Preaching to the Converted
No sooner does one feel that things are changing, than one comes face-up to the realization that perhaps things may be changing, painfully, slowly, but on the other hand, change is a difficult construct to face, and words can be uttered, then forgotten, and perhaps there's no real need to change, after all.It's like saying you're sorry, and all is forgiven. Perhaps you're sorry, and perhaps forgiven as well, but if no action is taken to alter the situation which occasioned the need for an apology, what, really, is the point? The point is that nothing will change, after all, and either apologies will be voiced time and again, and to no avail, or the situation of aggrievement will continue to fester and bad feelings resume.
In the aftermath of the arrest of seventeen Muslim men the collective cry of personal anguish and disbelief arose from the Muslim community. Disbelief, because the collective could not credit the fact that among them were Muslim Canadians who wished to do harm to the society which succoured them. Anguish, because those same disaffected accused of terrorism were someone's husbands, sons, relatives-at-large, and certainly members of their personal communities.
How could this happen? they asked themselves. And us. For some members of the Muslim community, some representatives of the community, have demanded of the Canadian government that steps be taken to discern why this happened. As though government has an obligation to a specific religious community to protect them from the predatory effects on youth caused by radical fundamentalists among them. Who is it in the Muslim community who tolerates fanatical Islam? Who is it within that community that invites such religious figures to contaminate the "peaceful nature" of their religion?
Now we hear that a former cleric of one of Britain's largest mosques, a man known to foment hatred against non-Muslims has been invited to speak to Muslim groups in Toronto and Montreal. Why are Muslim groups inviting hate-mongers to spew their radical discourses if they fear the radicalization of their youth? Sheik Riyadh ul-Haq is reputed to have a history of inciting hatred toward non-Muslims, of warning of plots against Islam and the Muslim world. He glorifies martyrdom for the greater glory of Allah. This all has a very familiar ring to it. Isn't it time we went beyond this?
Tarek Fatah, ever vigilant, has warned about the truly deleterious fall-out of permitting such a hate-monger to preach to impressionable young Muslim youth. Apart from the fact that one wonders why Muslim youth are so impressionable to begin with, so readily converted to fanaticism in the name of Allah, why are community leaders inviting such a harm upon their communities if they really wish to worship their god in peace, and live in harmony with others who share their world, if not their religion?
More to the point, why is there such resistance in the Muslim community to the voice of reason embodied in Tarek Fatah? Why, one might legitimately ask, is he not the favoured speaker, and not Sheik ul-Haq?
posted by Pieface @ Friday, June 16, 2006
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