Posted on 12/10/2004 11:36:45 PM PST by Destro
Eye on Eurasia: Islamophobia rising
UPI - Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Date: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 3:01:58 PM EST By PAUL GOBLE
TARTU, Estonia, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- Efforts by Russian Muslims to counter the rising tide of anti-Muslim items in the Russian media are often so unprofessional, emotional and grotesque they increase anti-Muslim sentiment in Russia and abroad, says a leading Moscow specialist on Islam.
Roman Silantyev, who serves as secretary of the Inter-religious Council of Russia and also as the chief specialist on Islam in the Patriarchate's External Relations Department, makes precisely that argument in the current issue of the Russian Orthodox Church's Tserkovniy vestnik.
Silantyev notes Islamophobia is increasing in Russia -- a view shared by most participants in a roundtable organized by the editors of NG-Religii in its Dec. 1 issue. And that makes countering this form of bigotry -- and doing so successfully -- all the more important.
In his article "Several Thoughts About Islamophobia," Silantyev notes there are many responsible defenders of Islam in Russia both among the country's Muslim leadership and in the media. But at the same time, he suggests the fight against Islamophobia in Russia is all too often dominated by "doubtful." people.
Sometimes these "defenders of Islam" expect non-Muslims to accept that "Islam is a religion of peace because it is peaceful," a circular argument he suggests is just about as impressive to non-Muslim Russians as were Soviet-era claims the teachings of Karl Marx "are all-powerful because they are true."
On other occasions, he says, the self-styled defenders of the faith engage in nasty personal attacks such as suggesting one or another writer should be examined by a psychiatrist or should be ostracized because of positive attitudes toward Israel. Or they make irresponsible claims about the size of the Muslim community in Russia or the number of ethnic Russians who have supposedly converted to Islam.
Silantyev is especially critical of Russia's largest Islamic information Web site, Islam.ru. He writes the editors of this portal have managed "at one and the same time" to launch suits against Izvestiya for xenophobia and to post often vicious attacks on Jews and Orthodox Christians.
Moreover, Silantyev notes, this site seems to spend much of its time attacking leaders of the Russian Muslim community such as Ravil Gainutdin and Talgat Tadzhuddin, the head of the Union of Muslims of Russia -- actions that only encourage hostility toward Muslims by non-Muslims.
What those who want to fight effectively against Islamophobia must do, Silantyev maintains, is "to create a positive image of Islam in the eyes of Russian society by stressing historical examples of the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians, their joint opposition to the godless power in the past, and their common struggle against non-traditional religions and new religious movements in the future."
But none of that will matter, Silantyev concludes, unless Muslim scholars and Muslim commentators provide a satisfactory answer to "the principled question: why do the overwhelming majority of terrorist groups now acting in the world associate themselves with Islam and why does not a single terrorist organization act in the name of Orthodox Christianity?"
Not surprisingly, Silantyev's ideas have been attacked by those he criticizes, a development not unexpected but one that may receive greater attention than would otherwise be the case because of the opening in New York of a U.N. seminar devoted to the question of how best to counter Islamophobia and promote tolerance.
The response of the editors of Islam.ru to Silantyev's article was immediate and -- at least from the point of view of Silantyev -- compelling evidence of some of the problems he points to.
In often extremely sharp and personal terms, Islam.ru's Abdulla Khasinov argues Silantyev is illiterate on Islamic questions, his statements about Islam.ru are both ignorant and unprofessional, and he has rendered himself unfit to serve as secretary of the Inter-religious Council of Russia.
Indeed, Khasinov concludes the only thing that Silantyev could possibly be fit to serve the members of that Council is tea "because for that he would only need to smile."
Many Russian Orthodox clergy and laity will read Silantyev's article, but few will see Khasinov's response. By Khasinov's own admission, Islam.ru has only some 8,000 subscribers, and beyond any doubt most of them are Muslims who already agree with the site's point of view.
That imbalance in access to the mainstream media, the Internet's tendency in many cases to reinforce the views of surfers rather than promote dialogue among them, and the equally nasty comments of some of those who attack Islam all help to explain some of Khasinov's anger.
But Silantyev is surely right that getting angry won't solve anything and that those who do want to combat the evil of Islamophobia will never be able to do so until and unless they overcome these limitations and answer the challenge he has posed.
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(Paul Goble teaches at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.)
-- Copyright 2004 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
Beeber... Stuned... Must... recover... You... will... pay.....
Well back on the farm, we had a horse who had a little mare. This mare was the most cantakerous horse we ever had. We could never get her to settle down. We tried putting her in stables, in corrals, in fields and pasture, but to no avail. Then we had a "horse whisperer" come and check her out. He took one look at her and said that girl needs to be on a grass surface. Kentucky blue grass sod is the best. "Sod?", I asked? Yes he said, "Sod best the mare she'll settle then".
Funny you should mention Kentucky. I have a cousin named Beverly up in Louisville that used to be big into plays, but they couldn't cast her in big roles because she kept mugging for the audience, which loved her but got distracted from the plot by her. I went up for a Christmas family reunion, and her son, who is about 4, wanted me to sit down in front of the fireplace and play his favorite game, tiddly-winks, with him. But he is just as big a drama queen as his mom (especially when he loses), so I told him to play with his mom, saying:
Oh, tiddle down with Bev the ham!
And I've still got you on the Zod one, if only on length of the pun-chline alone. :)
Well back on the farm on Christmas Eve, the ladies would bake Christmas pies. They would cut all sorts of precise patterns and shapes in the finished pies to make the cut pieces more festive. Well one Christmas they had a little too much egg-nog cheer while they were cutting their pies. They started making all sorts of strange shapes on them. After awhile they could be heard merrily singing, "Angles we have blurred on pie..."
Pretty painful...but it does remind me of a seasonal situation I ran into recently. My cousins and I were harangued into working the alumni weekend for my mom and their mom, who had both attended the greatest Pittsburgh institution of higher learning, Duquesne University. The two mothers, who are nearly 90, have only one vice, and that's getting together with their cronies and gossiping about other alumni--BO-ring--so of course, we left after the initial rush on the registration tables, since everyone was busy yakking. We hightailed it to Fresco's, an oenophile's dream hangout. We got so smashed on madeira, though, that none of us remembered to pick up the ladies, who were expecting to meet the party at Fresco's. At about 6 that evening, the bartender walked over to us, and said loudly,
"Should old Duquesne aunts be forgot, and never brought to wine?"
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