Another form of Islamophobia

In the wake of September 11, there has been increasing discussion of Western attitudes towards Islam and Muslims.

One of the things said about the West in its attitude towards Islam and Muslims is that Westerners are ignorant of Islam. Western media demonises and presents stereotypical images of Islam and Muslims and these have combined to create a general sense of Islamophobia or fear of Islam in Western societies.

There are repeated calls for Westerners to change their attitude towards Islam and Muslims. Many experts of Islam have suddenly emerged and are parading all over trying to help remedy the situation. These are no doubt valid concerns that have to be urgently addressed. Many Western journalists, politicians, clergy and academics have been making genuine efforts to redress the situation.

Many Western experts on Islam have since become self-appointed public relations officers for Islam. Most of these experts have taken upon themselves the task of presenting a correct and objective interpretation of Islam to the Western public. In fact there was already much information and indeed propaganda in the West trying to portray Islam in a more positive and romantic terms, and one can only expect these to increase in the coming months and years.

I cannot emphasise enough the need and urgency to educate people about Islam. I am, however, concerned about three things.

Two faces

Firstly, I am concerned that much of the information on Islam bandied about by prominent politicians, leading clergy and noted academics do not go beyond cliches heavily tinged with political correctness bordering on sheer propaganda. This to me is not only misleading to the non-Muslim public but also a great disservice to Islam. It is misleading and downright propaganda, for instance, to continue harping that Bin Laden or the Taliban (who until September 11 were recognised and supported by three leading Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam) are renegades who are misinterpreting and misrepresenting Islam. The truth is that Islam has two faces that can be categorised broadly as the Meccan and Medinan, pacifist and triumphalist, inclusivist and exclusivist, liberative and oppressive, and peaceful and militant.

This is what accounts for the 'moderate/liberal' and 'extremist/fundamentalist' divide in Islam. As things stand now in orthodox or official Islamic teaching, it is the Medinan, triumphalist, exclusivist, oppressive and militant Islam that is seen as the correct version. Anyone with a high school knowledge of Islam knows this for a fact. As a non-Muslim African, it has been perplexing for me to read books and articles, written by Western specialists on Islam in Africa, that on the one hand endorse and uphold militant Islam (which was responsible for the slaughter and enslavement of tens of millions of traditional African believers in the 18th and 19th centuries) as the nearest African Muslims came to expressing orthodox Islam, and, on the other hand, disparage and vilify the peaceful face as serious deviations and aberrations. It is therefore bemusing for me to hear Western experts all of a sudden lining-up to condemn Islamic militants like al-Qaeda and Taliban as renegades.

The question I ask myself is whether this new attitude is just another demonstration of the double standards so typical of the West or a new form of Islamophobia, i.e. the fear to say anything critical about Islam for fear of fatwas and attacks similar to those of September 11. As far as some of us are concerned, it is high time the religious traditions that teach discrimination, exclusion, hatred and violence against people of other religious and ideological persuasions were openly acknowledged and dealt with alongside the socio-political, economic and other mundane factors.

Educating Muslims

My second point is that, while everyone is talking about educating the non-Muslim world and the West about Islam, very few are talking about educating Muslims about their own religion. If all the talk and pronouncements that al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the millions of Muslims who silently and openly sympathise and support them know little or nothing about Islam is true, then they are the people who need education. The point I am driving at here is that instead of condescendingly talking about educating the non-Muslim world about Islam, the Muslims have to take responsibility and undertake a critical view of themselves and their religion. After all it is Muslims and not Westerners who tarnish the image of Islam by carrying out suicide bombings, crashing passenger jets into buildings and throwing acid at young girls to disfigure them permanently for not wearing the veil, all in the name of Allah.

Westophobia

My final point is that while the talk about educating the non-Muslim world about Islam is right, the way it is being done gives the impression that ignorance, stereotypical views, demonisation and xenophobia against the other is a purely Western phenomenon.

But anyone with minimal knowledge of the Muslim, especially the Arab, world will admit that there is just as much, if not more, ignorance, stereotyping, demonising and what some have called Westophobia in the Muslim world about the non-Muslims in general and Jews, Christians and Westerners in particular. The Arab League just convened a meeting in Cairo with the aim of mounting a campaign in the West to 'educate' Westerners on Islam and Arab culture and civilisation. The question is whether Muslim governments would welcome and encourage symmetrical initiatives to educate their populations about Christianity and Western culture and civilisation?

Nigerian experience

The education of the Muslim world is particularly crucial for me as an indigenous African Christian. For when Muslim anger boiled over in a demonstration in Northern Nigeria against American bombings of Afghanistan, it was local Christians who became the legitimate targets. Similarly 16 innocent Pakistani Christians paid with their lives when they were gunned down during a worship service in Bahawalpur by Islamic militants in an apparent revenge attack against US bombings in Afghanistan.

It is open knowledge that in the minds of many in the Muslim world, Christianity is the West and the West is Christianity. So not only are actions of Western governments interpreted along religious lines, but there are those who see indigenous Christians as mere extensions of the West and therefore legitimate targets in the event of a confrontation with the West. This attitude also needs to be changed!

Another form of Islamophobia

Two faces

Educating Muslims

Westophobia

Nigerian experience

Dr. John Azumah

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