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Faith and the Challenges of Secularism: A Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue
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•6 Nov 2017
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Indians rise up against their liar-in-chief
Every
day and in every part of India, hundreds of thousands of people, mainly
young people, have been gathering on the streets to express their anger
at the government. Their protests, like the protests in Chile, emerged
out of one particular grievance but then cascaded outward.
They are angry at the government’s attempt to define citizenship in a
narrow and bigoted way; but they are also angry at the arrogance of the
government and at the disastrous way in which it has managed the
economy.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party, a far-right political party that has intimate roots to India’s fascist currents. The BJP’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was born in 1925 with close links to Italian fascism. Both the BJP and the RSS believe in a doctrine known as Hindutva, which is in essence the promotion of the supremacy of Hindus over other communities inside India.
The animus of the BJP and the RSS is directed against India’s Muslims. The way that the BJP government defined the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) appears directly to target Muslims, and to define Indian nationality in opposition to Muslims.
The demographic make-up of India necessitates that the country’s laws and traditions accommodate all of India’s cultural and social diversity. The fascistic viewpoint of the BJP and the RSS is not only immoral and unjust, but is simply impractical.
The upsurge of the population against this immoral anti-Muslim posture of the government has surprised the BJP leadership. Modi and his cabinet have become used to pushing a hard-right agenda. When Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, he oversaw a pogrom in 2002 that killed more than 2,000 Muslims and disfranchised many thousands more. The BJP’s agenda was clear then; it did not take the new bills to show the face of the BJP’s animosity to India’s diverse social world. That was apparent in 2002.
Indeed, it was apparent in 1992, when Modi’s seniors in the BJP and the RSS egged on mobs to destroy a 16th-century mosque in the town of Ayodhya (on its ruins the Indian Supreme Court this year allowed a temple to be built, a vindication of the hooliganism of 1992). Since 2014, when Modi became the prime minister, violence against Muslims and against oppressed castes (Dalits) has become routine.
In September 2018, at an election rally in West Bengal state, Shah spoke of the migrants from Bangladesh in the most horrid language. “Infiltrators are like termites in the soil of Bengal,” he said. “A Bharatiya Janata Party government will pick up infiltrators one by one and throw them into the Bay of Bengal.” This language of “termites” and “infiltrators” is deeply provocative, and very dangerous.
In Assam, an Indian state that borders Bangladesh, the government constructed detention or concentration camps where it held those whom it wanted to deport. An Amnesty International report from November 2018 provides extensive documentation of the existence of these camps, and of their illegality. The report quotes BJP official Shiladitya Dev’s remarks about migrants being involved in “criminal activities,” and Modi’s comment that people are entering Assam from Bangladesh daily.
“The underlying hyperbolic,” the report says, “seems to be aimed at dehumanizing Bengali-speaking people.” The Indian Supreme Court also intervened to ask for the detainees to be released.
During the current protests, a correspondent for The Hindu newspaper, Omar Rashid, was picked up by police in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state governed by the BJP. Rashid was beaten and threatened with violence, including being told that the police would tear off his beard. This is the climate for journalists. It is also chilling to hear the volume of lies from the government. It’s hard to be a journalist when you are confronted by a deluge of untruths. No wonder the Modi Lies site is anonymous.
This past Sunday, Modi gave a 90-minute speech at a public rally in Delhi. He repeated a volley of lies, but two of them are worth highlighting:
But Modi is not alone here. He has good company in Donald Trump, in Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Jair Bolsonaro, in Boris Johnson and in a host of other world leaders for whom lying is part of their agenda. Arguments based on reason are not their mode of conversation; their mode is emotion. They speak in an emotional register, in which they claim to be victims of a large conspiracy (“urban Naxals”) and in which they reach into the grievances and humiliations of sections of the population and pretend that their hideous policies are a solution.
The BJP has deepened the economic crisis and has deepened further the employment problem; it has offered no solutions. But, like Trump, Modi has suggested that if he can tackle the migration problem, he will both secure the country and produce jobs – it is the migrants who are terrorists and job-stealers. This kind of thought process does not need to be logical. It needs to be emotional.
To prove that Modi has lied does not solve anything. It is not the lie that is important to his form of communication. What is important is the simplicity of his emotional statement: If I can build the wall, says Trump, I can get you jobs; if I can corral Muslims, says Modi, I can get you jobs.
