I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Mordechai Kedar sponsored by my fellow Huffington Post blogger, Tahir Aslam Gora.
I met Tahir at a breakfast meeting held by CIJA to introduce us to Yossi Klein Halevi, author of Like Dreamers. Tahir is a quiet man. Humble in a world of entitled people. I have kept in touch with him because I admire his moral courage and because I believe the only way we, the Jewish people, will ever live in peace will be with the help of others-our youngest brothers and sisters the Christians, and our younger brothers and sisters the Muslims.
In Pakistan Tahir was already a rebel, a noted critic of religious intolerance. From his biography: Tahir is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, poet, journalist, editor, translator (English to Urdu), and publisher, with over 25 years of experience in the media industry. He also works as a freelancer to various European and American media outlets. He is a Secretary General of The Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslim Organizations.
Tahir fled Pakistan to Canada in 1999 following threats to his life. I asked him about that. He told me:
I received death threats from Islamists in Pakistan because of my criticism against their intolerant behavior to the dissidents. I fled Pakistan in the wake of those threats. I even happened to receive death threats from Islamists in Toronto when I criticized them in my Toronto base Urdu language weekly “Watan” back in 2000-03. I still get sometimes backlash from Islamists upon my views in my weekly TV talk show in Mississauga base “Rawal TV” and upon my efforts bringing Jewish, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikh Communities together under the umbrella of my think tank, Canadian Thinkers’ Forum (CTF). But I think Islamists are feeling defeated as they see more and more like- minded people joining his forum gradually.
We can certainly hope Tahir is right.
Tahir founded the Canadian Thinkers’ Forum, a Toronto-based think tank, and the Muslim Committee against Anti-Semitism because he wants to stop the spread of hate that originates in Islamic centres in Canada. He reaches out to the Muslim diaspora in the hope of keeping them from becoming involved in radical Islam that seems to be easily accessible.
Tahir arranged a gathering of like-minded people, Muslims, Christians and Jews to meet and learn from Mordechai Kedar, an expert on Israeli Arabs, an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature, gender issues in Islam, and lecturer in Arabic at Bar-Ilan University where he obtained his Ph.D. Kedar served for 25 years in IDF Military Intelligence specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena.
The topic was “The Islamic World as Viewed from Israel.” Israel, Kedar said, faces two threats: one is external from the 300 million Arabs around her, and the other internal from 1.5 million Arab / Muslims living within her borders. Finding peace continues to be difficult. The West needs to listen to Kedar. Kedar quoted one Sheik’s definition of peace.
“Peace comes from the invincible. Peace comes from strength. Peace comes to the one who succeeds in convincing his foes that they should leave him alone.”
In other words hugs and kisses are not part of the peace process.
This particular Sheik must have read Machiavelli who wrote in The Prince that one must respond to facts on the ground, actual human behaviour in real time, and not how we wish or imagine people behave.
Mr. Kerry, are you listening?
I did leave the lecture slightly more optimistic about life in the Middle East, life for the Jewish people, than when I had arrived. When talking about Israel as a Jewish state, Kedar referred to it as “a state of the Jews.”
He defined Israel in terms we have heard in Canada: a mosaic (which we know is different from the American “melting pot”). He described communities like Haifa where Arabs live amongst Jews and attend the same schools and the other areas where people live amongst their own.
Many citizens in Israel live in enclaves where one often goes to school with people of similar culture. I did as a child. Most of us in our public school were Jewish who attended the same Hebrew schools and synagogues. But it is through education that Kedar believes change will come. It’s at university that people from different social, political and cultural backgrounds come together. And that’s the place where Kedar, the university professor, has witnessed the changes in Arab attitudes.
Kedar explained that in Arab areas the teachers are often the relatives of the students. Uncles teaching their nephews who, like all children, behave differently with family than around a teacher. That and the fact the children do not receive the same education as the Jewish children.
It’s at university where Arab / Muslim women in particular learn about life outside the clan. They take sciences and learn about genetics and decide for themselves that, no, they aren’t going to marry their cousin because they have seen the damage to offspring. They’ll instead choose someone outside their family. They experience the freedoms offered by modernity – freedoms that clash with traditional values but provide a chance and break away. Many Arabs move to mixed housing communities and there you will see Arab and Jew together.
This is what I call acculturation: the opportunity to keep the ties that bind one to one’s family and past but open the doors to community by breaking the bonds that suffocate. Kedar calls this modernism competing with traditionalism. This is not unfamiliar in the Jewish community where we are constantly balancing tradition and modernity – a perpetual re-enactment of Fiddler on the Roof!
I also understood Kedar to be saying that modernity is a gift to the girls. An expert on gender issues in Islam he’s saying that women are the ones that will make the changes necessary for a better life. I learned something so simple yet profound at that meeting:
The quality of life within a society can be determined by the freedoms accorded to the women.
And that brings me back to Tahir and his organization. CTF is studying the growth of Islamic radicalization in Canada, especially in the Greater Toronto Area, is introducing measures for the de-radicalization of Muslim Youths in Canada, and working at curbing antisemitism within the Canadian Muslim Diaspora.
I met Raheel Raza, President of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow, author, public speaker, human rights advocate and journalist who works to help Muslims partake of the diversity that Canada has to offer. She’s one of many Muslim women who are intent on making changes in the attitudes of Muslims including their feelings toward Jews.
I spoke with Asma Mahood, an extremely talented woman and one of the conveners, who explained that their intention is to reach Muslim immigrants.
It is unfortunately the dilemma of non-Arab Muslims that as immigrants they struggle with not only the challenges of settling in a new country with Western Culture but also they seek to define themselves as Muslims of Arab race because that separates them from Indians or Africans who they come trained to hate from countries like Pakistan and Somalia.
Often, she said, these immigrants were not particularly religious back home, but the radical Islamists get hold of them here, keep them from integrating into the Canadian lifestyle, and turn them into traditionalists who are then fed hate. We know the first victims of “traditional” lifestyles are the women.
She said:
Our best bet is to concentrate on young immigrants and women to empower them and engage them in Canadian culture of openness and inclusiveness. We want to change the representation of young immigrants in universities from Israel and India hating groups and societies to more cultural and social organizations, by supporting initiatives and highlighting support groups that are engaged in positive policies.
We must reach out and embrace those who reach out to us, who believe that the Jewish people have a right to exist and a right to have a country. We need people like Tahir, Raheel and Asma to counter the anti-Jewish Jewish voices – like Rick Salutin of the Toronto Star, Naomi Klein and Judy Rebick and Independent Jewish Voices.
We must attend these meetings, invite these brave people to speak to us and support them any way we can. These are righteous people who can be ostracized by their own communities because of their moral courage. They need to know they have friends in the Jewish community as we are all speaking with the same voice.
Take the time to open the links about our friends and learn about these remarkable people.
