Political extremism and religious extremism
TIM SEBASTIAN
Can I just give a reminder that we do want to hear also from you, our student participants, and also from the UN group as well, so please if you have any feelings to share them with us. Lady in the fourth row, we'll get a microphone to you, please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I guess you're being, in trying to define what extremism is and what's terrorism, I think that there is a difference between the political extremism and religious extremism. I think that religious extremism is going beyond the fundamentalism. For example sharia for Muslims is doing it exactly the way God has asked us to do it, and for me, religious extremism is going beyond that, it's trying to impose it on others to be like them, and it's before terrorism. I think terrorism is linked with violence. But if you're an extremist, you're not necessarily a terrorist. This is what I think personally, and I think that political extremism is like wanting to impose your opinion on the other parties, like in government or …
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.
HAMZA YUSUF
Well, I mean, I think I agree with that in terms of extremism. For a lot of people in the West now in a society informed by secularism so the fact that I pray and wash five times a day would be seen as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to some people, you know, like a pathology, so I think people will consider a lot of Muslims religious extremists because they pray the minimum five times a day. For a Muslim, it's actually, it's interesting in Islam, the definition of extremism includes also lack of religion, so people that are not religious are seen as extremist in that they're not fulfilling a basic human function. So again it's about definitions and who's defining them, and I think different cultures will define things very differently. You know, Foucault says ultimately it is the powerful that define things, and right now Western civilisation has an immense amount of sovereignty on the planet, and so in that sense it has framed the discourse, and all of us are often stuck in this position of reacting to an already framed discourse and not allowing our own terms of debate to be allowed into the discourse, so we Muslims have to constantly define ourselves, 'I'm not an extremist, I'm not a terrorist, I'm not this, I'm not that,' as opposed to being able to be in a more positive position which is always taken by the powerful. They're the ones that tell us who they are and they force us to tell them who we're not.
JOHN ESPOSITO
I think the danger of religious extremism can be, even though it's not necessarily violent, when it becomes exclusivist in which is basically says, 'Not only is my faith right, but your faith is absolutely wrong, and not only is my faith right, but my faith position within my faith is right, and so another Muslim who disagrees with me is wrong,' then you're moving into a very dangerous position here because you're bordering on what I would call theology of hate. That kind of mentality can easily be used by some, and it has been used by people like Osama Bin Laden, to legitimate military action at a certain point. You can easily slip over the line once you're into that realm of what I would call theology of hate, and we see that with elements of the Christian right, the Jewish right, and with elements of the Muslim right. I'm avoiding the word fundamentalism here, but you know what I mean.
Danish cartoons
TIM SEBASTIAN
Right. I want to move on to one of the most controversial issues of all which is the Danish cartoons, and we have a question from Lenin Dias, please.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
How can a Muslim ever explain to a Christian the reason of the uproar over the cartoons? I am a Christian and I understand that the Prophet should never be drawn or pictured, but I don't understand why so many people have to be killed because of it, and so aren't there any Muslims who see this as extreme?
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK. You say you understand that there shouldn't be a drawing of the Prophet, but why would so many people want to kill because of it? Aren't there any Muslims who think that this is extreme? Hamza Yusuf.
HAMZA YUSUF
First of all I think that the reactions in a lot of places were certainly extreme reactions. I mean, nothing would warrant the violence that occurred in Pakistan or Nigeria or other places. Over 40 people have been killed as a result. On the other hand, I think one of the things for the West, particularly Western Europe and probably less so in the United States, is that it's very, very difficult for people to realise now that religious identity in the Muslim world is far more important than racial identity. Racial denigration is not tolerated in the West. It's considered completely unacceptable and it's condemned. That doesn't mean that the extreme right don't have rights, they do. The ACLU in America defends the right of Nazis to congregate and they spew out their racist diatribes, but nobody will defend it, you know, the right to insult, the right to gratuitously attack peoples of race and colour. On the other hand, religion is just fair game. I think what we need to do globally is conflate race and religion because at the core of race is identity, and at the core of a true religious experience is identity. I am identified as a believer first and foremost. If you denigrate my religion, you are doing something far more grievous to me than attacking my race, and that's where the response to the cartoons came from.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let me bring in Desmond Tutu here. How do you stop legitimate anger turning to extremism, like in the case of the cartoons?
