The necessity of Jewish Muslim dialogue
Mike Ghouse, of the Foundation for Pluralism in Dallas, Texas has written an excellent piece on the importance of Jewish-Muslim dialogue, in which he describes a screening of the film “The Monster Among Us” at the Dallas Jewish Community Centre. One of the film’s central theses is that the new face of European antisemitism is Muslim.
Ghouse says some brilliant things in his article:
Watching this film (as well as other films in the past) and listening to the responses of the audience has confirmed my belief that one of the primary obstacles to peace is simply inadequate communications stemming from the unwillingness to see another point of view. There are certainly rotten apples in the barrel, but focusing on them to the exclusion of the positive only exacerbates the problem. Muslims and Jews need to dialogue without keeping a score or blaming the other.
The guardians of traditions have a role to preserve their way of life for their respective communities. Occasionally their role has led them to marginalize the “other”. We need a change, and this change will need to come from the hitherto silent moderate majority in both communities. This is a responsibility we need to step up to.
This very much mirrors my own “Don’t tolerate intolerance” line … but Ghouse’s key statement is this:
If you are a Muslim and don’t say anything against anti-Semitic rhetoric; if you are a Jew and smile when you hear anti-Arab or Anti-Muslim rhetoric; if you are a Baptist and rejoice anti-Mormon rhetoric; if you are a Catholic and remain silent when some one belittles the practices of Hindu, Wicca or Pagans; then do you have the right to complain if some one is anti-you? This is a serious question, the more you are silent about it, the more you are justifying anti-sentiments against your own creed. No, if it is not good for you, it is not good for others either.
The whole article is well worth a read, and the above statement is particularly worth reflecting on. If we remain silent in the face of bigotry against others, we lose our right to complain when others are bigoted against us.
Dave
4 comments November 26th, 2008