The world is diverse and it is important to respect
diversity. But neither international laws nor
international institutions are sufficient to ensure
peace and dialogue in our contemporary world. We need
to cultivate a dialogical co-existence, which is only
possible when there is interest in listening and
understanding the other side's point of view, and
respect for that which it holds as vital to its
cultural identity.
---------------------
Jano ko nimbrung =
Saya kira sangat mudah sekali bagi umat Islam untuk ikut berpartisipasi dalam dialog antar bangsa ini.
Umat Islam sudah punya modal besar untuk dialog antar bangsa tersebut, Al Qur'an sendiri sudah memuat tentang hal tersebut 1400 tahun yang lalu.
Al Qur'an :
[44.32] Dan sesungguhnya telah Kami pilih mereka dengan pengetahuan (Kami) atas bangsa-bangsa
[49.13] Hai manusia, sesungguhnya Kami menciptakan kamu dari seorang laki-laki dan seorang perempuan dan menjadikan kamu berbangsa-bangsa dan bersuku-suku supaya kamu saling kenal mengenal. Sesungguhnya orang yang paling mulia di antara kamu di sisi Allah ialah orang yang paling bertakwa di antara kamu.Sesungguhnya Allah Maha Mengetahui lagi Maha Mengenal
Wassalam
avatari2006 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-19-jahanbegloo-en.html#
Ramin Jahanbegloo
Beyond the clash of intolerances
Today, we are not experiencing a clash of
civilizations, but a clash of intolerances, writes
Ramin Jahanbegloo. "We must encourage opposing forces
to adhere to values of moderation, tolerance, and
non-violence", claims the Teheran academic and
philosopher, who is currently under arrest in Iran.
This text was read by the author at the conference
"Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism", organized by
Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations and held in Cairo on
4-6 March 2006.
Ramin Jahanbegloo was arrested at the Tehran airport
on or around Friday 28 April 2006 as he was leaving
for an international conference on Iran in Brussels.
After several days silence, the Iranian authorities
announced Jahanbegloo's incarceration in the notorious
Evin prison on 3 May 2006. Eurozine has joined its
partners Esprit and Reset, in addition to numerous
international organizations, in demanding his
immediate release.
---
The "dialogue of civilizations" has become one of the
keywords in the global discourse on issues of cultural
globalization and international conflict resolution.
However, the disappearance of traditional stereotypes
that existed along the ideological lines of the Cold
War era has given birth to a new confrontational
scheme, which is visible under the idea of clash of
civilizations. This new form of ideological friction
may well turn into a real and serious conflict,
particularly when acts of violence are given a
religious dimension, thus potentially triggering a
sequence of events that may elude political
rationality. Ever since the conflict between the
Achaemenid Empire of Persia and the city-states of
Ancient Greece, clashes between civilizations has been
a major and very familiar theme of world history. If,
however, the energy released when two cultures clash
could be channelled in the right direction, contact
between two different cultures could provide a golden
opportunity for the birth of constructive
self-reflection. People would be able to examine their
own cultural framework in the light of a different
one, and if such an experiment succeeds, not only will
conflict be avoided, but also an opportunity will be
created to broaden a culture's intellectual horizons.
In fact, it is not that hard to find examples in
history of the way in which a clash of civilizations
has led to dialogue on a higher level. The example and
paradigm of Al-Andalus is particularly relevant
concerning the dialogue among cultures. What was
remarkable about religious and cultural life in
Islamic Spain is that in their intense and rich
dialogue, Jews, Christians and Muslims were not aiming
at converting one another to their respective faiths
so much as trying to deepen their understanding and
convince themselves of the truth of their own beliefs.
I think we all agree that at the core of the Cordoba
experience is to be found not intolerance but an
aspiration to the universal and a respect for
diversity. While Europe was darkened at sunset,
Cordoba, the seat of the Muslim Moorish Empire in
Spain, was lit by street lamps. Europeans bathed in
streams and lakes; the citizens of Cordoba had over a
thousand baths. Europe was covered with vermin; people
in Muslim Spain changed their undergarments daily.
Europeans walked in mud; Cordoba's streets were paved.
