July 1, 2005 -- To apply for CIC's student
scholarships in media, law, political science and social work.
Details:
http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/scholarships.php
July
1, 2005 -- To nominate individuals and organizations for CIC's annual
awards. Details:
http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/mc/media_communique.php?mcdate=2005-03-10
July
1, 2005 -- To apply for travel grants for CIC's short course on Canadian
history, politics, media, and law, Islamic family law and professional
family counseling. Details:
http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/course/
August
15, 2005 To register for CIC's short course
above.
In the April 29, 2005 edition of the Friday Bulletin,
the Canadian Islamic Congress and Ms. Wahida Valiante published on its
website an article entitled Worth Repeating: Media Propaganda: Hitler,
Bush and the "Big Lie". The Canadian Islamic Congress and Ms. Valiante
apologize without reservation and retract remarks in the column that
suggest that Dr. Daniel Pipes is a follower of HItler or that he uses the
tactics of Hitler or that he wants to ethnically cleanse America of its
Muslim presence.
by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry; a paper p - Cairo, Egypt, April 17, 2005 attended by over 200
Only the Islamic civilization, was characterized
primarily by a foundational Idea, epitomized by a specific set of
principles and a broad worldview containing them.
By contrast,
there has been no "Christian civilization" per se, although Christianity
was a significant influence on the ancient Roman Empire, post- Roman
Europe, and still (though more limited) on today's dominant Western
Civilization. Every civilization tries to build an empire that reflects
its primary values. Thus we have the Chinese Civilization and its Chinese
Empire, the Roman Civilization and its Roman Empire, and so
on.
Later history has seen the rise of Western Civilization and for
example the British Empire; and now we are witnessing the construction of
the American Empire.
The Islamic Empire took less than 100 years to
build -- the shortest such emergence in recorded history. It took the
ancient Romans about a millennium to accomplish the same feat. But a
preferable name for the Islamic Empire would be the Islamic Commonwealth,
which describes more accurately how Islamic Civilization developed and
grew. Today there are many temptations leading Muslims to believe that
they are living in a postcolonization era. Consequently, they come to
consider Western culture as their standard or societal mentor, losing
their Islamic identity in the process.
However Muslims today are
living amid a new era of recolonization chiefly led by U.S. policies
toward the Muslim world. This has resulted in a widespread malaise of
defeatism, political fatalism, and the tragic loss of cultural
identity.
If Muslims become aware of this reality, they can turn
the tide of defeat and become successful civilization-builders, just like
their ancestors.
[Full text of the paper is posted on
http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/docs/cairo_2005.php]
by Amir Butler - CounterPunch -- May 28-30, 2005
Sir Ridley Scott's treatment of the Crusades in [the
movies] Kingdom of Heaven focuses attention on a chapter of history that
is barely remembered in our societies, yet provides the prism through
which Muslims view their relations with the West.
The central
storyline is mostly fictional, however the historical backdrop is
essentially accurate; with its progression from the treaty broken by
Crusader bandit-knights, to the attack on the Castle of Kerak and the
subsequent surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin's armies.
Saladin, the
12th-century Muslim ruler who vanquished the Crusaders, has long been
romanticized in both Muslim and non-Muslim literature as a figure who
personified bravery, chivalry and honor.
Even Dante's Divine Comedy
describes Saladin as standing apart in the highest level of Hell afforded
to non-Christians, alongside the likes of Plato, Homer and Dante's own
guide, Virgil.
In the Muslim world, the name Saladin resonates with
meaning. It has peppered the speeches of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein. For Muslims, Saladin is the symbol of a golden age of honour and
dignity; and for figures such as Saddam and Bin Laden, he is a useful
rhetorical device for giving legitimacy to their own
causes.
Muslims revered Saladin because he was the embodiment of
Islamic principles; and non-Muslims revered him for his chivalry. He
became a window through which the medieval world came to see something of
Islam; and he now represents a window through which Muslims see something
of their past. It is a past filled with acts of kindness that seem out of
place in today's dystopian world of made-for-TV decapitations,
kidnappings, and the torture of prisoners of war.
Although he was a
military leader at a time characterised by its violence, Saladin could
teach our contemporary leaders -- both Muslim and non-Muslim -- something
about chivalry and respect for humanity. While besieging the Castle of
Kerak on his march to Jerusalem, Saladin learnt that a wedding ceremony
was underway in a part of the castle. He didn't make some utilitarian
judgement about collateral damage. Rather, he ordered his soldiers to
refrain from bombarding that wing.
