Syed Farid Alatas
Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore
socsfa@nus.edu.sg
Introduction
The question of peace and harmony among the various civilizations and religious communities in the world can be approached in two broad ways. One is to engage in conflict resolution after conflicts have broken out. The other is to engage the other civilization in constant dialogue to minimize the intensity or quantum of conflicts that are, at any rate, inevitable. In this essay, I seek to understand the educational role that youth and children may play in the dialogue among civilizations from the point of view of the human sciences. Some of the ideas presented here are based on my experience in teaching a number of courses, including one entitled "Islam and Contemporary Muslim Societies" at the University Scholars Programme at the National University of Singapore during the last two years.
Dialogue literally refers to a conversation between two people. What we have in mind here, however, is more than just that. What we have in mind is a conversation on a subject of common interest between two or more individuals or parties whose beliefs are informed by differing worldviews. The ultimate aim of such dialogue is to achieve a level of appreciation, understanding, interest and compassion for the views of the other. ? The human sciences, via youth and children have a role to play both in public discourse as well as in formal education in facilitating this dialogue.
Islam, the West and September 11th
We meet today in a climate of war, protracted social, ethnic and religious conflicts in the Muslim world and elsewhere. Foremost in our minds are the plight of Palestinians and Jews and the ordeal of Iraqis who are suffering from, among other things, cruel United Nation sanction and the threat of war. We have not to mention the absence of a decent life and basic freedoms in much of the Muslim world. All of this seems to happen with the blessing and tacit support, or at best, inaction of some Western governments.
When President George W Bush and other world leaders stated that the September 11th attacks were not just attacks against America but against the civilized nations of the world and humanity, they might as well have been quoting from a verse of the Qur'an which runs thus: "If anyone slew a person it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people"(al-Ma'idah [5]:32). That terrorism is at odds with the spirit and text of the Qur'an and the ethic and practice of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is clear to all Muslims and others who are enlightened about Islam.
But when Mr Bush said that those behind the attacks were against the values of freedom and democracy, and the way of life of America, Europe and other free lands, he was wrong. Everybody is conscious of the fact that terrorist acts that are perpetrated in the name if Islam are generally directed against United States foreign policy on the Middle East. Far from being against freedom and democracy, the terrorists and their supporters, as well as most moral and law-abiding people in the Muslim world would probably like a little of that freedom and democracy, which they feel had been denied to them as a result corruption of their governments and leaders. The United States is seen to be party to this because of the various kinds of support it extends to these governments or the overall highhanded nature of its intervention in the internal affairs of these countries. For example, Muslims are generally incensed that it was United States covert assistance that played a major role in the funding and training of the Mujahideen of Afghanistan. Such training was integrated with perverted teachings that were passed of as Islamic, the results of which have been periodically witnessed in Afghanistan under the Talibans. Viewed from this vantage point, it is more proper to refer to the current "war against terrorism", as a clash between uncivilized parties.
Despite the fact that the attack of September 11th was not an attack of Islam against the West, it is often portrayed as such. Within hours of the attack, people were likening the attack to Pearl Harbor, as if to equate Muslims with those Japanese. Days later Bush spoke of getting Osama bin Laden dead or alive, even though we were not sure if Osama bin Laden was the culprit. In line with pushing the imagery further back into the past, President Bush then referred to the war against terrorism as a crusade. Although it is quite likely that the President did not have in mind a holy war and that he was using the term in a general sense as it is used in everyday language, the term "crusade" is as much misunderstood in the Muslim world as jihad is in the West. For the record, he regretted the use of the term "crusade" and went on to clarify that Islam is a religion of peace not to be associated with terrorism.
Nevertheless, Muslims before and after September 11th are also convinced that the West is against them to the extent that what the media reports of Muslims and Arabs, Hollywood's trafficking in stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, and the writings of Orientalist-type journalists, that is, the demonization of Islam, influence public opinion in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Remember the theme song from "Aladdin" which refers to "Aladdin's birthplace as a place "where the camels roam…where they cut of your ear if they don't like your face. It's barbaric, but hey it's home". Or how about the depiction of two "stupid Arab couples trying to read an "Exit" sign on the Titanic, when more than 300 Lebanese lost their lives on that ill-fated journey. In "The Siege" Arab Jihadists actually come to New York, blow up Times Square and kidnap school children. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did not help matters when he said in Berlin that "we should be conscious of the superiority of our civilization", or when Alex Standish, editor of Janes' Intelligence Digest said on BBC's Hardtalk (170901) that Islam is a military religion.
