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03/11/2006:

"Karen Armstrong: We can defuse this tension between competing conceptions of the sacred"

...Many have been alarmed by the increase of the Muslim population in Europe, which seems inimical to western values. They are naturally defensive and apprehensive; the cartoons can be seen as an expression of this anxiety and as a blow for freedom. But they also revealed the darker side of the culture they purported to defend, and have a grim precedent. Historically, Europe has found it extremely difficult to tolerate minorities; one member of the AoC group recalled that before the Shoah, in preparation for what was to come, Nazi propagandists encouraged the publication of anti-semitic cartoons in the German press.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an indispensable member of our AoC group, spoke from personal experience of the abiding pain felt by people who see their traditions consistently scorned and ridiculed by an imperialist power. When people hurt in this way, he said, it only takes a little thing to push them over the edge. When Islam was a major world power and Muslims were confident, they could take insults about their religion in their stride. But today, fearful of the hostility in Europe and bombarded with images from Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, many experienced the gratuitous vilification of their prophet by the Danish cartoonists as the last straw.

Hatred of the west is a relatively recent prejudice in the Islamic world. A hundred years ago, every single leading Muslim intellectual, with the exception of the proto-fundamentalist Al-Afghani, saw western modernity as deeply congenial and, even though they hated European colonialism, many wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France. Relations soured not because of an inherent "clash of civilisations", but because of western foreign policy, which continues to fuel the crisis.

How do we move forward? Washington's threatening posture towards Iran can only lead to an increase in hostility between Islam and the west, and we must expect more conflicts like the cartoon crisis. Instead of allowing extremists on both sides to set the agenda, we should learn to see these disputes in historical perspective, recalling that in the past aggressive cultural chauvinism proved to be dangerously counterproductive. The emotions engendered by these crises are a gift to those, in both the western and the Islamic worlds, who, for their own nefarious reasons, want the tension to escalate; we should not allow ourselves to play into their hands.
guardian.co.uk