According to reports of the
time, Crusaders massacred Jews, Christians and Muslims to the point that
"our men waded in blood up to their ankles," yet Saladin did not extract
revenge or conduct any of his own massacres on recapturing Jerusalem 88
years later. Instead, he granted the Crusaders protected passage to the
coast.
When Richard the Lion Heart attempted to recapture
Jerusalem, he was confronted by Saladin's military might and his clemency.
Despite having violated a treaty by slaughtering 3,000 men at Acre, when
Richard's horse was killed at Jaffa, Saladin sent two of his own horses to
replace it. "It is not right," he wrote. "That so brave a warrior should
have to fight on foot." When Richard fell sick during the siege, Saladin
sent his personal physician to care for him.
After Saladin's death
in 1193, there were no Swiss bank accounts full of money pilfered from his
people, but a personal treasury emptied by his charity to those in
need.
For Muslims, Saladin represents a moment in their history of
strong and honorable leadership in the face of tremendous opposition.
Tyrants and dictators have since misappropriated his name and legacy, but
Saladin was everything that today's secular and politically emaciated
dictators of Muslim lands are not -- a leader who was powerful yet just;
victorious yet clement; and who was inspired not by a love of power or a
thirst for wealth, but by faith alone.
In the end, Saladin was
victorious over the crusading armies of Europe, but perhaps his greatest
victory was not military, but moral. For real victory, Saladin said, "is
changing the hearts of your opponents by gentleness and
kindness."
(Amir Butler is a writer based in Melbourne, Australia.
He can be reached at: amir@amirbutler.com. This
article was edited and slightly abridged for the Friday
Bulletin.)
by Andrew Phillips - The Observer -- May 23, 2005
GAZA -- The reality of Gaza, the West Bank, and East
Al Quds was far worse than my expectations, and they were bad enough. The
humiliation, hatred and imprisoning walls are omnipresent as are, thank
goodness, the decency, uncrushability and talent. As one who grew up in
the shadow of the Holocaust and who volunteered to fight for Israel in
1973, I wanted to see for myself, sharing in advance Tony Blair’s view
that the Israel-Palestine conflict infects not just the regional, but also
the global body politic. I returned believing that in the name of security
Israel is destroying security. In its use of the iron fist, Israell could
yet convert tragedy into catastrophe. That could then dislodge the formal
recognition by its Arab neighbours of its right to a secure
existence.
On the ground this much is clear: the initiative for
preventing disaster rests mainly with Israel, which has overwhelming power
and control. The Gaza withdrawal, highly contentious within Israel, must
be a first and not (as most Palestinians suspect) the last step to peace.
That withdrawal (of 8,000 settlers) is far less significant for peace than
the continuing headlong expansion of settlements and outposts in the West
Bank (200,000 plus settlers), the 113 km wall steadily sealing off East Al
Quds from the West Bank, and the other vast segregating walls must
ultimately be as futile as all walls in all history, from Jericho to
Berlin. The strangulation of movement of people and goods to and from the
occupied territories is as demeaning, indeed hate-inducing, as it is
economically disastrous.
Roughly 60 per cent of Palestinians have
[post-secondary] degrees yet the same proportion is unemployed. The main
causes are the physical movement barriers (the World Bank report this year
identified more than 700 in the West Bank alone) which typically increase
related costs by 1,000 percent and have decimated flower and fruit
exports. The Israelis, of all people, understand economic development and
that investment in Palestine depends upon the removal of such barriers.
Only then will plummeting standards of living (barely a tenth of Israeli
levels) be reversed..
Some Israeli groups lay claim to the whole of
Palestine as their God-given right. Hamas has the same claim about Israel.
It is entirely understandable that even moderate Israelis and supporters
around the globe are inclined to form their wider judgments in the light
of that threat. But where that is used to justify current human rights
abuses and creeping colonisation it is self-defeatingly wrong.
Most
worrying in many ways is the relentless increase in the number of illegal
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and highways to them that separate
Palestinians from their land. Such "facts on the ground" put the chances
of a just settlement (the only one that will work) beyond
reach.
One vivid exposure to the real state of things was my visit
to the Rafa refugee camp and a UN-sponsored school -- one soon realises
that without massive UN help the occupied territories would collapse. A
class of 50 bright-eyed, articulate 13 and 14-year-olds were visibly
angered when I asserted that renewed suicide bombings and Palestinian
independence were incompatible. "How are we to defend ourselves?" blurted
a tearful girl whose father, I was told, had been murdered by the
Israelis. Others had also lost family members and thirteen had their
houses destroyed.Yet despite demonstrations of passionate defiance, the
key picture I gleaned from my trip was of a people yearning for peaceful
closure for both sides. One illusion is to think the path to that goal is
not strewn with dangers and setbacks. Another is that military might, and
walls, can permanently end suicide bombings and worse.
