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WEF (World Economic Forum) Floats Idea of

‘United Nations Of Major Religions’

© 2002 Arab News

by

Amir Taheri

February 2, 2002

NEW YORK, 2 February — Officially it does not exist. Unofficially, it is "the biggest challenge the global system faces today." The "it" in question is what participants in this year’s World Economic Forum privately refer to as "The Arab-Islamic problem".

Speaking in public the forum’s organizers insist that the terrorist attacks of last Sept. 11, the reason why the forum has come here this year, had "nothing to do with either Arabs or Islam." In private, however, they claim that a link exists and must be studied so that it could be broken. That claim is backed by a number of star speakers in this year’s forum. Professor Samuel Huntington who coined the phrase "clash of civilizations" will be on at least two panels to argue his thesis. Also present will be a number of other Western "Islamologists", like Professor John Esposito who believes that Islam can still be absorbed into the amorphous "universal civilization".

The forum has also revived an idea that was first launched by the late King Hassan of Morocco in conjunction with the UNESCO in 1998. The idea was to create a kind of "united nations of major religions" with an organ like the Security Council whose task would be to prevent religion from being used for militant political purposes. The 1998 initiative ended with a one-day seminar in Rabat. This time the forum hopes it could inspire a more lasting enterprise. The idea will be discussed by a number of religious figures from the main monotheistic faiths. Several Vatican grandees including the Nigerian-born Cardinal Arinze, tipped as a future Pope, will represent Christianity along with the retiring Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Carey and Batholomew I the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople.

Israel’s Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Britain’s Chief Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sachs and Peter Stoerdijk, who heads the movement of liberal Jews in Europe, will represent Judaism.

To represent Islam, the forum has invited Dr. Zaki Badawi, a British Muslim, Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, who presides over the World Muslim Congress based in Saudi Arabia and Kamal Al-Sharif, who is secretary-general of the Jordanian Council of Dawa.

Organizers say that they had also invited Iran to send a scholar to represent the Shiite version of Islam, but this was declined. Instead Tehran nominated former Minister for Islamic Guidance Ata-Allah Mohajerani as a panel member. But that too was withdrawn when the Iranian Majlis objected to the presence of Jewish leaders on the panel.

The key thesis of the panel is that since Judaism, Christianity and Islam share the same origins they should coordinate their efforts in promoting the values of monotheism throughout the world and work out common strategies to combat such evils as war, injustice, too much sexual freedom and aggressive capitalism.

Another question is: Are there any values and beliefs about which there should be no compromise? Finally the panel will ask: Can we live in a relative age in which there are no absolutes value and beliefs?

While Muslim representation at the religious panel is low profile, a number of high profile Muslim politicians are present in other panels dealing with political, regional and economic issues. These include Algeria’s President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, Jordan’s King Abdallah and Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. The Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa will be on hand to remind the forum of traditional Arab positions on a range of international issues.

So concerned is the forum with fundamentalism that it has devoted a whole separate panel to the issue. Here Ahmad Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, and Karim Raslan, a Malaysian businessman, discuss the Islamic version of fundamentalism. The possibility of "bringing Islam into the modern world" is the subject of yet another panel. The participants include Sheikh Muhammad ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai’s crown prince and minister of defense of the United Arab Emirates, and Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence services. Joining them will be Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and British banker Namir Kadir. Mahathir Muhammad and Saudi businessman Abdullah Zainal, chairman of Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will put Islam’s case in yet another panel from a different angle.

A third panel that will examine the possibility of Muslim countries adopting a Western-style democratic system tempers the pessimism of the organizers about Islam’s ability to accept modern world as shaped by Western nations over the past two to three centuries. Bahrain’s Crown Prince Sheikh Salman ibn Hamad Al-Khalifa will argue that Islam is not incompatible with democracy, and will present his own country as a model of Islamic democracy in the making. A similar message will come from Sheikh Hamad ibn Thamer Al-Thani, chairman of the Radio and TV Authority of Qatar. He, too, will argue that Qatar is emerging as "democratic model" in which Islam coexists with pluralist politics. A third speaker will be Shafeeq Ghabra, a Kuwaiti professor who presents Kuwait as "oldest established democracy" in the Arab world. The text of all three Arab speakers’ remarks include appeals to the Western world to strengthen ties with the "emerging democracies" of the Arab world and to stand against those opposed to the process of democratization and pluralism.

The organizers had tried to include Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ismail Cem in the panel because Turkey is largely regarded in the West as the only established democracy in the world. Cem, however, declined the invitation. "Turkey may or may not be a democracy," an aide to Cem told us. "But whatever it is it does not wish to be in the same category as Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait."

The thorny issue of relations between the Arab states and the West, and more specifically the United States, will be discussed in at least two other panels. One indication that the crisis in Arab-American relations had assumed new dimensions is the forum’s decision to limit the discussion of the Palestinian issue. This is now confined to a single minor panel in which the inevitable Shimon Peres gets the star role with no prominent Palestinian in sight.

"There was a time when the Palestinian issue was the central problem between the Arabs and the West," says one organizer. "Now, however, it has become just another issue. There is a much bigger crisis." The consensus among experts here is that Washington’s traditional Arab policy has become unworkable and that the US needs "a new analysis, new allies and a new policy."

Bush administration officials attending the forum are unlikely to have any clear ideas on the subject. They admit that "something has changed" but are not prepared to say what exactly. One sign of change is the dramatic fall in the number of Arab businessmen attending this year’s forum. Organizers put the drop at over 40 percent. Some Arab businessmen may have been deterred by reports of mistreatment of Arabs at US airports and a general mood of malaise. Most, however, did not come because they feel they need time to reflect on an old and important relationship that has entered a crisis period.

The largest contingent of Arab businessmen present this year consists of 77 Saudis who paid $15,000 each to take part. But even those who have decided to come feel a certain unease. "I didn’t know whether I should come or not," says a Saudi businessman who has attended the forum for the past 22 years. "For years I saw the US, and New York especially, as a second home. Now I am not sure because I don’t know what the Americans really think about Arabs in their hearts of hearts. It is a painful moment."

Last year the forum offered two panels in which "experts" claimed that Islamic fundamentalism was dead and buried. This year some of the same experts are back to tell us that fundamentalism is still alive and kicking. The experts who were wrong last year may be wrong this year also.

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