We also have to consider the element of historical consciousness. Islam had been in conflict with the West since the 8th Century. First there was the conquest of Spain and Sicily. The Arabs were in Spain for 700 years and in Sicily for 500 years. Then there were about 200 years of the so-called Crusades. Some centuries later the Ottomans threatened to overrun Europe, making their way to Vienna. Even after the ascendancy of Europe and then America, Muslim civilization continued to constitute a threat and a problem in the form of anti-colonial and other types of movements following political independence. Therefore, the feeling of animosity and threat is deep-seated both in the West and among Muslims.
In the midst of all of this, there is a discourse of misrepresentation. Let me give two examples. These have to do with the trap of dichotomies. One is the moderate versus extremist Muslim. The dichotomy is a creation in the minds of politicians and journalists and does not have an empirical referent. But this dichotomy functions to "educate" the public that moderate and, by extension, less strict Muslims are the good Muslims while extremist and, therefore, stricter Muslims are the ones prone to evil. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is actually no correlation between strictness of religious belief and the propensity for terrorist activity. For example, the handwritten document which the FBI says it found in the luggage of Mohamed Atta, the suspected suicide bomber from Egypt, was written "…in the name of God, of myself, and of my family", something which no Muslim, however irreligious, would ever do. I believe that a study of the biography of terrorists of different religious backgrounds will reveal different levels of religiosity even though the acts of terrorism may have been committed in the name of religion.
Another problematic dichotomy is that of modern Muslims who regard the United States as a benign power versus anti-modern Muslims who regard United States as malevolent power, as if to say a Muslim could not be modern and highly critical of United States foreign policy at the same time. Applying the same faulty misconception, but this time not in reference to Islam, is a recent report carried in The Sunday Times of Singapore. The story is of an Indian national who murdered his Singaporean wife of Indian origin. The story revolved around the man as being traditional and religious while the women was cosmopolitan and liberal. Within a year of their marriage he stabbed her to death and he was sentenced to 10 years jail and 15 strokes of the cane (17 March 2002).
Therefore, there is clearly a need for dialogue between non-Western civilizations and the West. Last year was the United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. But all we have heard in the media concerns conflict. Very little on dialogue had been covered. What can we do to prepare for and engage in dialogue? The human sciences have a role to play both in public discourse as well as in formal education.
The Role of Youth and Children
In talking about youth and children in connection with the human sciences and the dialogue among civilizations, we are obviously referring to the need to bring about certain changes among people that would facilitate this dialogue. The changes that we are interested in have to do with bringing about compassion, interest and respect for each others cultures, religions and ways of life. Our generation is now confronted with the problem as a result of recent events, although the problem was there before the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001. Throughout the world there has been a renewed interest in Islam as well as a stepping up of inter-religious dialogues, particularly between Islam and Christianity. The problem of sustaining these dialogues and bringing them to the level of the masses is partly a generational problem as it involved acculturating our children and youth to these ideas. Our children and youth will eventually replace us. When they do so, in all likelihood conditions will be different and they may not feel the need to take an alarmist approach to the problems of inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflicts.
Children and youth begin a "new life", as it were, when there is a change from one generation to another (Mannheim, 1993: 368). In order to bring about the desired changes in thought and orientations in society it is necessary to ensure that the "fresh contacts" made between the generations result in the transmission of the right ideas. What I mean by the right ideas is detailed below where I confine the discussion to the human sciences. Our duty is to transmit the historical heritage to our youth (Alatas, S.H., 1980: 8) and children in such as way that we "forget that which is no longer useful" and "covet that which has yet to be won" (Mannheim, 1993: 369). In the next sections, I would like to focus on what we need to instill in our youth and children and how we may do this via education.
The Human Sciences and Public Discourse
There is a need for more balanced media reporting which covers, for example, all suffering around the world, anti-war protests in the United States and Europe, sane voices from within the Muslim world, cooperation, respect and love between Muslims and non-Muslim, and so on. Americans need to know that most Muslims are not scruffy-looking Kalashnikov-wielding jihadists and Muslims need to know that most Americans are not tough guy, red neck, cowboy types.