DESMOND TUTU
I myself have appealed to our Muslim sisters and brothers, having been offended as they were, and I was among those who did make the appeal for the demonstrations to have been dignified and peaceful. But I think we particularly Christians are incredibly arrogant to actually sometimes even suggest that you have no reason to be hurt saying, I mean, how can you be hurt just by a cartoon? And I think it's an incredible arrogance on anyone's part. I mean, some people said, 'Well, we are sorry that we offended you, but you had no right to be offended.' I say, just try and say that to your wife, if you are married! I think we ought to be looking to ourselves, because you see, if we had a slightly different power disposition, we wouldn't say that.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, were there Muslims in the Gaza Strip where you live who thought the reaction to the cartoons was extreme?
DIANA BUTTU
I am a Muslim and I do live in the Gaza Strip and I thought the reaction was extreme, but at the same time it was understandable, and why do I say this? I didn't want to see people killed, I think it's reprehensible and I'm very sad that so many people died, but unfortunately in the minds of many of the people who were protesting, they had no other means of actually expressing their discontent over the idea of the cartoon, over the actual publication of the cartoon. And many were actually focused on the fact that the newspaper had just a couple of weeks before said that they would have never issued a similar cartoon that had depicted Christians in a similar manner, because of their readership, or they would have never depicted another cartoon depicting Jews in a similar manner, because they knew what the backlash would be, and yet they didn't care about depicting Muslims in this manner, because they didn't care about what the backlash would be…
TIM SEBASTIAN
But you're offering understanding for an extremist reaction?
DIANA BUTTU
I understand why it happened. I don't agree with it. I think that the reason that the protests were happening is complex and there was a question of freedom of expression within the Arab world itself, whether these were really spontaneous outbursts of anger and so on and so forth, but I think that for those who were actually protesting, it was by and large because there is no other means of expressing their discontent with the Danish government and other governments.
TIM SEBASTIAN
John Esposito.
JOHN ESPOSITO
I think there are a couple of things that come into play here. I think one clearly, there was a strong religious motivation for that reaction. As somebody who's studied with Muslim teachers and mostly Muslim students, although at a secular university in America 35 years ago, that was driven home to me. But I think the reality of it is, was that the cartoon and the reaction to the cartoon, the roots of that rage and anger run much deeper. It has to do with the political and social situation of many Muslims in many parts of the world, and particularly among other things - setting aside the question of the Arab/Israeli conflict - looking at the fact that for many Muslims, the war against global terrorism increasingly looks like a war against Islam and the Muslim world, the same dependency, humiliation etc. and then to see your most sacred symbol ridiculed … It'd be different if you had the cartoons dealing with Zarqawi or Osama Bin Laden, but the idea that one would associate, as it were, this most sacred symbol of Islam, the Prophet, with acts of terrorism is in effect saying, 'This is a deliberate attempt to provoke,' . I think it's very interesting that in America last weekend, on 60 Minutes, they interviewed the editor of a Dutch newspaper who on the one hand clearly defended the other newspaper in terms of freedom of expression, then immediately said himself this was clearly intended to provoke and to test Muslims and to test their position, and that is why it's not only a global thing but it says something even within Europe, its intent is also to say, 'If you really want to be a citizen, then we're going to set the norm or what citizenship means.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK. Let's go to a related question from Sarah Nader, please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Do you believe that the Muslims took the cartoons too personally, and if so explain, and if not, explain?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.
HAMZA YUSUF
Well, again I think one of the things that a lot of people of other faiths don't understand with the Prophet Mohammed is that Muslims still adhere to the first decalogue in the Ten Commandments, that you can't make graven images. So Muslims aren't even supposed to draw human beings, full stop, even in the most orthodox form of sharia, so drawing the Prophet, just drawing him is anathema to Muslims. I mean, they really see it as something …
TIM SEBASTIAN
But do you think they took it too personally? That was the question.
HAMZA YUSUF
I think, you know, when you have riots in Indonesia because of the fresco at the Supreme Court that honours the Prophet Mohammed, I think you've got a problem.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Is this a yes or a no?