Europe's palaces had smoke holes in the ceiling;
Cordoba's arabesque architecture was exquisite.
When Europe's nobility could not sign its name,
Cordoba's children went to school. When Europe's monks
could not read the baptismal service, Cordoba's
teachers created a library with over two million books
on every subject of human life. This is a small page
of European history which European scholars choose to
either ignore completely or mention fleetingly in
their history books. In this modern age of Western
global dominance, we often hear how civilized,
democratic, humane, tolerant, and enlightened Europe
is and has been compared to barbaric, primitive,
violent, and Middle Aged thinking, Muslims. Throughout
the Middle Ages, Jews and Muslims borrowed a great
deal from each other in the areas of philosophy,
science, mysticism, and law. For example, Maimonides
was deeply influenced by our Muslim philosophers,
while many in the Islamic world to this day read
Maimonides as an Arab thinker. One outstanding example
of religious cooperation was the mosque of Cordoba,
which was used on Fridays for prayers by Muslims, on
Saturdays by the Jewish community, and on Sundays by
the Christians. That was truly an open society,
created by an atmosphere of togetherness no matter
what religion people had. In Muslim Spain, for a
period of almost eight hundred years, a society
existed in which Muslims, Jews and Christians lived
together in peaceful co-existence, sharing knowledge,
culture and understanding.
One of the fundamental problems frequently encountered
in a dialogue situation is the tendency to compare the
ideals of one's own faith with the practices of the
other and vice versa. This approach is adopted
primarily to put down and degrade the other. Such an
approach not only prohibits understanding and genuine
conversation across religious boundaries, it also
leads to the unnecessary glorification of one's own
faith and sacred texts. Actually the true problem
starts when those on both sides begin to believe that
a balance between the two is impossible and that a
clash is inevitable. When this happens, they stop
listening to each other and begin dehumanizing one
another, making a clash ever more likely. Unless and
until the three Abrahamic faiths discover a new
paradigm of religious life that honours diversity as
part of human religiosity, they will compete and
civilizations will be in conflict. This new paradigm
cannot be taught, but can be discovered. And the way
to discover it is to dare to dive into a deep
inter-faith experience with the world's contemplative
traditions.
The contemplative side of religion always leads to a
sense of humility. The great mystics of every faith
understood that God was greater than any faith. By
immersing people in the contemplative traditions of
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and by cultivating
the spiritual humility that nurtures a paradigm of
holy diversity and mutual respect (as a opposed to
mere tolerance) the world can move beyond the clash of
civilizations toward a new era of global dialogue and
peaceful inter-spiritual cooperation. Today, we are
not experiencing a clash of civilizations, so much as
a clash of intolerances. Intolerance is mainly the
inability or unwillingness to endure something
different. Intolerance of other people who are
different from us is obviously prevalent in our modern
societies. This is not only about moral intolerance or
political intolerance. It is simply about intolerance
of anyone who is in any way different than us. Ever
since the tragic event of 9/11, there has been an
increasing number of racial attacks against Muslims,
Sikhs, or anybody else from a Middle Eastern or Asian
background. Also, careless remarks about Islam and
Muslims by politicians and the media have helped to
fan the flames of hatred and fear among different
communities of believers around the world. But
intolerance against Muslims goes hand in hand with the
demonization of the West by Muslim fundamentalists.
While many Muslims acknowledge the support and
sensitivity of most Westerners, some Muslims continue
to embarrass everyone with the narrowness of their
vision and the crudeness of their sentiments in
relation to the West. The agenda seems to be the same
on both sides: promoting a generalized conflict
between the Islamic world and the West. But who has
the greatest duty to stop this clash of intolerances
committed in the name of Islam and western
civilization? The answer, obviously, is Muslims and
non-Muslims who are against superficial and
apocalyptic depictions of a world divided. Any
solution to contemporary clash of intolerances must
take recourse to fighting the crazed nationalism,
tribal hatred, and religious and ethnic intolerance
and encouraging the opposing forces to adhere to
values of moderation, tolerance and non-violence. It
is difficult to reconcile the idea of dialogue among
cultures with the contemporary theory that
non-violence is simply a strategy of convenience.