The lying is maddening. It is what will continue to bring more and more people to the streets. They can see the lie. Outside the circles of those who are on the streets, however, are millions of people who accept the lie. It is not that they are being hoodwinked, but that the lie is a salve against the hopelessness of their social condition. They believe the lie because the lie suggests the possibility of a future for populations who have been taught to think of themselves as the majority in a society.
Other possibilities need to be presented to undercut the emotional resonance of the lie. To say that Modi or Trump is lying is not enough. What alternative is there before those who want the lie, what other argument is there to provide hope against the stagnation of the present? Those on the streets have begun to construct that hope. It will form a utopia, one that has to undermine the emotional power of the Lie of the Strongman.
The BJP’s political power is depleting. In March 2018, it ruled 13 of India’s 29 states, and was in a coalition government in six other states; now, after recent defeats in Maharashtra and in Jharkhand, the BJP rules only eight states and is in alliance in eight more. This uprising has further weakened the BJP.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute, which provided it to Asia Times.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party, a far-right political party that has intimate roots to India’s fascist currents. The BJP’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was born in 1925 with close links to Italian fascism. Both the BJP and the RSS believe in a doctrine known as Hindutva, which is in essence the promotion of the supremacy of Hindus over other communities inside India.
The animus of the BJP and the RSS is directed against India’s Muslims. The way that the BJP government defined the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) appears directly to target Muslims, and to define Indian nationality in opposition to Muslims.
Anti-Muslim
Given India’s large population, minority communities are also considerably large. India’s Muslim population, for instance, though only 15% of the total, amounts to more than 200 million people. The country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia, and Pakistan and India are in essence tied for second place; India’s Muslims by themselves would form the eighth-largest country in the world after Brazil and ahead of Nigeria.The demographic make-up of India necessitates that the country’s laws and traditions accommodate all of India’s cultural and social diversity. The fascistic viewpoint of the BJP and the RSS is not only immoral and unjust, but is simply impractical.
The upsurge of the population against this immoral anti-Muslim posture of the government has surprised the BJP leadership. Modi and his cabinet have become used to pushing a hard-right agenda. When Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, he oversaw a pogrom in 2002 that killed more than 2,000 Muslims and disfranchised many thousands more. The BJP’s agenda was clear then; it did not take the new bills to show the face of the BJP’s animosity to India’s diverse social world. That was apparent in 2002.
Indeed, it was apparent in 1992, when Modi’s seniors in the BJP and the RSS egged on mobs to destroy a 16th-century mosque in the town of Ayodhya (on its ruins the Indian Supreme Court this year allowed a temple to be built, a vindication of the hooliganism of 1992). Since 2014, when Modi became the prime minister, violence against Muslims and against oppressed castes (Dalits) has become routine.
Borders
For historical reasons, the borders dividing India from Bangladesh and Myanmar have been porous. These are lines drawn by colonial rulers that made no sense to the people whose lives were divided by them. People cross these borders as they have for centuries, but they also cross them to flee oppression. Because of the violence perpetrated by the government in Myanmar, more than a million people of the Rohingya community have fled the country for Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The BJP’s Amit Shah – who is India’s home minister – went after the 40,000 Rohingya refugees who are in India. He wanted them deported to Myanmar.In September 2018, at an election rally in West Bengal state, Shah spoke of the migrants from Bangladesh in the most horrid language. “Infiltrators are like termites in the soil of Bengal,” he said. “A Bharatiya Janata Party government will pick up infiltrators one by one and throw them into the Bay of Bengal.” This language of “termites” and “infiltrators” is deeply provocative, and very dangerous.
In Assam, an Indian state that borders Bangladesh, the government constructed detention or concentration camps where it held those whom it wanted to deport. An Amnesty International report from November 2018 provides extensive documentation of the existence of these camps, and of their illegality. The report quotes BJP official Shiladitya Dev’s remarks about migrants being involved in “criminal activities,” and Modi’s comment that people are entering Assam from Bangladesh daily.
“The underlying hyperbolic,” the report says, “seems to be aimed at dehumanizing Bengali-speaking people.” The Indian Supreme Court also intervened to ask for the detainees to be released.
