ROTARY, Opinions – pages 52-55 – 1/06-2016
Being hopeful by looking at the past, living the present, projecting towards the future. In the last few years, the Arab world has been hit by unrest, revolutions, civil wars that have culminated in massacres and indiscriminate killings of minorities that are not in line with the beliefs of certain groups that have proclaimed themselves the only religious representatives of the population. I wonder how it is possible that, at the dawn of the third millennium, people are killing to deny religious freedom. These abominable situations not far from our cities cannot leave us indifferent, so a mention of certain events in the history of the Arabs, both Christians and Muslims, can give us a better understanding of how the current context has arisen and can help us prevent negative consequences for the future.
FIRST CENTURIES OF ISLAMIC CONQUESTS
In the 7th century, the entire southern Mediterranean passed from the Roman Empire to Arab rule, which lasted until the 13th century, when the Turkish-Ottoman era began. The westerly conquests extended to Spain as far as the southern regions of France (Poitiers year 732) accompanied by raids and deportations of the inhabitants of the coastal cities of Western Europe, including Rome. Islam, the new faith, acted as glue for the conquerors, while the divisions and struggles between the Christians of the Roman Empire favoured their weakening. Faced with the violence of the raids in 1076, 20 years before the First Crusade, Pope Gregory VII wrote to the Governor of Algeria El Nasser: “We believe in the same one God, even if in a different way, we raise our prayers and venerate Him every day”, referring to Abraham’s spiritual descent and faith in one God. Generally the Christian religion in the countries of the Middle East conquered by Muslims was allowed to exist with certain restrictions, becoming in some cases real discrimination and harassment. This was not the case for the churches of Northwest Africa: at the time of Saint Augustine North Africa was one of the centres of Christianity, but the sudden expansion of Islam swept away Christianity and with the passage of time ended up disappearing altogether. If in 1053 there were still five Episcopal churches there, the last church that of Carthage, already disappeared completely around 1160. It is estimated that in the 12th century the churches of the Maghreb were practically extinct. In contrast to today’s crisis in Arab countries, the first years of the Islamic era became brighter than the world of Christianity. When the Muslims arrived in Damascus in the 7th century, coming from the desert of Arabia, they discovered a world unknown to them, were amazed and asked the Syriac and Byzantine Christians to pass on their knowledge. Thus, everything that was accessible was translated from Greek to Syriac and from Syriac to Arabic. Science, medicine, astronomy, philosophy, flourished in Damascus, then in Baghdad and finally throughout the Islamic world, between the 9th and 12th centuries. All the professors of philosophy and especially of medicine and science, until the tenth century were Christians, trained Christians, Jews and Muslims who then became the majority in the twelfth century. This is the golden age for the Islamic Arab world, praised today by the movements that claim the splendour of Islam as the solution to all the evils of the Arab world today. The Arab Middle Ages brought many fruits to the West. To give a small example: Aristotle was translated and commented in Arabic by a whole group of Christians in the 9th century, then it passed to the Muslims with Avicenna and Averroe who lived in Spain, and also passed to St. Thomas Aquinas.
DECADENCE AND THE CAMPAIGN OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
The Ottoman Empire was followed by a period of decadence until 1800 when it began a new flowering that lasted until 1950. I have taken Egypt as an example as the most representative country in the Arab world. The ruler of Macedonian origin, amazed by the power of the French, did everything he could to convince Europeans to set up businesses, cultural centres and schools. This was followed by a massive emigration of English, French, Italians and Greeks, ending up controlling the economy, industry and trade, as well as the architecture and planning of the main Egyptian cities. In contact with Europeans, the inhabitants of Egypt became aware of the gap that existed in all fields: young people were sent to study in Europe, as the West represented modernity, ideas, science, medicine, military capability, where religion occupied an important place in society. The reason why Muslim fundamentalists today reject everything that is Western is because they identify the West with the lack of principles, ethical and religious norms, because they have moved from the public to the private sphere, and are therefore less visible than in previous years. Following the model of ideas imported from Europe, Muslims and Christians came together to create a secular Arab nationalism for emancipation from the medieval laws to which they were still subject. Arabic nationalism was secular in order to unite in the common interest all the communities of the population; it was constitutionalist and placed the emphasis on cultural, economic-industrial development and the emancipation of women. This had repercussions on the way of living and practicing Islam, which was evolving in a different way from popular practice.
