bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2011) — Fall/Winter 2011 // Automne/Hiver 2011, pp. 36–38
The religious convictions that we hold in our hearts can forge new bounds among people, or they can tear us apart.”
Ferry de Kerckhave La soute chose qui me dédouane c’est qu’à part « ma » victoire sur l’URSS à l’OTAN, presque toute ma carrière et une bonne partie de ma vie se sont déroulées en pays musulmans, me donnant peut-être un soupçon de crédibilité. Et puis j’étais présent à l’Université du Caire quand le Président Obama a livré son discours sur le renouveau des relations avec le monde musulman. Un moment rare, malheureusement suivi de peu d’effets…
1. L’intolérance montante
Un premier constat : l’intolérance est à la hausse et nous traversons une véritable crise de société à l’échelle planétaire. Mais elle n’est pas uniforme et peut-être cette absence d’uniformité offre des pistes d’action. Encore faut-il savoir pourquoi l’Indonésie, qui a ses terroristes fondamentalistes, présente quand même une image de tolérance plus grande que le Pakistan. Et je dis « image » parce que même entre les élites de Karachi, de Lahore et de Peshawar, il y a des variations dans le degré d’intolérance. Et de quelle tolérance parle-t-on?
Religieuse ou sociale?
Et les choses empirent…
Comme me le faisait remarquer Stuart Hughes (ancien analyste politique en Turquie et au Pakistan), le monde musulman passe lui même par des mutations tant politiques que parareligieuses ou socioreligieuses, qu’il s’agisse d’une Turquie dont les affinités islamiques se sont affirmées au point de jouer un rôle marquant au service de la cause palestinienne au détriment de ses relations antérieurement privilégiées avec Israël, de l’assassinat de mes amis personnels, le Gouverneur du Panjab Salman Taseer pour ses vues modernistes et hostiles à la loi sur les blasphèmes, et le ministre des Minorités, le Chrétien Shahbaz Bhatti, ou encore des attentats contre l’Église copte à Alexandrie et ailleurs, sans oublier les horribles attaques contre les Chrétiens d’Irak. Le climat de peur ou d’angoisse qui en découle a un impact sur la gente musulmane en occident, sur les perceptions de tous et chacun à l’endroit des Musulmans, y compris ceux qui cherchent à quitter les lieux où sont perpétrés ces crimes pour trouver refuge au Canada et ailleurs.
Le Canada se targue d’une société fondée sur la tolérance mais que faire pour à la fois préserver notre caractère séculier et en même temps respecter et honorer les multiples fois et coutumes religieuses qui sont devenues l’apanage de nos civilisations? À chaque semblant de réponse foisonnent de nouvelles interrogations. Aussi me contenterai-je de caricatures (non danoises) de réponses à des questions fondamentales. Prenons un point de départ nord-américain : L’intolérance en Amérique du Nord, apparemment moins inquiétante selon ceux qui ne veulent pas l’admettre, a des reflets distincts selon que l’on compare des données pour le Canada et les États-Unis.
A Gallup poll conducted in early 2010 (on self-identification and religious perceptions in America) underscores the urgency of dealing with growing intolerance. Its key findings included: Americans express the most prejudice towards Muslims Islam is the most negatively viewed religion Americans admit to knowing little about Islam Americans commonly perceive Muslims as intolerant and
discriminatory towards women Self-reported prejudice toward Jews is most strongly associated with “a great deal” of prejudice toward Muslims (interestingly, however, the more frequently people attended religious services the more likely they were to be less prejudiced toward Muslims).
There is little correlation between knowing a Muslim and the absence of prejudice.
Turning to less recent (2006) and perhaps not directly omparable figures from the Trudeau Foundation:
The majority of Canadians (54 percent) disagree with the suggestion that there is too much immigration.
Canadians almost unanimously (93 percent) oppose the suggestion that non-whites should be prevented from immigrating to Canada.
