Overcoming Islamophobia: Fear is never the best basis for action – William Macdonald

Good essay on the need for perspective and mutual accommodation by William A. Macdonald in the context of Canadian Muslims but applicable more broadly:

The numbers tell their own story. There are about a million Muslims in Canada, and 1.6 billion around the world, one-quarter of whom reside in India and Indonesia. Despite the current problems particular to Islam, there is no irresistible link between Islam itself and terrorism. No Muslim country is in the world’s top 20 in terms of homicides per capita, nor is Islam associated with any of the 10 largest genocides in history.

The only long-run solution to the relationship between Islam and the rest of the world is rooted in mutual accommodation. Whatever is being done to fight terrorism must always keep that reality in mind. Words matter, and we should avoid to the extent possible including the terms Islamic or Muslim in our descriptions of extremism or terrorism, even if the violence is being done in the name of Islam. Readers already know that’s what al-Qaeda and Islamic State claim.

Islam is no different from any other religion in its need to examine itself critically. The thinking mostly has to come from within, while the challenges will often come from outside events. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage is a good example: Religion not only challenges the world; the world challenges religion. Institutional religions, if they are to survive and thrive, need to communicate with their adherents, and everyone else. For example, the Pope challenges the world to do better at the very moment when the acceptance of gay marriage challenges his church (and not very long after it was challenged by the adverse reaction to its reluctance to respond to the sexual abuse of young people in its care).

David Brooks, the insightful conservative columnist for The New York Times, described the current post-gay-marriage situation in the United States very well. True believers – mostly of a religious persuasion – have a choice, he says; one way is to keep fighting for what they believe by seeking to change laws so that they can impose their views on society. The other, as Mr. Brooks and I both believe, is for these groups to accept that they are special communities of individual believers who can make their best contribution to their members and to society, not by trying to impose their views on others, but by the strength of their own communities of faith.

In recent weeks, the racist massacre in Charleston, S.C., has provided yet another example to our world, desperately in need of more compassion and a larger purpose than individuals themselves. It is difficult to imagine anything more powerful than the personal, face-to-face forgiveness of the deeply mourning relatives to the murderer of their loved ones. The authenticity of this forgiveness could come only from the force of their deep faith.

There is an urgent need to find the best strategy to address the double challenge presented by terrorist acts in Canada and terrorist recruits from Canada. Aside from that issue, how big a problem are Muslims? Or, from another perspective, is Canada a problem for Muslims? Canada’s history is all about a growing capacity for the inclusion of more and more differences in our society. Covering a woman’s face with a niqab is certainly incompatible with the openness that has become part of the Canadian way. Yet it represents no threat to anyone except on those occasions when there is a clear need to see someone’s face, such as for identification purposes or during testimony in court.

Overcoming Islamophobia: Fear is never the best basis for action – The Globe and Mail.

For those interested in his website and more of his views, his framing piece can be found at CANADA: STILL THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY along with other commentary at Canadian Difference.