With regard to the role of the media in fostering dialogue among religions and civilizations, I would like to give two examples.
First is the article by Farrukh Dhondy that first appeared in the City Journal and was reprinted in The Sunday Times (Singapore) under the title "Muslim misfits in Britain" (Dec 23 2001). The article drew severe criticism within the Malay-Muslim community of Singapore for what many saw as its objectionable and inaccurate statements on Islam. For example, Dhondy suggests that "if you prostrate yourself to an all-powerful and unfathomable being five times a day, if you are constantly told that you live in the world of Satan, if those around you are ignorant of and impervious to literature, art, historical debate and all that nurtures the values of Western civilization, your mind becomes susceptible to fanaticism. Your mind rots". In other words, being religious and ignorant of Western culture breeds fanaticism. This is Eurocentrism combined with very shallow thinking on the nature of religious experience. Even a less-educated Malay farmer or Bangladeshi construction worker knows that there is no correlation between religiousity and fanaticism. Many Muslims in Singapore were unhappy with the publication of Dhondy's article. For example, Saharudin Kassim, Special Assistant to the President of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, wrote a very articulate critique of the Dhondy piece and suggested that such "a malicious piece of writing" should not have been published in The Sunday Times. ("It's a malicious piece of writing, not a critical exposition", The Straits Times Jan 2 2002). I have a different view. It is such articles that create the conditions for dialogue. Singaporeans would not have benefited from Saharudin Kassim's correction of Dhondy's views had Dhondy's article not been printed to begin with. Many Singaporeans may have held such erroneous views and here there was an opportunity for these to be corrected. In a sense, the printing of wrong opinions have their functions as well. I would encourage more of such discussions in the media.
The second example is the article by Asad Latif, "Secularism protects all faiths" (The Straits Times Dec 31 2001). This is also a misleading article in that it gives the impression that it is the virtues of secularism that are helping Singapore withstand the shocks emanating from the September 11th terrorist attacks. While this is an erroneous view, it does provide us with an opportunity to correct it and, in doing so, enter into dialogue with both religious as well as secular groups. This view needs to be corrected because it is such thinking which deflects our thinking from the historical realities. If we understand by secularism an attitude underlying various ideologies which is hostile or indifferent to religion and the religious outlook and worldview, logic would have it that secularism is not free of ideology anymore than religion is.
Furthermore, experience tells us that the worst cases of genocide in recent history took place in the name of secular ideologies, namely, fascism, liberal democracy, and socialism. I am referring to the Nazi holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and genocide under Stalin and Polpot. Of course, it would be as illogical to conclude that it is secularism that is the cause of such genocide, as it is to conclude that secularism is the reason behind religious harmony. I feel it necessary to clarify these distinctions because of a dominant perception that it is religion which is the cause of many problems. There is a view which is founded on the notion that religion breeds intolerance. It is more accurate to say that all belief systems are corruptible and can be perverted and that there are specific social and historical conditions that result in these perversions.
The Problem of Eurocentrism
But the human sciences must go beyond merely correcting the fallacies and distortions of public discourse. It must attack the root of the problem, that is, the problem of Eurocentrism in social science education that ultimately informs public discourse.
I would like to provide an illustration of the problem of Eurocentrism with recourse to the example of the concept of religion for which I draw from the work of Joachim Matthes (2000). This concerns the translation of cultural terms such as religion into scientific concepts. Social scientific concepts originate from cultural terms in everyday language. As such they present problems when brought into scientific discourse and used to talk about areas and periods outside of those of their origins. The result is a distortion of the phenomena that they are applied to.
The Latin religio, from which the English term religion is derived, was a collective term referring to diverse practices and cults in and around Rome, prior to the emergence of Christianity. When Rome became Christian, Christianity became the dominant belief and all other beliefs were absorbed or eliminated. But religio not applied to Christianity as there was no need to - it was the only legitimate belief, so it was just known as the Church. With Luther and the Protestant Reformation religio referred to Christian beliefs and a way of life separate from the institution of the Catholic Church. It was oppositional to the clergy, that is, it was the laymans' religion. In 1593, the French philosopher, Jean Bodin published his Colloquium Heptaplomeres (Colloquium of the Seven about the Secrets of the Sublime). Here there was a generalized understanding of religion and included non-Christian faiths. By the 18th century "religion" came to be used as a scientific concept, referring to belief systems other than Christianity.
