Low Voice of Callers for Dialogue
We, Iranians, based on our Shiite-Iranian interpretations, have always followed the idea of interaction and dialogue. The Iranian belief, rooted in Islamic gnosticism, ethics, and doctrine, emphasizes the enforcement of peace and justice and global dialogue is our common belief; but unfortunately, in today's world, no sign can be seen with regard to interaction and dialogue between Islam and the West, two civilizations of today's world.
The Holy Quran has advised us to establish dialogue. The prophet of Islam found ways inside the hearts of the people through his message of dialogue. The mission of the prophet was to conquer the world through the ethics of dialogue. We view global issues based on this cultural and religious foundation and call for dialogue and thought. But the realities of today's world are very far from our aspirations and hopes. Today's world entails many complexities and, if not correctly studied, the result would be of no great use. In 2001, several basic terminologies entered Iran's foreign policy and one of them, i.e., the Dialogue of Civilizations, gained an international dimension. Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, Iran's president at the time, proposed this idea against Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and Fukuyama's End of History. But the voice of dialogue among civilizations disappeared after the 11th of September and with the US and its allies' attack against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those in power talk about crusades and the result of the operationalization of their thoughts and ideas has left several hundreds of thousands dead in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are not after interaction and dialogue between the West and Islam; they may speak of dialogue, but in practice they view Islam differently. They are the real propagators of Islamophobia.
The dominant voice is the one that, following the cold war, viewed the reality of power and the world unilaterally and wrote international laws based on ignoring others' rights. The voice which, if necessary, uses these regulations and organizations and if they do not act in line with their goals calls them useless and bypasses them and ignores international laws. The statement made by Rice in which she called the UN "absolutely useless" was the echo of this voice. The same point of view, in another time, uses this organization to solve its own problems in different parts of the world. If we study this carefully, we see that Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, came to power with the slogan of interaction with Muslims, but he later struggled against them. Prior to his election, he talked about tolerance with Muslims and gave facilities to mosques but followed another route when he came to power. His Jewish roots and the Zionist lobby in France drew him towards fighting against Islam. The result was that Muslims turned away from him and Hollande gained three million Muslims' votes to reach power. Nevertheless, considering the pressures exerted by new neo-cons who have occupied the Foreign Ministry and foreign policy of France, it is not clear what his fate will be.
The differences and contradictions are deeper than the basis of dialogue and the path of power in today's world intensifies these differences. The reality of the world is different from what we like it to be. Those who today hold power in the world will kill all one billion and five hundred million Muslims if doing so would serve their interests. During the past decade, we have proclaimed the idea of dialogue and held hundreds of conferences in this regard, but Islamophobia is a reality that cannot be denied. Our natural differences with today's West should not be forgotten within dialogue and understanding. By nature, we have serious differences with the West with regard to the issues of peace, human rights, and international matters, for all legal tools are, by nature, political.
Let us review what the West has done with the world of Islam during the past hundred years. Disintegration of the Ottoman empire, elimination of Islam from Turkish society, occupation of territories in the world of Islam in central Asia and Caucasia by Russian colonization, dominance over northern Africa and countries on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea by French colonization and the dominance of British colonization in the Indian subcontinent are all examples of these aggressions. What has happened during the past two decades is not mutual understanding between Islam and the West; rather the West is a political and ideological camp, the goal of which is the achievement of liberal democracy, as the only ideology, in today's world. The world of Islam not only is not optimistic about globalization and spread of the foundations of the West's liberal democracy, but views it as a point of danger.
Today's serious challenge by the West against Islam is the phenomenon of the return of Islam to the social scene. Islam has influences on the social and political scenes, the result of which is the negation of power, negation of colonization, and negation of violence and occupation. Therefore, the goal of the West's think-tank is the destruction of the Islamic awakening.
Therefore, the world of Islam must be attentive towards this matter. Our differences with the Muslim Brotherhood must not be considered rooted and viewed as ideological differences; they are rather related to behavioral problems. Our serious challenge today is not only the issue of Israel and the phenomenon of the Jewish state and usurp of the land of the Islamic nation; the important challenge is rather globalization and imposing the West's liberal democracy and destruction of the interests of the world of Islam.
Democracy, justice, freedom, and human rights are beautiful slogans of value in social developments, but when they are linked with the West's ideology of liberalism or liberal democracy, they will be transformed into the political ideology of the West. The political West has no compatibility with the united Islamic world and the Islamic nation and the objective Islamic awakening. Whenever talk of the unity of the Islamic nation is heard, the US and Israel and their thinkers will immediately be present. The serious and obvious treasons committed by some heads of Islamic states are the results of the attempts made by the western party.
Today, political Christianity has changed its nature and entered the scene. We should not forget that religious fundamentalism was formed prior to Islam, in Christianity and Judaism; Yitzhak Rabin was the victim of Jewish fundamentalism. The activities of Christian fundamentalism have threatened the American people.
On this basis, I believe that we talk about revival of religious identity and spreading the culture of dialogue and advancement of mankind. But, has the dialogue between Islam and the West been held? Unfortunately, this has not yet happened and we are distanced from this ideal. Today, we must give a satisfactory response to the question of whether Islam and the West can sit next to each other, as has been the case with Islam and Iran. We must be able to convince opponents of dialogue that Islam and the West can have mutual assistance, but this has not yet been achieved.