THE ROVING
EYE Messages of hope from
Iran By Pepe
Escobar
ISFAHAN - From Cairo to Qom, from
Jerusalem to Peshawar, there is a widespread
perception among 1.3 billion Muslims, Sunni or
Shi'ite, that Islam is under
siege.
Persians pride themselves on molding
Islam from the Arabs into a much more refined -
and pure - faith. While Arab governments are
basically mum, the Iranian government has taken
the initiative to counteract what is perceived as
Islam and religion under fire.
The
setting could not be more appropriate: fabled
Isfahan, "half the world" when it blossomed under
the Safavid dynasty, and the cultural capital of
Islam since January, as voted by the Organization
of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
The
"International Conference on Constructive
Interaction Among Religions", discussing
legal-political, cultural-historical and
religious-ethical topics, was billed as the first
international attempt in the world of Islam to
unite religious leaders and thinkers from
basically four monotheistic religions - Islamic,
Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian - so they could
study the "problems and obstacles in the way of
the growing trend of religious spirituality in the
world".
Timing was of the essence, scholars
and clerics agreed, especially in the aftermath of
the Danish cartoon controversy over caricatures of
the Prophet Mohammed and the bombing of the Golden
Dome in Samarra in Iraq.
The conference
adopted a final declaration which, among other
topics, called for a broader role for religious
leaders in the near future, regretted "the silence
of some political leaders towards the unfair
sacrilege of religious sanctities, particularly
the affront to the Holy Prophet of Islam", and
supported "the anti-war movements protesting the
war against Iraq". The wars on Afghanistan and
Iraq, in much of the Arab/Muslim world, have been
interpreted as a concerted attack on
Islam.
The conference, set up by the
Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, which
is directly linked to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, was definitely a political gesture; it
meant the Iranian government making a public stand
against attacks on Islam ahead of any OIC-member
state. But this was not only about
Islam.
In many aspects, it was an
extraordinary sight. Right at the heart of the
Islamic Republic, one could see Rabbi Moshe
Friedman, the hyperactive chief rabbi of the
Orthodox anti-Zionist community in Vienna, lashing
out at Zionist control of the world economy and
media. New Delhi-based Swami Agnivesh, a proponent
of "applied spirituality", in full sartorial
orange splendor, was denouncing that "conventional
weapons kill more people than the so-called
weapons of mass destruction". And Dr Bawa Jain,
the New York-based secretary general of the World
Council of Religious Leaders, was dreaming of
politicians really having to pay attention to
religious feelings.
A few technical
glitches were inevitable. Not all of the expected
120 leaders and scholars from 38 countries could
come to Isfahan because of visa problems. There
were no Buddhists. There were no Wahhabi clerics -
but they are not in favor of inter-faith dialogue
anyway. The Iranian ayatollahs, of course, placed
their criticism in terms of Islam - and not
religion as a whole - under siege.
For
instance, widely revered Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi
Amoli, a member of the Council of Experts who was
very close to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said
that "if the divine prophets such as Abraham,
Moses, Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed are
blasphemed by the Salman Rushdies, the Danish
cartoonists and the demolishers of the shrines of
Imam Hadi and Imam Askari over the centuries, it
is because they are entrapped in the embryo of
nature and consider the outside free atmosphere
opium and spell". Iranian scholar Hamid Moulana
stressed that "if we fail to offer our definition
of science, we will become
vulnerable".
Bring down the Zionists In the maze of expert sessions held in the
Abbasi Hotel - a fabulous converted early
18th-century caravanserai built in the reign of
the last Safavid king, Shah Sultan Hossein - there
was no shortage of Westerners, from Spanish
specialists in Islam to an Argentine lady
converted to Shi'ism and fighting a lone battle
for the right to wear the scarf. Westerners
stressed that inter-religious dialogue must be
"philosophical, anthropological, with no dogmas,
in the framework of a dialogue of civilizations",
as a Greek scholar put it.
US researcher
Muhammad Legenhouzen is heavily involved in
Catholic-Shi'ite dialogue. He's been teaching in
Qom on and off for 10 years, studying the Crusades
and dissecting the thoughts of Carl Schmidt, the
chief ideologue of the American neo-conservatives.
His suggestion is to push for more
cosmopolitanism. Easier said than done.
Legenhouzen has also worked with a Filipino
Catholic bishop in his theological school in Qom.
But he has to admit that "only 20% of the Filipino
bishops are in favor of inter-faith
dialogue".
Considering the recent outbursts
of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on Israel and the
Holocaust, Vienna-based Rabbi Friedman was
definitely the star of the show. An avid proponent
of inter-faith dialogue, he can lash out for hours
against "Bolshevik/Stalinist perpetrators" and
"messianic sects like Zionism" bent on
"exterminating the faith in God".