The great majority of Canadians (68 percent) disagree with the notion that people who want to immigrate to Canada should have their religious beliefs and values screened and approved before they are allowed in.
Seventy-five percent of Canadians agree that Muslim immigrants make a positive contribution to Canada. Fifty-seven percent of those who report having a negative impression of Islam agree that Muslim immigrants make a positive contribution to Canada.
Half of Canadians (49 percent) feel immigrants should be free to maintain their religious and cultural practices. Canadians are much less accepting of multiculturalism when it conflicts with gender equality. Some 81 percent feel that immigrants should adapt to mainstream Canadian beliefs about the rights and role of women.
More than half (53 percent) of Canadians have little to no contact with Muslims, while 46 percent “occasionally” or “often” have contact.
Half of all Canadians (49 percent) say their impression of Islam as a religion is “generally positive”; the more contact Canadians have with Muslims, the more positive their impression. Among those having a negative impression of Islam, the most commonly stated reason was “treatment of women” (21 percent); others included: “violent”, “association with 99 ce terrorism”, “intolerant”, and “extremism/fanaticism”. One in three Canadians (29 percent) say Muslims are “rarely” portrayed fairly in the media and 7 percent say Muslims are “never” portrayed fairly.
Only 19 percent of Canadians feel it is “very likely” that Canada will experience terrorist attacks in the near future carried out by Canadians with a Muslim background (40 percent think it is “somewhat likely”).
Almost seven in ten (68 percent) reject the notion that ordinary, law-abiding Canadian Muslims should personally feel “very” or “somewhat” responsible for violent crimes carried out by others in the name of Islam.
Almost eight in ten (78 percent) of Canadians think American foreign policy is a cause of Islamic extremism and terrorism.
On voudrait croire que les données positives de la Fondation Trudeau soient encore valables aujourd’hui. Mais comme l’a démontré la Commission Bouchard Taylor, les minorités, même au Canada, sont fragiles. Une autre étude a révélé que même si le Canada est « le pays le moins islamophobe de l’Occident », ce sont quand même les musulmans et arabes qui sont le groupe « ethnique » le plus ciblé par le racisme par rapport aux amérindiens, noirs, juifs, etc.
Selon la Commission Bouchard Taylor, l’intolérance raciale est trois fois plus forte au Québec qu’en Alberta. Il y a donc lieu de se poser la question de l’islamophobie et ses origines et de voir si des ponts peuvent être jetés au niveau de la compréhension du phénomène. Le Conseil musulman de Montréal considère que l’islamophobie est une forme de haine contre tout ce qui est islamique, culture, doctrine, lieux de culte, monde musulman comme entité politique, phénomène historique, et autorités religieuses. Et il est fort probable qu’avec la descente aux enfers du Pakistan et le cycle de violence sectaire qui y règne, les préjugés défavorables des Canadiens envers les pays musulmans, notamment le Pakistan, risquent d’être à la hausse. C’est en tout cas ce que craignent certains chercheurs pakistanais.
2. Immigration and Diversity in Society
I am not sure if the definition of Islamophobia adopted by the Muslim Council of Montreal is entirely correct — our world seems defined more by perceptions than any objective reality (assuming the latter can be defined). However, there is a moral sense of injustice at the individual level that must be addressed and a societal obligation to define what was referred to in the Taylor-Bouchard Commission as “accommodements raisonnables” (i.e., how far should a society go in taking into account the diversity of its population). These are critical issues for any country where different faiths coexist or try to, and not just those with a Judeo-Christian background. In my view, the issue of how Copts are treated in Egypt is just as important as how Canadians as a whole deal with Islam.