Non-violence is not a shirt that one can wear today
and take off tomorrow. Practicing non-violence has
become a practical necessity in international
relations. Just as we are required to create a whole
culture of violence around us, we need to create a
culture of non-violence and toleration around us to
practice dialogue. The injunction to be tolerant and
non-violent can mean only, of course, that we should
exercise tolerance and non-violence if and when
confronted by ideas or actions of which we disapprove
or even consider to be hateful, in the same way as the
principle of freedom of speech makes sense only if it
is also applied to those who say things we ourselves
view as being wrong. For, obviously, there is no
particular difficulty nor particular merit, and thus
no special spiritual effort required, to tolerate what
we consider good and right and what accords with our
own idiosyncrasies, in the same way as there is no
particular merit tolerating people whose views happen
to coincide with our own. And yet, as the whole
history abundantly proves, we cannot and we should not
tolerate the inhuman.
Tolerating the inhuman leads only to more inhuman. He
who passively accepts the inhuman is as much involved
in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. Non-violent
dialogue is the best way to protest against the
inhuman without being indifferent to it. That is to
say, if inter-cultural dialogue is to be authentically
itself, it must be accompanied, supported, and
challenged by a dialogical tolerance. Differing from a
dialectical tolerance, in which each voice is locked
within pre-established point of views, and differing
from an eclectic tolerance, a dialogical tolerance
involves both self-other and self-self. The self
encounters someone who is both other and self. This
recalls a beautiful poem by T.S. Eliot published in
the Four Quartets, where the character of a
philosopher-poet hears within himself the voice of
another person and says: "Although we were not. I was
still the same. Knowing myself yet being someone
other." The someone other who is both there and not,
like the voice of another culture or another religion
which comes to us and asks us to be open to the
possibilities of the other's thinking, as well as to
the voice of the dialogue itself. This attitude of
openness suggests that participants in a dialogue must
believe that each other's worldviews are capable of
being understood. In other words, there could be no
inter-cultural dialogue between cultures that
constitute hermetically sealed chambers of meaning.
Rather, they must assume that their worldviews are
open horizons. Toshihiko Izutsu uses the _expression_
"fusion of horizons" to describe the way in which
contact between two opposed cultural frameworks can
result in both attaining a new perspective on the
world above and beyond their existing world views.
If one is talking here in terms of principles and
spirit, this comment would apply not only at the level
of culture but also civilization; surely what is
called for today is such a fusion of horizons the
key to changing a clash of civilizations into a
dialogue between them. If efforts were made throughout
the world, between all cultures, to attain a "fusion
of horizons", then we would at last be achieving
globalization in the true sense of the word.
Therefore, the aim in conducting a dialogue between
cultures is not to create a world of uniform thought
and culture, but ideally the exact opposite. Cultural
dialogue should be nothing less than a mechanism for
enriching the individuality and world view of people,
whether they are from America or an Islamic community.
Any culture tends to possess a framework which
determines the basic form of the behaviour, thoughts,
and emotions of the people belonging to that culture.
The people belonging to a certain culture base their
ideas, feelings and behaviour on the framework of that
culture.
Dialogical understanding demands that members of
different cultures actively engage each other in real
dialogue, listen to what the others say, and reach
partial agreements about the meaning of the
perspectives communicated. Importantly, this also
means questioning another culture, not avoiding it.
Critical questioning remains part of the process of
intercultural dialogue. But coming to know what one
does not know should remind us of the wisdom of
Socrates. Although Socratic questioning was motivated
by his admission of ignorance, it also enabled
criticism of the values and beliefs of his
interlocutors by drawing on their own inconsistencies.
By pointing out the limits of Theatetus' knowledge,
Socrates believes that the young man may become
gentler with his own colleagues. Similarly, when we
portray intercultural dialogue as an open-ended
questioning, participants encourage each other to
experience their cultural views as open to revision. A
cross-cultural conversation, even with an inflexible
"other", offers the speakers the advantages of both
self-discovery and of possibly learning another aspect
of a greater, more complex truth. The aim is not to
get necessarily to an agreement between persons
holding fundamentally different opinions. The goal is
to get a sense of empathy and solidarity for the
world. We can no longer preach any form of cultural
homogenization, nor advocate a view of radical
difference.
