Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Can Islam Cope With Pluralism?

Published by

Matt Stone

2006-02-05

Can Islam cope with pluralism? You’ve got to wonder after the extreme outbursts within the Muslim community over the series of cartoons published in Danish newspaper JP the other day.

As a Christian this raises a couple of issues for me. Firstly, we are called to treat all “religious others” with gentleness and respect, even when we disagree with them. So if this is indeed blasphemous for Muslims then I feel we should listen to their concerns and not dismiss them lightly.

Yet, should Islam be treated any different to other religions in the secularized West? Should journalists treat them with kid gloves after Christians and Christ himself have been lampooned by the media for decades? For journalists do so would effectively introduce a new form of discrimination against Christianity, Judaism and other religions already in the West would it not?

Should we say hands off all religions then? Mmmm. Not so sure.
Critique can be a good thing. Personally I believe a viewing of Life of
Brian every now and again does wonders to keep us Christians grounded.
Let’s face it, self-critique is also a part of the Christian heritage
and satire is a useful form of critique. Maybe its time Muslims in the
West learnt its value…but will the fabric of global society be torn
apart in the process? I don’t have any easy answers here. Just some
questions. But I think one we need to grapple with is at what point
does critique become blaspheme?

As we Christians grapple with these issues of religious pluralism I
would also like to see some form of reciprocation from the Muslim side.
As Andii recently commented on Nouslife,

“The
problem I have with the kinds of Islam I am seeing at the moment in
relation to this matter is that there appears to be no desire, impetus
or reason encouraging those Muslims to recognise that there are other
views held sincerely. I recognise too that in other circumstances,
there are Christians who seem to have forgotten that the Golden Rule is
part of what Jesus passed on to us along with “Father forgive them they
don’t know what they are doing”. If there are other Islamic voices, it
would be good to hear them and be encouraged that Islam does have the
resources to recognise at least a degree of pluralism.”

Does Islam have the internal resourses to recognise a degree of pluralism?
On this question the future of world peace may well indeed hang. Salam.

Tags Muslim, Religion

18 responses to “Can Islam Cope With Pluralism?”

bec

2006-02-06

Aren’t the answers to all these questions the same as if one asked them of, say, Christianity or Judaism? Why should one religion be treated differently to others in the secularised West? Why would the fabric of global society be torn apart by critique (and self-critique)? And surely the question is not whether Islam has the internal resources to recognise a degree of pluralism, but whether or not Muslims have the internal resources to recognise a degree of pluralism – and then that question of course leads to others, like ‘which Muslims?’
I think that the outbursts over the cartoon need to be viewed in light of global politics, and the fact that people perceive themselves to be oppressed and threatened by the West and by Christianity. People who feel threatened will respond in extreme ways. It’s very easy for me as a Christian to sit back and say ‘oh, I can take it, I can cop some criticism’ – I don’t have my hijab pulled off my head in the tram, or have to see the President of the most powerful nation in the world speaking as if I am evil, as if my God is evil. And though I can deal with a certain degree of cynicism and critique, I have to say that I get rather tired of seeing t-shirts that poke fun at Jesus…I have to wonder how I’d feel if I had the sense of being overwhelmed that so many Muslims must have.

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bec

2006-02-07

This is a brilliant piece –
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/trampling-others-beliefs-in-defence-of-yours/2006/02/06/1139074163859.html

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Andii Bowsher

2006-02-08

Fair comment Bec, very important to be reminded of the global situation and the experience of powerlessness. Yet I would want to press the point[s]. The resources of Islam are important; the choice of the word ‘resources’ was significant and deliberate: since people’s “internal” resources are affected for good or ill by the models, narratives and hermeneutic strategies of their culture. I take the point about experiences of abuse and the like. However the map of where pictures have been published and of where the gravest protests have taken place does rather belie the personal ‘micro’ example of a hijab being pulled off. The severest protests are in majority muslim countries.
Behind what I’m saying here is the experience I have listened to of Christians in majority Islamic countries [mainly Pakistani], where it is Christians who are in the analogous position of discrimination and they are somewhat pessimistic about the thing.
I don’t want to get into victimage, I do recognise that the global situation does have a bearing on the matter and I do think that we should be aware of the matter of ‘which Muslims?’. That said, it is still important for the way that things can develop, to identify whether Islam as a system is an implacable enemy of religious neighbourliness or if it has ‘resources’ that mean that it can be a good neighbour in global terms.

