Beyond the bounds of religion
I had this published on the Guardian website today.
Beyond the bounds of religion
Muslims should see Gaza not as a tragedy for the Islamic world, but for all human beings
Obama is offering a hand of friendship to the Middle East and the wider Muslim world. This week he marked this new relationship, based in "mutual respect", by dispatching George Mitchell as his special envoy to the Middle East. Mitchell is a veteran of the Northern Ireland peace process and is widely held to be a fair broker.
"I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries," Obama stated. But is this enough to allow him to connect to the worldwide Muslim community which is watching to see whether his actions live up to his words?
The internet has exploded with Muslims expressing their anger, despair and frustration at the ongoing war. My inbox bubbles up with the emotion of email after email with photos of death, invitations to rallies and lectures, multiple Facebook campaigns and groups as well as the urgency of fundraising for aid.
For the first time since the rally attended by a million Britons just before the invasion of Iraq I have joined in protests. Held in London, around the country and across the world, they represented the people's voice in its most raw and purest form. Those who participated came from all over the country, from all ages, creeds, colours and backgrounds, including, but not limited to, Muslims. Those who raised their voices were all human beings, religious or not. But who was listening?
Not the BBC it seems, which has drawn huge criticism from across the board for refusing to air the Gaza appeal. Nor Lord Falconer who defended the BBC decision on Question Time on Thursday night by saying that seeing the suffering of Palestinians might make people "sympathetic to the Palestinians" and "hostile to the Israelis", implying that our instinctive moral judgment was wrong.
Muslims have expressed their feelings as members of the "ummah", sharing their anguish and heartbreak at the suffering of other Muslims in Palestine. The notion of ummah is embedded very deeply in the Muslim psyche. Its basis is Prophet Muhammad's observation that someone who does not wake up in the morning and feel the pain of other Muslims around the world is not a Muslim.
But Palestine is not a state populated only with Muslims; it encompasses those of Christian faith or none, all of them human beings. As well as the concept of "ummah", Muslims should be invoking the wider idea of humanity. There might be additional benefits in seeing the crisis in this way: evoking sympathy from the wider public and making common cause with those who support Palestine in order to achieve justice and peace, simply because it is the right thing to do.
Beyond the labels and stereotypes, Muslims, politicians, the people of the world, should know that this is a human calamity. Human beings are being killed before our eyes with nowhere to run, no food to eat, no water to drink. A Palestinian mother will see leaflets floating down from the sky to tell her that she and her children will be bombed and should leave. But where should they run? Egypt closed the border and places of refuge such as mosques are also hit.
This is a human crisis that the Palestinians have recorded on film, and which will haunt all of us as human beings. Once we said "never again". We must live by that promise.
Beyond the bounds of religion
Muslims should see Gaza not as a tragedy for the Islamic world, but for all human beings
Obama is offering a hand of friendship to the Middle East and the wider Muslim world. This week he marked this new relationship, based in "mutual respect", by dispatching George Mitchell as his special envoy to the Middle East. Mitchell is a veteran of the Northern Ireland peace process and is widely held to be a fair broker.
"I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries," Obama stated. But is this enough to allow him to connect to the worldwide Muslim community which is watching to see whether his actions live up to his words?
The internet has exploded with Muslims expressing their anger, despair and frustration at the ongoing war. My inbox bubbles up with the emotion of email after email with photos of death, invitations to rallies and lectures, multiple Facebook campaigns and groups as well as the urgency of fundraising for aid.
For the first time since the rally attended by a million Britons just before the invasion of Iraq I have joined in protests. Held in London, around the country and across the world, they represented the people's voice in its most raw and purest form. Those who participated came from all over the country, from all ages, creeds, colours and backgrounds, including, but not limited to, Muslims. Those who raised their voices were all human beings, religious or not. But who was listening?
Not the BBC it seems, which has drawn huge criticism from across the board for refusing to air the Gaza appeal. Nor Lord Falconer who defended the BBC decision on Question Time on Thursday night by saying that seeing the suffering of Palestinians might make people "sympathetic to the Palestinians" and "hostile to the Israelis", implying that our instinctive moral judgment was wrong.
Muslims have expressed their feelings as members of the "ummah", sharing their anguish and heartbreak at the suffering of other Muslims in Palestine. The notion of ummah is embedded very deeply in the Muslim psyche. Its basis is Prophet Muhammad's observation that someone who does not wake up in the morning and feel the pain of other Muslims around the world is not a Muslim.
But Palestine is not a state populated only with Muslims; it encompasses those of Christian faith or none, all of them human beings. As well as the concept of "ummah", Muslims should be invoking the wider idea of humanity. There might be additional benefits in seeing the crisis in this way: evoking sympathy from the wider public and making common cause with those who support Palestine in order to achieve justice and peace, simply because it is the right thing to do.
Beyond the labels and stereotypes, Muslims, politicians, the people of the world, should know that this is a human calamity. Human beings are being killed before our eyes with nowhere to run, no food to eat, no water to drink. A Palestinian mother will see leaflets floating down from the sky to tell her that she and her children will be bombed and should leave. But where should they run? Egypt closed the border and places of refuge such as mosques are also hit.
This is a human crisis that the Palestinians have recorded on film, and which will haunt all of us as human beings. Once we said "never again". We must live by that promise.
Labels: blog, comment, faith, Muslim, News, palestine, prophet muhammed
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 18:25
2 Comments:
Interesting post, as usual. The strife in that region won't stop as long as the "leaders" on both sides remain in power. They've made it abundantly obvious that it's in their vested interest to continue the conflict indefinitely. Hamas launches some rockets, Israel responds with overwhelming force. Then Hamas does it again.
Regular people on both sides need to ignore their governments and start building their own peace. This is already happening on some levels, but there needs to be a lot more effort. The economic and political elite has never brought peace to the region, so it's up to regular people.
By the way, I've presented you with the Premio Dardos award in recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. the details are on my blog.
It's not the biggest blogging award out there. Gordon Brown won't invite you to tea or anything, but perhaps it will encourage you to post more often!
Very good article.
We all have our own views on the Palestine/Israel problem, here are some of my thoughts.
The methods of Hamas can't work, however much Muslim and Palestinian people consider them heroes or martyrs, they are carrying out acts watched by a world that want's to distance itself from terrorism, and while they keep doing that they will be on their own, recent events show that even Muslim governments are trying to distance themselves.
However you look at the issues, the old 'land grab' arguments are largely in the past, most of the people on the receiving end of Hamas rockets didn't chose to be born as Jews or in Israel and more than people in Palestine chose to be born there.
A little more time spent on propper legal and political arguments might be more fruitful, for example, the original UN mandate to create Israel also created the new (halved) Palestinain state - go to the UN and demand that it makes good on that.
If the world could take Palestinian politicians seriosly (i.e. the elected ones) there is a case to make that every Israeli living on the wrong side of the UN created line is an illegal immigrant, and should live under Palestinian law, and every soldier that croses the line to protect their people is part of an invadeing army. These arguments can carry weight in countries like UK, France and Germany, with small Jewish and large Muslim populations. Sadly, internal Palestinian divisions defeat the prospect of them being taken seriously.
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