this is an article from the toronto star. not some chop shop private website, so this is a credible source with an unbiased argument.
thestar.com
Exposing theology of hate
By Haroon Siddiqui
WHEN John Esposito, a Brooklyn-born graduate of theology and philosophy, decided in the 1970s to do his Ph.D. in Islamic studies, his family and friends worried over why he wanted to study "all that abracadabra." But the 1979 Iranian revolution and the American hostage crisis paved his way to gainful employment.
"I owe my career to the Ayatollah Khomeini!" he said.
It has been propelled since by other crises: the Persian Gulf War, the ongoing American warfare with Saddam Hussein and the rise and post-Sept. 11 fall of the Taliban.
Along the way, it has been Esposito's avocation to explain the meaning of events behind the headlines.
After studying political Islam, from North Africa and Middle East to Asia, and teaching at the College of the Holy Cross and Tufts University, both in Massachusetts, he became director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.
He has written 27 books, including two since Sept. 11, Unholy Wars and What Everyone Needs To Know About Islam (Oxford University Press).
Speaking plainly and bluntly — "and not just because I'm an Italian American!" — he has drawn the wrath of both sides of the divide he bridges. He has been called an apologist for Islam as well as a ka'afir, or infidel.
In a speech at the University of Toronto's St. Michael's College last Sunday, and in an interview, he bemoaned the increasing divisions between West and East and the rise of a new McCarthy era in America. He berated Muslims for not looking beyond America's wrong-headed foreign policy to examine their own faults.
"Sept. 11 exposed the extent of the theology of hate," Esposito said. "It includes those who advocate violence and those who don't — many Christian right people and Wahhabi-influenced people. They know that anybody who doesn't agree with them is going to go to hell. But it does not mean that they are going to dispatch you to hell."
Violent Muslims joined the global militant jihad of Al Qaeda, now being hunted down.
The non-violent on the other side constitute "a very militant minority that's anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. The clearest articulation of it are Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham saying Islam is evil, not that Muslim extremists are evil but that Islam is, and Jerry Falwell calling Prophet Muhammad a terrorist. And society is tolerating all this. This is dangerous."
But is the concept of a prophet who is also a warrior unique to Islam? "What of Joshua, David and Solomon?"
Islam and Muslims violent? Recall the Inquisition, the Crusades, colonialism, all the European wars, and the horrors inflicted by Christians in apartheid South Africa, in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo.
"When there's conflict, human nature likes to create a bipolar world and monolith categories. In the Cold War, all Communists were the same and anybody that disagreed with Western capitalism was a Communist. In recent years, it's been Islamic fundamentalism, or militant Islam. Now, it's Wahhabi Islam."
Go after the twisted Wahhabism of Osama bin Laden, not the non-violent variety, Esposito said, or we won't be much different than the authoritarian Central Asian regimes that are invoking Wahhabism to crack down on all dissenters. Don't tar all madrassas, religious schools, with the brush of militancy.
They are as much a part of the Islamic landscape as seminaries are here. More so.
Don't presume to tell Muslims, as colonialists did, which Islam to practise. Or that "the only good Muslim is one who is highly secular, even a minimalist believer, or none at all."
It is "ridiculous," Esposito said, to cite Turkey as a model Muslim nation and Salman Rushdie (as free as he should be to write what he wants), as an example of a moderate Muslim. "We don't dare do that when it comes to Jews and Christians."
The Christian right, Esposito said, has become "a significant minority, one with a voice in the media" and influence on the Bush administration.
It is in an unholy alliance with ideological neo-conservatives and right-wing Zionists.
"Zionism is a legitimate position," he continued, but right-wing Zionists are displaying "a palpable fear that people are going to suddenly connect terrorism to causes, and that the significance of the Arab-Israeli conflict might lead many to raise the question about America's foreign policy ... So there has been this aggressive approach: `Don't bring up causes, there are no causes other than that they hate us. Don't talk about root causes, and if you do, you are a sympathizer of terrorists'" — or anti-American.
"I have been in the field for about 25, 30 years, but I have not seen as polarized a situation, politically and in the media, as exists today.... See how often Bush uses the word evil? His enemies are evil. Therefore, he can do anything, like a pre-emptive strike, and operate unilaterally" right across the world.
As for Muslims, they don't have to apologize for Sept. 11 as a people, just as "Christians and Jews don't have to answer for their extremists." But it is not enough for them to say, `Well, that's just extremism, and everything else is fine.'"
They must "acknowledge their problems. Ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam, like the ultra-conservative interpretations of Judaism and Christianity, are legitimate and should be allowed to exist. But liberal-minded people ought to point out that these can be dangerous, that these mentalities are very anti-pluralistic and intolerant, and that they can skew the next generation."
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Haroon Siddiqui is The Star's editorial page editor emeritus. E-mail: hsiddiq@thestar.ca |