CENTURY XX – COLLAPSE AND DISMEMBERMENT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
France and England (Sykes-Picot 1916) agreed on the partition of the Ottoman Empire, which had disintegrated at the end of the First World War. A secular state with Ataturk took over in Turkey. Egypt gained its independence and granted women the right to vote in 1923, well before the United Kingdom and Italy. Muslim religious circles, alarmed by the trend of western customs and traditions, joined a political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, advocating a return to Koranic law. After the Second World War, many factors distanced the Arab countries from the European ones, with which a preferential link had been established.
Some factors:
- The creation of the state of Israel put all the Arab states on the foot of war, facing enormous military expenditures and absorbing their energies to try to eliminate the new state;
- The conquest of independence which took over from Turkish domination and the protection of France and Great Britain caused the voluntary or forced evacuation of all European elements;
- Demography was a further element of destabilization. While in 50 years, the European population stopped growing and increased its wealth, the number of the Arab population tripled, generating illiteracy and poverty due to poor economic development;
- Europe’s energy needs favoured the Gulf producer countries, which used their new financial leverage to propagate a model of life dictated by Sharia law, similar to the rules prevailing at the time of the first Islamic conquests;
- The systems of government of Arab countries which are based on Sharia law and do not recognize the Universal Human Rights proclaimed by the UN in 1948 whose foundations are the equality of the human race and freedom of belief;
- Religion is so emphasized in Arab educational systems that the concept of citizenship is subordinate to the religious concept. Systems of government are intimately linked to religious systems, leaving little freedom of expression to the people and privileging Muslim citizens over others.
The above-mentioned situations have left the Arab peoples dependent on the West in everything and for everything: technology, culture, science. In twenty years, 300 million inhabitants of the Arab world have produced 171 international patents, compared to over 16 thousand patents in South Korea alone; the GDP of the province of Milan alone is higher than that of the whole of Egypt. A group of 150 men of letters, gathered in Alexandria, said: “We know that we are the last in the world, the nilest. What have we produced in seven centuries, apart from wars? Look at the Jews: they are 15 million and they have dozens of Nobel prizes, we less than five. They have created in all sectors, and we with 1.5 billion nothing.”
INTERNET AND THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
So many poor young Arabs look to so many rich yet elderly Europeans. The development of means of transport and the elimination of barriers between states have facilitated the movement of peoples. The spread of the media, television and the internet is pushing the younger Arab generations to confront the way of life of Europe. They see themselves as poor, with little freedom of expression, fewer rights for women, high unemployment, and few means of subsistence. All this contrasts with the television images of the opulence in which their peers in Europe live, and with the astonishing descriptions made by emigrant family members returning for holidays in their native country. In addition to the apparent absence of religiosity in Europe, the contrast between Arab society and Europe has widened due to the offensive of groups who want to change the laws in favour of a new type of “family” that does not conform to Arab social traditions.
IS ISLAM THE SOLUTION?
The contrast between the glorious past and the reality of the Arab world today is skilfully manipulated by certain religious circles with the slogan “the solution of all evil is found in Islam”. According to them, rigid Islamic practice should regulate social and family life, and relations between citizens and the laws of the State; the lack of religious practice has caused the state of inferiority in which young Arabs find themselves today in relation to their Western peers. The motto frequently repeated in the media, in school texts and in religious sermons is: “Allah is our goal. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. To die in the way of Allah is our supreme hope. We conquered the world at the beginning because we followed the Prophet: then the solution is the return to the 1st century of Islam, to the 7th century of history”. This is the fundamentalist movement; it is the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalists.