Lies
Some clever people have set up a website called Modi Lies. For good reason the makers of the site have not given their names or said anything about themselves. A new report shows that during Modi’s tenure there have been about 200 documented cases of attacks on journalists who tell the truth about his government; 40 journalists – at least – were killed in this period.During the current protests, a correspondent for The Hindu newspaper, Omar Rashid, was picked up by police in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state governed by the BJP. Rashid was beaten and threatened with violence, including being told that the police would tear off his beard. This is the climate for journalists. It is also chilling to hear the volume of lies from the government. It’s hard to be a journalist when you are confronted by a deluge of untruths. No wonder the Modi Lies site is anonymous.
This past Sunday, Modi gave a 90-minute speech at a public rally in Delhi. He repeated a volley of lies, but two of them are worth highlighting:
- There is no National Register of Citizens. In his speech, Modi said that since his government took power in 2014, “there has never been a discussion on this NRC.” However, the BJP’s election manifesto from this year says, “We will expeditiously complete the National Register of Citizens process in these areas on priority” (page 11). On December 9, Modi’s home minister told Parliament, “Rest assured, NRC will be brought in soon.”
- There are no detention camps. Modi said, “Rumors of detention centers raised by Congress and urban Naxals” are lies. The term “urban Naxals” is used by the BJP to disparage protests and dissenters; it refers to Maoists, and is used against anyone who disagrees with the government. Here, as we have seen, Amnesty International did a report on these camps, and the Indian Supreme Court has intervened regarding them. There are news reports of camps not only in Assam, but of government action to build camps in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.
But Modi is not alone here. He has good company in Donald Trump, in Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Jair Bolsonaro, in Boris Johnson and in a host of other world leaders for whom lying is part of their agenda. Arguments based on reason are not their mode of conversation; their mode is emotion. They speak in an emotional register, in which they claim to be victims of a large conspiracy (“urban Naxals”) and in which they reach into the grievances and humiliations of sections of the population and pretend that their hideous policies are a solution.
The BJP has deepened the economic crisis and has deepened further the employment problem; it has offered no solutions. But, like Trump, Modi has suggested that if he can tackle the migration problem, he will both secure the country and produce jobs – it is the migrants who are terrorists and job-stealers. This kind of thought process does not need to be logical. It needs to be emotional.
To prove that Modi has lied does not solve anything. It is not the lie that is important to his form of communication. What is important is the simplicity of his emotional statement: If I can build the wall, says Trump, I can get you jobs; if I can corral Muslims, says Modi, I can get you jobs.
The lying is maddening. It is what will continue to bring more and more people to the streets. They can see the lie. Outside the circles of those who are on the streets, however, are millions of people who accept the lie. It is not that they are being hoodwinked, but that the lie is a salve against the hopelessness of their social condition. They believe the lie because the lie suggests the possibility of a future for populations who have been taught to think of themselves as the majority in a society.
Other possibilities need to be presented to undercut the emotional resonance of the lie. To say that Modi or Trump is lying is not enough. What alternative is there before those who want the lie, what other argument is there to provide hope against the stagnation of the present? Those on the streets have begun to construct that hope. It will form a utopia, one that has to undermine the emotional power of the Lie of the Strongman.
The BJP’s political power is depleting. In March 2018, it ruled 13 of India’s 29 states, and was in a coalition government in six other states; now, after recent defeats in Maharashtra and in Jharkhand, the BJP rules only eight states and is in alliance in eight more. This uprising has further weakened the BJP.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute, which provided it to Asia Times.
Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report.
Vijay
Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing
fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the
Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books
and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He
has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s
History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of
the Global South, The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab
Revolution, and Red Star Over the Third World. He writes regularly for
Frontline, The Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün.
Muslims in India face prejudice, marginalization
While
the word “secular” refers to an entity or existence that is removed
from all matters deemed religious, the notion of Indian secularism
grapples with a much more complex reality. Instead of detachment, the secular state of India
was built to increase its engagement with the citizens’ religious
identities. This was evident in its policies to mend historical
injustices as well as strengthen the religious minorities against
economic and social impoverishment.
Muslims have been a part of the South Asian subcontinent’s population since circa AD 637-976 – after the very first time a Muslim Arab army made contact with Thana, Bombay, on the west coast. Many centuries later, in 1947, when the Partition of the subcontinent created the Muslim nation of Pakistan, the Muslim minority became a scapegoat in a landscape marked with increasing communal strife. The Muslims were declared separatists, given their demands for political reservations and separate electorates.
