Efforts by Russian Muslims to counter the rising tide of anti-Muslim items in the Russian media are often so unprofessional, emotional and grotesque they increase anti-Muslim sentiment in Russia and abroad, says a leading Moscow specialist on Islam. Roman Silantyev, who serves as secretary of the Inter-religious Council of Russia and also as the chief specialist on Islam in the Patriarchate's External Relations Department, makes precisely that argument in the current issue of the Russian Orthodox Church's Tserkovniy vestnik. Silantyev notes Islamophobia is increasing in Russia -- a view shared by most participants in a roundtable organized by the editors of NG-Religii in its Dec. 1 issue.
| I guess one man's "Islamophobia" is another man's cool-eyed assessment of who his enemies really are... |
And that makes countering this form of bigotry -- and doing so successfully -- all the more important.
| If they're attacking you, and killing your children like dogs, how does that make it bigotry? Sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction to me. |
In his article "Several Thoughts About Islamophobia," Silantyev notes there are many responsible defenders of Islam in Russia both among the country's Muslim leadership and in the media. But at the same time, he suggests the fight against Islamophobia in Russia is all too often dominated by "doubtful" people. Sometimes these "defenders of Islam" expect non-Muslims to accept that "Islam is a religion of peace because it is peaceful," a circular argument he suggests is just about as impressive to non-Muslim Russians as were Soviet-era claims the teachings of Karl Marx "are all-powerful because they are true."
| The "religion of peace" bovine waste wore out shortly after 9-11 in this country. I think it went totally out of style in Russia about the time of the Nord-Ost theater atrocity. It's currently going the way of the passenger pigeon in Europe, the result of 3-11 and van Gogh's murder. And there will be more of those little incidents to help the process along. |
On other occasions, he says, the self-styled defenders of the faith engage in nasty personal attacks such as suggesting one or another writer should be examined by a psychiatrist or should be ostracized because of positive attitudes toward Israel.
| ... or must be killed. Don't forget that approach to civil, well-reasoned discourse... |
Or they make irresponsible claims about the size of the Muslim community in Russia or the number of ethnic Russians who have supposedly converted to Islam. Silantyev is especially critical of Russia's largest Islamic information Web site, Islam.ru. He writes the editors of this portal have managed "at one and the same time" to launch suits against Izvestiya for xenophobia and to post often vicious attacks on Jews and Orthodox Christians. Moreover, Silantyev notes, this site seems to spend much of its time attacking leaders of the Russian Muslim community such as Ravil Gainutdin and Talgat Tadzhuddin, the head of the Union of Muslims of Russia -- actions that only encourage hostility toward Muslims by non-Muslims.
| Not blood-thirsty enough, huh? |
What those who want to fight effectively against Islamophobia must do, Silantyev maintains, is "to create a positive image of Islam in the eyes of Russian society by stressing historical examples of the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians, their joint opposition to the godless power in the past, and their common struggle against non-traditional religions and new religious movements in the future."
| ... rather than acting like they'd normally act, especially in any area where they might outnumber the infidels... |
But none of that will matter, Silantyev concludes, unless Muslim scholars and Muslim commentators provide a satisfactory answer to "the principled question: why do the overwhelming majority of terrorist groups now acting in the world associate themselves with Islam and why does not a single terrorist organization act in the name of Orthodox Christianity?"
| ... or Buddhism. Or Confucianism. Or Lutheranism. The best they can come up with is the IRA. |
Not surprisingly, Silantyev's ideas have been attacked by those he criticizes, a development not unexpected but one that may receive greater attention than would otherwise be the case because of the opening in New York of a U.N. seminar devoted to the question of how best to counter Islamophobia and promote tolerance. The response of the editors of Islam.ru to Silantyev's article was immediate and -- at least from the point of view of Silantyev -- compelling evidence of some of the problems he points to. In often extremely sharp and personal terms, Islam.ru's Abdulla Khasinov argues Silantyev is illiterate on Islamic questions, his statements about Islam.ru are both ignorant and unprofessional, and he has rendered himself unfit to serve as secretary of the Inter-religious Council of Russia. Indeed, Khasinov concludes the only thing that Silantyev could possibly be fit to serve the members of that Council is tea "because for that he would only need to smile."
| At least he didn't issue a fatwah against him. He won't be killed. For now. |
Many Russian Orthodox clergy and laity will read Silantyev's article, but few will see Khasinov's response. By Khasinov's own admission, Islam.ru has only some 8,000 subscribers, and beyond any doubt most of them are Muslims who already agree with the site's point of view. That imbalance in access to the mainstream media, the Internet's tendency in many cases to reinforce the views of surfers rather than promote dialogue among them, and the equally nasty comments of some of those who attack Islam all help to explain some of Khasinov's anger. But Silantyev is surely right that getting angry won't solve anything and that those who do want to combat the evil of Islamophobia will never be able to do so until and unless they overcome these limitations and answer the challenge he has posed.
We've been building to this point since 2001. An arrogant, violent, xenophobic subcult of Islam announces its opposition to all other religions and declares war on the rest of the world. The rest of the world, having outgrown comic books, space opera, and the novels of Sax Rohmer, doesn't take them seriously. They can't be serious, can they? And even if they are, the police will come and arrest them. Nothing will happen to us...
After awhile the booms add up. There are too many corpses to be ignored. It really can happen here: 9-11, Bali, Nord-Ost, Madrid, van Gogh, Casablanca, shootouts and head choppings and booms in Soddy Arabia, bus after bus in Israel, continuing carnage in Kashmir, children slaughtered in Beslan, 70,000 dead blacks in Sudan, the meat-grinder of Chechnya... And always, every day, plots unearthed, spittle-spewing imams, oily princes, corpulent holy men, money flowing in all directions, International Men of Mystery™, ruthless henchmen, all in the name of the Religion of Peace™. Eventually, even in a peace loving, short attention span world, people start to catch on. Eventually critical mass will come and they won't take it anymore, no matter how many symposia are held trying to figure out how to stamp out Islamophobia. It's not a phobia when the fear's legitimate. |
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