Extending a Hand to Muslims

By Anouar Majid
Director, Center for Global Humanities

When President Barack Obama offered to "extend a hand" if Muslims were "willing to unclench [their] fist" in his inaugural address last January, he created much-needed expectations for a future of détente and dialogue between two of the world's most powerful cultural spheres--the United States and the world of Islam. And when Obama chose the podium of Turkey's parliament to call for a more robust culture of freedom in Muslim societies, he did well to highlight the forces undermining the global quest for peace and tranquility.

A crucial, non-negotiable demand is to insist on promoting a culture of pluralism in all Muslim societies, whether such societies are actual nations like Turkey or Iraq, or ethnic enclaves in the West. Such societies are characterized by the relentless pressure on its members to subscribe to unexamined religious orthodoxies, the theological doctrines of narrow-minded imams, and blind loyalty to family traditions. Exceptions exist, of course, but, by and large, the average Muslim living in a Muslim society has very few real-life experiences with radical difference. The monologue of sameness is gradually eclipsing the enriching culture of dialogue. Jews have long left their Muslim homelands and the persecution of Christians remains unabated. The numbers of minority folk are dwindling in the vast ocean of Islam. There is an open war on gays in many places, while conversion to other faiths, or even proselytizing, can be fatal. Obama is right, then, to remind Muslims that "freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and a vibrant civil society" and that "robust minority rights let societies benefit from the full measure of contributions from all citizens." Simply put, without such culture, there is no hope for Muslim societies.

In addition to religious diversity, intellectuals in predominantly Muslim societies must be encouraged to tackle all topics without fear of retribution. Whereas scholars in the West have long subjected their holy books to thorough analysis and criticism, their Muslim peers, when not avoiding the subject, still treat Islam's defining documents as sacred. It is left to a few Western scholars to inquire about the extent of human intervention in the production of the Koran, for instance. When history is thus sacralized, it forecloses intellectual inquiry and produces taboo zones that limit the scope of scholarship and research. In this way, a concentric circle of red lines surrounds thought in Muslim societies till the only thing left is mere dogma. Yet it is the state of affairs that weakened Muslim societies in the past; pursuing more of the same strikes me as a self-defeating measure.

President Obama, however, didn't lay the blame entirely on Muslims. We know from experience that when people are threatened with military occupation or economic dispossession, they retreat into extreme and irrational forms of cultural fundamentalism as last-ditch life-saving measures. In this sense, the United States, and the West as a whole, must own up to their major role in fundamentalizing Muslim societies. The liberation of Islamic thought, therefore, depends on major structural changes in the global political and economic structures. Without such comprehensive changes, global relations will remain skewed against most Muslims, and that won't help us reach the state of balance required for genuine, reciprocal dialogue. We don't want Muslim societies to open up to a more robust dialogue while the West cavalierly subjects them to its monologues.

By addressing the injustices produced by modern colonialism and pushing for the reform of the world's governing structures, the United States could transform its image from that of imperial master to champion of the world's dispossessed. President Obama did tell the Turkish parliament that his own nation is still coming to terms with its cruel treatment of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, but he also demonstrated by his mere presence on the world stage that the promise of the American Revolution is not yet extinct. He was, therefore, right to denounce the gods of might and the unfettered market and preach freedom as that which makes nations stronger. The Muslim world needs a massive dose of the ideals that gave birth to the United States, not of the political and economic models that have fundamentalized Islamic thought and are now endangering the pillars of American democracy.

Anouar Majid is Director of the Center for Global Humanities at the University of New England in Maine. His new book, "We Are All Moors," has just been published.

By Anouar Majid |  April 20, 2009; 11:36 AM ET Save & Share:                 
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