At around this time, there arose an idea that the Muslims, by asking for restorative justice, were sabotaging the dream of a unified and equal nation; by extension, being anti-national. Philippa Williams in her 2012 essay “India’s Muslims, Lived Secularism and Realizing Citizenship,” noted that secular nationalism left India’s Muslims a choice (and a poor one at that) between revoking their claims to political representation or being labeled communalist.
On top of this, there exist normative discourses that project Muslims as “violent, criminally inclined, bigoted, anti-national and Islamist, with a voracious sexual appetite.” According to academics, such discourses have been the place of genesis for the propaganda of the Hindu right aimed at othering the Muslims.
Muslims are also seriously underrepresented in the technical, clerical and managerial sectors. Most of the community is employed in the informal sector as casual labor, street vendors and small traders, because of a shared perception that they don’t stand a chance of securing salaried and secure jobs. Consequently, Muslims do not have access to financial instruments because of their disconnect from the organized sector; the average credit size for Muslims is negligible. In the absence of job security and meager asset ownership, the community stands exceptionally powerless in the face of conflict, violence and displacement.
As an extension of their precarious socio-economic situation and tense cultural atmosphere, Muslims tend to confine themselves into enclaves surrounded by their own people. This phenomenon, known as ghettoization, leads to the settlement of urban slums as well as some Muslim-concentrated villages. The Census of 2001 showed that these areas were particularly underserved with concrete roads, bus stops, and postal services as well as medical and educational infrastructure.
Here is where CAA will swoop in, rescuing refugees and non-refugees alike if they belong to the Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Parsi or Buddhist communities. Even though neither the act nor the ruling party explicitly states this, it is inevitable that Muslims without documents will be declared stateless, even those who have inhabited India for decades. The government is already building detention centers, which is where the stateless people will be housed.
Also read: Indians rise up against their liar-in-chief
Additionally, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, recently made amendments to the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations, whereby migrants from all religious communities other than Muslims will be provided long-term visas, enabling them to purchase residential property and open bank accounts. These measures are symptomatic of Islamophobia of endemic proportions, within the government itself.
Another policy, called the Atal Pension Yojna, provides guaranteed monthly pension to its subscribers, mostly from the informal sector, and also qualifies for income tax benefits. However, it has been criticized for giving the subscribers a bad deal in comparison to the higher guaranteed returns on government bonds and equity funds.
Skill development programs geared toward the Muslim community should have forward linkages with sectors of employment, where effective de-communalization and sensitivity training must be ensured so that the Muslim skilled youth is employed. Similarly, credit-lending institutions cannot be allowed to discriminate against borrowers on the basis of their religion; the amended FEMA guidelines cannot stand the test of a secular democracy.
It has also gone out of its way to rewrite history textbooks – Prime Minister Narendra Modi put an entire committee to the task in early 2017, the chairman of which later confessed that the committee was “reinterpreting” archeological evidence to prove that Hindus are descended from the subcontinent’s first inhabitants and that the Hindu religious scriptures are not myths but real historical accounts.
Neither financial instruments nor skill development will help Muslims in a country that systematically discriminates against them.
The government’s obsession with establishing a Hindu state is eerily similar to the Nazi propaganda that was aimed at creating a pure Aryan state. Such attitudes will not change overnight, but citizens must be aware and informed, and resist divisive and Islamophobic policies. Muslims will not fuse with the social fabric of Indian society without an integrated approach, involving sincere efforts by the government and private players, as well as civil society.
Muslims have been a part of the South Asian subcontinent’s population since circa AD 637-976 – after the very first time a Muslim Arab army made contact with Thana, Bombay, on the west coast. Many centuries later, in 1947, when the Partition of the subcontinent created the Muslim nation of Pakistan, the Muslim minority became a scapegoat in a landscape marked with increasing communal strife. The Muslims were declared separatists, given their demands for political reservations and separate electorates.
At around this time, there arose an idea that the Muslims, by asking for restorative justice, were sabotaging the dream of a unified and equal nation; by extension, being anti-national. Philippa Williams in her 2012 essay “India’s Muslims, Lived Secularism and Realizing Citizenship,” noted that secular nationalism left India’s Muslims a choice (and a poor one at that) between revoking their claims to political representation or being labeled communalist.