But while "religion" meant all beliefs, when European scholars wrote about religion critically, they had in mind Protestantism (as in Marx's reference to religion as the opium of the intellectuals) or the institutional religion (Catholicism) as opposed to the religion of the believers (Protestants).
When "religion"
is applied to beliefs other than Christianity, for example, Islam or Hinduism,
there is an implicit or explicit comparison with Christianity, which results
in an elision of reality. According to Matthes, the logic of comparison is such
that the two things to be compared are subsumed under a third unit which is
at a higher unit of abstraction. For example, apples and pears are subsumed
under fruits. "Fruits" becomes the tertium comparationis. Similarly,
Christianity and Islam are subsumed under religion. The problem with this is
that the characteristics of religion are derived from Christianity to begin
with. Therefore, the supposedly general scientific concept "religion"
is culturally defined by Christianity and Islam is looked at in
terms of Christianity rather than compared to Christianity in terms of a tertium
comparationis, a general concept "religion".
What reality is lost, what is the distortion done to Islam? Religion as it is understood in the West is a private matter as opposed to state and church. Therefore there are such dualities as sacred versus profane, religious versus non-religious, and so on. Also, religion in West refers to the beliefs and private lives of believers. The danger is that Islam is also seen in these terms when in fact there are no such dualities. For example, there is no distinction between secular and religious education. All knowledge and education is either about God or the creations of God.
Another example comes from the application of the concept of religion to Hinduism. A case in point is the study of Hinduism. The term "Hindu" was first used in the eighth century to refer to people who lived on the other side of the Sindhus or Indus river on the Indian sub-continent (Sinha, 1991: 1), a name which was imposed from the outside to encompass a wide variety of beliefs over a vast area of land. It originally had geographical connotations which had been undergoing transformation since (Sinha, 1991: 2). The adherents of such beliefs did not always consider themselves as belonging to a single religious entity that we now know as Hinduism. Yet many textualist and essentialist studies of Hinduism, such as that of Max Weber (1958), subscribed to such constructed myths.
What are the problems with these constructions of non-Western experiences that utilised Western concepts?
1. The mix of fact and fiction. The beliefs of peoples such as those of Muslims and of the Indian sub-continent are not understood according to the self-understanding of these peoples. There is a mix of fact and fiction in that facts are organised into a coherent framework that is derived from Christian categories posing as the tertium comparationis, the resultant construction being somewhat mythical.
2. The imposition of categories from the outside. Categories such as "religion" or "Hinduism", imposed from the outside, that is, by European scholars, result in constructions that do not accord with the self-description of the communities concerned.
3. Homogenization. There is an attempt to homogenize societies and communities, thereby hiding complexities. Simply stating the commonalities of the people who live on the Indian sub-continent veils not only the contrary self-understandings but also the variety and heterogeneity of religion in India.
Such social science seems simple enough to refute and one may wonder whether such bad and irrelevant social science does exist in the first place to warrant our attention to the problem of irrelevance. It should be noted that the field of the sociology of religion, especially where the study of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are concerned, is very backward in this regard. A proper approach would be to develop the tertium comparationis from a comparative study of concepts in all these belief systems. The development of what we may term as alternatives to Eurocentric discourses, therefore, requires familiarity with the local or indigenous tradition which is understood by Kim Kyong-Dong to mean both the classical tradition as well as the world of popular discourse (Kim, personal communication, 21 June 1996; see also Kim, 1996). Knowledge of the local or indigenous is a prerequisite for the development of the tertium comparationis.
The general problem of irrelevance has been noted in the literature of the various human sciences in a number of intellectual communities throughout the world.
Asian Responses to the Problem of Eurocentrism In any inventory of responses to such irrelevant social science that has emanated from developing societies India would feature prominently. Indeed, such responses have taken two general forms. One has been to understand the causes of irrelevant social science and the other has been to suggest alternative discourses as more relevant social science.
