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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Re: [chottala.com] FW: [Sonar Bangladesh] who is radical anyway?

Only the Lawful Administration under the System of Lawful Democracy in establishing human right & humanity only can establish perfect peace in human society.


From: "K. Raisuddin@yahoo.com" <K. Raisuddin@yahoo.com>
To: Khobor YG <khabor@yahoogroups.com>; Diagnose YG <diagnose@yahoogroups.com>; "dhakamails@yahoogroups.com" <dhakamails@yahoogroups.com>; DakBangla-owner YG <dakbangla-owner@yahoogroups.com>; "chottala@yahoogroups.com" <chottala@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 20 March, 2009 12:27:33 PM
Subject: [chottala.com] FW: [Sonar Bangladesh] who is radical anyway?

In bangla, the proverb says, "Mounota Shmmotir Lakkhon". For Muslims, this is something more than true. It is a fact that most muslims are not fanatic islamist radicals, rather peace loving people. But peace has to keep. It automatically does not remain in place. When a child does something wrong, the parents take appropriate actions to rectify. With the same token these peaceful muslims needed to strongly protest altogether against these criminal islamists. Did they do that? Certainly not. So, Who is responsible? People who are criticizing the islamic terrorists for their heinous actions or the peaceful muslims who are not protesting these heinous acts against the humanity in general. These problems are coming out of the muslim tent? So, it is the responsibility of the muslims to clean up this mess. Peace is not going to stay with the muslims if they do not attempt to keep it. My two cents.


To: dahuk@yahoogroups. com; witness-pioneer@ yahoogroups. com; sonarbangladesh@ yahoogroups. com; inquisitive_ sisters@yahoogro ups.com; ei_sumon@yahoo. com
From: mohebbollah@ yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:17:03 -0700
Subject: [Sonar Bangladesh] who is radical anyway?


MUHAMMED ÇETİN cetin.m@todayszaman .com Columnists
Who is radical anyway?

Last week the international magazine Newsweek featured a striking cover. The main headline was in Arabic with an English translation in smaller type below: "Radical Islam is a fact of life. How to live with it."

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Fareed Zakaria's article and editorial argued that not all groups that find support in Muslim communities advocate jihadist ideologies and not all Muslim communities host terrorists -- in fact, most do not. The managing editor, Daniel Klaidman, also emphasizes: "We must be smart about distinguishing between true threats and irrational fears. What we need is more analysis and less anger." As he hints, different readers see such covers and topics in different ways -- deceptive with a twist, or menacing -- and the graceful Arabic calligraphy is beautiful, but commercially catchy, too. Such media analyses deserve attention in many respects.
While approaching issues related to Muslims or Islam, the naming and framing of issues is mostly erroneously misconstrued or used falsely and specific terms are used with ideological motives. For instance, many Muslims rightly object to the phrase "radical Islam" and refuse to accept or use it. Individuals or people can be radical, the interpretation of certain principles of a religion by some of its followers can be radical, but not the whole faith or religion itself. Expressions such as "radical Islam" imprint themselves and mold people's minds even before they start reading and thinking about the religion and Muslims.
This deepens communication problems. Any individual follower of a religion, male or female, can be radical, extremist or even terrorist, but not the religion. The term "Islamic terrorist" is used so often and in such a slack or even ill-intentioned way, whereas the media and politicians never refer to "Christian terror" or "Christian terrorists," or "Jewish terror" or "Jewish terrorists" or any other religion or faith, for that matter. At most they become "Christian rebels," "the far right" or some other dignified term, but never terrorists for their faith. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which claims to be guided by the Bible's Ten Commandments, has wreaked havoc in the regions bordering Congo, Uganda and Sudan for two decades. The LRA is notorious for cutting off the limbs, lips, ears and throats of civilians, torture, executions, rape, forced displacement and forcing thousands of children to serve as soldiers or sex slaves.
A second issue is the visual imagery used to depict Muslims. While discussing violence and terrorism, the Western media use pictures of mosques, people praying or reading the Quran or innocent children and women in traditional clothing. Even as it argued against stereotyping Muslims, Newsweek's March 9 edition itself fell prey to this error: It showed children in traditional white gowns walking down the stairs of a modern mosque, young girls and women wearing headscarves at a university during Friday prayer and children reading the Quran in an underprivileged, remote area of a country. The reader is not brought to understand that these people have nothing to do with "nihilistic philosophies and expansionist aims," as the Newsweek editor put it. Instead, this associates all Muslims, man, woman and child, all their resources and institutions, the Quran, the mosque and their universities with fear; they are all seen as potential sources of radicalism, fundamentalism or ideological violence.
So even when people start with the right diagnosis of the issues, if they pursue the discussion with the wrong language and imagery, it does not help to resolve any ongoing dehumanizing of another group, especially of Muslims in this case.
The range of issues to confront, and they are many -- various sociopolitical and economic backgrounds, dysfunctional systems or regimes, disruption or disorientation of modernity in traditional societies, imposed cultural alienation, the negative effects of globalization, the role and weight of authoritarian regimes or militaries, media or judicial systems, transnational corporate and international agencies intervening or interfering with the domestic and international affairs of a country, regional conflicts and wars, the backlash produced by a colonial past or former or present foreign military interventions -- are all experienced and resolved differently in the varied and vast lands in which Muslim communities or societies live. So it is misleading to talk about "global Islamic insurgency." The different interests, issues and conflicts facing a particular society are represented by a range of political, ideological and sectarian groups. None of these stand for all Muslims, Islam or Islamic teachings, meanings and values. They are not part of a single global movement. Groups, motives, interests and movements are far more local or regional than that. They each have their own specific issues and grievances. Many do not have much in common in terms of tactics, strategies, reactions or positive responses. Thus, so-called radicalism, extremism or fundamentalism in various parts of the world cannot be resolved by bombing, killing, capturing, torturing, dehumanizing and demonizing individuals, people, communities or countries, as Newsweek also points out.
The problems are not the same in every society, and neither are the people. The same medicine cannot be used for all patients. As modern, educated and sophisticated people, we should demonstrate our political, moral, intellectual and spiritual superiority to extremists and radicals by sustaining civic, educational, philanthropic and altruistic efforts and projects. We need to bring people into our fold, not repel, stigmatize or compartmentalize them with artificial ideological labels. In the end, we have one world and one life to live. The world is not the property or responsibility of only a few.



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