The Asian tsunamis and the tragedy of the closed mind (on Muslim Interpretations of Tsunami)

The Daily Star ^ | 2005-01-19 | Mahfuzur Rahman

[nickcarraway]

Soon after the tsunamis struck South and South-East Asia in December 2004, a Bengali newspaper published from New York prominently carried a report on how Bangladesh escaped the disaster. The report, by Bangladeshi geologists, concluded that the shallow continental shelf of the Bangladesh mainland acted as a kind of buffer. A few days later, an angry reader left this message on the editor's answering machine: "How, could you, a Muslim, publish such a report? It was Almighty Allah who saved Bangladesh."

The proposition that God saved Bangladesh from the destructions of the tsunamis is of course a matter of faith, to which one is entitled. There exist similar other, even more strident, propositions. It has been said that the violent waves that killed hundreds of thousands were the punishment of God for the corruption and impiety of man. In particular, nudity, prostitution, gambling, and other forms of ungodly conduct seen in the holiday resorts of the region are said to have provoked divine wrath. That view became a familiar refrain in private conversations, in newspapers, and in mosques throughout the Muslim world.

In bringing up the subject, I am acutely aware of its enduring heritage. In Bangladesh, ever prone to natural disasters, one can easily go back to pre-tsunami times for illustration. A few years ago, following a particularly severe monsoon flooding, the Prime Minister of the country spoke of her conviction that God often tested the patience of the people with the aid of such disaster.

But back to the tsunamis. They wrought immense destruction. Hundreds of thousands of structures of all kinds were destroyed -- homes, schools, shops, office buildings, as well as bridges, roads, and rail tracks. Much of the landscape was strewn with debris, mostly timber, bamboo and flattened or twisted iron and thatched roofs. In some of the innumerable scenes of destruction there would stand a lone mosque in all its glory, with just about every structure around it in ruins. Many Muslims have hailed the phenomenon of mosques escaping the destruction as manifestation of the infinite mercy of Allah. A Bengali newspaper reported in a recent edition: "In the middle of destruction stand the mosques. It is as if the invisible hands of Almighty Allah protected them from the monstrous tsunamis. In tsunami-destroyed Indonesia, the minarets of the mosques still glint in the sun. Buildings and shops have all gone but they [the mosques] have remained miraculously untouched." (Translation mine.) The news report was based on stories from a number of villages in the Aceh province of the country.

Of the many-sided human response to the tsunami, the one that will certainly endure in many minds is a surge of humanity that brought an unprecedented amount of material relief and compassion to the suffering and bereaved people. Offers of assistance came from all corners of the world. For a change, the human race seemed to stand solidly with the stricken people. I believe it was one of humanity's finest hours.

Yet the disaster also revealed things less than noble. Along with the many expressions of the belief that the violent waves were a divine retribution, there arose in the Muslim world, particularly in some Arab countries, though not all, a question whether non-Muslims are eligible for Muslim charity. Many Islamic religious leaders viewed such aid as impermissible. What precisely could have been the reason behind that view was unclear. The initial aid offer from oil-rich Arab countries was paltry, even as the country hit hardest by the disaster happened to be the largest Muslim country in the world. Voices were raised in the still small liberal quarters of some of these countries, calling for much greater assistance. They were eventually heard, and aid to the region was substantially raised, albeit to levels that could easily be raised much further. But the very fact that there is a body of opinion, perhaps a powerful one, that considers aiding non-believing human beings impermissible, will remain an ugly blot on what was otherwise a triumph of humanity.

It appears that the tectonic shift under the sea that created the tsunami and unimaginable human misery also laid bare a widely spread detritus of closed minds. Many of the legends generated by such minds have either no basis in fact, or can be rationally explained. And they do not obviate the necessity for critical inquiry. The fact that some mosques remained standing while most dwelling houses around them were demolished is, for example, explained by the simple fact that the houses of worship are built much stronger than many other structures. The difference in the structural strength of an average mosque and that of an average dwelling house in poor countries, particularly in the rural areas, is stark. There is thus a perfectly rational explanation of what is thought to be a supernatural event. Neither is it factually true that no mosque was destroyed or damaged by the tsunamis. This puts strongly built houses of worship at par with other strongly built structures.