The institutional and theoretical dependence of scholars in developing countries on Western social science has resulted in an uncritical and imitative approach to ideas and concepts from the United States and, to some extent, Great Britain, France and Germany. Whereas, the relevance of the social sciences for developing countries has been called into question (Myrdal, 1957; Singh Uberoi, 1968, Misra, 1972), ideas and concepts of the social sciences became entrenched. For example, even though it seemed that the humanistic and less technical political economy would be relevant because it stressed the role of non-economic variables in development, it was modern economic science in the form of abstract models that established itself in much of the Third World (Pieris, 1969: 439-440).
Although the leading theoretical perspectives originating in Europe and America have not always been relevant in alien milieu, their continuing presence in university syllabi and lists of references in journal articles in the non-West are testimony to the process of adaptation to the "rules of the dominant caste within the Euro-American social science game" (Kantowsky, 1969: 129).
Among the earliest to counter Eurocentric thinking was the Indian thinker and reformer, Rammohun Roy (1772-1833). Roy lived during a period of intense proselytization activities carried out by British missionaries among the Hindus and Muslims of India. Roy was critical of the derogatory attitude of the English missionaries towards Hinduism and Islam. Replying to British objections against the literary genres of the Vedas, Puranas and Tantras, Roy argued that the doctrines of the first were more rational than Christianity and that the teachings of the last two were not more irrational than what is found in Christianity (Roy, 1906, cited in Sarkar, 1937/1985: 622).
A little cited but very important early sociologist, Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887-1949), systematically critiqued various dimensions of Orientalist Indology. Writing in the early part of this century, Sarkar was well ahead of his time when he censured Asian thinkers for having fallen "victim to the fallacious sociological methods and messages of the modern West, to which the postulate of an alleged distinction between the Orient and the Occident is the first principle of science" (Sarkar, 1937/1985: 19). He attacked such Eurocentric notions as the inferiority of Hindus in matters of science and technology, the one-sided emphasis on the other-worldly and speculative dimension of the Hindu spirit, and the alleged dichotomy between Orient and Occident (Sarkar, 1937/1985: 4, 18, 35). He was also critical of the methodology of the prevailing Indology of his times on three grounds: (i) it overlooked the positive, materialistic and secular theories and institutions of the Hindus, (ii) it compared the ancient and medieval conditions of India with modern and contemporary European and American societies, and (iii) it ignored the distinction between existing institutions on the one hand and ideals on the other (Sarkar, 1937/1985: 20-1).
Sarkar was very explicit about his call for a new Indology that would function to demolish the idolas of Orientalism as they are found in sociology (Sarkar, 1937/1985: 28-9). Although Sarkar tended to be Hinducentric in some of his interpretations pertaining to the history of ideas in India, this does not detract from his critique of Orientalism.
In 1968, the well-known Indian periodical, Seminar, devoted an issue to the topic of academic colonialism, which was understood in terms of two aspects. One referred to the use of academically generated information by overt and covert North American agencies to facilitate political domination of Afro-Asian countries. The other refers to the economic, political and intellectual dominance that North American academics themselves exercise over academics elsewhere (Saberwal, 1968: 10).
Despite awareness of the state of the human sciences in India for all these decades, J. P. Singh Uberoi's indictment of foreign aid is as relevant today as it was in 1968:
The existing system of foreign aid in science, to which the internationalist notion of collaboration lends credence, in truth upholds the system of foreign dominance in all matters of scientific and professional life and organization. It is nothing but the satellite system, with an added subsidy. It subordinates the national science of the poor to the national and international science of the rich. It confirms our dependence and helplessness and will not end them (1968: 120).
According to Saberwal (1968: 13), the "dependence on North American sponsors is pathetic; its consequences for problem selection, research design, and modes of publication are disastrous". The need, therefore, for alternative discourses in India was keenly felt and did result a critical tradition of scholarship in the social sciences and historical studies. One has only to mention the early example of Subaltern Studies to realize this.
Another interesting example to bring up comes from Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World (1919). Tagore challenged common place notions and attempted to transcend ideas founded on an East-West dichotomy. An example of his undermining or calling into question this dichotomy can be seen in The Home and the World. While this is fiction it also serves to function as a theoretical reflection on history. Standard Marxist accounts would tend to view the aristocrat as oppressive and seeking to advance the interests of the old order while the patriot and nationalist may be portrayed in a more positive and progressive light. It is partly for this reason that, as Ashis Nandy (1994: 15-16) points out, Georg Lukacs' review of The Home and the World (1983) was highly unfavourable, being based on a Eurocentric Marxist reading of Tagore.
