Tolerance and Compromise By: Mohamed S. Kamel

Tolerance and Compromise

By: Mohamed S. Kamel*

Jan 18, 2008

There are many things take place; some might alarm us while others go unnoticed.  The recent rise of secularism as a form of intolerant doctrine that formed a religion on its own, a religion that does not tolerate all other religions and ask people with any religious affiliation to compromise their personal beliefs, has likely been noticed by all those affected.

This type of secularism follows a dictatorship approach and knows no compromise or tolerance.

Secularism is based on a very clear double standard logic that gives part of the society a right above all other rights, a right in clear discrimination that started to be legalized by some blind governmental authorities, even here in Québec.

The worst of it would be in the reaction of the people who believe in something and supposedly practice what they believe in. 

Muslims, who are the most affected by these illogical unbalanced practices and theories, they are reacting among themselves in an illogical way of inner discrimination and outer intolerance.   

People refuse to recognize any different religious or non-religious interpretations, each insisting on their own version of things.  Muslims lost their ability to dialogue and perhaps even the ability to respectfully disagree.

Classifying Muslims and non-Muslims into different categories and not tolerating each other’s rights results in respective intolerance.    

In the last few years, we witnessed the shameful complicity in the invasion and the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the scandalous silence on the tragedy that Palestinians have been facing for over 60 years, the inner fighting that took place everywhere, and the collaboration with the occupation everywhere. There was also the reaction to the dismay caricature, the call for the execution of a teacher, a victim of gang rape who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison, and the death of a woman in custody after she and her fiancé were arrested for chatting with each other in a public park.

All these major compromises on one hand and the clear intolerance on the other hand...!

Do Muslims react to the intolerance surrounding them? Do Muslims react to political and social injustice? Do Muslims, facing dictatorship, react to the dictatorship that controls their daily live? Did all this intolerance and injustice force Muslims to become like that?

Those stories prove that Muslims are compromising in their rights, but they are not tolerating any others’. So are Muslims really practicing their religion?

You cannot believe in something and practice something else, even if you have been faced with illogic double standard practices, you still should practice your beliefs; and while we should refuse any compromise in our rights, we should refuse that others be forced and/or asked to compromise in their beliefs.  Even if they are different we should still tolerate them.

* Mohamed S. Kamel: is a Freelance writer, the editor of I.N. Daily http://indaily.net/ and the President of the Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM), could be reached at info@apm-ram.org