My Syria visit raises question of "tolerance"

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Because Syria is one of four countries the US State Department labels a “state sponsor of terrorism,” everyone we met seemed determined to convince us that the vast majority of Syrians were peaceful, loving and compassionate Muslims.

Together with Syrian Muslim, Presbyterian, Catholic religious leaders, businessmen, and academics we watched Muhammad: Legacy of the Prophet, a documentary moderated by Karen Armstrong that distanced “true Islam” from the ugly daily headlines and emphasized the affinity of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, specifically showing how the Quran reveres Jesus as one of Islam’s most important prophets.

My suggestion to the leaders of our interfaith conference that the documentary’s message should be focused to Muslims making the bad headlines instead of western audiences was not warmly embraced. They seemed incredulous that our State Department already views Islam as a religion of peace and mandates the Mumbai massacres be termed “man-made disasters” and “War on Terror” rephrased to “Overseas Contingency Plan.”

It’s unfortunate that the kind, loving, sincere Muslims I met in Syria are often lumped in with their radical, militant counterparts who embrace killing Muslims who convert to Christianity, who call Jews pigs and monkeys, force women indoors without a male escort, or those who spray battery acid in the face of teenage girls for their decision to attend school.

Our challenge is to help our fellow Americans understand the diversity and complexity within Islam and remind that under the banner of Christianity, we see those who handle snakes and speak in tongues to those who only show up for Christmas and Easter and do not embrace the divinity of Jesus or the fact they are designed to “die to self” and become a channel of God’s love to others and a blessing to all they meet.

In most Muslim majority countries, Christians are often courted for conversion to Islam and as one Imam told me, “By converting to Islam, you’re simply becoming a better Christian.” Yet, as we discussed conversion from Islam to Christianity, one Syrian Protestant pastor said, “Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!” Under an Islamic state, politics, economics, governance, religion and society as a whole are woven into one, all-encompassing system. Killing those that leave Islam was explained as leaving the “state” of Islam, not the “faith,” and therefore justifiable as tantamount to treason. Almost all Muslims I have met will emphasize therefore that the Quran states in Islam “there is no compulsion in religion.”

One Islamic cleric told us, “We will accept you when you accept our values.” Unfortunately this same attitude, a distortion of the meaning of tolerance, we find too often in our own culture. Tolerance once meant that you and I have irreconcilable differences but we will lay them aside and “I will coach your son’s baseball team and thank you for teaching my daughter to swim.” Today, amidst our political correctness and multiculturalism, tolerance means, “You must hold my values every bit as dear as you hold your own.”

Tolerance is a virtue for a person with no conscience. Tolerance does not distinguish between right and wrong. Tolerance does not fight evil; it champions no causes. Our world could stand a few stiff doses of intolerance. This may explain why those who are intolerant of the repression and subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia are appalled at America’s elite -- Harvard or Georgetown, President Bush or President Obama – all of whom embrace the King of a country that exports a hate-filled ideology.

You and I must refuse to tolerate the intolerable. Eighteenth Century British Parliamentarian, William Wilberforce, while still in his twenties, turned his intolerance into action and launched the fight to end the slave trade.

The peaceful, pious and also secular Muslims I met (“I don’t pray five times a day, rarely read the Quran, eat pork, drink alcohol, have only one wife, and am more interested in making a living and watching my kids play soccer than world domination”) are more endangered by our indifference and lack of intolerance. The war is not with Islam; the war is within Islam. This young girl’s future will be influenced by our involvement to help her peaceful parents win.

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God Bless,

Foster (:>)**********

drrbenkin

May 16, 2009

A wonderful article. Foster is talking about having a moral sense. At some point, we must acknowledge that certain things are "bad" and that all cultures are NOT created equal. Even with those who seem most alienated from who we are, there can be room for "tolerance." I had a four hour discussion/debate in locked room one hot Dhaka afternoon with two radical Muslims. One of them had been a mujahadeen commander against the Soviets. We disagreed on so much but in the end, as one of them put it, "we must agree to disagree." And we have carried on a dialogue ever since.

BUT--and if it might presume, I believe this is what Foster was getting at--this was only possible because I made it clear from the outset that I do hold standards of right and wrong and do not tolerate certain action. Even as a small example, when we were about to begin, I asked the muhjahadeen commander against whom he fought. When he said the Soviets, I said that had he been involved in killing young Americans, I would not be able to sit with him cordially. I also made it clear from the outset that I am a Zionist.)

But as we both began with a clear statement of our true beliefs, we have been able to find commonalities--something we could not have done were we concerned about appearing "tolerant."

wonderwyo

May 12, 2009

Many thanks for this beautifully written article. Our challenge is indeed to understand the diversity and complexity within all religions. It is militancy, radicalism and fanaticism in any religion that is so destructive.
The most extreme form of Islam seems to come out of the Wahhabi sect in Saudi Arabia. We should never forget that the majority of terrorists involved in 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia.
"The Saudi sheiks have been Wahhabis since they intermarried with the family of a puritanical Muslim scholar, Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, in 1774. Supported first by Britain and later by the United States, the Saudis captured the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, easily gaining control of the entire Arabian peninsula.
Members of the Wahhabist Saudi oligarchy are driven by the sometimes conflicting emotions of power lust and religious fervor. Their support of radical Islamists follows from their ambition to dominate the Muslim world, but their fear that radical Islamists might overthrow the Saudi regime at home motivates them to fund and encourage holy warriors in countries other than their own
Wherever they ruled, the Wahhabis imposed their medieval code on their hapless subjects, making public spectacles of stoning adulterers to death and maiming thieves, destroying decorated mosques and cemeteries, prohibiting music, sequestering women, and promoting war on infidels. The Saudi sheiks have lavished funds on anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorists-in-training while indoctrinating other Muslims through its worldwide network of religious schools, mosques, newspapers, and presses.
Jihad
The Wahhabi Taliban in Afghanistan had the blessings of the Saudi royal family and of The Big Three--the bin Laden family, the al Ahmoudi famil y, and the Mahfouz family--the richest clans in that medieval kingdom. (Khalid bin Mahfouz is bin Laden's brother-in-law, according to the C.I.A.). The desert oligarchs profited from world-wide investments as well as sleazy banking schemes such as the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Salem bin Laden, Osama's brother, has conducted all his American affairs through James Bath, a Houston crony of the Bush family. Bath's former business partner Bill White testified in court that Bath had been a liaison for the C.I.A. In 1979 Bath invested $50,000 in Arbusto, George W. Bush's first business venture. Rumor had it that Bath was acting as Salem bin Laden's representative. "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests." (4)
In addition to doing aviation business with Saudi sheiks, Bath was part owner of a Houston bank whose chief stockholder was Ghaith Pharaon, who represented the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal global bank with branches in 73 countries. BCCI proceeded to defraud depositors of $10 billion during the '80s, while providing a money laundry conduit for the Medellin drug cartel, Asia's major heroin cartel, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide. (5)
Big Three wheeler-dealer Khalid bin Mahfouz, one of the largest stockholders in the criminal bank, was indicted when the massive BCCI banking scandal blew apart in the early 1990s. The Saudi royal family placed him under house arrest after discovering that Mahfouz had used the royal bank to channel millions of dollars through fake charities into bin Laden's organizations, but Mahfouz was not so much punished as inconvenienced. (6)"

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