Date: 7 June 2007
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Venue: TPIC-Bancom Room, Asian Institute of Management
The Future of Asia and Islam:
Distinguishing Religion from Political Ideology
"What we have been witnessing around Asia and around the world is not a clash of civilizations or even a clash of religions, but a battle of ideas.”
This, in a nutshell, was the message of Mr. Sadanand Dhume, guest speaker during the 65th installment of the Globalization Lecture Series held last June 7, 2007 at the Bancom room of the Asian Institute of Management. Mr. Dhume is a journalist and a Bernard Schwartz Fellow of the Asia Society’s Washington Center in the United States.
The speaker expressed regret that people generally blame the Islam religion for the “terrorist” attacks in New York, London, Madrid, and Bali that have caused enormous destruction to property and death to many people, including innocent civilian men, women, and children.
While many of those involved in the attacks invoked the name of Islam to justify their deadly activities, Mr. Dhume warned that those who speak them do not represent Islam in general. According to him, Islam believers, or Muslims, generally believe in nonviolence and like to lead normal lives just like anyone else.
Moreover, he pointed out that it is also unfair for people to label Muslims as “moderates” and “radicals”, with the former being used to refer to nonviolent Muslims.
“This is double standard,” he lamented as he underscored that “a moderate (Muslim) should meet the same benchmarks of moderation as a person from any other country.”
While he admitted that there are certain Muslim sects that advocate violence towards “nonbelievers,” Mr. Dhume said they do not represent the general Muslim population and it is “unfair and selective” to make it look otherwise. He said it is wrong for any religious sect – whether Christian or Muslim – to subscribe to violence to glorify a god, but it is also wrong to label an entire religion as engaged in “terrorism” just because a small sect within that religion believes in the use of violence against those who do not believe in their faith.
Dr. Dhume said a religious sect that believes in violence to express its faith is a real cause for concern, but warned that the use of violence to counter it is not the solution, as it will only exacerbate the situation. “The world is up against an ideology or a religious belief that cannot be suppressed with violence,” he said. “The only way to deal with such a problem is to encourage debate over the issue and to allow people to see for themselves the merits or demerits of their faith.”
There have also been other religions across the globe that believed in the use of violence to manifest faith, but most of them have been discredited and totally abandoned when made to respond to an open debate. He cited as example certain tribes in Northern Philippines that believed in beheading their enemies to please their god, but which are now totally unheard of. Moreover, the practice of cannibalism among certain tribes in Africa and South America has likewise been totally abandoned without a declaration of war.
Similarly, the war against present-day religions that advocate the use of violence cannot be won with the use of guns and bullets, according to Mr. Dhume. They need to be encouraged to join open inter-religious debate to allow people to scrutinize their faiths and make a decision for themselves.
The danger of using force to stop militant Muslims, according to Mr. Dhume, is that it could create an impression of a religious war or jihad that could draw the support and sympathy of other Muslims. Already, an ideology now known as “Islamism” has emerged precisely in response to a perceived persecution. This is actually the situation that a small minority of Muslims wants to create, to draw support from over a billion Muslims across the globe, more than half of which are in Asia. This small minority of Muslims – all willing to die for their faith – is well-educated and technology-savvy individuals of “above average norm.” They have well-placed connections and supporters among royalties and wealthy Muslim businessmen from across the globe
He believes “the primary clashes – the clashes that I think that really will give shape to things in the years ahead are going to occur within countries, so we should keep a close eye in which direction Indonesia goes, keep a close watch for developments in Malaysia and similarly Pakistan. What happens to them and what kind of state they would be in the future is, I believe, very much up for grabs.”
Ms. Amina Rasul-Bernardo, an AIM Policy Center Research Fellow and the Lead Convenor of the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy, affirmed Mr. Dhume’s presentation, but stressed that “although it is true that there is not a clash of civilizations – it is a battle of ideologies as you rightly put it – but still there is a clash. And there are millions and millions of people who are caught in this clash of ideology, this political battle of wills,” particularly the Muslim minorities in the Philippines, Thailand, and Western countries like the United States. She likewise noted that Christian minorities are also suffering in Indonesia and Malaysia, and ventured to ask what is being done in this regard.
The award-winning Muslim democrat cited several other concerns, including the feelings of disillusionment in the Arab world over the U.S. decision to remain in Iraq even after Saddam Hussein had been overthrown, the West’s alliance with friendly totalitarian governments in the Middle East, and the influence of ultra conservative Muslim ulamas from Libya and Saudi Arabia on local Muslim scholars.
Ms. Rasul-Bernardo cited the need “to bring back Islamist groups to the table, talk to them to find out what it is that can be done, so that there is a level playing field. You may not win the Islamists over but by doing this, but by making sure that the minority groups, the Muslim communities have the same stake as everybody else in the region or in the Philippines, you take away the ‘nutrients’ that feed the Islamist groups.”
Other speakers who participated in the programme were Dr. Federico M. Macaranas, executive director of the AIM Policy Center, who delivered the welcome address; Ms. Ines Delgado-Prieto, program director of the Asia Society Philippine Foundation, Inc., who introduced the speaker; Prof. Francisco Roman, former executive director of the AIM Policy Center, who synthesized the lecture and the reaction; and Mr. Klaus Preschle, country representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, who delivered the closing remarks.
A lively open forum followed after the talk, with the audience, some of them professors and students from the National Defense College of the Philippines, asking interesting questions or contributing observations and insights.
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