CURRENT DIALOGUE
Issue 41, July 2003
Christian-Muslim
Seminar in Istanbul
Organised
by World Council of Churches and Intercultural Platform
The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Intercultural Dialogue Platform in Turkey jointly sponsored a Christian-Muslim seminar in Istanbul, 17-18 June 2003. A series of visits in Istanbul and Ankara, to a number of religious, political and human rights organizations as well as to government officials followed the seminar. Issues discussed at the seminar were mutual listening and learning, citizenship and human rights, striving for justice and overcoming violence, the three sub-themes of the International Consultation sponsored by the WCC in October 2002. The following presentation "Common Values and Common responsibilities" opened the discussion.
"Common Values and Common Responsibilities"
Introduction
TThe city of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands is probably the most multi-cultural city in the Netherlands. 43% of the population is of non-Dutch background and it is a fair guess that 10% of the Muslim population of the Netherlands lives here, the majority from Turkish and Moroccan background. The prediction is that within five years from now, 50% of the population below thirty will be Muslim. In Western European countries, we have all the reason to reflect on common values and common responsibilities.
In his New Year's address 2002, the Mayor of the city of Amsterdam, himself Jewish, raised the issue in an eloquent way: What are we going to do? Are we looking for differences between people or are we looking for that which binds us together? He then spoke about dialogue on the basis of democratic foundations of society, where freedom of expression according to the law is essential and vital. He told how since the eleventh of September he worked on that basis.
What was a very striking element in his address was the fact that the Mayor asked that attention be given to the role of religion in society! Religion as cement in society should not be underestimated. And he blamed the Dutch government for not paying attention to this aspect. While maintaining the doctrine of separation of church and state, he claims that religion should be taken seriously. 'Without mosques, temples, churches and synagogues we will not succeed' in the integration of all people in our society.
Many politicians in our country vehemently attacked these statements. The Mayor was blamed for wanting to reintroduce pre-Enlightenment ideas, of mixing politics and religion.
I would like to address in my presentation the role religion - Judaism, Christianity and Islam: synagogue, church and mosque - could play in the discussion on common values and responsibilities. Religion is too important to leave to the fundamentalists - terrorists - who we find in all three traditions. But how and in what way?
11th September
During the Second World War, my father was involved in the resistance against Nazi occupation. He died in 1945. After the war, my widowed mother and we, as children, were financially taken care of by a foundation called 40-45. One of the benefits that we, as family and children, were offered was the possibility to have at some point a holiday of a week or two during the summer on one of the islands in the North of the Netherlands. We stayed in a kind of wooden barrack. At that time in the early fifties I got to know the term, which since the 11th September is not absent from any political agenda. The name written above the entrance of the holiday barrack was 'The terrorist'! Of course it was used as a honorary title. My late father was a terrorist in the eyes of the Nazis. If you had asked my father why he got involved, he would have answered with a line from our national anthem: 'to drive away tyranny, which had wounded my heart'.
After 11th September it was repeatedly said that the USA or the Western World or Western Civilisation was hit in the heart. The question I would like to raise is, which heart? Of course one can say the emotional heart. It was shocking to see how people were jumping to their death from these twin towers. Furthermore to see these enormous buildings collapse, something which one would have seen before only in movies, and in that case you had at least the opportunity to turn off your television. This time it was cruel reality. Three thousand victims in one blow.
But something else happened at the same time. The Western world was hit in the economic heart. Did one not mean to say that the rich world was hit in the economic heart by these terrorists? Wall Street had not been closed for such a long time since the two world wars. The images shown on CNN were continuously accompanied by the figures of the NASDAQ, Dow Jones and whatever it is called, at the bottom of the screen.
What can we say about this from the perspective of our common traditions? Are we people who take our religious traditions seriously, the traditions of the prophets from Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed?
