Taking the Initiative
Finally. Segments of the Muslim community are beginning to wake up. Not just sole voices here and there, speaking up and earning the enmity of their fellow Muslims, but now a concerted effort by groups. Yes, we do have a group in Canada speaking up against fundamentalism in Islam, warning Canada that harm is being done and will increase, through the activities of rabid Islamists. That brave group of individuals has been set upon, they've been threatened and suffered insult and beatings; we owe much to the Muslim Canadian Congress.But they're hard put to maintain themselves, despite their courage and their resolve. It isn't a simple matter to continue work such as they have undertaken in the face of death threats and threats issued against family members. Already Tarek Fatah has had to step down from his central role in representing the moderate face of Islam in Canada, against repeated threats. Others have taken his place and they too now live lives of fear, while determined to continue their work on unmasking the evils of fanaticism.
So it's good to hear that a delegation of British Muslim leaders have come to Canada for the express purpose of instructing Muslim leaders in Canada, adding their experienced voices to those of our home-grown Muslim moderates. Britain, with its larger Muslim immigrant population and its recent problems with hate-spewing mullahs in British mosques whose purpose it has been to convert the moderate to jihadists has learned from its experience. And the moderate Muslims have taken up the challenge which fate has thrown their way.
They are here to state that Canadian Muslims can take measures to counteract extremism by guiding their young away from radical political interpretations of Islam. Abdul-Rehman Malik, contributing editor at Q-News, a British Muslim current affairs magazine spoke of the effectiveness of a program called the Radical Middle Way Project, a grassroots movement to ensure that credible and knowledgeable Islamic scholars travel across the country to preach against violent interpretations of Islam.
"What's happening on the ground is that 'Muslim' is becoming a political identity, not a religious identity", Mr. Malik told a gathering of Canadian Muslim leaders. Moderate leaders must reinvigorate the faith among disenchanted youth who have adapted to a Muslim identity reflective of anger over Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than about being a good Muslim.
Radical imams, he pointed out, who speak Arabic are granted legitimacy by uncertain teenagers prepared to believe whatever translation or interpretations of the Koran these imams offer to them. Yahya Fadlalla, an imam and cyber-terrorism consultant from Hamilton, Ontario encouraged the group to keep an observant eye on "so-called imams" with little genuine scholarly training. Such pretenders exert a poisonous influence on the gullible young, he pointed out.
"I think we need to talk less about accommodation and more about contribution" said Waqqas Khan, a former student leader in Britain. Mr. Khan was among a number of British Muslims who participated in a series of "Preventing Extremism Together" workshops in collaboration with the British government after the July 7 attacks in London.
We can only applaud the work of these responsible, responsive members of our society, and wish them well in their endeavours, since their success impacts on all of us.
Labels: Religion
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 22, 2007
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