On top of this, there exist normative discourses that project Muslims as “violent, criminally inclined, bigoted, anti-national and Islamist, with a voracious sexual appetite.” According to academics, such discourses have been the place of genesis for the propaganda of the Hindu right aimed at othering the Muslims.
Muslims’ socio-economic status
Rowena Robinson, who specializes in sociology and theology, has said that Muslims have become particularly vulnerable to violence and structural discrimination in India, because of their inadequate representation in hierarchies of power. Especially in the political sphere, the picture is abysmal. In the Parliament of 2014, of 543 MPs, only 23 were Muslim. In the current Lok Sabha (17th), this number plummeted to four seats. In his study of the social backgrounds of Indian Administrative Service officers in 2018, Santosh Goyal found Muslims to be only 2.7% of the total force. The Indian Police Services, at last count, have 3,798 employees, of whom a mere 3.66% (139 in total) are Muslim. Similarly, the Indian Railways’ workforce is only 4.5% Muslim.Muslims are also seriously underrepresented in the technical, clerical and managerial sectors. Most of the community is employed in the informal sector as casual labor, street vendors and small traders, because of a shared perception that they don’t stand a chance of securing salaried and secure jobs. Consequently, Muslims do not have access to financial instruments because of their disconnect from the organized sector; the average credit size for Muslims is negligible. In the absence of job security and meager asset ownership, the community stands exceptionally powerless in the face of conflict, violence and displacement.
As an extension of their precarious socio-economic situation and tense cultural atmosphere, Muslims tend to confine themselves into enclaves surrounded by their own people. This phenomenon, known as ghettoization, leads to the settlement of urban slums as well as some Muslim-concentrated villages. The Census of 2001 showed that these areas were particularly underserved with concrete roads, bus stops, and postal services as well as medical and educational infrastructure.
The CAA, NRC and FEMA
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, in the garb of being benign to refugees, is a policy tool that turns Muslims into second-class individuals in the eyes of the state. It will speed up the process for granting asylum (and eventually citizenship) to almost every religious group other than Muslims. Paired with the National Register of Citizens, the act becomes even more nefarious. The NRC is the government’s attempt to separate illegal immigrants from legal ones, by requiring citizens to establish their ancestry in the country prior to 1971. Once implemented across India, NRC will weed out many people who are not able to procure the required documents to prove their citizenship.Here is where CAA will swoop in, rescuing refugees and non-refugees alike if they belong to the Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Parsi or Buddhist communities. Even though neither the act nor the ruling party explicitly states this, it is inevitable that Muslims without documents will be declared stateless, even those who have inhabited India for decades. The government is already building detention centers, which is where the stateless people will be housed.
Also read: Indians rise up against their liar-in-chief
Additionally, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, recently made amendments to the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations, whereby migrants from all religious communities other than Muslims will be provided long-term visas, enabling them to purchase residential property and open bank accounts. These measures are symptomatic of Islamophobia of endemic proportions, within the government itself.
What can be done
Williams believes that identities are woven in relation to the other social groups in a dynamic, interactive society. In extension of this logic (also understood as constructivism), concepts of exclusion and inclusion, as well as group norms and boundaries, materialize through social processes. For Muslims to reform their identity from the persecuted and ostracized to equal members of an equal society, the nature of social processes has to change. This will happen when Muslims are empowered both economically and socio-politically to be at equal junctures with the rest of the groups. Muslims need avenues for upward mobility, both socio-political and economic.Access to political power
According to Williams, a big part of the minorities’ struggle against dominant norms is acquiring the power of decision-making. Robinson posits that for the numbers of Muslims to rise in public services, there is a need for de-communalizing the departments through sensitivity training and more recruitment from minority backgrounds. She says that religious diversity in the government forces has a direct positive effect on reducing religious prejudice and promoting inter-community trust in society, since their interaction with the citizens sets precedents for political norms.Financial security
To make the community more resilient to political and economic crises, access to financial and savings instruments is vital, especially because the informal sector does not provide such securities. Robust policies that extend social securities, pensions and provident funds are the need of the hour, for people who cannot avail the same at their sites of employment. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which seeks to facilitate access to banks and financial institutions as well as ensure financial literacy for all households, is one such example. The scheme, launched in 2015, has grown tenfold in terms of aggregate deposits by households.Another policy, called the Atal Pension Yojna, provides guaranteed monthly pension to its subscribers, mostly from the informal sector, and also qualifies for income tax benefits. However, it has been criticized for giving the subscribers a bad deal in comparison to the higher guaranteed returns on government bonds and equity funds.
