by Ahmed Said
Sunday, December 20, 2009
I take this opportunity to write an article prompted by the recent anti-Islamic cartoons in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The cartoons were derogatory to Muslims because they were sexually explicit with depictions of the Prophet Mohamed.
Just read the cartoon story at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/12/11/muslim-cartoons
These anti-Islamic cartoons probably keep happening because of Islamophobia, which means unfounded fear of or hostility towards Islam. Islamophobia has increased in the West since the 911 attacks in the United States, creating the opportunity for anti-Islamic groups to perpetrate their misguided intentions that usually make things worse rather than better.
Well, the word, Islam, means peace and this meaning reflect on the true Islamic Teachings on tolerance, peaceful co-existence with non-Muslims and opposition to violence. The true nature of Islam is its universality and its global relevance that never cease to make sense no matter where and when; no matter whether you are an Arab or non-Arab; whether you are white or black; whether you are a man or a woman; whether you are from Europe, Africa or Asia; whether you from America or Australia; whether you are educated or non-educated or whether you are young or old; it does not matter; historically, Islam has being having global importance over the centuries and Islam is becoming internationally more relevant today than ever before, because among other factors, the number of Muslims in the West is rapidly increasing, especially in the immigrant nations such as United States, Canada and Australia.
Thanks to today´s Information Age Technology; the world has become what they call a global village; the Information Age Technology made the worldwide contact between Muslims and non-Muslims too easy to happen; look at the mass media of today through which you can easily have access to what is happening in the other corner of the world; you watch the news on TV while sipping coffee in your local café or comfortably sitting on the coach in your sitting room; the internet is at your finger tips 24 hours where you can have the latest news updates in every minute.
This technology-assisted contact between Muslims and non-Muslims brought itself with both negative and positive elements; the positive elements are that both Muslims and non-Muslims of today live at a golden time when, because of the Information Age Technology, they can easily have unlimited access to learning about each other´s life values in order to reach honest understanding that can finally pave the way for peaceful co-existence; the negative elements are the risk that this very Information Age Technology that would facilitate truth searching could be used or is being used right now for hatred and propaganda purposes, which can widen the everyday social and political wounds that never heal but get worse on daily basis between the Muslims everywhere and the non-Muslims of the West.
At this context of the Information Age Technology, no matter what side, group or argument you belong to or what ideology you believe in, honest dialogue and truth searching research are the only answers to the seemingly unmovable obstacles that separate the Muslim world and the West; the extremes and the moderates of both the Muslim world and the Western world should acknowledge that propaganda, hatred and violence will never have clear winners or achieve anything positive other than prolonging destruction and mistrust; this will only create more losers who are blind to the two correct highways to a beautiful world, which are peaceful co-existence and productive cooperation; this planet belongs to every human being no matter what culture or religion, so it is our collective responsibility as wise human beings to preserve it for our future children to inherit a destruction-free world from us, a world that constantly enjoys collective harmony between the human race.
Ahmed Said is a writer and a frequent blogger. He can be reached at [email protected]