There is a German expression: 'Money is ruling the world [Geld regiert die Welt]'. In particular in the western so-called capitalistic world, we are very much aware of the truth of this statement. This conviction has become even stronger since the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Until that time, the world was divided between the capitalistic West and the communist East. For that reason NATO, as well as the Warsaw pact were founded. But the situation has drastically changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many have hailed the literal and figurative fall of the Berlin Wall. But what did it bring? Actually one can say that the wrong of communism was and is interpreted by many as the right of capitalism. Ideologically speaking many are or have become 'capitalist' now. Many political parties in Europe, even the social democrats or socialist, have become 'liberal', 'capitalist'. Until recently many socialist parties ruling in Europe: like in the Netherlands and France: still in Germany, Great Britain but how much has that really to do with the socialist ideals?
Imagine for a moment that in 2000 years from now our present Western 'civilisation' would be excavated: what will the archaeologists find? Perhaps they will find the ruins of some cathedrals, but mainly they will find what is left are traces of Banks and towers of insurance companies. And on the basis of these findings, they will try to write the history of our civilisation. They will say, people living in those days must really have believed strongly and firmly in the power of Money. That must have been the beating heart of their civilisation.
The God they believed in, was dwelling in banks: an invisible God, who forced his followers to dwell in large cities with millions of inhabitants. Men sold their soul for money, women their body, others worship money. Archaeologists of the future will find messages, which promise that despite the smoking of cigarettes you will not get lung cancer. Despite the 500 million automobiles on earth, you will continue to breathe clean air and tropical forests will be saved.
This invisible cruel God has many faces: valuable papers, golden bars, rough diamonds. His temples and banks grow until 100 floors from glass and steel well into the clouds point their warning fingers high above the pointers of some stray tower of leftover churches of the old religion.
The confession of faith which was taught from childhood onwards, runs like, Time is money. With money you can buy anything, even love. One third of humankind lived at the expense of the other two thirds. What is the purpose of human life? To become rich. How? Dishonest when you can, honest when you must. Who is the only and true God? Money. Money is God, Gold, dollar and shares: Father Son and Spirit' (Mark Twain said already). One was waging wars for money and everyone knew at the time that only an idiot thinks that one becomes richer through war.
Money is seen as a blessing of the God of Old: the way of life, this faith in God and money as the incorporation of God. The freedom of man is as great as his purse. Is that what the prophets of old taught us?
The ministry of Jesus could be summarised in two words. Jesus states that you can not serve two Lords, two Gods; it is either God or Mammon. You could say that the heart of the Gospel (Indjil) is expressed with two Aramaic words: Abba and Mammon. In the Gospel, in the New Testament these two words you find only in the mouth of Jesus.
Abba means Father, actually Daddy. A tender name for God. We hear of a growing intimate trustful relationship of Jesus with God whom he calls Father, Daddy.
Mammon is an Aramaic word for possession, everything which has money-value: it means: dishonest gain. Jesus constantly rejects Mammon. This was characteristic for Jesus' ministry on earth. It is striking that the only time we hear that Jesus made use of physical violence is the day when he chased the moneylenders from the premises of the temple in Jerusalem. 'Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" John 2: 15,16.
Mammon does not only stand for money. It stands for greed. How many people are not attached to their business?! They are not possessing money. Money possesses them! I once knew a person, who on his deathbed was still asking about the latest figures of the stock exchange. On his tombstone they could have written, he died in Mammon ('He passed away in Mammon'). Mammon/Money is a subtle working power, a possessive kind of instinct, which drives a person to become a rich fool. Like the one described by Jesus in a parable: 'The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do for I have nowhere to store many crops? And he said: I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods, laid up for many years; take your ease, eat drink and be merry. But God said to him, 'Fool! This very night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God' (Luke 12:18-20).
It was said that Western civilisation was hit in the heart. But we have to ask for the causes of these terrorist acts, without of course by so doing condoning them. We have to ask the question: who is terrorising whom and why? The Western world has to ask the question, why are we not seen as friends? I am sure the cause of the expressions of hatred in the Middle East or Asia is not religion. The cause has to be found in an already long-existing and growing inequality in this world.
It struck me the other day when I came across the figure in a book stating that there are as many communi-cations connections in Manhattan alone as there are in the whole of the African continent. The South African spokesperson said at the end of the conference in Durban against racism - 2001- on the issue of the white responsibility for racism: 'Our concern is not money, but (human) dignity'.