Human capital development
Financial empowerment can and must also be achieved through skill development and the provision of micro-credit. While pensions and savings are good safety nets, the state must ensure that every person knows how to fish. As was noted previously, very few Muslims are employed in highly specialized and technical jobs. Hence they do not pursue higher education with much enthusiasm as they find little utility in it.Skill development programs geared toward the Muslim community should have forward linkages with sectors of employment, where effective de-communalization and sensitivity training must be ensured so that the Muslim skilled youth is employed. Similarly, credit-lending institutions cannot be allowed to discriminate against borrowers on the basis of their religion; the amended FEMA guidelines cannot stand the test of a secular democracy.
Bringing ‘secular’ back to the state
Finally, these efforts have to be nested in a larger plan to reform the Islamophobic nature of the current administration. The government has taken shocking steps away from the ideal of secularism. It has changed names of cities, railway stations and roads that had Islamic or Mughal etymologies, widely seen as an attempt to add a Hindu-centric spin to the localities’ heritage.It has also gone out of its way to rewrite history textbooks – Prime Minister Narendra Modi put an entire committee to the task in early 2017, the chairman of which later confessed that the committee was “reinterpreting” archeological evidence to prove that Hindus are descended from the subcontinent’s first inhabitants and that the Hindu religious scriptures are not myths but real historical accounts.
Neither financial instruments nor skill development will help Muslims in a country that systematically discriminates against them.
The government’s obsession with establishing a Hindu state is eerily similar to the Nazi propaganda that was aimed at creating a pure Aryan state. Such attitudes will not change overnight, but citizens must be aware and informed, and resist divisive and Islamophobic policies. Muslims will not fuse with the social fabric of Indian society without an integrated approach, involving sincere efforts by the government and private players, as well as civil society.
Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report.
Shivangi
Singh is a student of public policy with a background in psychology and
liberal arts. She is currently studying at the Indian School of Public
Policy, and is the managing editor of the ISPP Policy Review.
Middle East should start honoring its poets, artists
Among
the artifacts in the Goethe Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, is a page of
script that begins with one of the most oft-repeated sayings in the
Arabic language, “Bismallah al-Rahman al-Raheem,” or in
English, “In the name of God, the most merciful, the most
compassionate.” More than two centuries old, that sheet of paper
captures the essence of cross-cultural exchange.
Muslims recite this phrase at the start of any surah in the Koran. By writing it at the top of a page before continuing in his native tongue, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest figure in German literature, was following a common custom at the time in parts of the Muslim world and revealing his fascination with Arabic and Persian poetry.
That fascination – Goethe particularly loved the works of the great 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz – resulted in the publication of the “West-Eastern Divan” in 1819, a collection of life-affirming and sensual poems that literary critics describe as a reconfiguration of European poetry.
That was then, but what about cross-cultural exchanges today, not only in literature but in science and other fields? The fascination with, say, 1001 Nights remains, and it continues to be revisited by writers from around the world. But there is nothing on the scale of the cross-fertilization of ideas that went on between medieval Europe and the Arab and Muslim world.
Countries such as the United Arab Emirates are good at bringing together artists from different cultures to collaborate and build bridges of understanding and tolerance. But it is fair to say that in the age of global digitization, the distinction between East and West is becoming ever more blurred amid fears that Arab identity and culture is being subsumed by Americanization.
For instance, the first original Arabic series on Netflix, the supernatural teen drama Jinn, made its worldwide debut this summer to much fanfare. Filmed in Jordan, it follows a group of teenagers on a trip to Petra, where they accidentally summon a figure from the spirit world and must then try to stop it destroying the world. But the series was widely condemned in Jordan for “lewdness” and “un-Arab” values. It was said that Jordan’s top prosecutor even asked the Ministry of Interior to stop the show being broadcast.
The supposed lewdness that provoked such outrage would not even raise an eyebrow in the West. But that is not the point. In all cultural exchanges, there is a balance to be struck; both sides should add to and gain from the collaboration.
