.jpg "Living together or living beside")
On March 21st we mark the International Day of the Fight Against Racism. It is a good occasion to discuss some vital problems. It so happens that this March is full of tragic events connected to this date. On March 19th there was the terrible act of terror that resulted in the deaths of pupils and a teacher at a Jewish school. Yesterday we heard that in Auckland, USA, a Christian school was fired upon and 7 pupils were killed. So all the questions we were planning to discuss in a calm atmosphere are becoming more acute. So today I would like us to attribute special attention not to the reasons that led to such events, as such a discussion would be a very long and far too emotional one, but I would rather ask our experts to answer the topical question of our round-table discussion: How are we to live in such a strange world?
Farid Asadullin, the Chairman of the Scientific and Social Committee of Russia’s Mufti Council
Living together or living beside? I think that for Russia, for the present generation of Russians, there is no such question. Our state was built by countless generations of Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews, and our state is a few hundred years old. This year we celebrated the thousandth anniversary of our state. So I think we are actually living together. All the peoples living within the borders of Russia have a certain history of relations. These relations were not always exemplary, if we are talking about Medieval history. But in recent history all our 180 peoples were united in the so-called Soviet people, and now we associate ourselves with the Russian people. I think that our Constitution clearly defines that the bearer of sovereignty of our country is our multi-national people. It means all the peoples that historically live within the borders of Russian Federation: Russians, Chechens, Tatars, Jews and all the others. Of course the world is becoming more and more complicated. Every religious tradition – and personally I am talking about Islam – is facing inner challenges. As the doors of our country are open, we have welcomed a lot of young people who received their religious education in some other places. And this causes a lot of trouble for us and for the whole country, as I see it.
As for the global situation (I mean the Toulouse incident), I should say that Islam, like any other religion, isn’t safe from profanations by some fanatical community members from socially-humiliated groups of the Muslim population. Of course, the tragic incident in Toulouse was condemned by the Muslim community of France. There are some 5 million Muslims in France, that is 10-15% of the country’s residents. All the statements made by French Muslim officials have the same disturbing conclusion: young people originating from the Maghreb, even though they have French passports, have far fewer social and professional opportunities than their native-French peers.
And of course there’s the arrogance of the native French towards the newcomers, even though it was their fathers or even grandfathers who came from Algeria, Maghreb and Tunisia. Of course, some of these people are quite successful; they found themselves in their professions. But there are not many such successful people like Zinedine Zidane and Albert Camus. In the incident that took place in Toulouse I see some dirty PR connected to the election campaigning by Sarkozy. At least some independent information pushes me to such a conclusion.
President of the European Rabbinical Conference, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow, Pinkhas Goldshmidt
The issue of inter-relations between different cultures and religions is becoming more and more acute, not only in Western Europe, in the US and in the Middle East, but also in Eastern Europe, including all the ex-Soviet countries and the Russian Federation. Why? There are two main reasons. First of all, the world is becoming more religious. The 20th century was secular. The two main socio-political trends were national-socialism and communism. I don’t want to compare these two. The 21st century began with the attack on New York by Al Qaida. We all see the changes that are happening today in the Middle East, in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, we see what is happening in Europe. All this shows that religion in general and the religious beliefs of political leaders now play a great role in social and political progress. I won’t give any moral evaluation of this fact. The second reason is that we are now living in a global world. Today, thanks to the Internet, anyone can find ideas – good or bad – from the net, no matter where he’s from and then act on them. I would like to quote a very wise man, Nobel prize winner Professor Eli Visel, who survived the Holocaust: “The gas chambers of Auschwitz were not constructed with bricks, they were constructed with words.” What does this mean? It means that Muhammad Mirah, who killed three French soldiers and then Jewish children and a rabbi, their father, did not do that by taking this idea from thin air. There was something prior to that, some words, probably written on the Internet, or voiced in a mosque. These words influenced this person and made him do what he did. The Norwegian terrorist Breivik didn’t just wake up one day and decide to kill 100 people. He got his racist, anti-Muslim and neo-Nazi ideas from the Internet. It means that any word said by political or spiritual leaders is bound to have an impact.
Roman Bagdasarov, member of the Inter-Confessional Council of Russia
It is true, such words should be controlled. But positive information should be generated as well. And it can be generated only in the form of dialogue, when competent people, specialists, experts in religious issues sit at a round table. Such a round table, where members of different religious and ethnic communities form a common position, can bring this joint opinion to society. Only such an opinion would have any weight. This doctrine has the support of all confessions, all ethnic groups. Take the Inter-Confessional Council of Russia: we gather leaders of the traditional confessions of our country, and they make joint statements on the most pressing issues. For example, in 2011 we gathered in the framework of the Mufti Council and discussed the issues of migration, fighting drug trafficking and so on. In 2012 we gathered in the Moscow Synagogue and discussed the issues of moral self-expression and its limits, after which this self-expression hurts other people. All these acute issues were discussed in the framework of our organization’s round tables, and their decisions were noticed by society. Terrorism has no religion, no nationality, no true convictions. A person that raises arms against women, children and the elderly, against other people in general, is immediately excluded from his community. All religious people and communities should be aware of this fact.
