Muslims don’t define themselves as Muslim, just as Catholics don’t define themselves as Catholic
Published:
August 27, 2013 at 7:42pm
The link to my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday is below.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-08-25/opinions/muslims-dont-define-themselves-as-muslim-just-as-catholics-dont-define-themselves-as-catholic-2414182403/
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130827/local/second-group-of-migrants-on-the-way.483779
So these boat people found out that our Prime Minister is on an East Mediterranean cruise and our Foreign Affairs Minister is on holiday.
They could put their minds at rest that they would not be pushed back to Libya or their (troubled) country of origin.
Interesting observation. This week the BBC featured an article connected to what you’re saying here and it somewhat suggests an idea why in many people’s eyes Muslims are Muslims and nothing else. Here’s the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23810527
Some extracts:
‘Elsewhere, many people identified themselves primarily in religious rather than national terms.’
‘By contrast Europeans are more inclined to define ourselves in national terms.’
Mrs Galizia its pretty obvious you do not have an open center occupied with hundreds of males as your neighbours.
Pls spend a week living in the vicinity of an open center and then you can comment.
People like you are content as long as its not in your backyard. U taf kemm toqomsu fuq il valur tal propjeta.
[Daphne – What does this have to do with the arguments outlined in the article?]
Winds of war are starting to blow in the eastern Mediterranean. Are the Maltese PM and superannuated Foreign Minister still on holiday and incommunicado?
Or are going to have another sitting-on-the-fence attitude as when Gaddafi was overthrown (hoping in their heart of hearts that he would win and retain status quo vis a vis PL/MLP).
What is Maltese government stand about Syria, use of chemical weapons, use of force to oust Assad?
There was a press statement today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2402902/Chronic-lateness-Man-57-whos-late-diagnosed-medical-condition.html
I think our own Prime Minister suffers from this. Now he has an excuse for always being late
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130828/local/arriva.483785
The Times continues with its anti- Arriva campaign, including a fully fledged editorial,
About the bus fires, one is an accident, two is a coincidence, three…..sabotage by persons unknown who want Arriva out ?
It seems that the responsibilities as a PM of Malta don’t rest heavily on Joseph Muscat’s shoulders. Its holidays galore with our man. Happy holidays.
For a lot of us the holidays will start when he steps down.
I have copied a comment to your article and a reply I have submitted today to this comment for the information of your readers.
William David Tyler says: 25 August 2013 13:17
While I am almost in agreement with your scenario of local religious and cultural stereotyping, often resulting in blind xenophobia. It is when you automatically regress to the hysterics of using your topic to equate the Labour Party to the old Nazi regime that everything begins to untangle into hypocrisy and propaganda once again. Somewhere in that otherwise intelligent mind there sadly lurks a troubled soul that will not move on to socially genuine causes.
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Michael Seychell says:
28 August 2013 12:14
Mr. W.D.T. I am awfully surprised at the second sentence of your comment, more so since your surname make me believe you are British, or coming from a British family. Not knowing your age, one might think that not only you did not live through the horrors of the Nazi period, but much worse you have not read, seen pictures, films, etc, or even heard about those dark years when a united Europe with the aid of the U.S. toppled Nazi Hitler & Fascist Mussolini after they tried, and nearly succeeded to take Europe by force. Today through a united Europe we have our minds at rest on peace in our small continent.
Regarding your words ‘using your topic to equate the Labour Party to the old Nazi regime’ etc, I can tell you that between the mid seventies & eighties Malta was being managed by a dictatorial regime, where our constitution was suspended, our courts and the police became a tool in the hands of the government, and where in our country corruption and atrocious violence, became the order of the day, and this included political murders.
In respect to this paper, and the persons reading it, I stop here, albeit I could have given much more details of what happened under the what was called the Socialist regime, but its leaders never knew the meaning of true Democratic Socialism, so much so that most of them became extremely rich and despite our country’s size, not a small number of them succeeded to become landowners in a cowboy style manner, whilst the small fry were suffering the consequences.
Daphne, I would tend to disagree somewhat with your article.
Note that what I’m about to say below does not impinge in any way whatsoever with the issue of xenophobia and illegal/irregular immigration and my ideas about these issues. People in trouble have to be helped whatever their religion and/or theological ideas.
In your article you seem to argue, however, that Islam and Christianity are interchangeable. A Muslim is basically like the common, garden-variety European Christian in that he goes through the motions of his ablutions/prayers/rituals, but leaves the supernatural behind at the steps of his mosque.
While this may be true for some Muslims, I would argue that it is not true for the majority. Islam, albeit being an Abrahamic religion, has very different precepts from Christianity. Not only does violence and conquest feature more prevalently in the Quran, Islam is at its core not only a religion, but also a system of government.
Keep also in mind that Christianity (at least Catholicism and most protestant varieties) has gone through a process of theological interpretation. The bible is not considered to be the literal word of God, but is interpreted to make it fit the modern world view. Of course there are exceptions such as American bible-belt fundamentalism, but by and large in Europe, we mostly speak of “cultural Christianity”.
Islam, on the other hand, never went through this process of interpretation. For a Muslim, the Quran is the literal word of God. There can be any number of disagreements about Mohammad’s line of succession or about the hadith or whatever theological conclusions arrived at by Islamic scholar A with respect to scholar B – but to a Muslim there is no way to get around the fact of the literal unalterable words of God in his pocket. And those words are not always peaceful – not in the Bible and even less so in the Quran. Christians have learnt to (mostly) disregard the violence, genocide, racism, slavery and general mayhem in the Bible, but Muslims cannot easily do that. Hence we have Muslim individuals who are widely considered moderate such as the Imam at Corradino, openly declaring that he would like to see Shari’a law introduced in Malta. When you hear about the tolerance of Muslims towards the infidel, you mostly do not hear that the Dhimmah are considered second class citizens in an Islamic state governed by Shari’a and that they would be required to pay a tax unless they convert.
The title premise of your article is also by and large, inaccurate. Islam does consider all Muslims to form part of a brotherhood/mega-tribe of sorts (the Ummah or ummat-al-Islamiyah) which is considered to transcend any national boundaries. So yes, for a large number of muslims, perhaps even the majority, being Muslim does trump being Maltese, British, German or Libyan. This is a similar idea to the Jewish idea of a “spiritual Israel” nation to which every Jew forms part and formed part even before the constitution of the real-life Israel. Christianity has no comparable notion. Europeans have always cleaved preferentially to their respective nations rather than to the Vatican. Even a religious organisation such as the historical Knights of St. John, preserved their national boundaries within the structures of the Order itself.
I say all this not because of any sentiments against Muslims. I am simply pointing out that Islam and Chritianity are not the same. Making them out to be the same is at best self-deceit and it can only serve to widen the cultural divide because it will instill unrealistic expectations in both sides with respect to the other. In my view the differences should be carefully considered and taken into account within the context of globalisation and multiculturalism, not to discriminate, but to make sure that the deal is well understood by both sides. Once cannot have an effective dialogue without basing it on real facts, and the wishy-washy, warm and fuzzy ideas of a lot of liberal Europeans who think that all religions are basically the same are most definitely not congruent with the truth.
Bubu
I really enjoyed reading your excellent and articulate post. You seem well informed about Islam. You sound like an authority in the subject.
Dr Muscat should have appointed you in his office to advise him about Islam and not that Maltese (can’t remember his name) convert with blinkered views on Islam.
I wouldn’t have accepted if he had given me my weight in gold.