Teaching in the Spirit of Alternative Discourses: Preparation for Dialogue Among
Civilizations
It is in the spirit of the critical tradition of alternative discourses, a tradition that is conscious of the problems of Eurocentrism and academic colonialism, that I and a colleague at the National University of Singapore have tried to bring in to our teaching. I am not suggesting that no other colleagues in Singapore draw from Indian works or experiences but I can say with confidence that these cases are extremely rare.
Turning to a more personal account, let me illustrate our concerns with non-Western scholarship in the human sciences with an example from our teaching of sociological theory at the National University of Singapore.
Why read or teach the works of Marx, Weber and Durkheim or other European authors long since departed to a class of Singaporean or Southeast Asian students? What have the ideas of three European theorists born in the last century in a different cultural milieu to do with the non-European regions of the world today? While the various calls for alternative discourses have in theory questioned the existing paradigms in the social sciences, they have so far been unable to displace the fundamental assumptions of specific disciplines in practice. The pragmatic need to reproduce disciplines such as sociology and anthropology demands that certain continuities with the past be maintained. Hence, it is not insignificant that the critique of the human sciences is confined to the professional arena (that is, scientific journals, conferences and other academic forums) with the participants being established scholars and not students. The critique of the social sciences that emanated from academic institutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America tended to remain at an abstract and reflexive level. There had been several thoughtful pieces on the state of the various disciplines, raising the issue of the lack of connectedness between social science and the societies in which it was taught. But the calls to decolonize the social sciences were generally not followed by successful attempts to build `indigenous' theories autonomous social science traditions, delinked from the academic core of Western Europe and North America. Neither have these calls manifested themselves at the level of teaching in the social sciences. As far as sociological theory is concerned course on this throughout the world tend to restrict themselves to discussion and exposition of the works of Marx, Weber and Durkheim in addition to those of other nineteenth century Western scholars.
Given this scenario, my colleague, Vineeta Sinha, and I have attempted to deal with the issue of teaching sociological theory by way of a more universalistic approach to the study of sociological theory. This includes raising the question of whether sociological theorising had been done outside of the bounds of European modernity. This would imply changes in sociology theory curricula. We have been experimenting with various approaches entailing changes in the way sociological theory is taught. Some interesting results came out of such changes which we had reported in the journal, Teaching Sociology (Alatas and Sinha, 2001).
These changes involved, among other things, introducing Asian thinkers who were grappling with similar problems of social change and emerging modernity as nineteenth century European scholars were. For example, the works of Ibn Khaldun, Rammohun Roy, Jose Rizal and Benoy Kumar Sarkar were taught in addition to those of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. We are also planning to introduce the ideas of East Asian thinkers such as the Japanese, Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) (see Najita, 1998).
I followed a similar logic in another course I taught, "Development and Social Change". The aim of this course was to understand the different reasons for which peoples' lives in so many parts of the world are affected in one way or another by poverty, income inequality, low levels of education, corruption, political oppression, and other features of underdevelopment. The complexity of the development process can be grasped from the multitude of explanations that have emerged since the nineteenth century and include those from India such as D. Naoroji who wrote at the turn of the last century (1962 [1901]) and the Indian Marxist M. N. Roy (1971 [1922]).
The purpose behind such changes to the courses or curriculum lies in the need to educate people about the multicultural origins of modern civilization, about the contributions of the Muslims, Indians and Chinese to modern Europe, about the positive aspects of all these civilizations, and about the common values and problems that humanity shares. A course on World Religions should be introduced to the schools. Children should not be learning only about their own religions but about all religions. Apart from having such a subject, the theme of inter-religious experience can be reflected in other subjects such as social studies, literature, geography and history. All this would require a serious relook at the curricula of schools and universities.
Because of the relative autonomy that university professors enjoy, we are in a position to make such changes in the courses that we teach, even if entire curricula cannot be revamped along these lines. In addition to the two course mentioned above, I have attempted to put into practice some themes that I believe should inform the dialogue among civilization in a course entitled "Islam and Contemporary Muslim Civilizations".