To try to find an explanation of a natural phenomenon is at the very least a reflection of the spirit of inquiry that distinguishes humans from others species. There was nothing wrong in Bangladeshi geologists trying to figure out what prevented the tsunamis from devastating the country. There was nothing impious in it. Through inquiries such as this, man has enriched his knowledge of his physical environment over the ages. That was in fact how human civilisation itself evolved.

Ironically, blind beliefs themselves raise a host of questions. The belief that it was act of God that saved Bangladesh, and that it was divine retribution that descended on South and South-East Asia in the shape of the tsunamis, also leaves a great deal of questions unanswered, not least among them was why Bangladesh was spared this time while it is regularly devastated by natural disaster, and why the largest Muslim country in the world suffered the most devastation in the tsunamis, or for that matter why could not divine wrath -- if that indeed what it was -- precisely target the impious and the corrupt along the shores of the ocean. Such questions do not in any way belittle the divine. They only diminish the individual who claims to know the divine mind.

Perhaps the hardest to understand is the hesitation in giving aid to non-Muslims I mentioned earlier. Put aside the important consideration that we live in an interdependent world. Muslims in distress do accept aid from non-Muslims. Most of aid, both humanitarian and developmental, that Muslim-majority countries receive is in fact given by countries which are not Muslim. The post-tsunami scene was no exception. Why, then, should there have been the slightest doubt over the propriety of Muslims giving aid to human beings who happen to be non-Muslims? This too is a sad illustration of the closed mind.

[joesnuffy]

Schmear Campaign
How I made peace with an Arab neighbor.

BY ALAN BROMLEY
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:01 a.m.

NEW YORK--Across the street from my office on West 26th Street is a deli owned by an Arab fellow named Muhammed. He has a TV that hangs from the ceiling
and is always tuned to CNN. One day the network was showing footage of tsunami devastation, and I remarked, "It looks worse than a nuclear attack."

"That's what I think it was," he responded. "This wasn't an earthquake, it was an underwater nuclear bomb!"

Shocked that he took my metaphor and flipped a natural disaster into a political bomb, I asked, "Who set it off? Why would they do that? And who do you blame
for the 9/11 massacre?" I pushed, as I awaited my toasted bagel with cream cheese.

"The Zionists! The Americans!" he shouted. Other patrons moved away, putting their orders "on hold."

"The Jews stayed away from the towers on 9/11," he continued.

I was boiling. "The Jews stayed away because it was right before our holiest holidays, when the most observant Jews go to synagogue every morning a week or
so in advance of Yom Kippur," I replied. "So let me ask you: are you more proud of your ignorance or your bias?"



I escalated the argument: "And when will you accept your own failings for aiding and not confronting terrorism, instead of pushing for some sort of freedom within
your homelands? When will you accept that fact that your people, with a somewhat glorious history of achievement, haven't moved forward for hundreds of years,
after your losing efforts to conquer Europe? Yet you're here on 26th Street, making a decent living in the United States for your family, making a profit on my
bagel, which you're entitled to."

"Don't tell me what I'm entitled to!" he yelled.

"There are 1.25 billion Muslims in the world, and you basically control the energy supply of the world," I shouted. "There are about 13 million Jews still living, so
when are you going to stop blaming the Jews for your problems and take control of your own destiny without looking for scapegoats?"

By now, the other customers had fled, and my bagel with cream cheese was ready--for Muhammed to throw at me! He missed by a good two feet.



I went back the next day seeking common ground. After all, if I can't make peace with my deli man, how can the Palestinians and Israelis move forward? I called
him aside, and put my right hand out. We shook hands, and both apologized.

Muhammed, I learned, is from Jordan (where he was a geologist) and is married to an Irishwoman. He has lived in New York for 21 years and has owned the deli
for 10 years. He's invested in New York, in America. This is no radical bent on destroying that which he's built or what others have built.

"Look," he said, "I got emotional. I don't believe the Jews or America set off an underwater bomb, but Chirac might have. The French have no desert to try their
weapons on, and I don't trust them."

Common ground indeed! If Muhammed and I can become friends, maybe there's hope for the Middle East.

Mr. Bromley lives, writes and eats in New York City.

[USF]

What a kook... but unfortunately not a rare breed at all.

Personally, I would go find a new deli...