Well
known to major newspaper editors in Europe,
Friedman condemns the "worldwide Zionist-dominated
media. And in this regard the situation in the
United States media is even worse than in Europe."
He constantly refers to "the Holocaust used to
give moral legitimization for the atrocities
against the Palestinians, displace them and rob
their land and their homes, without the
international community protecting them. The
Holocaust was even exploited for financial
contributions to Israel."
Friedman praises
what he considers "honest statements" by
Ahmadinejad regarding Israel - in the sense of the
Holocaust being politicized. As he sees it, "the
term 'anti-Semite' is substantially wrong and
stupid as all Arabs are genuine Semites while many
of the Zionists in reality do not have Jewish
forefathers. I am proud to be a fundamentalist who
stretches his arms out for peace and is willing
also to risk his head for peace." Friedman would
not be exactly safe walking in the streets of
Manhattan.
His overall battle plan is "to
do everything possible in practical terms to bring
Zionist world domination in the media, economy,
etc, to an end as it can have even worse effects
than a mere military occupation".
The
disenchanted and the engaged Marcel
Gauchet, director of studies at the prestigious
School of High Studies in Social Sciences in
Paris, was not at the conference. He should have
been. In 1985, Gauchet published a remarkable
political history of religion in French. His
thoughts remain more than relevant. Gauchet now
says that "the problem with Europeans is that they
cannot understand what religion means anymore, in
societies where it still remains a strong
structuring factor. They have forgotten their own
past."
Gauchet saw in the cartoon jihad
"the immense resentment of populations who feel
themselves scorned, in the trash bin of history,
in a situation of perpetual failure in relation to
a Western world which does not measure up how the
penetration of its ways of thinking and doing is
destructive to the social relations in place,
especially in this Islam which, more than a faith,
is a rule of life. The West is blind over the
effects of this globalization of the economy and
social customs, in terms of the fragmentation of
the traditional family, of the violent changes in
the relations between men and women, and between
generations. We are facing an existential
rebellion."
But how come what is regarded
as humiliation in the Islamic world is a source of
exhilaration in India and China? Gauchet says,
"the nationalist resentment is not weaker, but
these countries can count on a collective cohesion
and political structures which allow them to
appropriate themselves, like Japan did, of Western
techniques and ways of economic thinking. They can
nourish the ambition of beating the Westerners in
their own game, even while they remain themselves
in the process. There's nothing similar in the
Arab-Muslim world. States are at the same time
fragile and tyrannical. There are no tools for
modernization. Under these circumstances, one
endures the ravages of rampant Westernization
without collecting any benefits."
The
onslaught of materialism New Delhi-based
Swami Agnivesh amplifies this critique -
emphasizing the conflict between Western
materialism and Eastern religions. He says that
"more than in any other field of knowledge,
reductive Western ontology resulted in spreading
deep-seated anxiety and hostility towards Eastern
religions. In this the Western world, for some
strange reason, overlooked the fact that all
religions were of Eastern origin and that the only
religion, or quasi-religion, crafted in the West
was materialism. That being the case, it was
inevitable that the spirit of distrust directed
against Eastern religions spread, eventually, to
Christianity also."
Agnivesh warns that
"religions should not be allowed to infect the
emerging world order with the poison of alienation
and hostility. The post-September 11 Afghan
scenario needs to be seen as an early warning of
the shape of things to come."
Under these
circumstances, it's no wonder that Bawa Jain, a
Jain from India, and the secretary general of the
World Council of Religious Leaders, is on a
mission. The council was established in 2002 in
Thailand; its headquarters is in New York and the
secretariat in Bangkok. Jain sees a conference
like the Isfahan one as just the beginning of a
long and winding road: setting up a truly powerful
global body, "not within the framework of the UN",
probably in the Middle East; and provoke worldwide
awareness so the council will be powerful enough
to be seriously taken into account by the
political leaders of the big powers.
As
Jain put it, "I'm an Indian-American, but my
ancestors are from Persia. I'm a follower of
[Mahatma] Gandhi. I think what's happening now is
a fundamental lack of education. Political leaders
need to be sensitized. Not a single political
leader asked for forgiveness when 20% to 25% of
the world's population's faith is Islam, and they
feel insulted. Hindus and Buddhists also comprise
20% to 25% of the world's population. Their
feelings are also not taken into account." Jain
mentions how "a lot of people asked me why I was
going to Iran, a dangerous country".
More
than 30,000 Jews live in Iran with no problems, go
to their synagogues and are represented in the
majlis (parliament). Jain sees it all as basically
a public relations problem, from the point of view
of Islam not managing to put its message across to
the West.
Who in this case has to be
responsible for a global change of perception?
Jain points to "religious leaders, wherever they
are; they must be heavily involved in social
issues. They must be passionate, articulate - much
more so than politicians."
This might be
the message of hope coming from the cultural
capital of Islam.
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