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Andii Bowsher

2006-02-08

Just after writing the above, I came across this in an article in the Guardian Online [http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1703512,00.html].
“The cartoons almost certainly look very different to a Muslim living in a western democracy and to someone in the Muslim world. It’s easy to sympathise with a Muslim living in Denmark, who would feel directly persecuted by these images. The Copenhagen Muslim interviewed in yesterday’s Guardian certainly had a point when he compared them to the comments of a Danish MP who apparently called Muslims “a cancer in Denmark”. Many people in his situation live difficult lives, and such images won’t improve matters much.
But along with the sympathy one has to feel for people in that beleaguered situation, the uses that the Danish cartoons have been put to in the Muslim world must be challenged. Around the world, the anti-Danish campaign is being used by Islamist political groups to rally support for extreme causes. The aim of many such groups is, through pressure, to limit free speech on religious matters in the west, and entirely suppress it at home.”
It seems to voice my concern quite well.

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Andii Bowsher

2006-02-08

Just rereading Matt and realised that there is no link to my posting,
http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2006/02/blasphemy.html
-might be useful for other readers to be able to see the quote in context.

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Nigel

2006-02-08

Or is simply that it is the religion of “secularism” that is really the threatened one?
(Not that there is a simple answer, but I can’t help but thinking that there is a serious amount of deflection going on)

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Tom Allen

2006-02-08

I think that the key “gap” between Christian perspectives and Islamic perspectives is on the question of blaspemy. In Western Christian culture we have effectively lost any real sense of blasphemy being possible unless you are an adherent. For the vast majority of Muslims it is still a very real experience/attitude – not something whipped up by hot heads or leaders but deeply personally felt. As I have posted about my suprise at the sense of outrage felt by one very British young adult muslim – and I have also posted the response from a young woman Muslim from Bradford who utterley condemns the violence. I think we have to understand these personal feelings before we can move on – it is very “different” despite what we increasingly share in common across the faiths

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Andii Bowsher

2006-02-09

I think you are right Tom to identify the issue of how we think about blasphemy as important. I’d like to add something to that consideration. It does seem to me that in terms of spirituality, ‘blasphemy’ has to be defined in terms of the intent and understanding of the alleged blasphemer . Otherwise we are merely talking about lack of respect, slander or libel, surely. -And all or any of those could be applicable in the case at the origin of this discussion. To blaspheme is surely to knowingly speak against God or what is Holy? [From an atheist perspective, for example, it is nonsense to disrespect a non-existant being].
On a personal note, I often find myself wincing inside at the casual [mis]use of names and titles I use for God and Christ. I may ask people to be aware that it causes me some pain to hear those words use ‘profanely’ but I usually have to recognise that for these people these are verbal tics with no more meaning than “I’m [some degree of seriously] dischuffed”.
I can’t bring myself to think that my being offended is worth a call for beheading of the insensitive person. The appropriate act is to either put up or try to persuade the person to be more mindful of others’ sensibilities or, if appropriate, come to share my assesment of the value of God -for which the verbal symbols stand- and so value the symbols differently.
The problem is, it seems to me, that most of the trouble has come from societies that have for a long time presumed that either one is an adherant of Islam or that one has been silenced in public about such things. This means that the shock of someone not toeing the line about what may be said about things held sacred is greater. We are probably dealing with first generation exposure to the ‘religious other’ where the tools to handle difference of this kind have not been forged or made available.
These are societies that in effect have been insulated from criticism of their central spiritual traditions and precepts and so have not so far developed ways of handling criticisms [even relatively mild ones, let alone ‘robust’ ones] in a way that recognises the potential bona fides of the critic.
THat said, this case is not a good one to argue for the bona fides of critics being respected as a number of them seem to have been aiming to be offensive.

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bec

2006-02-09

Good stuff Andii – but again, it suggests that this is not about “Islam”, and that it’s somewhat misleading to say that it’s about “Muslims” – it’s far more complicated than that. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not for a moment suggesting that the response to the cartoons has been what I would regard as justifiable or appropriate…
Just as the anti-Danish campaign has been used by Islamist political groups to rally support for extreme causes, so too has that campaign been used by ‘the West’ to rally support for extreme causes – ie. the suggestion that “Islam” is to blame. More particularly, that that “Islam” is all defining – the views put forward by many journos deny that there are any other models, narratives and hermeneutic strategies, and even ignore the fact that there is diversity within Islam.
I know Matt didn’t mean it this way, but when we ask whether Muslims or Islam has the resources to recognise a degree of pluralism, we are buying into that argument. Of course Muslims and Islam have the resources to recognise a degree of pluralism – and they do, because there is immense diversity within Islamic thought and among Muslims.
As an afterthought – I don’t know heaps about this, but I was under the impression that many Arab states had secular constitutions, governments etc long before most of the West did…I should chase that one up, but if I’m right, then it confirms that this is not purely about Islam…

