25 December 2004	Saturday	12 Ziqa'ad 1425

KARACHI, Dec 24: Emphasizing the need for building bridges of understanding between the Muslim world and the West by shunning negative perceptions of each other , Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Dr Maleeha Lodhi said on Friday that if action was not taken, there was a real danger of an iron curtain descending between the Islamic world and the West.

"In confronting contemporary challenges, no nation, however powerful and preponderant, can go it alone. Only through cooperative endeavours and multilateral action can we hope to meet the imposing challenges of our times and capitalize on opportunities for the benefit of all", she emphasized while speaking on "Islam and the West: New Perspectives" at the Agha Khan University.

Maleeha Lodhi said it was "a pivotal or defining moment in the world history and relations between the Islamic world and the west are at the crossroads". Negative images of each other often influence perceptions on both sides. These problems of mutual perception and stereotypes have persisted stubbornly and provided a basis for profound misunderstanding.

While dealing at length with the differing perceptions and causes of alienation, Maleeha Lodhi also called upon the Muslim world to live up to the challenge of meeting the expectations of its own people by overcoming the knowledge deficit.

At the same time, she said that reforms in the Muslim world must be accompanied by concrete and meaningful change in the conduct of foreign policy by key western countries.

"We live in dangerous times because several world civilizations simultaneously feel they are under siege. Muslims feel they are under siege, and the West too feels it is under siege. The great challenge is how to bridge this gulf; how to build trust and confidence, how to remove mutual misperceptions and how to promote inter- civilizational harmony."

She also emphasized the need for recognizing the tremendous internal variations within both the Islamic world' and the 'West', and, therefore, we should avoid the mistake of treating both as monoliths. Images that treat the other as a monolith are, therefore, conceptually flawed as selectively implementing principles and applying double standards.

For example, she said, "while self-determination is regarded as an inviolable right for others, the West is seen to ignore this in the case of Palestine and Kashmir.

"So what has exacerbated negative sentiments in the Muslim word is the widespread perception of either Western indifference or lack of sensitivity to issues of concern to people in the Islamic world.

Palestine is the case in point," she said. "Across the Muslim world, Western policy in the Middle East has been seen to be unjust, unfair, and inconsistent with the declared aim of promoting regional justice.

The turning point in the contemporary radicalization of the Muslim world ensued from the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when the West and its regional allies decided that the best resistance to Moscow would be offered by presenting and waging the war of liberation as a religious struggle or jehad.

The decade-long war against the Soviets saw billions of dollars pouring in to support and train militant Mujahideen and Pakistan became a base and destination for militants from across the Arab world, most of whom turned to other causes once the Afghan war ended.

Few returned home. At the same time, the number and complexion of madressahs in Pakistan changed as these began to receive unprecedented levels of foreign funding to help provide recruits, as well as sanctuary for those waging jihad in Afghanistan."

She pointed out that in 1947 there were only 137 madressahs in Pakistan, and in the 50s just over 200. These grew exponentially in the 1980s and current estimates put the number at around 13,000. Many madressahs, she claimed, became politicised and radicalised to serve-political ends.

Religious and militant parties involved in the Afghan war began to control and run their own madressahs. And as the international community walked away from Afghanistan, the militancy fuelled by the long war, was allowed to fester for an entire decade, seeking new causes and finding new pan-Islamic allies.

Turning from this historical legacy to the current situation, Dr Maleeha Lodhi said "if we look at the state of the large Muslim diaspora in the west (in Europe there are 13 million Muslims) they feel they have experienced rising discrimination after 9/11. They refer to the Islamophobia that they believe now characterizes many Western nations".

She also referred to a recent study which stated that 80per cent of the 1.8 million Muslims in the UK felt they had been discriminated against because of their faith as compared to 3.5 per cent in 1999 (according to the Islamic Human Rights Commission).

Polls in the US have also found distrust of Muslims is becoming commonplace. A national poll conducted by a Muslim advocacy group found that one in four Americans holds a negative stereotype view of Muslims and almost a third responds with a negative image when they hear the word "Muslim".

She emphasized that aspirations of the Muslim people were no different to those of people elsewhere in the world. "Muslims in more than 57 Muslim nations -- strive for the sane basics needs as do people elsewhere: food, shelter, education, security and freedom. Their aspirations are similar to other people in the developing world.

"The Muslim world has, therefore, to live up to the challenge of meeting the expectations of its own people. The governments of the Muslim world have an acute responsibility because if they are unable to address their people's aspirations, they risk provoking opposition which often uses religion as its expression and mobilizing vehicle and can assume an extremist nature."