HAMZA YUSUF
I don't think they took it too personally, because it was deeply offensive to me as a Muslim and I entirely understand the response, I don't justify some of the results.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK. Can I ask you, Sarah, whether you think they took it too personally?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I'm a Christian, so of course I'll be offended if there was cartoons of Jesus or God or any prophet, because I respect all religions, but I think they have the right to be angry and offended, of course, because it's very disrespectful, because the Prophet is very sacred for them, but they could have dealt with it in a better way.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Can we hear from some other voices around the room? You sir. Do you think Muslims over-reacted or took the cartoons too personally?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes, yes. They did.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You think they did?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I mean, everybody would take it personally.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Where are you from, can I ask?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
From Lebanon, and I took it personally but the problem is how they reacted because things could have, like in Qatar for example, some places chose to boycott Danish products, and this is a good way, but in Lebanon, they burnt the Danish embassy and they burned also a church, and this is just wrong, because they could have dealt with it in another way.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Another voice from over there. Lady in the fourth row.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I don't think they took it personally but I think the problem here is with their reaction. I don't justify the reaction in any way, but I think they were trying to find justice, and I don't think anybody actually went up to this producer or the people who were drawing these cartoons and in any way condemned them or punished them in any way, and so I think, you know, they were just trying to get the justice. I don't think they got it in the right way, and I agree, I think by boycotting products would probably be a more reasonable way of dealing with it, but I think these people just really wanted to get justice.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, what do you think?
HAMZA YUSUF
Well, personally I felt that the boycott was basically collective guilt. It's the same thing that we're troubled about in other places, and so I personally was very opposed to the reaction against the Danish embassy. The Danish ambassador to Syria who just left a few months ago is a Muslim Dane, who rode his bike from Riyadh to Mecca to do Umrah "????", is a very wonderful man, Ambassador Olsen, and he was just outraged by that response, and it actually harmed a lot of Arab business people who have trade and commerce, so I just feel that it was completely unfair to blame the Danes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK. Lady in the second row there, if we can get a microphone to you please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
People say that the reactions were very extremist. However, doesn't the Western world view the drawing of the cartoons as an extreme way of showing hatred towards Muslims?
TIM SEBASTIAN
John Esposito
JOHN ESPOSITO
I think one can't generalise about the Western world. I think that the problem is that some of the people that I would consider extremist and who would support this, they don't realise they're extremist. I mean, that's the difficulty. It's not as if these people were saying, 'We're extremist.' I also think one has to note that there are differences in the way in which people in the Western world responded, whether you're comparing Europe to America, or sections of Europe, in fact Hamza and I were talking about, he was with the film crew in Denmark, and you may want to just tell that story.
HAMZA YUSUF
Well, we did go there and what we found out was, the majority of Danes were actually very offended by the cartoon, and I think it was misrepresented in the Arab media when they said that they were supportive of it, they were supportive of the right to freedom of expression, but they were actually deeply offended by the religious and racial implications of the cartoon.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, we'll take one more view on that from the back, and then we'll move on to the next question. You, sir.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
My question is to Shaykh Hamza. Don't you think that the actions of the Muslims around the world portray an image that Islam encourages violence in a way?
HAMZA YUSUF
You know, it's really fascinating, in the 8th century Ibn Taimia (author) "??? ?????" in a book about Christianity said that one of the tragedies of the Muslims of my time is that when Christians in Syria, there was still a lot of population of them there, ask troubling questions about Islam, they say the only answer we'll give you is the sword, and he said this is the very thing they attack us of, of having our religion spread by violence, and our religion does not spread by violence, it spreads by proofs and by reason and by example. I think until the Arabs change the grammar books, Tharaba Zaidu Amrun "??? ??? ????" which means Zayd hit Amron, and is the way every Arab child learns grammar. In America, you know, 'Jane sees Dick,' which is another problem, but I think the violence, you know, the thagafat alunf "????? ?????" you know, the culture of violence is unfortunately I think it's a little too widespread globally but in particular I think a lot of Muslims have real misunderstandings about Islam and the role of violence.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We're going to take another question please from Ahmed Somay. Would you stand up please. We'll just get a microphone to you.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
The cartoon crisis did not develop all of a sudden. They were first published in September. What does the panel think about this? Why hasn't the Muslim world reacted to it more immediately?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, do you think that the delay meant that people were orchestrating the response to it, that various people wanted an extreme response? Is that partly to blame for the delay?
DIANA BUTTU
I think in some instances, yes. I think that the fact that it, first of all, I don't think the cartoon was very well known in the Arab world when it was first published in September. I think that when it began to be known a little bit more, it was largely because there were people who were interested in having it known a little bit more, and so in that regard I'm not entirely convinced …
TIM SEBASTIAN
And in ramping up the reaction?