They want the return to the first century, taking up the model of “we think the solution is in the past”, in reference to the passages of the Koran that agree with them. These “advertising campaigns” skilfully exploit the frustration of certain individuals, leading them to extreme gestures in the name of Islam as a solution to the evils in which Arab countries find themselves. There is no doubt that strong interests succeed in propagating these ideologies that do not respond to the universal human rights adopted by the UN since 1948. In my opinion, terrorism can be defeated through the support of the majority of Muslims who love peace and who condemn terrorism itself. This condemnation should be expressed with greater determination, both by Muslim states and, above all, by civil society, religious movements and the vast world of mosques. Only in this way can the process of draining the many basins be triggered, where the ideas of a radical and violent Islam are born and developed and where hatred and resentment towards an enemy and colonizing West considered to be a friend of the Arab Christian citizens.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR US?
Although European policy has shifted religion from the public to the private sphere, let us remember that it was precisely religion that ensured the cohesion of European states. It took precisely three men to start resolving centuries of conflict and launching the idea of a European Union: De Gaulle in France; De Gasperi in Italy; and Adenauer in Germany. They are three Christian men, and by chance, Catholic. Today the glue of the European states has become the economy and finance, while that of the Arab states is religion, an Islam that reproaches young Europeans for their religious emptiness. It is good to remember that Europe and the Arab world have common and complementary interests that I would like to highlight: the guarantee of energy supplies; technological development to promote the Arab economy in the global economy; too much oil wealth in the hands of the few that are holding back the development of innovation and the formation of a middle class necessary for the formation of a beginning of democracy; the solution of Palestinian refugees and their descendants piled up in shantytown camps without civil rights in countries already overpopulated; and rampant illiteracy. In essence: stability, recognised borders, respected human values, a middle class formed without forgetting to give voice to the weakest and smallest nations, protecting their interests. The ageing of the Euro
pean average age attracts young Arabs, the majority of whom are Muslims, from a differently cultured social background. In order to create a peaceful reception, not only economic, of newcomers to the national territory, it is essential to create the conditions for immigrants to adhere to a cultural project, of equality of citizens before the law, of the principles of the Christian majority religion in Italy to dispel the prejudices that prevail among them. At the same time, the local population must be prepared to live together with the new citizens. Experience teaches that integration and inclusion are indispensable elements for a fruitful and lasting coexistence. We have seen how the countries of North Africa in the two previous centuries developed thanks to the emigration of millions of Europeans who had settled there for a few generations, unfortunately without integrating with the local population, leading to their expulsion. Another factor that favours stability is the cultural exchange and the exchange of technological knowledge between the universities of the two shores of the Mediterranean. These exchanges should encourage a rapprochement between the working forces; they would give the push to develop the immense territories of Africa and the Middle East, providing work and wealth to the local population without the need to emigrate. Every African graduate who comes to Europe without returning to his country of origin, which he has invested for his growth and training, represents an economic damage difficult to make up for by any remittances to his family of origin. The European Union has the necessary means and capabilities to launch an “economic and cultural” plan that allows Africans to avoid having to emigrate to feed their families, avoiding the dramas of the division of the family unit caused by emigration. The European Union is an economic and financial giant that can increase the immense wealth of the land, its beauty, the energy of young people, the experience of technology, and the human contribution, all combined with exchanges to enhance mutual knowledge. A long term path to achieve solid growth, combined with greater equity. It is to be hoped that the Arab world of Islamic culture will accept religious and gender diversity, aspiring to build, together with the European states, the basis for a long-term partnership. Of course, stability, security, precise political agreements, international coverage, are indispensable factors for the realisation of these projects. Rotary peace ambassadors have the human potential to play the role of a bridge to lasting peace.
Giuseppe Samir Eid
Free web translation from the original in Italian
The published articles intend to provide the tools for a social inclusion of the migratory flow, shed light on human rights and the condition of life of Christians in the Islamic world from which the author come from. Knowledge of the other, of cultural and religious differences are primary ingredients to create peace in the hearts of men everywhere, a prerequisite for a peaceful coexistence and convinced citizenship in the territory.