connecticut
Avenue, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20009 USA. Visit us on the Web at
http://www.commongroundnews.org.

Send to a friend | View as web page | Contact us | ©2008 Common
Ground News Service

This service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground,
an international non-governmental organization (NGO), headquartered in
Washington and Brussels, whose mission is to transform the way the
world deals with conflict - away from adversarial confrontation
towards cooperative solutions.