God speed, Shoaib
Religious tolerance, interfaith dialogue, moderate Muslims
God speed, Shoaib
Lynn B., Incontext.com
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
As I mentioned Friday, Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has spent the past week in the U.S. for a brief whirlwind visit to a number of east coast cities, trying to drum up support for his cause. His cause, believe it or not, really isn't the preservation of his life, which is in considerable joepardy at the moment. Not that he would object to that result as well, but his primary concern right now is communicating his message of religious tolerance, interfaith dialogue and encouragement of other truly moderate Muslims.
Shoaib wrapped up his tour this afternoon at the home of a friend of mine in the Philadelphia suburbs, speaking to a small but highly energetic group of supporters and one journalist from a suburban newspaper (the rest of the local media declined the invitation). This was his first visit to America since his arrest in November, 2003, for the crime of planning to attend a writers' peace conference in Israel (a/k/a, in Bangladesh, being an Israeli spy). He has spent 17 months in prison, where he was tortured and denied medical care and prevented from attending his mother's funeral. He has been beaten, bombed and threatened (he showed us some of the scars). Released on bail due largely to the intervention of two Americans, one a health care analyst and community activist, the other a U.S. Congressman, he can't walk the streets of Dhaka, his home, in any degree of safety. When asked what he enjoyed most about his trip here, he said it was his ability to walk. He even thinks he may have lost a few pounds.
One thing Choudhury hasn't lost is his sense of humor. Where he gets it, I can't imagine. He says he finds strength in his anger, his outrage over his own mistreatment, over the threats to his family, over the criminals, as he calls them, who have twisted the teachings of the Koran into a message of hate.
Yes, there were several skeptics (myself included) and a few outright challenges today as he proclaimed that the radical extremist Muslims and those who support them are only a tiny minority. But he appears to believe this sincerely, and would not be shaken, no matter how many times he was asked about it. Muslims are speaking out, he said. We just don't know about it because the media isn't reporting it or, in some cases, is actively blocking it. But I had the sense that much of the time he was speaking more about his experience in Bangladesh than his perception of the rest of the Muslim world.
Dr. Richard Benkin, Shoaib's "brother" (he wouldn't like the scare quotes but in the interest of clarity...), his champion and his host/companion on this tour, clarified that there is a vast difference between Muslim perceptions in the Arab world and those of the Muslim communities in Indonesia and Asia. Choudhury, for example, noted in response to one question about the prevalence of Muslim extremism that the election of Hamas indicates a sickness, that people who vote for terrorists are „rotten.‰ By contrast, he assures us that Bangladesh is not rotten. Yet. The radicals are still a very small minority there. But they are louder than the moderates and so the government is afraid of them. He says that all governments are afraid of the radicals. But the radicals, he says, are afraid of him.
So where, in Shoaib Choudhury's view, can we find more of these elusive creatures, the "moderate Muslims?" In Mahmoud Abbas, for instance? Hardly, says Choudhury. "If Mahmoud Abbas is a 'moderate Muslim,' then I'm ashamed to be called a 'moderate Muslim.' " He says it's an insult to moderate Muslims, an insult to all Muslims, to call a terrorist like Abbas a "moderate Muslim."
Choudhury notes the vast amounts of money that Saudi Arabia, especially, is pouring into Bangladesh to establish madrassas that teach hatred without restriction. 64,000 madrassas. 3,780 kindergarten madrassas. While other schools require licenses to operate in his country, he says, the madrassas do not and are not subject to supervision. With the high incidence of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy in Bangladesh, these incubators of what he calls criminal ideas have a captive audience. But he believes he can combat their influence with good information and good ideas. He's here to ask us to help in whatever way we can.
One way we can help is by publicizing his situation and his quest. No one has worked harder toward this end than Richard Benkin and U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) who, earlier this year, along with Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) sponsored a House Resolution calling for the trumped up charges against Choudhury to be dropped. The Resolution passed by a resounding vote of 409-1 (Ron Paul being the lone vote against).
So far, our local media hasn't been much help. Neither the Philadelphia Inquirer nor any of our various television and radio outlets could spare anyone to cover Shoaib's appearance today. With all their focus on the imaginary massive "moderate Muslim" presence, they appear uninterested in speaking with a real, live representative of that elusive group, with a Muslim who believes that it's a basic human responsibility to say "no" to jihad, who calls Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ilk a "disease" and who implores the West to reach out to the victims of that disease. He has gotten coverage, though, in The Wall Street Journal, The NY Sun and The Chicago Tribune. Locally, we have an op-ed in at least one major college paper and now, a story at Main Line Life (pending). Of course, several blogs have been all over this for quite some time. (I first read about Choudury's arrest more than three years ago at Yourish.com.)
Again, to be clear, Shoaib Choudhury was not in this country to raise money or other support for himself. He was here to help people understand, first hand, his own agenda for Bangladesh: demanding recognition of Israel; eliminating religious hatred; putting an end to the influence of the radical Islamist parties. I would think that‚s an agenda worth supporting.
In a more informal session later, outside on the back porch, Choudhury pulls out a pack of Bangladeshi cigarettes and begins chain smoking. He asks if our hosts have anything a little stronger than orange juice. Whiskey or vodka would be fine, thank you. Shoaib is not by any means orthodox in his practice or his interpretation of Islam. The Koran, he had earlier insisted repeatedly and with heat, contains no injunctions to kill or shun Jews and Christians. To the contrary. The hadiths, on the other hand, are largely corrupted, falsified stories by people who didn't even know Muhammed. They are all fake, he says, and a criminal misinterpretation of the message of the Koran.
When asked about his livelihood his newspaper (www.weeklyblitz.net) receives no advertising and always operates in the red), Shoaib reveals that he has his own printing firm and a music business as well. In fact, he composes music himself and has had some of his songs used in Bangladeshi films. Amazingly, he begins to sing one of them for us. We can't understand the words but the melody is quite beautiful and as he taps and clicks out an accompanying beat with his fingers we are all transported. My friend's daughter catches this performance on her digital camera. Someone makes a wry joke that the film will be a real treasure if he's killed. Somehow, this comment fails to dampen the mood even slightly. No one laughs louder than Shoaib Choudhury.
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