Silence of the lambs: the ground reality
THEHSEEN ZAKIR
Muslims have always shied away from establishing a single powerful body of leaders that can truly represent their hopes and aspirations. This has at once been our boon and bane. We believe that the Koranic teachings alone can serve as an adequate guide and have eschewed the showering of power on fallible mortals. While the lack of leadership prevents gross misuse of authority and large scale mischief, it has left a huge void. This glaring difference from other organized re
ligions is little understood. When there are riots involving Buddhist monks, a single declaration by the Dalai Lama that he stands for peace makes a world of difference. So the larger community is immediately absolved of any complicity and blame falls on a few miscreants. Similarly Catholic interests are protected by the Pope.
Negative image
But in the case of Islam, anybody who makes noise immediately grabs media spotlight and is unwittingly portrayed as speaking for the whole community. Anybody who reads the Koran fully with an open heart will understand that Islam does not stand for terror. Not only that, it is highly inclusive and exhorts moderation in all things and supports healthy competition with other religions. It is pro-science, pro-life, and pro-democracy. It also promotes tremendous respect and tolerance for other religions.
In countries where Muslim populations are less, perceptions about Muslims are shaped by media content and not by how the majority lives as there is hardly any first hand contact. Muslims really were hoping that common sense would prevail and we would be judged fairly but now we are beginning to fear that this might not be. In India no matter what the international media might say, our Hindu friends know this because they see it all around them first hand.
Compare this with the media view of Muslims being cloistered, fatwa-declaring maniacs with little tolerance for any other religion. By selectively illuminating the bad apples and keeping out the successful silent majority, a negative halo has been cast around Islam.
Peaceful values
The ordinary Muslim is really scared and sad now, that the whole world has a wrong image about us and that good opportunities might pass us by because of our Muslim names. Muslims everywhere are telling the world that we stand for peace (even the first Islamic TV Channel is called Peace TV). We are shouting from the rooftops that Islam teaches peace and not terror. We are willing to wear our ‘peace’ on our lapels. Is anyone listening?
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