This is an introductory course to Muslim civilization. Emphasis is on the historical, cultural and social context of the emergence and development of Islam, and the great diversity that exists in the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east. The course is divided into five sections. The first, consisting of two lectures, provides an introduction to the study of civilizations in general, defines Islam as belief and practice, creed and civilization, and briefly discusses the origins of Islam. The next set of lectures discusses the spread of Islam and the encounter between Islam and the West in the past. This part of the course introduces the major cultural areas within Muslim civilization, that is, the Arab, Persian, Ottoman, Moghul, and Malay, and covers topics such as the Muslim conquest of Spain and Sicily, the Crusades, and the Islamization of Southeast Asia. The third part of the course examines the cultural dimension of Muslim civilization, with particular emphasis placed on the religious and rational sciences that developed among the Arabs and Persians, their contact with the Greek heritage, and the impact that Islam had on medieval European philosophy and science. Also discussed in this part of the course are the literary and artistic dimensions of Muslim civilization. The fourth part of the course focuses on current issues in the contemporary period (post-World War II). Particular emphasis is given to the emergence of Orientalism in Europe and the Islamic response to it. This section also provides an overview of the political economy of the Muslim world, setting the stage for discussions on a number of contemporary problems and issues such as gender, underdevelopment, Islamic revivalism, and imperialism.
All this seems a lot to cover in one course. It would be if the objective of the course was to impart knowledge of the facts and events concerning Islam as a civilization. But this is not the dominant aim of the course. The main objective is to bring students to an understanding of what I understand as the three central themes of the study of civilizations.
1. Intercivilizational encounters. The study of Islam is one case of encounter between civilizations. As Islam was the only civilization to have conquered the West and to be in continuous conflict with West, it is important that people be introduced to the idea that such civilizational encounters are not always negative. The Crusades, for example, resulted in much scientific and cultural borrowings between the Muslims and the Europeans.
2. Multicultural origins of modernity. Modern civilization is usually defined in Western terms. But many aspects of modern civilization come from Islam and other civilizations, including the sciences, the arts, cuisine, commercial techniques, and so on. The university is a fine example. The notion of the university as a degree granting institution of learning was developed and put into practice by the Muslims by the tenth century and adopted by the Europeans in the thirteenth century. This includes the idea of the hierarchy of teachers and scholars, the idea of a chair (professorship), and the idea of the degree Makdisi (1980). When we add to this the examination system developed by the Chinese we then get the modern university.
3. The variety of points of view. The study of Islam provides us with an opportunity to experience the multiplicity of perspectives from which any one fact or event can be viewed. For example, most works on the Crusades provide accounts from the point of view of the European crusaders. The perspective of Muslims who fought the crusaders and then lived amongst them when European soldiers settled in and around the Holy Land between Crusades is instructive as it helps complete the picture of an otherwise fragmented reality. Another example of this concerns the hijab or head covering worn by many Muslim women. While in some settings it co-exists with the oppression of women, in others it is a symbol of liberation. It is important, for example, to expose students to the experiences of Muslim women who took to the hijab in order to escape the critical gaze of the fashion and beauty industry.
Conclusion
It can be said, therefore, that the role of children and youth in fostering dialogue among civilizations will only be effective if we are serious about the following:
1. The formal education of our youth and children at all levels, that is, primary, secondary and tertiary education, in such as way that the three themes mentioned above, that is, intercivilizational encounters, the multicultural origins of modernity and the variety of points of view, inform the development of curricula. In order for this to be done on the basis of a sound intellectual basis, there must be serious efforts to develop adequate tertium comparationis.
2. The instilling of good values by parent sand other adults in the family, for it is in the family where basic values are developed and nurtured and have a life-long impact on the child. If ethnic and religious stereotypes are trafficked at home, the children may become bigots in their youth or adult lives.
In order for dialogue among civilizations, particularly between the West and other Civilizations, to be facilitated it goes without saying that serious inroads must be made in the trafficking of stereotypes by the media. But it is not enough to stop there as the media and public discourse themselves are influenced directly or indirectly by knowledge that is produced in the schools, universities, research institutes and think tanks. Therefore, the problem has to be dealt with at the level of knowledge production in these institutions, that is, teaching and research, particularly among our children and youth. This in turn would mean a greater need for interaction among scholarly communities in the various civilizations.
References
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