KUALA LUMPUR: Muslim leaders on Monday called on Islamic nations to stop claiming to be victims of the west and start solving their internal problems to begin bridging a rift with the rest of the world.
Former Pakistani prime minister Shaukat Aziz said a growing distrust of Islam in the west is largely because of the failure of Muslim countries to project the correct view of Islam, which is that of peace and non-violence.
“The Islamic world is currently looked at in a very derogatory view,” Aziz told delegates at an Islamic conference held in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. He said there was a “growing gap between faiths” and said Muslim nations needed to also take responsibility for the lack of proper dialogue with the West.
“In the Muslim world, we must stop acting like we are victims or are wronged,” Aziz said at the opening of the two-day conference, organised by the Malaysian government and the US-based Cordoba Initiative, a multi-faith organisation working to heal the rift between the Islamic world and the United States.
“There needs to be an openness in admitting that there are also things in our own countries that need to be changed,” he said. To bridge the gap between Islam and the West, Muslim nations need to “look at themselves and solve their problems before looking at others,” said Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of an Islamic studies institute in the United Arab Emirates.
Al-Faisal said Muslims and the West need to begin talking about issues that unite, not divide.
“We need to start to talk about things that bring us together, such as the fight against poverty, against illness, against disease and against double standards,” he said.
Earlier, Ekmeleddin Ihsanouglu, secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said there was a need for a “strong and determined collective political will” to achieve great understanding with the West.
good, sounds constructive.
as long as you see yourself only as a victim, you are powerless to turn things around.
i wish the u.s. would do some major housecleaning as well.
each man thinks of his own fleas as gazelles
question authority
good, sounds constructive.
as long as you see yourself only as a victim, you are powerless to turn things around.
i wish the u.s. would do some major housecleaning as well.
The Zionists always claiming themselves as victims, and they're successful and powerful.
The Zionists always claiming themselves as victims, and they're successful and powerful.
hmmmm... you're right. so much for that Brilliant Comment.
well - maybe as long as you have $ and Influence, you can be a victim all you want and succeed. yes - that must be it!
each man thinks of his own fleas as gazelles
question authority
hmmmm... you're right. so much for that Brilliant Comment.
well - maybe as long as you have $ and Influence, you can be a victim all you want and succeed. yes - that must be it!
Thanks for agreeing with my statement. I hope nobody would classify it as Anti-Semitic.
As far as I'm concerned, Muslims are victims and we are wronged. It is a reality, so we are not 'acting' as such. However, I do agree that we should stop complaining so much and be pro-active and actually strive for change. Most of all though, we should be Muslims and many of us just aren't doing so.
"I spent thirty years learning manners, and I spent twenty years learning knowledge."
Very refreshing news. It's got to be the only appropriate course, hasn't it?
format_quote Originally Posted by Osman
As far as I'm concerned, Muslims are victims and we are wronged. It is a reality, so we are not 'acting' as such.
True, but that's only one side of the story, isn't it? Unpopular and unlikely as it sounds, the US and UK have been wronged too.
Somehow, we humans have allowed ourselves to get into this situation. We're all victims and we're all guilty.
The only way that's going to change is if we stop killing each other, and remember that what unites us is greater than what divides us. I know that sounds trite, but it's surely the end-result we'd all like to see. The discussions mentioned in the opening post seem like a step towards that if you ask me.
I concur with czgibson. We can only solve these problems when we break the Us vs Them mentality and realize that neither "side" is all good or all bad. We've all done wrong and we've all been wronged. The world is not black and white, good and evil, us and them.
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