Contributed photo
A Muslim in prayer observance.André Wright, Staff Reporter
September 11, 2001 opened up a Pandora's Box of 21st century horrors not just for the United States but more so for the world. The more tragic result of those attacks and the subsequent anti-terrorism soap opera starring U.S. President George W. Bush is the fact that Islam is now in danger of being ostracised to religious backwaters.
Islam's early development was rooted in violence and bloodshed, very much the same as the sanguinary conquests of imperialistic Christianity when crusaders waged war in their bid to fulfill the Great Commission.
The corridors of history are littered with memories of ecclesiastic exploitation and the church's conspiracy in slavery and colonialism and the cries of innocents from the Catholic Inquisitions' death chambers still echo loudly.
However, established religions in the modern world have matured somewhat. In an age of pluralism, hard-nosed fundamentalism has softened and more worshippers despite their religious affiliations - are exhibiting greater levels of tolerance.
Pope John Paul II has engaged leaders of different faiths in recent times. Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, who has been accused of inciting hatred against Whites and Jews, participated in a Jewish ceremony at the synagogue in downtown Kingston earlier this year.
The Bahá'í faith is also a resonant voice calling for unity and co-operation despite cultural, racial and religious differences.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner last week, Hopeton Fitz-Henley, member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'í in Jamaica, condemns the use of violence to promote religious beliefs.
"Religious excesses and fanaticism must be expunged. Fanaticism in the Bahá'í faith (or any other), is not just discouraged, but abhorred. The days of religious fanaticism are over," he said.
Like the two aeroplanes which torpedoed the World Trade Center, Islam is being hijacked by mindless militants drunk with the belief that religion must be enforced - at all costs. One way, one religion.
Far too often, the voices of Muslim fundamentalists dominate the media - voices that frequently speak in violence, oppression and terrorism. We see or hear it every day.
Fundamentalism bred the Taliban movement with their reign of terror and inspires the self-righteous Nigerian north to stone women for adultery (also a former Jewish tradition which has been abandoned).
From the militants who weeks ago mowed down seven Christian missionaries in Pakistan to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, Ahmed Yassin's Hamas and the al-Qaida cells worldwide, television screens scream with barking guns and detonating bombs.
Even Kuwait, which was delivered from Saddam Hussein's 'desire for empire', is rippling with interest groups that are more sympathetic to far-right policies, preferring old-style Islam to one 'corrupted' by blanket freedoms.
COUP BY MILITANT EXTREMISM
But this is not the only face of Islam. Fundamentalism is not necessarily a bad thing. There are fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus. Millions of Muslims are peace-loving worshippers who uphold high principles of holiness and a love for tradition though despising the values of the West with its constantly changing morality.
This side of Islam, however, is hardly seen, hardly newsworthy for top television ratings and tell-tale tabloids. And it is the one-sided images of barbarity that influence the current wave of mass hysteria around the globe.
Every Muslim is now "a threat" to peaceful society. Every Arab wearing his trademark beard is "the arch-enemy" behind an imminent terrorist attack. Arab-Israeli citizens are treated as second class residents in Israel.
Tourists visiting the United States from Jordan, Yemen and other Arab nations, are being deliberately targeted by police because they fit the profile of "a terrorist".
The West isn't interested in the whys of the situation. We do not consider that the extremism is partially grounded in the fact that many Islamic countries are Third World nations with widespread poverty, inadequate facilities for proper health and education, lacking political stability and freedoms and are overrun by disillusioned militant factions. It is not merely a religious problem; it is a political problem.
THE MANDATE FOR CHANGE
Evangelist Franklin Graham, in a Sunday Gleaner article dated October 6, 2002, chastised the intolerance existing in Islamic societies: "There is no religious freedom ... I can't go to Saudi Arabia with a Bible. They will confiscate it. If you are a Muslim in Saudi Arabia and you want to change your religion and become a Hindu or become anything other than Muslim, they can kill you. You can lose your life."
Rev. Graham is right. Islam's greatest sin is that it is has not evolved as fast as other religions. True, there are regressive tenets of Christianity and other religions that drive away would-be converts.
But Islam, in a world of compromise and change, has leaned more to fundamentalist revolution than fundamental evolution.
It is left to those Muslims who support women's rights, who espouse the values of religious tolerance and preach the message of peace and fundamental freedoms, to rescue the religion with the second highest number of adherents worldwide from the mad militancy of warmongers.
If they don't, the scatterbrained West could well sell the propaganda that even Islam in its purest form is a synonym for terrorism.
ANDRÉ WRIGHT MAY BE CONTACTED AT wrights@colis.com