Very few countries today are ethnic monoliths. This is certainly not the case for Canada, where one in five is born abroad, nor for Egypt (where this was written and where 5,000 years of civilization have brought peoples from the entire world to the shores of the Nile). But there are myths with respect to the make-up of countries of immigration as opposed to countries supposedly devoid of either immigrants or immigration policy. A former Canadian immigration officer, Mr. Gerry Kessel, wrote a remarkable paper on “Europe and immigration through a Canadian lens” (Remarks for the 2005 Annual General eeting of the Canadian Immigration Historical Society). In it : notes that:
“The number of “foreign born” per capita living in many European countries is roughly the same as in Canada. Therefore, Europe and Canada both have large numbers of immigrants. In Canada it is by design, in Europe, it is largely by default. Speaking generally, it is public policy in Europe to oppose immigration. Yet, this needs to be explained as the policy opposes economic immigration but accepts refugee claimants, family reunion and neglects in a benign way illegal workers. A result is that Canada chooses the immigrants it takes. In Europe, it is immigrants who choose Europe… European governments are hardly involved if at all. Most people, including almost all refugee claimants, entering Europe illegally do so with the help of smugglers. As a result… in Europe it is smugglers rather than governments who are determining Europe’s future population mix. In Canada immigration is part of our national myth. We know that without immigration there would not have been a country called Canada. This means that immigration starts out as something that is positive. This is a starting point that Europe lacks. The accepted assumption in integration is that that each generation is more integrated than the previous one. This is not proving to be the case with many immigrants from North Africa, Turkey, the Middle East and Pakistan. These immigrants seem to hold on to their culture in a way that keeps them from integrating at the rate that is the case for many other immigrant groups. For this group the current generation is less integrated than their predecessors. The rate of marriage to women from the old village is higher than ever. (In Canada and the USA the rate of intermarriage including for Muslims is almost
50 percent.) So, intégration hardly starts”.
What Gerry Kessel describes helps explain why some untries have chosen legitimately different paths in adapting such immigration flows. Canadian policy is based on inteation and even “insertion” under the overarching national ictrine or “principled policy” of multiculturalism. In France similation is the norm, yet they still have a problem with entité nationale. Sadly, countries like Germany and the UK ive now denounced multiculturalism as a “failed policy”, but it is unclear to me whether they ever really attempted to implement multiculturalism as we have done, and it is even less clear what they propose to replace it with.
3. Handling Misunderstandings
I have given many talks on Islam and the West in the Muslim countries where I have served or lived — Tunisia, Iran, the “Stans”, Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt. I always advocate a simple thesis: rather than focussing on what separates us, on our differences, we should build synergies on those differences: inter-faith, inter-ethnic, and inter-cultural. These differences provide opportunities for mutual enrichment. Through mutual tolerance they help create the conditions for a society, nationally and internationally, that both reveres diversity and has enough common linkages to allow it to evolve, adapt, develop and prosper in a climate of mutual respect and appreciation. In my view, that should be the foundation of Islam’s relations with the West and the West’s relations with Islam.
As for Islamophobia, we have no choice but to address misunderstandings in the West about Islam. The reverse is equally true: the are legions of misunderstandings about the West in Muslim countries. I often think that these are largely the result of us considering all Muslim countries as Islamic states. That may be closer to the truth than what many in Muslim countries believe; namely, that we in the West are a “Christian club” when in fact many Western countries can hardly be considered sectarian Christian societies today.
However, the West does see Islam through its own prism. As my great friend, the distinguished Indonesian religious scholar Nurcholish Madjid-Cak Nur, now departed, once said: “The West acts differently when it faces Islam than when it faces Hinduism, Buddhism or Confucianism”. Public opinion surveys confirm this and some scholars argue that the reason the West, including the US, looks differently at Islam as compared to other religions is that others are not perceived as a threat. In Part II of L’ouest et le monde musulman, slated for the next issue of bout, I explore these perceptions and their implications for our shared future.
Ferry de Kerckhove recently retired from the Foreign Service after serving as Ambassador to Egypt (as well to Indonesia in 2001-03 and High Commissioner to Pakistan in 1998-2001).
Voir les pages numérisées d’origine →
Publié à l’origine dans bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2011) — Fall/Winter 2011 // Automne/Hiver 2011, pp. 36–38. Lire le reste de ce numéro →
