As a newspaper entitled its front page “The West against Islam”, many citizens were chocked and worried by this alarmism and the inappropriate dichotomy which exacerbate the tensions. They are angry against the extremes of all sides. One should know how to maintain reason, remain objective and keep to the right for difference and the respect of the other and suggest practical solutions to that situation. Being the basis of all beliefs and non-beliefs, citizens are not dupes to fall in the trap of confrontations and polemics in spite of fears and legitimate interrogations. Yet, we don’t know what tomorrow will be.
While society is in need of appeasement, media elites are those who are mostly agitated to give voice to the extremists. When they pretend to inform and contribute to the resolution of problems, it is contradictory to pose them in a deliberately truncated manner. The present delirious times disturb, but inside life follows its own course and non can stop human beings to meet, share and esteem each other
Some media give voice to the extremists of denigration who double in ferocity. They seek , starting from Islam, as any other source, to concoct a hybrid religion for themselves, a « self-Islam, » which conforms to the Faustian logic or to their fantasies, it is their business , free to them. This is neither the first nor the last individuals who folklorise and infantilize the practice of faith. Certainly, they avail much from Islam, presenting themselves as « Muslim intellectuals » and at the same time they denigrate it in a so schizophrenic manner. It is a sign of disturbance, do not give them importance.
These « new intellectuals, » said to be from a Muslim culture, which asserts that « Islam is inherently violent, » that « God » has permanently retreated, that the afterlife is a fiction and the text of Koran is archaically made sacred. The most virulent opponents of Islam do not speak like them, with such nonchalance and especially such masochism. It is an incommensurable flaw. In addition, they keep saying they are « enlightened », that we must let them work and they are going to revolutionize the spiritual world. One wonders whether to laugh or cry, or whether to cast whichever look? It should be ignored and that believers should pray for them
A part from their denigrating position, they are approached by the media which, not believing in their luck, hung up to them, defining them as « courageous » to periodically released the antiphon of the ( » civilized « ) West against ( » barbarian « )Islam. These media cultivate religiophobia, exclude any other party but the « rebels » against their community and have no more arguments than the repetition of insidious lies; they are followers of the idea that the prepetition of these lies will always yield something. Surfing the exasperation against marginal fundamentalist behaviors placed on the front of the stage, they blur the abyssal frontier between Islam and extremism, magnifying the culture of fear and sponsor those who deny their « origin » under the pretext of « modernizing « Islam.
For those extreme « Muslim Intellectuals » mid-consciously, half unconsciously, it is the spiral of escalation: who says the most evil of Islam and Muslims? Through them, Muslims are summoned to deny themselves, or they are demonized. In their blindness, these « intellectuals » discredit the logic, yet unavoidable, of critique, interpretation and reform. Moreover, it is not for us to question the right to criticize religion, with virulence and in an unfounded manner. No sane man can dismiss religion from critical scrutiny, but the will to stigmatize, offend, insult, in an obsessive manner and openly discriminatory, is not worthy of a democratic society.
The vast majority of believers accepts criticism without limit, proves the ball while rolling, lives with its time, know what it believes and what it wants and refuses the outrageously offensive denigration, stigmatization and amalgam. It rejects all extremes. It knows that extremists who reject criticism, exploit religion and lock themselves between the folds are a tiny minority, which adds grist to the mill of the other extremes: those who denigrate in pathological manner and contribute to the invention of a new enemy. Drifts are not of the same sort, extremists influence each other. The vast majority of believers know that the extremists, on all sides, cannot fool all the people at all times. In addition, what is so great and so high, in this case, as it were for the believers, their founding references speak for themselves and cannot be reached. By the height of view and well-doing, the need for sharing and living together prevails.
Mustapha Cherif