Interfaith Transitioning From Dialogue To Action

Today is not like yesterday. And tomorrow shall be different. Time is galloping forward bypassing most of us. For God owns time, enjoining us to own ourselves. The Quran says: “Surely God does not change the condition of a people unless they change what is in themselves.” (Chapter 13, verse 11). The best popular song I heard in Cairo 10 days ago was titled: “I Am the Ruler of a Republic Called Nafsi (Myself).”

Herein lies the essence of sovereignty. The sovereignty of the individual under the mercy of the Creator. The essence of the need to change, to improve, to abandon the ways of yesterday for the sake of today. To realize that faith is one; faith is non-negotiable; faith is not a fad; faith is an inner quality seeking to burst out to commune and to communicate. With whom?

With others with faith, without trying to change their faith. Your faith becomes stronger when it reaches out to others through their faiths. That is when you recognize that your God-given sovereignty is separable but interdependent on allowing the other to pursue peacefully their path to their own faith.

That is interfaith, which needs to transition from dialogue to action. Here I am expressing an abandonment of the method of “conference” of mere words. In favor of an espousal of “interfaith in action.” Action at the level of the individual, the repository of God’s grace, God’s implanted sovereignty, the invisible power to move us to the celestial sphere of goodness and compassion. Each chapter of the Quran, and each action by a Muslim begins with “In the Name of God, The Merciful, the Compassionate.”

The holocaust did not occur by itself. ISIS did not start by itself. The wars, both just and unjust, do not start by themselves. The butchering by ISIS of others of every faith does not occur in a vacuum. Millions, now running away from the lands of Islam to the welcoming arms of western communities, do not simply get up and flee. In all of these situations, the hand of darkness is casting the shadow of annihilation over them.

Now interfaith has a decided role. A role of action. Thus faith must first begin by evolving into conceptional directions.

Through new concepts, through ijtihad - the application of the mind to the non-changing text. Creating new institutions, new media, new leadership, new civility. Civility which, for example, would frown on insulting a sitting president of the US, by calling him “a closet Muslim.” As if Islam and Ebola are one and the same.
The sins of the bad few should not be transferred to millions upon millions whose hands are free from shedding the blood of others.

And if we are serious about putting interfaith in action, let us forget about the need for an intergovernmental organization, like the UN to do it for us. Why? Because the Charter of the UN, which was celebrated on October 24, adores only national sovereignty. It celebrates the sovereignty of the State, leaving the sovereignty of the individual behind. It makes of the veto a tool for obstruction, not a medium for good change.

Just think about it!!  Non-governmental organizations, like Catholic Charities, or Doctors Without Borders, or the thousands of Jewish and Islamic charitable organizations, are more effective than the UN. They, through putting interfaith into action, are eclipsing the UN Economic and Social Council and the World Health Organization combined. Non-Governmental Organizations are what the UN Charter, in its preamble, calls “We the People.”

Today, the weakest human organization is government. In fact, America’s neoconservatives today call for the destruction of federal government. Let us face it: Today’s effective actor is the individual. Functioning through the great marble halls of interfaith festooned by the chandeliers of collective action.

As we seek that interfaith action, we need new vehicles. New vehicles are motored by a new vocabulary to express them, to carry them out. We need to know, for example, that in Islam “Allahu Akbar” is not a battle cry. Terrorism must be forced to disgorge that manipulation of religious vocabulary. Its real meaning is: “We are all equal before God.”

And “Tawheed” (meaning the Oneness of God) is the glue that binds our God-given sovereignties to one another. Elohim and Allah are holy names of the same Creator.

And for vehicles, we need to launch or refurbish or support institutions which systematically put interfaith into practice. The Sophia Center of the Huntington Seminary of the Immaculate Conception was a beacon for interfaith in action. I served there. But with the passing of its founder, Father Bob Smith, it died with him. What a loss!!

For 40 years, Temple Emanuel has been one of my fora. Its banner, held aloft, became the vehicle for events like this one. And the iconic Al-Azhar of Cairo, the citadel of moderate Islam, since the year 975 AD, is now leading “the Religious Revolution” to counter jihadism.

From vocabulary to vocation. In secular Egypt which I visited earlier this month, I saw a progression. From the horrible year of Islamic rule by the Muslim Brotherhood (2012-2013) to action through interfaith. Represented by millions of Muslims cheering on the Coptic church.

And in 2011, Al-Azhar has been calling for a huge change of concepts. It advocated that “Islam does not recognize a State based solely on religion.” The world outside of Egypt did not hear that historic call. Reason: it was in Arabic.

The Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia intone the myth of a Sunni Islam vs. Shii Islam. But Pope Francesco, the Jesuit in white robes, the Pope of the Poor, is a better defender of Islam than the Wahhabis in their keffiyehs and white robes. For a long time, the Jesuits have immersed themselves in the study of the Quran and Islam.

The second successor of the prophet Muhammad was Omar. Omar gave specific orders to the Muslim armies upon their arrival at Jerusalem in the middle of the 8th centuries. I teach his legal decrees at Fordham Law. He prohibited the sequestration of churches and temples. That was interfaith in action.

Four centuries later, St. Francis of Asisi put his interfaith into practice. That was nine centuries before the Wahhabis co-ruled Saudi Arabia. He tried to mediate the conflict between the Crusaders and Saladin -a Kurd.

