Wednesday, April 21, 2004

A hopeful sign

Razi Azmi, writing in the Daily Times of Pakistan, shows why I still have hope that Islam can live at peace with its neighbors in religion.
No, the negative image of Muslims is not the result of malicious Western propaganda against Islam. On the country, all the documentaries concerning Islam and Muslim lands shown on the mainstream western television channels -- and there have been many in the last two years -- present a very sympathetic picture of Islam as a religion and of Muslims as people. The image Muslims find unflattering reflects the larger reality of the Muslim world, steeped in dictatorship, corruption, ignorance and illiteracy, and characterised by the repression of women, honour killings, child abuse, sectarian and religious violence, persecution of minorities and a general and pervasive denial of basic freedoms and human rights.

I have hope, not because the Islamic world is in the muddle he describes, but because if Muslims face the muddle, they can find their way out of it. As long as Muslims continue in denial, shifting the blame and wailing about discrimination when people simply point out photos Muslim themselves have shot, there will be no motion toward peace.

The whole piece is worth reading.

Source: Dhimmi Watch

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