Zaed Al Fudail

Our Dispute with Macron: A Dialogue Crisis

الاثنين - 02 نوفمبر 2020

Mon - 02 Nov 2020

The underlying consequences of the current crisis between the French President Emmanuel Macron and the Muslims, and the increasing public call for a boycott of the French goods, can be examined from two perspectives. Firstly, it goes back to the deep miscomprehension of the concept and the formulation of the dialogue between East and West, between the Christians and the Muslims in particular, which is, from my point of view, the core of every conflict spreading its sparks everywhere. Secondly, Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters are trying to take advantage of the event, especially as it came after a previous call to boycott Turkish goods as a result of their President’s regional aggressive attitude.

In our current crisis, our fury was focused on the French President’s last speech and his demand to confront what he had called the “Islamic Fundamentalism”, and to deconstruct the isolation of some members of the Muslim community in France. Our frustration was shrouded with the notion of defending God’s Messenger, the Prophet of tolerance and mercy for all humanity. Hence, I strongly believe that, such a conception is the heart of the problem and the soul of what may develop in the future, as an existence issue among us as a human society.

On the other hand, we had not heeded the greatly formidable crime executed by a fanatic Muslim, who murdered the French teacher, Samuel Paty for showing his students the blasphemous caricatures during a lesson of freedom of expression. The teacher’s behavior was definitely wrong. Nevertheless, his huge offence could not be punished, neither according to civil nor to Islamic laws, by termination. In His Noble Book, Allah the Almighty taught us how a believer should cope with offenders of his faith: “ He hath already revealed unto you in the Scripture that, when ye hear the revelations of Allah rejected and derided, (ye) sit not with them (who disbelieve and mock) until they engage in some other conversation.” In this Quranic verse, the message is not restricted within a fixed period of time. Its connotation and judgement are perpetually valid temporally and spatially. Therefore, at the present time we surely need a reconstruction of the conceptions of our religious dialogue according to Allah’s and His Prophet’s genuine signification, and not merely following the claims of imperfect human beings.

Unfortunately, it is the state of recklessness which has been controlling our daily and cognitive lives. It is a prelude to a swamp of violence, which is defined as "the behaviour leading to harass someone, either physically or psychologically. Consequently, it is a sort of an aggressive threat against the Other because of a denial of his moral and financial rights. Thus, it leads to impose a dense tyranny in various forms and colours".

It is worth mentioning that tyrants wrapped their moral and tangible cruelty against the opposing Other, with diverse cultural and religious reasons trying to provide a legal and societal justification for their oppressive practices. In fact, their real aim was to fulfil their aspirations, terminating their foes and confiscating all aspects of freedom. Above all, hostility spread its strings to intellectuality. As a result, individual religious reading and a single-minded comprehension of religious texts played a crucial role that some people chose to drift towards violence as a means of assertion of their approach. Actually, in its genuine and celestial essence, and as a legislative text open to interpretation and diversity of perception, religion has no connection at all to how matters have concluded. Accordingly, the real issue is not the text nor its source or origin, rather it lies in the methodology of its interpretation and its relevant circumstances.

To confront all of the above mentioned, the struggle for awareness is very significant. Some of its fruits will be decreasing the wars of elimination. To achieve this goal, the belief in diversity should be promoted, and that can lead to the respect of the Other’s freedom; his ways of thinking, his behaviour and his political and religious opinions. Subsequently, the concept of tolerance, which we target in our different speeches, will be thorough. Besides, we need to give critical thinking more space, to stimulate analysis and contemplation, and to raise questions of wonder and awe about knowledge. Then, we will intuitively realize that it is useless to continue the wars of elimination. Alternatively, it is thought versus thought, as knowledge is the ultimate goal of wise people.

In conclusion, and in memory of the birthday of our Prophet (peace be upon him), I call for a better understanding of the goals of his message. He was sent to assert those sophisticated, benevolent values, away from any oppressive rules of power, or of materialistic, greedy games. Moreover, he established equality of competence among people in regard to rights and duties within a legislative framework, and empowering them with an absolute will to choose their beliefs within the spiritual framework, and a fair partnership in the main resources at the economical level.

Is not finally the right time to understand well the real meanings of our conclusive religion and to be inspired by our Messenger, the mercy sent to the whole universe?

Translated by Nadia Khawandanah