Salam All, The conflict between the Islamic world and the west can’t be any worse than what it is today, If you have to choose a group of lets say ten people, world leaders, or scholars around the world who you think can bring about tolerance, respect and peace between Islamic world and the west, or just try to achieve something close to that, who would you choose. These people could be from anywhere and from any background, as long as you think they can have an effect on the outcome. I know you might ask: well, where’s your list? and trust me, I have 6 names up to now and I will share it with you as soon as I get it finished. May be the problem of the world could be solved by Yabiladi English Forum….lol Salam, Almot may be the name and the country the person belongs to would be good.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2006 10:35 by almotanabi.
Let me give it a quick shot, 5 on each side, they are not powerful people but the conference would be on higher plain than the sewer we are now in.
Muslim side : Hanane Ashrawi, palestinian activist, I've always like her moderation M6 or King Abdallah of Jordan, for their progressive streak Gamal Al-banna, he holds a sort of "avant-gardiste" view of Islam
Tarik ramadan, just to please the loonies as he's liked on both sides of the muslim spectrum Shirin Ebadi, Iranian Nobel prize, impressive woman
Western side : Noam Chomsky Al Gore, the man not the politician, and I always thought 9/11 would not have happened on his watch Uri Avneri, former israeli politician, peace activist, contributes on counterpunch.org Howard Zinn, historian Mandela, if he can still walk, and he earned his stripes.
Now, if you wanna have fun, put Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Zarqaoui in a room, but hold the RPG for Zarqaoui otherwise that would be a short meeting... Just kidding !
Wow my friend, I like your list but from the six I have so far, we only agreed on one, and that is Noam Chomsky. Here are the six I have up to now:
Muslim, or you can call them the Barca,,,,lol: El Karadawi, Qatar, widely trusted by Muslims all over El Mehdi El Manjra, Morocco, I always had lots of respect for the man and his views Tariq Ramadan,
The West, Noam Chomsky, USA, need not to say more about the man, Gorbachev, OLD Russia, peace loving man and brave also Desmond Tutu, S. Africa, Joe Biden USA, most of the time well balanced views
I also want to add Dali Lama, Tibet, (Buddhist) a very good person to have, Ashrawi is not a Muslim, I think, but she could play first half…lol You know what, I admit, I feel shame that I’m having hard time coming with a good list from the Muslim world, real shame….i'm going to continue working on this until I come up with a good list. Salam, Almot
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2006 01:24 by almotanabi.
Oops sorry, I thought Ashrawi was muslim. But I had the same problem with the muslim list as you did, I drew a blank for a while, kept staring at the screen, are we too westernized or is the muslim world too far gone ? Funny, for the western list, I had no problem, I still have plenty of names, I won't quote them so not to influence other people choices.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2006 06:44 by chelhman.
Dear I would add Professor Ahmed Zewail, who won the nobel price in chemistry in 1999. A sharp brain, well respected and has his own political pragmatic views in finding solutions. You can look at his webpage at Caltech.
Look at this link and see how easy this would’ve been had we lived between the 8th and the 14th century, and not only we would’ve said these names, but raised our heads real high while saying them. What the hell had happen? How could the gap become so wide that we can’t come up with the names of five contemporary GREAT/strong Arab/Muslim scholars?
Thanks for the link Almot, it's indeed amazing, I just browsed a little, some of the names were just street names as far I knew. It will take time to review them all. As for what happened ? History happened : arrogance, corruption, self-righteousness... sounds familiar ? It's the fate of every civilization, Romans, Persians, Chinese, Japanese, the Songhaï empire, Arabs, now the U.S... all of them at one point shined then peaked then declined because they thought they were better than others. There is one bright side to the current globalisation, information and knowledge travel so fast, it accelerates history and probably won't allow any one civilization to rise above others because it simply won't have time to settle. I'm reminded of the movie "blade runner" where the street language spoken was a mixture of english, chinese, arabic, hindu... I envy and am fearful at the same time for the next generations, their world will truly be cosmopolitan, that is if conservative loonies on both sides don't blow things up before that.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2006 05:38 by chelhman.
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