Around the world, the homes of great writers, painters, musicians and even a pope are preserved to keep alive their legacy for succeeding generations. But while there are many museums in the Middle East and North Africa, hardly any are dedicated to an actual individual and his or her work. For all the wealth of Arab poetry, I know of only one proper museum dedicated to an Arab poet.
That is in Bsharreh in Lebanon, the birthplace of the world-renowned Gibran Khalil Gibran, which is now home to a museum containing his private library, manuscripts, personal belongings, 440 original paintings, and the contents of the New York studio he worked in. The museum is in the 7th-century Mar Sarkis (Saint Sergius) hermitage and receives many Western tourists paying homage to the author of The Prophet.
The 10th-century poet Al-Mutanabbi is considered one of the greatest and most influential practitioners in the Arabic language. Yet there is no museum honoring this famous literary figure, whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages. A house in Aleppo where he is believed to have lived for nine years was in the process of being restored as a museum when the war in Syria intervened.
The many messages in Arabic left by visitors to the Goethe House museum are testament to the mutual esteem between the 18th-century German writer and the Middle East, whose poetry and culture he so admired. Goethe would surely love the fact that around the corner from the house where he was born is today a café much patronized by Arabs.
The same kind of museum should celebrate the lives and works of great Arab writers, not only to preserve their work for new generations of Arabs but to introduce them to the Western world and inspire a new, much-needed love affair between East and West.
This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.
Muslims recite this phrase at the start of any surah in the Koran. By writing it at the top of a page before continuing in his native tongue, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest figure in German literature, was following a common custom at the time in parts of the Muslim world and revealing his fascination with Arabic and Persian poetry.
That fascination – Goethe particularly loved the works of the great 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz – resulted in the publication of the “West-Eastern Divan” in 1819, a collection of life-affirming and sensual poems that literary critics describe as a reconfiguration of European poetry.
That was then, but what about cross-cultural exchanges today, not only in literature but in science and other fields? The fascination with, say, 1001 Nights remains, and it continues to be revisited by writers from around the world. But there is nothing on the scale of the cross-fertilization of ideas that went on between medieval Europe and the Arab and Muslim world.
Countries such as the United Arab Emirates are good at bringing together artists from different cultures to collaborate and build bridges of understanding and tolerance. But it is fair to say that in the age of global digitization, the distinction between East and West is becoming ever more blurred amid fears that Arab identity and culture is being subsumed by Americanization.
For instance, the first original Arabic series on Netflix, the supernatural teen drama Jinn, made its worldwide debut this summer to much fanfare. Filmed in Jordan, it follows a group of teenagers on a trip to Petra, where they accidentally summon a figure from the spirit world and must then try to stop it destroying the world. But the series was widely condemned in Jordan for “lewdness” and “un-Arab” values. It was said that Jordan’s top prosecutor even asked the Ministry of Interior to stop the show being broadcast.
The supposed lewdness that provoked such outrage would not even raise an eyebrow in the West. But that is not the point. In all cultural exchanges, there is a balance to be struck; both sides should add to and gain from the collaboration.
Around the world, the homes of great writers, painters, musicians and even a pope are preserved to keep alive their legacy for succeeding generations. But while there are many museums in the Middle East and North Africa, hardly any are dedicated to an actual individual and his or her work. For all the wealth of Arab poetry, I know of only one proper museum dedicated to an Arab poet.
That is in Bsharreh in Lebanon, the birthplace of the world-renowned Gibran Khalil Gibran, which is now home to a museum containing his private library, manuscripts, personal belongings, 440 original paintings, and the contents of the New York studio he worked in. The museum is in the 7th-century Mar Sarkis (Saint Sergius) hermitage and receives many Western tourists paying homage to the author of The Prophet.
The 10th-century poet Al-Mutanabbi is considered one of the greatest and most influential practitioners in the Arabic language. Yet there is no museum honoring this famous literary figure, whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages. A house in Aleppo where he is believed to have lived for nine years was in the process of being restored as a museum when the war in Syria intervened.
The many messages in Arabic left by visitors to the Goethe House museum are testament to the mutual esteem between the 18th-century German writer and the Middle East, whose poetry and culture he so admired. Goethe would surely love the fact that around the corner from the house where he was born is today a café much patronized by Arabs.
The same kind of museum should celebrate the lives and works of great Arab writers, not only to preserve their work for new generations of Arabs but to introduce them to the Western world and inspire a new, much-needed love affair between East and West.
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