DIANA BUTTU
… in ramping up the reaction too, but that said, even though the reaction may have been ramped up, I go back to the point in saying that by and large the Arab and Muslim world has no other means of actually protesting against the policies of the West or in particular this particular cartoon, or in general about what is going on in the Arab and Muslim world, and so this was largely a means of actually protesting against a large number of issues, not simply the cartoon but a number of things, and it's the same case in Palestine that we saw with the occupation. The occupation has been going on for nearly 39 years. The Al-Aqsa uprising and it's interesting that it's called the Al-Aqsa uprising, started five years ago, not because the occupation started five years ago, but it was a culmination of years and years and years of oppression, of anger and so on and so forth, and that all that Israel had to do was hit a religious chord and it burst into this uprising, and similarly when it came to this cartoon, I think that there was a lot of anger brewing over what's gone on in vis-à-vis the West and the Middle East, and all that really needed to happen was hit a religious chord.
JOHN ESPOSITO
What really set things off, I think that there were people who definitely wanted to exploit the situation, but it was the spread among later European presses and it caught on. I happened to be in Denmark about 6 or 7 weeks ago, maybe 8 weeks ago, I forget, one of the books that I did on Islam came out in Danish, and what struck me was, a group of people took me to dinner at night and I was talking about Islamophobia in other parts of Europe, and they said to me - and these are people who also deal with the Middle Eastern Muslim world - they said Islamophobia here is growing very strongly, and they mentioned the cartoon, but even if they mentioned it, it was, this is a man of station but they weren't even taking it seriously. It was almost as if this is past, and certainly in America and many parts of Europe, it hadn't been noticed, so I think as we get to see European presses jumping on board, that simply stoked the fire and the reaction.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm interested in how people in the audience found out about the cartoons first. Was it from some Western media or from Arab media, how did you find out first of all? From the Arab media. And at what time, what point did you find out about it? How long after the cartoons? Can we get a microphone to you, yes, you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Actually we heard about the cartoons from the Arab media and we heard about it one month after they were published in Danish newspapers, and we don't like it at all and we find it very offensive, although that the Danish were thinking, 'This is the freedom,' but isn't any freedom actually.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Did you find it more offensive the more coverage was given to it, or did you find it pretty offensive the first time?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I found it myself very offensive from the first time, because they shouldn't put a prophet, whether he's Mohammed or Jesus or any other prophet, they shouldn't picture him that way. That was a very offensive way. If it was Jesus, we would also feel offended, because it's still prophet, so yes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Lady at the back has a comment. Can we get a microphone to you please. Can you stand up please and we'll get a microphone to you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I think that many Western people saw us as extremist because, you know, they have cartoons of Jesus and not all Christians, you know, they're OK with it, but when they saw the cartoons on Prophet Mohammed, they went, 'Oh, they're extremists,' because you know at first the cartoons about Jesus they didn't mind, and we really went wild when we saw the cartoons about Mohammed.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Desmond Tutu, Western hypocrisy I think she's talking about.
DESMOND TUTU
I wanted to say, may I say what I wanted to say?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Please.
DESMOND TUTU
Thank you very much.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who am I to deny you?
DESMOND TUTU
Freedom of speech. I wanted to say what Professor Esposito said earlier, that in fact you want very little to provoke reaction when you are carrying the burden of an anguish, when you have a resentment at being humiliated and treated as if you were nothing. It takes very, very little. In the United States if sometimes they've been shocked at their race riots and you ask, 'What provoked it?' and you find that the provocation actually was almost insignificant, and you say, 'Yes, you are going constantly to be shocked by these outbursts because there is a pain sitting in the tummy …
TIM SEBASTIAN
For a long time.
DESMOND TUTU
… of all, or of most African-Americans and native Americans and until you get to exercise and bring it out with people being able to express that pain. You are constantly, constantly going to be shocked and we are going to get a kind of pain, but it's a pain that you take in with your mother's milk, as it were. It's a pain that is not cerebral, it is almost tribal. It just goes on and on until someone says, 'Let us lance the boil, let us try to deal with this and pour balm on the wound.' We are constantly going to find things that happen, outbursts, and you say but why, and many will say, 'Yes, no, we didn't think the reaction should have been so-and-so,' but that reaction is not related to the immediate cause, it is, 'I am hurting, please, I am hurting, I have been treated as if I was nothing. Can you take note of me.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, thank you very much. Let's move on to another question, this was from Eisha Waqar. Please, could we have your question? And this is the last one on the cartoons.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
When the Danish government eventually met with Muslims in Denmark, they chose only to meet with the moderate Muslims. Isn't some of the extremism in Islam a result of the frustration born out of the West's desire to have dialogue only on its own terms?
