Where are We Heading

Next door to the New Jersey home of the man they beheaded, a sign appeared in the grassy lawn. The sign said: “Last night Islamics had a chance to speak up for Paul Johnson, but today it is too late. Today Islamics better wake up and start thinking about tomorrow.”

Are we “Islamics” waking up yet from the comfort of our grievances? Waking from pretty Salafist dreams of a quick and glorious Khalifat? Yes, many of our national Muslim organizations condemned the beheading, after the fact. But did anyone try to prevent it, or other acts that give our faith a bad name? Can we still act in the spirit of “Save one human and you save all of humanity?” Or are we Muslims only interested in abuses against us? Yes there may seem to be “more important” issues—but imagine it had been your next-door neighbor that was killed—would you not have written a similar sign? And, I hope, watered the lawn with tears of shame and sadness?

But I see instead that some of us just cry like hungry wolves. The writer Salman Rushdie will soon be speaking to the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) and a Muslim group is distributing a flier calling this intercultural professional association “evil”. How can anyone take Muslims intellectually seriously with simple-minded approaches like this? Instead of demonizing, it is better to present arguments in the open market of free discussion. Send journalists who agree with you to make the most effective points. Can we face the challenges like adults? Do we understand how to get our message out effectively?

The theme of the upcoming ICNA Convention, “Preserving Morality and Freedom”, suggests a potentially profound discussion of the relationship of individual choice, morality, and freedom. Choice and Intention is key. Muslims are warned against adopting the “ways of the fathers” unthinkingly. For Muslims, Islam embodies a moral system, but this is living body of Tradition, interpretation, thought and compassionate action. We are all called upon to understand it. This is not work only for a task force of leaders. We all need to encourage critical thinking, debate and discussion, and graciously tolerate disagreement.

Is Islamic morality and freedom understood by non-Muslims? Certainly not if they go by the many websites, that are so mean spirited. Is American freedom and morality understood by Muslims? Perhaps not, if Muslims base their judgments on the excesses of consumerist capitalism. No one should demonize the other, but instead try to understand.

Even the Greek philosopher Epicurus observed, “There is no use in philosophy unless it casts out suffering from the soul.” A work to understand others cannot get bogged down in easy judgments. Though all ideologies can be inhuman, these days the religious right especially tends to be overly judgmental and unthinking. Our current Administration is so convinced of its righteousness that is provides a thousand bad examples every week.

Just one example is the treatment of the disappeared detainees of the American gulag, in Guantanamo. In a front page article in the New York Times (June 21) “dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcment officials” confirm that the Guantanamo detainees do not have important intelligence to provide. They are nevertheless tortured because they are being made an example of, and also because our government bureaucracy is paranoid and reactionary. These men have become political pawns. This government pretends to be moral. By emphasizing family values issues in the election campaign, they work hard to continue this false pretense. And the former Republican leader of Congress, Tom Delay, recently confirmed that this strategy is working: “Most of the people in Mississippi came up to me and said, “Thank goodness. America comes first. Interrogation is not a Sunday school class. You don’t get information that will save American lives by withholding pancakes.”

New York’s Imam Feisal Rauf recently joined an interfaith coalition to run advertisements overseas and also in the USA stating opposition to the bestial interrogation tactics at Abu Ghraib. Some of the organizers at National Council of Churches have written to me to affirm their ongoing commitment to this issue. NCC Executive Director Bob Edgar is again scheduled to speak at our ICNA-MAS Convention, along with Muslim Chaplain Yee, wrongfully detained Muslim lawyer Brandon Mayfield, Amy Goodman, and many religious and community leaders with integrity and moral authority.

However, some other faith groups have been less effective in getting the word out. I think Muslim groups also need to be more effective and more pro-active, not only in managing the damage, but seeing the current morality crisis as a opportunity to act with the highest and most convincing adab. Otherwise, where are we headed? Or are you waiting for someone else to do this? Did you think you are too busy for morality and freedom?