There will be no peace without justice towards the suppressed. The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Konrad Raiser, wrote shortly before the beginning of the bombardments in Afghanistan: 'As long as the call of those who are humiliated by relentless injustice, by systematic depriving of their rights and by the arrogance of the power of those who possess the unchallenged military might is neglected or ignored by a seemingly indifferent and insensitive world, terrorism will not be overcome. The answer to terro-rism must be found in putting right injustice that breeds violence between and within nations'.
Countless people in the world of today are hit in their hearts because of the priorities of the affluent, Western and capitalistic world.
We are here together as people coming from the Christian and the Muslim traditions. It has always struck me that in the Arab world, when you ask someone about his or her religion, he or she will answer: Ana Muslim in sh'-Allah. I am a Muslim when God wills. In the city of Antioch, in the first century of the Christian era the followers of Jesus were called 'Christians'. They did not say about themselves: we are Christians. Others recognised in them and in their behaviour that they were really followers of Jesus. When we say today that we are together as Muslims and Christians, we should ask ourselves: are we really? Are we truly surren-dering to God or are we serving Mammon? More than a theology, theopraxis is needed.
Liberation from Pharaoh
The leading circles in our countries seldom want to address religion. They see it as a danger for democracy and of course a kind of fundamentalist use of religion can be a threat to democratic values. But the possible misuse of religion is not a reason to underestimate the importance of the good use of it. The director of the Social and Cultural Planning Office in the Netherlands wrote some years ago in an essay entitled 'The multi-cultural illusion' - and this shows how he looked down upon the Muslim migrants in our country. The migrants are not only marginal in number, minority groups, but also marginal in quality, that is to say that they are not 'all holders of great cultural capital, here to spread their spiritual wealth. It was a journey to the fleshpots of Egypt and whoever has refreshed himself there, does not find very much in his own culture - nor in the religious side of it - to continue the journey.
For Jews, Christians or Muslims who are familiar with their religious and spiritual 'capital', their holy books which they brought with them, recognise in these words exactly the kind of language the Pharaoh of Egypt was using. The Pharaoh (Firayn) of Egypt wanted to get rid of those people. Moses brought the people out of slavery into the desert and he received the Torah/Tawra on Mount Sinai and led his people to the Promised Land.
In the month of May, many countries in Europe remember and celebrate the end of the Second World War - the liberation from Nazism. One can mull over the question if the vision of those who gave their life for liberation had had their dream fulfilled after the war? Is the society in which we find ourselves, what they had dreamt of, what they had hoped for? Or was all the sacrifice in vain?
What did the people from the Netherlands do after five years' occupation and the liberation? Mind you! For some four/five years we frustrated the liberation struggle of another people, the Indonesians! It meant that we did not learn much ourselves, nor for others.
What is our common tradition - Judaism, Christianity and Islam teaching us in relation to common values and common responsibilities? What are our common Holy Scriptures: Tawra, Indjil and the Qur'an telling us?
At the beginning of the history of the Jewish people, you have the story of the liberation from the bondage in Egypt, the Exodus. The Christian tradition is not very different. In the story of the transfiguration on the mountain, Jesus meets Moses and Elijah. The two of them speak with Jesus about the end of his life in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31); cf. Heb. 11:22): his Exodus. Also in the Qur'an we find similar references to those stories of the oppression of the Israelites, the birth and mission of Moses, the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh (Firayn) and the Exodus. And come together unto Pharaoh and say: Lo! we bear a message of the lord of the Worlds, (Saying: Let the children of Israel go with us.' Surah The Poets 26: 16,17. [So let the children of Israel go with me, 7 105; 'Lo we (Moses and Aaron) are two messengers of thy Lord. So let the Children of Israel go with us and torment them not…., 20:47.
In the church tradition in which I was brought up, every Sunday we heard the reading of the Ten Commandments which began with the words: 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage'. When I try to recall how I understood those words at the time, I think that I understood them to deal with the deliverance from the slavery of sin. You did not think about a real Egypt. The political reality was out of the picture. But the Hebrew word that is translated here with 'bring out' would be better translated with liberate. The word is used in the very name of Joshua or Jesus and means: the Lord liberates. God hears the cry for help of oppressed people, he can not but hear it. He listens to that voice and cannot overlook the suffering of people, and He is going to do something about it: Moses was sent out to liberate his people from bondage.