TIM SEBASTIAN
John Esposito, is that a fair comment?
JOHN ESPOSITO
Yes. I can expand on that. I think that part of the problem that we have historically, I've seen it over the years, we hold conferences, whether it's governments, whether it's non-government organisations, in universities, and often we talk about people who are not in the room, and we don't invite them in the room, the alternative voices. I'm not just using the word extremist here, but alternative voices, and there are all kinds of explanations for that. 'Well, we don't want to offend their government,' or 'Well, we don't want to run the danger that they might be extremist.' This is a real issue. To give you the most bizarre example post 9/11, from my point of view, is the situation in the United States at times when you will get a phone call and somebody will say, 'We want to meet with a group of moderate Muslims, can you give me a list?' as if it's a shortlist. 'Or we have a group here that wants to go up to Congress and they're Muslim leaders. Can you look it over and let us know whether or not they're moderate Muslims?' The reality of it is that what we have to learn when we deal with situations is that we have to talk to a broad spectrum of the population, so it means that some European countries have to talk to the Tariq Ramadans of the world, or America has to, because it's not very clear. It's one thing if you say, 'We don't want to talk to X because he actually has committed acts of, you know, terrorism against innocents,' but when you're talking about often many Muslim leaders, or just personalities whose position you don't like but they're not extremist, you really run a risk of sending in the wrong signal. If there's a dialogue, dialogue implies that it's going on between two people and if it's about a hot issue, we need to be talking about the people who are at the heart of the hot issue and not simply talking about them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, you find the West picking and choosing its interlocutors and only the moderate ones?
DIANA BUTTU
Absolutely. In fact that was the point I was going to make is that often times, particularly for those who live in the Middle East, our interlocutors are chosen for us rather than the ability to choose the interlocutor, and hence the case right now with the Palestinian elections where the Palestinians have overwhelmingly chosen Hamas, and yet there is nobody who is willing to talk to Hamas, despite that this is now the voice of the Palestinians in terms of the Palestinian Authority, and so there's a lot of, 'Well we'll talk to this person, he's much more favourable, we'll see eye to eye with him,' but what they're doing in effect is they're actually ignoring a large census or a large segment of the population for who Hamas does represent …
TIM SEBASTIAN
You think they're just talking to them quietly behind the scenes? All the evidence suggests they are talking to them quietly behind the scenes.
DIANA BUTTU
They probably are talking to them quietly behind the scenes for reasons that I think are not necessarily in order to engage in dialogue but to calm violence down more than anything else, but I think that in so doing, what they're doing is alienating a large segment of the population, whether it's in Palestine or other parts of the Middle East or Arab world.
TIM SEBASTIAN
There's a lady two rows from the back who has had her hand up, then I'll come back to you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Muslims who responded so chaotically to the cartoon didn't probably have a clear idea of Islam as a religion itself, of Islam and being a spiritual religion, so I personally see it as a failure of the Muslim leaders. I think that if the Ummah was led more towards a specific point by the actual Muslim leaders, the response would not have been that chaotic, because Islam itself does not teach extremism.
TIM SEBASTIAN
What do you think Muslim leaders should then have said?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
They would probably have taught the way to respond to such things, they would probably have pointed out the correct direction or the correct way to respond.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Is the problem a lack of central authority in Islam?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Islam gives authority to people like mullahs and so if only those people took part and they led the population towards the right direction, I think there wouldn't have been such a chaotic response.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the lack of central authority.
HAMZA YUSUF
It's a major problem because Islam in its classical formation recognises the idea of a caliphate. In the absence of the caliphate, it's just open game in terms of religious authority, so it's a real problem and we're suffering from it. My understanding in the Islam that I studied is there is a normative Islam. There is an Islam that is agreed upon by what they call the Sunnis ("??? ????? ? ???????) as well as the Shia formation, they have their own sharia, have their own understanding of that and authority, and the ayatollahs are doing a better job. I mean, you can see that Ayatollah Sistani, for instance, has had an immense influence in Southern Iraq in terms of maintaining some order. On the other hand, the Sunni tradition has in a lot of ways been deracinated by the fact that the great teaching institutions like El Azhar university (??????) and Al Qarawe'en institute (????????) although is being reinvigorated by the Moroccans, and Zaytuna in Tunisia, these great teaching institutions that produced really high calibre scholars no longer exist, and so people in the Arab world know that you get great grades you go to medical school, good grades, engineering, reasonable grades do agriculture or political science, and really bad grades, you go to Islamic sharias, college. So we've got a lot of third-rate unfortunately, and with respect to people and their abilities, but we have a lot of people that are just not up for the level of challenge in the religious sphere.
