Dates of Interest
Speech at CMF 8th June 2011.
Published date: 16th June 2011
The role of Christian Muslim Forum in the Global village
Musharraf Hussain OBE CEO Karimia institute
I would like to thank all my colleagues from the CMF who made my five years at the forum feel like five days, the forum has helped me to grow personally and build stronger and more positive relationships with many people. Apart from personal gains, the forum has had a great deal to offer community relations and reflects the moral and spiritual health of the country.
Globalisation is a new period in human history where economics, cultures, population migration and information exchange are interconnected, creating a global village.
Here in the Global Village, the concept of time and space has undergone a fundamental change due to advancements in technology and the media.
New technologies have radically changed the world over the twentieth century, and more so over the past few decades. One outcome of this is the reduction of the effects of space and time on everyday life and trade.
Through communication technologies we talk to one another, view news and documentaries about other parts of the world and other cultures, revisit history, and share in the cultural production of other social groups.
Through other technologies we can rapidly traverse the globe physically, transmit information almost instantaneously, and send goods around the world in hours or days, rather than months. The speed of transmission and the mobility of capital mean that both space and time seem to have been truncated, or to have collapsed entirely.
The media and internet have really made us next door neighbours.
The point I want to make here is how Christians should and Muslims behave towards one another in this new global village?
The 1.5 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians constitute more than half of the world’s population of 6 billion.
Their mutual relations will determine world peace.
But do we know how to live as neighbours? How should we interact with one another? Sadly, the new social media and technologies have failed to provide us with guidelines, recommendations and commandments.
There is no escape from each other. But how do we behave sensibly towards one another? In the process, we influence each other individually, collectively, pleasantly, unpleasantly, or positively and negatively, in almost all areas of life. Our religions, our moralities, our politics, our economics, our science, our technologies, our dress codes, our achievements and setbacks, our pains and joys, our virtues and crimes-all influence our new type of impersonal neighbours.
Some of this influence is shaped by our own decisions, but a lot of it is controlled by the policies and values of the media, which we are opening up to or using to communicate with others.
We can come to love or hate our new neighbours because of the decision made by the management of our global village. If the management so desires and deems fit, it can help us look at our neighbour in a friendly light even when our neighbour is not truly friendly to our best interests, or it can put them in an unduly unfavourable light. So, in the global village, we live in a world of managed reality most of the time.
Islamophobia-dread and a fear of Muslims are widespread in the West. Elizabeth Poole has carried out a detailed analysis of how British newspapers cover Islam and Muslims.
She concluded that the media views Muslims in four ways:
1. Muslims as a threat to UK security.
2. Muslims are a threat to British mainstream values.
3. Cultural differences between Muslims and host community create tensions in interpersonal relations.
4. Muslims are increasingly making their presence felt in public space.
All this is creating huge anxieties and fuelling ‘the myth of confrontation’
2. Muslims are a threat to British mainstream values.
3. Cultural differences between Muslims and host community create tensions in interpersonal relations.
4. Muslims are increasingly making their presence felt in public space.
All this is creating huge anxieties and fuelling ‘the myth of confrontation’
How much damage does such attitude cause to our neighbouring relations is a serious issue for Muslims as well as Christians.
In the words of Adeel :
Hence in the global village of managed reality, the overpowering and hegemonic position of the West naturally produces the reactions of fright and acquiescence.
Thus, we have widespread westernphobia amongst Muslims (presented in Polls as hatred of America) and Islamophobia amongst Christians.
This situation is absolutely untenable in our new found reality, the global village, our two great faiths do not allow this kind of attitude and behaviour towards one’s neighbour.
The kind of projects CMF promotes and runs are ideal to tackle both Islam phobia as well as Westerphobia amongst Muslims.
Peace making is the most conspicuous spin off from joint Christian–Muslim activities, peacemaking should not be taken as a light work, and in fact it is a vitreous activity in both traditions of Islam and Christianity:
God blesses those who work for peace (Math.5;9) and the Quran teaches “peacemaking is the best policy” (Al Imran).
Every time there is a Christian-Muslim skirmish in Nigeria, Egypt or Pakistan we cannot also fail our relationships here in UK, we cannot have perfect relationships, simply because we will never see eye to eye in all matters.
We need to be committed to each others welfare as well as being neighbours. We will work towards restoring broken relationships elsewhere. There is constant strife, bickering and animosity between the two great faiths and this sends the wrong message to a watching world.
To view the advertised event clich here