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bec

2006-02-09

Oh…Rami Khouri (in today’s Age here:http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-real-truth-behind-the-cartoons-fury/2006/02/08/1139379569017.html) says it so much better than I!
It is perhaps time that we stopped being surprised by a phenomenon that has become routine: the affirmation of Islamic identity as the dominant form of national self-assertion in developing societies whose citizens suffer major grievances against the quality of their own statehood and governance as well as against Western and Israeli policies.

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Andii Bowsher

2006-02-10

Bec. I think I agree with you on the whole. Where I think we may differ is that I suspect that we ‘westerners’ need to be aware of the way that significant inherited Islams [the plural is fair, I think, in the light of your comments] are complicit in the overreactions and currently are used to legitimise rather than delegitimise murderous reactions.
Yes, there is diversity already within Islam. However that diversity is not always a cause for hope for it to be extended wider than Islam, particularly when similarly murderous rhetoric can be heard against other Muslim groups. And yes, as I write that I can think of parallels in the west and even to our shame in Christian history.
But I’m concerned that in identifying the trees of Islamic opinion and differentiation, we do not lose sight of the wood that is Islam and how it’s history, scriptures, self-understandings and other-understandings can be used in such a way as to contribute to the legitimating of violence and advocacy of murder and oppression.
That’s not to say that we in the ‘west’ should not be pressing for love of neighbour and even of ‘enemy’, respect for the alien and justice for all and to engage in self-scrutiny and corporate repentance. However we will also need to be aware that Islam has it’s own work to do too. One of those works may actually to be owning up to the fact that ‘umma’ is an ideological fiction.
I happen to agree with what I think you are saying, which is that our own actions should be such that they help the Muslim world to face its own issues rather than demonising the west [much though ‘we’ often deserve it].

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bec

2006-02-10

Andii, I couldn’t agree more with your comments. The fact that there is already diversity within Christianity does not excuse us of the atrocities committed in the name of our faith throughout history, nor does it excuse us of the things that occur (or fail to occur!) today in the name of our faith. The Muslims I know recognise this though – and I’m watching people working themselves to the bone not only to raise awareness of Islam in the broader community, but to also instigate change in their own communities. Their lot is far harder than mine – I might cop flack from other Christians for my views on, say, debt cancellation…but my Muslim friends cop it from all quarters. Not only are they marginalised by the Muslim community, but they are marginalised by the broader Australian community.
So yes – there’s a lot of work for Muslims to do.
But I also agree with you – and here’s the nub for me, since this is the only bit I can have any influence over – our own actions should be such that they help the Muslim world to face its own issues rather than demonising the west. I think we need to start asking, how can we help, and why are we being demonised?
Little wonder that we’re demonised when newspapers deliberately publish cartoons in order to see what sort of storm they can stir up – this is not about free speech, this is about people deliberately poking a stick in the hole. If we’re going to pick a fight, let’s at least do it over something worthwhile…

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bec

2006-02-10

Oops – I left a sentence out – I meant to say that just as Christians can’t sit back and say “oh, well I believe this so it’s irrelevant what other Christians do”, so too do Muslims have an obligation to address the atrocities committed in the name of their faith.

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Matt Stone

2006-02-10

On that note it would be interesting to put together a list of Muslim bloggers that have publically distanced themselves from the violence committed in their name. If there are such voices out there that are willing to stand up and be counted then we should be supporting them. I’d appreciate people flagging such links if you know of them.

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bec

2006-02-10

Will get back to you Matt.

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Andii Bowsher

2006-02-11

I too would love to find and ‘promote’ such Muslim bloggers.

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Deme

2006-02-16

Hmmm,
I frequent an interfaith forum which recently had a topic about these same issues. The Muslims that spoke in there, while they said they did not condone the violence, did seem to not grasp the concept of a difference in opinions and free speech. I do worry that they worried more about someone insulting their prophet than their God. I would think this is more blasphemic than what the press did.
It would be notable to say that both the newspaper that published the cartoons and the UN, made a public apology.

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bec

2006-02-22

Matt, Andii – I am going to get on to this – just haven’t had a chance yet!

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