A sign of coexistence A sense of tolerance A scene of transformation
Mubbashi Javed Akbar and Mubbashir Mustak at Manipal, ManglorIt was in 1998 that that President Khatami of Iran proposed ‘a dialogue among civilizations’. He was speaking at the United Nations. Two years later at the same forum he elaborated that the proposed dialogue should be based on cultural and religions matters. At times such matters have played havoc with civil society driving many like Irshad Manji to talk of restoring humanity and reason to Islam.
The desire of many including believers is that a heart to heart talk even when you do not see eye to eye is necessary. There is no need to use the sword to perpetuate violence and no need to live under the shadow of the sword. If at all and at the most we can use the thin blade that the surgeon uses to perform a healing operation on a festering wound. And that of course is a metaphor for revealing the truth with the aim of reconciling people of different faiths. It is a revelatory process, be it journalism or a dialogue, aiming at the maxim: to know is to forgive.
MJ Akbar uses the image of the scalpel in his mission statement issued from Manipal, Manglor, this weekend. After his unceremonious removal from the post of editor of Asian Age he is launching Covert as a biweekly journal. ‘Democracy demands media that reveals the covert, and sifts the overt to peel off propaganda.’ Some in their mistaken belief have relied on the sword for too long to realize that the pen (now the bytes) can be more effective in focusing on truth.
Akbar figures here because Samuel Huntington quoted him in his book ‘Clash of Civilization’. The sword is mistakenly associated with religion as the means of propagating faith though the truth is a different matter altogether. This has been borne out by the events in Brussels. In the pagan time before the ascent of Christianity there stood a heathen temple to Venus. In the centre of the city stood the church of the Minimes. It was built upon what the Christians called ‘a place of low repute’. Recently the Muslims bought the chapel and changed it into a mosque.
The scalpel should work on ‘a place of low repute’. No place be it heathen, Christian, Hindu or Muslim, can be ‘low’. Worldly ‘repute’ cannot match heavenly bliss. Inheriting a place of worship from another people of a different faith from your own need not be a matter of pride or crowing or boasting. The journalists as well as the believers must endeavour for the global sanity that is crying need of the hour. Lest the heavenly father commiserate with us over our sibling rivalry we must try to coexist. That can come only through reaching out to each other through dialogue and understanding. What is covert in the holy books must be made overt through the verbal scalpel that is dialogue.
Venus, Mother Mary and Allah occupy the highest pedestal of their own; humans must not forget that their station in life is humble.
There is sermon in the stones of the churches and mosques of Brussels. Humans must not misappropriate the divine in claimant-ship. On no other issue have human beings shed so much blood as on that. Saladin was a Kurd who recovered Jerusalem for the Muslims in the crusades. The Kurds in Belgium who occupy the churches are much more tolerant as they have hidden under clothes the images but pray in their different way. The church authorities no longer dispute the ownership of the inherited places of worship. They both exist in a spirit of tolerance.
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The desire of many including believers is that a heart to heart talk even when you do not see eye to eye is necessary. There is no need to use the sword to perpetuate violence and no need to live under the shadow of the sword. If at all and at the most we can use the thin blade that the surgeon uses to perform a healing operation on a festering wound. And that of course is a metaphor for revealing the truth with the aim of reconciling people of different faiths. It is a revelatory process, be it journalism or a dialogue, aiming at the maxim: to know is to forgive.
MJ Akbar uses the image of the scalpel in his mission statement issued from Manipal, Manglor, this weekend. After his unceremonious removal from the post of editor of Asian Age he is launching Covert as a biweekly journal. ‘Democracy demands media that reveals the covert, and sifts the overt to peel off propaganda.’ Some in their mistaken belief have relied on the sword for too long to realize that the pen (now the bytes) can be more effective in focusing on truth.
Akbar figures here because Samuel Huntington quoted him in his book ‘Clash of Civilization’. The sword is mistakenly associated with religion as the means of propagating faith though the truth is a different matter altogether. This has been borne out by the events in Brussels. In the pagan time before the ascent of Christianity there stood a heathen temple to Venus. In the centre of the city stood the church of the Minimes. It was built upon what the Christians called ‘a place of low repute’. Recently the Muslims bought the chapel and changed it into a mosque.
The scalpel should work on ‘a place of low repute’. No place be it heathen, Christian, Hindu or Muslim, can be ‘low’. Worldly ‘repute’ cannot match heavenly bliss. Inheriting a place of worship from another people of a different faith from your own need not be a matter of pride or crowing or boasting. The journalists as well as the believers must endeavour for the global sanity that is crying need of the hour. Lest the heavenly father commiserate with us over our sibling rivalry we must try to coexist. That can come only through reaching out to each other through dialogue and understanding. What is covert in the holy books must be made overt through the verbal scalpel that is dialogue.
Venus, Mother Mary and Allah occupy the highest pedestal of their own; humans must not forget that their station in life is humble.
There is sermon in the stones of the churches and mosques of Brussels. Humans must not misappropriate the divine in claimant-ship. On no other issue have human beings shed so much blood as on that. Saladin was a Kurd who recovered Jerusalem for the Muslims in the crusades. The Kurds in Belgium who occupy the churches are much more tolerant as they have hidden under clothes the images but pray in their different way. The church authorities no longer dispute the ownership of the inherited places of worship. They both exist in a spirit of tolerance.
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