What do those texts say to us today if we commemorate the liberation from the tyranny of Nazism? The Bible and the Qur'an speak about the specific liberation from oppression in Egypt. According to the Qur'an, a certain Haman is the advisor of Pharaoh. We know from the biblical story that Haman lives much later. Haman is the servant of another tyrant in Persia. That king or emperor of Persia was an oppressor. The Qur'an makes even another connection: Pharaoh gives an order to Haman to build a tower in order to enable Pharaoh to reach God so that he can spy on Him: And Pharaoh said, O chiefs! I know not that ye have a god other than me, so kindle for me (a fire), O Haman, to bake the mud; and set up for me a lofty tower in order that I may survey the god of Moses. Koran 28:38; 40:36,37 (38,39). This is clearly a reference to the building of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11) and means that Pharaoh has divine aspirations. Pharaoh stands for a proud arrogant tyrant: a leader (a Führer) who misuses his power to oppress the innocent, the weak and who kills them. In short, an incarnation of Fascism. (Pharaoh 's way of life is self-destructiveness: Rahman, 37)
Sometimes one said that the prophet Mohammed confuses the different stories of the Egyptian Pharaoh with the Persian king. But this of course is not the point. The Bible and the Qur'an are not so much interested in history in the sense what happened. The Bible and the Qur'an are interested in what happens all the time. And what is it: that happens again and again?
Let us ask the questions: Who were and who are those Pharaohs? Of course Nazi Germany was at that time one of the members of what is today called the axis of evil. In biblical times: Egypt and Persia belonged to that axis of evil, if you want to use this terminology. Just as today Iraq of Saddam Husayn and what those days Persia today is called. It is of course handy as long as you are not from Germany of those days, Iran or North Korea to call others the axis of evil. But according to the Bible and the Qur'an are those 'Pharaohs' only the others? Iraq? Iran, North Korea? What about the political leaders of the other (powerful) nations in the world?
The liberation from Egypt as well as the liberation from the yoke of oppressive Nazism in the Second World War was intended to found a new world, a new society where justice would be done to everyone. But what happened when the people of Israel were liberated and arrived in the Promised Land? What happened as soon as they were able to rule themselves? After the liberation did they found a new society where justice was executed for the sake of oppressed, were the prisoners set free? Did the hungry get their bread? Did they establish an alternative society without Pharaohs, without kings, without an army, without a military complex? It was surely their intention. But did this really happen? The shocking thing is that very soon it went in the same direction as what happened under the Pharaoh of Egypt. Against the advice of the prophet, they instituted a hereditary kingship with generals, military experts, taxation, and forced labour. The first step in that direction was set by King David, and the decisive turn was made under King Salomon. He modernises his army and does not hesitate to begin an arms race and arms deals. When other people have wagons and horses, why not Israel? Salomon purchases and aquires them. Astronomical amounts are invested and thousands of wagons and horses are obtained. King Salomon imports them. From where? What do you expect? From Egypt of course: Salomon gathered together chariots and horsemen; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, all of which he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem (1 Kings 10: 26). This very policy brings about a fundamental change in society. Because of the financing of this military budget the population has to suffer tremendously. Salomons choice for a modern military outfit turns him into a despotic ruler. The great prince of peace as King Salomon is known becomes: a Pharaoh! And this leads to the situation immediately after his death, people are called upon for a new liberation, a new Exodus. The country splits into two. People are no longer accepting the Pharaonic yoke (1 Kings 12).
The Bible and the Qur'an texts are more explosive stuff than we realise. Jews, Christians and Muslims all three believe in a God who liberates! In all three traditions the prophets raise their voices against any Pharaoh, any king, any ruler, any government for that matter, establishing a rule on injustice, exploitation. All three protest in the name of God against the brutalisation of human kind. The innocent blood of human beings is costly in the eyes of God. The Living God is a guarantee for true humanity.
Anton Wessels is professor of missions and evangelism at the Faculty of Theology, Free University, The Netherlands. He is the author of several books on Christian-Muslim relations.
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