(Andrew
Phillips is Lord Phillips of Sudbury. This article was abridged and edited
for the Friday Bulletin.
by Yana Dlugy - Agence France Presse -- May 24, 2005
TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan’s autocratic President Islam
Karimov is widely reviled by the people of this Central Asian land and
critics say the story behind the recent deadly clashes in the east of the
country helps explain why.
His regime’s ruthless campaign against
real and imagined Islamists, has filled the nation’s jails with innocent
people and is in fact boosting support for extremist groups. "The
repression against presumed extremists and Islamists has radicalized many
Muslims here," said Vassila Inoiyatova, a member of the Berlik opposition
party.
The events leading up to the military crackdown in the
eastern city of Andijan on May 13, which killed hundreds of civilians as
troops dispersed an anti-government rally, are a mirror image of wider
tensions.
Government critics -- a group that includes everyone from
cab drivers to Western businessmen and sometimes even members of the
powerful police -- say the "religious extremism" label has become a
convenient tool for those in power to remove their competitors in business
and politics. "What happened in Andijan could have happened in 10 other
cities," said one western official.
The tensions in Andijan began
simmering months ago, when 23 local businessmen were charged with
membership in an extremist group. Such charges have been a common feature
of Uzbek courts since 1999.
That year saw a series of car bombs and
attacks linked to a radical group called the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU) that killed dozens of people. The government said the
movement was aimed at assassinating Karimov.
Uzbekistan sits on the
northern border of Afghanistan, so Karimov, a secular leader of a Muslim
land, has kept a watchful eye on religious revival in this ex-Soviet
republic since independence in 1990.
After the 1999 attacks,
Karimov’s government launched an all-out campaign against Islamic radicals
and today an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people are in Uzbek jails,
convicted of extremism charges.
Surat Ikramov heads a rights group
that has monitored 120 trials of suspected religious extremists like those
in Andijan. "In none of the trials was the guilt of those accused of
terrorism and extremism proven," he said. The trials, he added, "are
organized to turn people’s attention away from the economic situation and
the lack of reforms."
The 23 people accused of religious extremism
in Andijan several months ago were businessmen whose companies employed
several thousand people. Many in Andijan believe the men were targeted
because a powerful local politician wanted their businesses.
Many
expected a guilty verdict -- people are often convicted in Uzbekistan on
thin evidence. For example, one person has been convicted because known
militants used a pay phone in his store; another went to jail because a
friend who had given him his telephone card had made calls to Saudi Arabia
on it.
Many people caught in the anti-Islamist net are simply
practicing Muslims and many of the convictions are based on confessions
that are routinely acquired by torture of prisoners in the precincts of
Uzbekistan’s all- powerful police, rights groups have said.
Critics
say that Karimov’s anti-Islamic drive and suppression of political
opposition is filling the ranks of groups like Hizb ut- Tahrir, which
advocates the setting up of an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia by
peaceful means.
Many people who find themselves in jail falsely
convicted of membership in a religious group actually become members of
one in prison, activists have said. "I know a lot of instances when
prisoners and even prison guards became Hizb ut-Tahrir members," Ikramov
said.
Since publicly opposing the regime can lead to a jail
sentence, critics warn that the tension will eventually explode in public
unrest, like the events in Andijan on May 13, when the 23 defendants’
supporters stormed a police station, a military post and finally the
prison where the accused were held.
They were freed along with
hundreds of other prisoners, and their supporters then broke in and took
over the regional government headquarters. The next day soldiers moved on
thousands of people who had gathered in the city’s central square in a
massive anti- government rally, killing hundreds of unarmed
civilians.
Few here seem to believe the official version of events
-- that the deaths occurred during a battle between troops and well-armed
Islamist radicals.
(This article was edited for the Friday
Bulletin.)
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked
and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese
dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then
after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured
lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles,
doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets -- not to
mention the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars
with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a
warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden
hose and not from a bottle. We shared one bottled soft drink with four
friends, and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white
bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't
overweight because ... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would
leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when
the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were
OK.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then
ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running
into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We
did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-boxes or video games, no cable TV
with 299 channels, no video movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no
personal computers, no internet ... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and
found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth
and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We rode bikes or walked
to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just
walked in and talked to them!
Little League had tryouts and not
everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with
disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out
if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the
law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers,
problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have seen an
explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure,
success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it
all!
And YOU are one of them. Congratulations!
You might
want to share this with others who were lucky enough to grow up before the
government regulated our lives -- and while you are at it, forward it to
your kids too so they will know how brave their parents were.
(This
article was edited for the Friday Bulletin.)