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A leap of faith for Saudi king
By Sreeram Chaulia
On July 16, a unique conclave of Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs was inaugurated in Madrid by
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Its aim was to bridge
widening religious chasms that breed violence. The agenda
was relevant since religion has become one of the main
sources of conflicts of late.
The Madrid meeting was meant to reify "inter-faith
dialogue", the nostrum of our times for festering religious
prejudices. King Abdullah termed the event "historical" and,
indeed, it had a few firsts to its credit. The fact that
Jewish thinkers were invited by a Saudi monarch suggests
that some ice has melted. Abdullah had earlier courted Pope
Benedict XVI at the Vatican in November 2007, the first-ever
meeting between a Christian pontiff and a reigning member of
the House of Saud. The idea of sustained inter-religious
dialogue emerged from a convergence of minds between
Benedict and Abdullah.
In the wake of Osama bin Laden's declaration of a frontal
war on "Judeo-Christian civilization" and the tumult over
cartoons insulting the Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, the
Saudi king's initiative in Madrid did counter the trend of
inter-religious recriminations and rancor. The custodian of
Islam's holiest sites took a step that might help assuage
enraged persons who see ongoing armed conflicts in different
parts of the world as subsets of a "clash of civilizations".
However, the anti-Semitic and Islamophobic taboos that
plague Muslim and Jewish societies could not be completely
erased at the Madrid conference. Not a single Israeli Jewish
leader was on the invitees list of 288 religious and
cultural figures attending the event. The absolute horror
which association with Israelis evokes in conservative
Muslim countries of the Middle East was thus not dissolved.
It bears reminder that the recent candidature of Egyptian
Minister of Culture, Faruq Hosni, as the next head of the UN
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
brought to the surface the worst forms of inter-religious
biases clouding the region. Tel Aviv lodged a formal protest
that Hosni was unacceptable because of his vow that "I'd
burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in
Egypt".
Hosni defended himself by contextualizing his controversial
statement and offering to pay a visit to the forbidden land
itself, Israel. Dozens of Islamist Egyptian intellectuals
reacted by slamming Hosni for making a "humiliating
surrender to Israeli demands for the sake of personal gain".
Caught between the extremes, Hosni's strong candidature for
the UN job hangs by a thread.
Saudi Arabia's convening of an inter-faith parliament should
raise eyebrows due to its long tradition of lending moral,
financial, diplomatic and military support to extremist
Islamist groups. The Saudi government's promotion of hateful
Wahhabi Islamic doctrines has done more damage to
inter-religious harmony than any other theological force.
The other major source of intolerant Islam is the Deobandi
School, which inspires the Taliban and allied jihadis in
South Asia. Interestingly, in June this year, the Darul
Uloom Deoband in northern India issued a fatwa
(binding religious ruling) that declared terrorism and
unjust violence as un-Islamic. King Abdullah's Madrid
gathering may have had a similar purpose of demonstrating
that the citadel of Wahhabism is turning a new leaf.
The worth of symbolic showpiece events like the Madrid
conference should ultimately be judged by whether Saudi
Arabia has changed its actual foreign policy of coddling
extremists. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, there was Western pressure on King Fahd, Abdullah's
late father, to democratize his kingdom and forswear
fundamentalism. Fahd was considered a master at outsourcing
terrorism, wherein he convinced disgruntled Saudi Islamists
not to cause trouble at home but to feel free to carry out
nefarious activities outside the country's borders. Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US at the
time of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York,
gave out as much when he said, "We have never worried about
the effect of these organizations [like al-Qaeda] on our
country."
The deep reverence and awe in which Saudi wealth is held in
Sunni Muslim communities from Morocco to Indonesia gave easy
access to its missionary Islamists to penetrate the farthest
corners. They built mosques and trained local imams but also
seeded clandestine local militant movements. Gradually, a
virtual Saudi empire of jihad was constructed with
predictable fallouts for inter-religious harmony and
political stability.
For the word "Islam" to have acquired negative connotations
in many regions, Saudi Arabia has to bear the blame. The
Madrid conference is not enough expiation unless King
Abdullah also walks the talk and distances his regime and
its oil oligarchs from the schools and havens of Islamist
extremism.
The geopolitical problem for Riyadh that stays its hand from
complete reformation is competition with Shi'ite Iran, whose
own funding of radical Islamist causes has been burgeoning.
Iran's ability to break the sectarian barrier and finance
Sunni terrorist outfits like Hamas and the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad is a worrisome sight for the Saudis, as it
implies loss of traction over its former turf. Riyadh has
not managed to reach out to Shi'ite fundamentalists with the
same revolutionary flexibility as Tehran.
During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, the Saudi government
displayed frustration over its marginalization and blamed
"elements inside Lebanon and those behind them [Hezbollah
and Iran]" for not "consulting and coordinating with Arab
nations". As long as the Saudi-Iran shadowboxing is a
factor, it would be suicidal from Riydah's point of view to
give up patronage of Islamist zealotry. It is therefore apt
to conclude that the Madrid splash is much ado about
nothing.
The scale of dialogue of jamborees like the one that King
Abdullah is presiding over in Spain should also provoke
skepticism. A few hundred religious leaders and elites
gathering in a mountainous royal palace west of Madrid can
hardly translate into genuine understanding at the level of
communities and localities in war zones and fraught
societies.
For ordinary Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists
to coexist, there need to be grassroots-based mixed peace
committees and citizen's volunteer corps that can
de-escalate tensions and reduce the intensity of clashes and
riots. Prevention or containment at the lowest possible
level through determined collective action is sorely lacking
in many flashpoints.
Political scientist Ashutosh Varshney has proved that the
presence of Gandhian multi-faith voluntary institutions like
unions, business associations, reading clubs, professional
bodies, non-governmental organizations, etc, saved some
Indian cities from Hindu-Muslim riots and pogroms. Those
Indian cities which lacked such civic institutions at the
community level could not avoid iterated bouts of horrible
bloodshed in the name of God.
Modern-day communications and movements of people have
ensured that practically every society in the world is
multicultural. Even classic European nation-states that were
originally carved out on the image of monocultures have
sizeable minorities of different faiths now.
Isolation being ruled out, the only solution to cohabitation
of world religions in such a fish bowl-like landscape is
patient nurturing of syncretic institutions at the bottom of
the pyramid. The Saudis are quite adept at building Islamic
charities and religious institutions in the remotest
backwaters of many countries. Sadly, Madrid or no Madrid,
these interventions fuel divisions instead of healing them.
Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international
affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse
University, New York.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact us about
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