Slamming the brakes on interreligious dialogue

Aneel David Kannabhiran
Malaysiakini,Sep 22, 2006


“Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus - with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.”

Excerpt of Pope Benedict XVI’s Sept 12 speech at the University of Regensburg.

The first reaction by most Catholics in Malaysia on reading about the fallout over the Pope’s speech was most likely: “Why did he have to say such a thing?” Many would also ask that, if he wanted to drive home the point that religion and violence are incompatible, could he not have used Catholic examples - the Crusades for instance?

The Pope’s statements regarding Muhammad and Islam are ill-conceived, insensitive and ill-timed only because Muslims, from present and past evidence, believe that their religion must never be criticised or questioned - even by their fellow Muslims, more so by those of other religions.

Therefore it would not take any stretch of the imagination what their reaction to the Pope’s comments on their Prophet and religion would be. Churches in Palestine have been fire bombed and a nun in has been murdered in Mogadishu (possibly in relation to the controversy). Protests in India and Pakistan have turned violent.

The Muslim reaction, ironically, bore testament to the Pope’s reference: Muslims will not stop at violence to defend their religion. The sabre rattling by Malaysian parliament insisting that the Pope retract his statements and apologise is also typical of this ‘attack mentality’.

The only surprising response came from Indonesian clerics who urged non-violence and forgiveness. Calculated risk One could speculate that Benedict’s speech was a calculated risk to test if they would react in typical fashion or practice the peaceful, tolerant approach of ‘true Islam’.

This would lead one to conclude that the Pope is either very shrewd or very foolish. The pontiff’s limited apology is probably as far as the Vatican will compromise. In their minds, presumably, any further bowing to the Islamic world’s pressure will only show that Christianity can easily be cowed by another religion.

The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) has hopefully put the matter to rest by accepting the pontiff’s amends. If, as Benedict later explained, the true meaning of his address “was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect”, is it any wonder that any efforts at dialogue or interfaith understanding is met by reluctance, suspicion and summary rejection? The pontiff should re-think a more appropriate approach if ‘dialogue’ is indeed his objective.

One gets the impression that Benedict is far out of touch with realities on the ground. He spends most of his life amongst his own kind and probably never in his life had to live in a Muslim majority community. However, if one were to read and comprehend the full text of the pontiff’s lengthy and somewhat complicated speech, one would discover that it was essentially about the weaknesses of the Western world, its irreligion and disdain for religion and that both Christianity and Islam share a commonality in rejecting the linking of religion and violence.

The reason for the references to the 14th century emperor’s contentions, although not directly expressed by the pontiff, could have been to demonstrate that the current (mis)perception of Islam by Western Christians has existed since then. Non-Muslim perception is based on what is reported - most of what one reads about Islam in newspapers are terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims in the name of their religion. The only jihad that is reported is of the ‘holy war’ variety.

Thus, can one blame non-Muslims, especially those in the West for perceiving Islam as a violent religion? Lip service Religious leaders from every faith repeat that terrorism in the name of religion is a violation and betrayal of any religion, but stop short at naming Muslims as the most prevalent perpetrators of such violence. Pope Benedict XVI is probably the first non-Muslim leader to dare say this publicly.

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who is also Chairman of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in his speech, ‘Dialogue, the Key to Multireligious, Multiethnic and Multicultural Societies’ at the 2004 World Council of Churches, spoke of those “who practise their faith in absolutist terms” and “misinterpret the very religion that they profess”. Badawi went on to admit that “Muslims are responsible for a number of terrorist acts committed today”, and further reiterated that, “the Palestinian issue or the conflict in Iraq are not just Muslim grievances. These are problems of universal concern”.

Therefore, the contention by some ‘analysts’ that America and its involvement in the Israel-Palestine-Middle East crises is the ‘root cause’ of each and every terrorist attack worldwide is beginning to sound pathetic. Every time a terrorist attack occurs, the Muslim moderates will repeat yet again that “Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and non-violence”.

If this is the belief of the majority of Muslims, how is it the extremists in minority seem to be having the upper hand? Isn’t it time for Muslims to engage in intra-religious dialogue with the extremist elements within their faith? This question was put to Indonesian professor of Islam and Comparative Religion Syafa’atun Almirzanah in the September 2004 issue of CANews, who agreed, but pointed out that because Islam is a poly-interpretable religion it was difficult to arrive at commonality. “It is much easier to initiate dialogue between Christians and Muslims, than to initiate dialogue between progressive, liberal Muslims and our hard-line fundamentalists.

We invite the most extreme fundamentalist leaders for dialogue, but they often either decline outright, or become argumentative during the dialogue,” she said. OIC’s role Thus it would take an Islamic organisation with more clout to bring all Islamic denominations to the dialogue table. The OIC could very well be such an organisation. The OIC has to use all its power to compel all Muslim nations to participate in a hard intra-faith dialogue.

The objective of this dialogue must be: i) to compel all Muslim nations to rein in and control the extremist factions within their faith, urging them to relinquish their single-minded focus on the ‘holy war’ aspect of jihad, and subsequently arrive at an unwavering and demonstrative consensus that Islam is indeed “a religion of peace, tolerance and non-violence”, and, ii) to conscientise Muslims toward being more open-minded, rational and less sensitive when faced with questions and constructive criticisms from non-Muslims.

Until such a time, all attempts at dialogue between the major religions and Islam will have to be put on hold.

ANEEL DAVID KANNABHIRAN is a Malaysian, committed to the reform agenda of various human rights and social justice issues including that within the various religious institutions.