Are the extremists ever right?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Can I just say also that we would like to hear from the UN panel as well, so if you have comments to make, please don't be shy, we'd very much like to hear your views as well. One final view on the cartoons. You've got another view, OK. All right, we'll move to another question please from Muna Babikir.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
My question was, what about extremism. Do you think extremists like all those extremists are wrong or are they right at some point?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, you seemed to suggest that they could be right at some point. At least you were offering understanding.
DIANA BUTTU
I think I go back to my initial point, which is I think it's very difficult to define what
extremism is, because it implies that there is a norm and that norm is normally set by the more powerful party. That's how I think that it's understandable why certain acts take place that people would define as extremism, and it's understandable, particularly in the place where I live and where I see such acts taking place, I do understand why it's happening. It's happening in a political context, it's not happening in the absence of a political context. It's happening because people have been denied their freedom for such a long period of time, and so while I understand it, that doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with it, and I think that the key to actually ending acts of extremism, if there can be such a definition, is to understand it and to try to put into place measures to actually address people's grievances. And unfortunately what we've been caught up in is definitions and more and more definitions, rather than a lack of understanding and an attempt to actually address it in a means that will address and underline causes of extremism.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, Desmond Tutu, you were labelled as an extremist in your time, weren't you, plenty of times?
DESMOND TUTU
Yes. I think again Professor Esposito was right in saying, I mean, contexts are important but the question was, are the extremists right? I think there is a measure of truth and often a great measure of truth. It is that it tends to say it is the only truth and everything else is wrong, and so I would just hope that one day we can become the kind of people who say, 'Yes, I don't actually agree with you but I will defend your right to your point of view and I won't want to clobber you for holding your point of view.' If we could, what an incredible world, how incredibly rich this world would be if we got to accepting that none of us can ever be totally self-sufficient. The way God created us was deliberately to create us as those who need one another. We were created for interdependence. You have gifts that I don't have, and I have gifts you don't have,' and you could almost see God rubbing God's hands and saying, 'Voilà! Now you know that you need the other in order to be fully complete.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
Right, there's a gentleman up there, could you stand up please, sir, and we'll get a microphone to you and then we'll come to the panel.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I would like to see the UN treating the problems. For example when treating the disease, an illness, you don't want to ameliorate the problems, you want to treat it, you want to eradicate it. All this time we're talking about extreme actions, we're talking about Muslims going extreme and killing, and of course it's wrong. We're talking about Palestinians blowing up innocent civilians, we're talking about, why don't we talk about why is that happening, why don't we talk about for example what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Now, why did that happen? I would like to say, and this can be argued, but as was suggested on the floor, the acts of extremism come from two directions, either from those who are extremely anguished, trying to achieve their freedom and rights, or from those who have huge amounts of greed, so ladies and gentlemen, I would truly and honesty like to see the world treating the problems at their roots, not actions that come as a result of them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And how would you suggest the UN group therefore goes about its work?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I'm currently studying so I'm acquiring intelligence, I'm learning how to treat these problems. I have my own opinion on it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, they're here, you have a chance to give them some advice.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I would like the world to realise why Muslims are angry. I mean, as was suggested, it's been bottling up. There's a lot of oppressions of Muslims all around the world, not only Muslims, I mean, Christians also, as you said, minorities, how we treat minorities is a degree of our democracy, and I'm sorry to say but I have experienced it first-hand. I am a Bosnian and I have seen, even though I was a majority, I have seen how I was treated.
TIM SEBASTIAN
John Esposito.
JOHN ESPOSITO
I take very seriously what you said and I think there has to be a kind of two-pronged approach. I think one, you do have to look at what the root causes are, and often the way people get around dealing with serious situations of injustice is to just say they're a bunch of extremists, as if therefore they're just irrational. You have to deal with root causes and I think that members of the Alliance certainly are concerned about this as many in the room are, but I also think that something that, to follow up on what Archbishop Tutu said and also what the rabbi said earlier, there's the positive constructive side. If we're going to talk about creating a better world and it's for your generation to do it, on the one hand, when you see injustice, you have to look at what are the political, socio-economic root causes. At the same time we have to begin to promote a world that takes globalisation and pluralism very seriously, a world in which we really do be able to say we can agree to disagree, a world which can say, 'You can hold your beliefs as firmly as you want, religious, political,