The world is diverse and it is important to respect
diversity. But neither international laws nor
international institutions are sufficient to ensure
peace and dialogue in our contemporary world. We need
to cultivate a dialogical co-existence, which is only
possible when there is interest in listening and
understanding the other side's point of view, and
respect for that which it holds as vital to its
cultural identity. These are the basic premises and
main goals of a non-violent dialogue of cultures. But
we also need to understand that in today's world, the
spiral of hatred and violence constitutes a huge
threat not only to international peace but also to
human destiny. It's time to realize that we find
ourselves in the process of a major change.
Democratization of intolerance has become the rule of
social behaviour. Paradoxically, the notion of
tolerance preached by all religions and cultures, is
turned into intolerance within the confines of
particularistic politics.
We need to think beyond this over-determined binary
opposition of the "West" and the "Rest" which seems to
suggest that the "rest of the world" has nothing to
say about the West. Such an affirmation would deny the
pluralistic essence of the western civilization. If
the West starts acting as the Taliban, ignoring the
fact that it has within it a diversity of views and
cultures, it is bound to betray its own liberal roots
and democratic aims. However, there is a possibility
to coexist in an increasingly intolerant world. We can
start from the premise that human dignity is too great
to be captured in one culture. In other words, each
culture nurtures and develops some dimension of human
dignity; progress will always come from a dialogue
between cultures. So if the West is asking Islam to
stamp out its intolerances, it has no lesser duty to
do the same. Muslims need the West to find a balance
between democracy and responsibility; the West can
learn from Islam in its sense of community.
Mahatma Gandhi, a relevant figure for our times,
fought against intolerance his whole life. Every
action of his was to create harmony among cultures and
individuals. Gandhi best spoke of this dialogue of
cultures and exchange of ideas of when he said, "I do
not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my
windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all
lands to be blown about my house as freely as
possible." What a challenge these words are for us who
are struggling against the clash of intolerances. If
the world is seeking a way out of the clash of
intolerances, the best way is to defend one's freedom
of _expression_ without disrespecting other peoples'
opinions. The true nature of dialogue consists in the
ability to see oneself from the perspective of the
other. It is certainly true that there are forces
within one's own culture that prevent that engagement.
There is a danger of reading something in other
cultures or religions that is simply not there. But
that is the risk of any dialogue. If there is any
deconstructing that needs to be done in order to enter
properly into a dialogue with other cultures, it is
one that seeks to purge the aspects of our own culture
and consciousness that are violent and destructive.
For the relevant question does not concern what we
should believe, but what we should do about our
beliefs. This was the task accomplished by great
historical figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin
Luther King Jr. and Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Let me take
this opportunity to salute the legacy of Abdul Ghaffar
Khan, better known as Badshah Khan, who died in 1988
in Peshawar, at the age of ninety-eight. Badshah Khan
is no longer with his people, but his lifelong
sufferings in the service of Pashtuns will remain a
great source of inspiration. Abdul Ghaffar Khan's
profound belief in the truth and effectiveness of
non-violence came from the depths of personal
experience of his Muslim faith. His life testifies to
the reality that being a non-violent and being a
Muslim are perfectly compatible. "Today's world is
travelling in some strange direction", Abdul Ghaffar
Khan said in 1985: "You see that the world is going
toward destruction and violence. And the speciality of
violence is to create hatred among people and to
create fear. I am a believer in non-violence and I say
that no peace or tranquillity will descend upon the
people of the world until non-violence is practiced,
because non-violence is love and it stirs courage in
people." The legacy of Abdul Ghaffar Khan may be of
help to all of us today in the task of overcoming
clashes of intolerance between Islam and the West and
between Muslims and Hindus in the subcontinent. His
bridge-building life is a clear and transparent
affirmation that dialogue, peace, and cultural
co-existence are possible beyond the clash of
civilizations.
__________________________________________________
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