In the New Egypt, the secular Constitution of 2014 provides for the official recognition of the Torah and the Bible. All Jewish temples in Egypt are now being refurbished.

This is the new age of the individual -sovereign, rebellions, suspect of authority, has the social media at his or her fingertips.

But that individual does not know what to do -except scream. Let us heed the call of that sovereign and work toward changing that scream into a symphony of putting interfaith into action.

Transformation of Egypt Through Revolution: Issue Analysis from the Fall of Mubarak (2011) to the Rise of El-Sisi (2014)

Volume I of my blogs can be purchased in a bounded copy from: https://www.createspace.com/5729103

In Fending Off Its Attackers, What Does Egypt Need to Master? The Art of Response!!

In national life, the most critical juncture is transitioning. From chaos to stability. From poverty to development. From dictatorship to democracy. From the Rule by One, to participation.

The New Egypt is now at this critical juncture. Transitioning from a have-not country to a have country. From the dependent State under Mubarak, to the strong State under El-Sisi. From borrowing and foreign aid, to being self-sufficient. From a country concerned with the affairs of other Arab States, to one concerned primarily with its own improvement.

That is why the great Egyptian educator, Loutfi El-Sayed, advocated one essential principle for Egyptian development. He cried out "Build Fences Around Egypt!!" That is the essence of "charity starts at home." But Egyptian leaders did not heed that call. Examples from the Nasser period:

• Did Egypt need to unite with Syria from 1958 to 1961: No. To Syria, Egypt exported a stern military intelligence governance. From Syria, Egypt got a deluge of nonsensical rhetoric about socialism and Arabism.
• Did Egypt need to be immersed in the Palestinian problem to the extend of losing its unity with the Sudan? No!! The plebiscite of 1954 in the Sudan resulted in 7 to 1. Seven for unity, from Damietta on the Mediterranean to Lake Albert at the source of the Nile. Water is power.
• An Egyptian/Sudanese union would have been the strongest backbone for the Nilotic population in dealing with the outside world. Instead, of bringing in the Sudanese leadership, beginning with Ismail El-Azhari, to co-rule the Nile Valley, North and South, Egypt sent Salah Salem to perform a tribal dance in southern Sudan.
• To southern Sudan, an intelligent leadership in Egypt should have sent Coptic leadership. From ages immemorial, the Coptic Church had been advocating a federation between the Egypt/the Sudan and Uganda and Ethiopia. But the wise voice of the Copts were inaudible to the ears of Egypt's strong man, Nasser.
• Did Egypt need to rush headlong into the Yemeni civil war of 1962, following the disastrous dissolution in 1961 of the artificial union between Egypt and Syria? No.  That was a tribal coup, leading to a mountain warfare for which the Egyptian army has never been trained. It caused rupture with Saudi Arabia, depleted Egypt's meager resources, forced Nasser's Egypt to use napalm against the tribes supporting the Imam (the present day Houthis).
• That involvement also whetted Israel's appetite to attack Egypt in 1967. Resulting in the greatest catastrophe in the history of the modern Arabs. Resulting in the second Israeli occupation of Sinai, on Nasser's watch, the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Namely the rise of Greater Israel. Only Sinai was returned to Egypt, thanks to Sadat's vision of "let us first take care of Egypt."
• For that liberation, Sadat was assassinated. The first Egyptian head of State to exit life in that fashion since Mameluke days. And as Sadat was breathing his last on October 6, 1981, and paving the way to an inept Mubarak as President, the PLO issued a statement of treachery. "May the hand that pulled the trigger be blessed," the Arafat organization intoned.

The Arab system which produced the present League of Arab States in 1944 has a birth defect. It unites the Arab States peripherally. You can only see the outer field of vision. But enhances their division substantially.

Since its establishment, the League of Arab States (LAS) has convened 144 regular sessions. This is without mentioning the new mechanism of Arab summits. At that rate, and by simple math, LAS has met 2.5 times each year of its lazy existence. And not much to show for it.

Just consider the role of LAS in the present Syrian horrific genocidal conflict. With 11 million Syrians either in full flight or trapped inside as internally displaced. Who is acting on this mammoth Arab catastrophe? Not LAS. But Russia, the US, Iran and Assad the butcher of Syria. Suspending Syria's membership of LAS had zero impact on Assad.

So why keep what doesn't work? Unless the Arabs are eternally wedded to the concept of LAS as a talisman. An object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune. Most of Arab North African States have more commercial, financial and trade agreements with Europe than with other members of LAS.

From all the above, there are objective lessons: The only useful mechanisms in LAS are its functional adjuncts -its sub-agencies working on trade, education, health...etc. The least useful in the LAS mechanisms are those dealing with political and sovereignty issues.

The Arab system should learn from the Organization of American States (OAS). Reason: The inter-American system does not allow for interference in internal affairs. The Arab system is diseased by that interventionary germ. Illuminating examples: splintered Hamas, and petro-dollar puffed-up Qatar supporting the terroristic rebellion of the so-called Muslim Brotherhood inside big Egypt. A hopeless endeavor which the New Egypt is robustly confronting.

Now back to the need for this New Egypt, re-emerging into "the strong State" to practise the Art of Response. Just focusing on one recent report by David Kirkpatrick, New York Times correspondent in Cairo, and a consistent attacker of the policies of post-Islamist Egypt: His article is dated September 22, 2015, and its parsing (analytical examination) should serve as a sample for the need to learn the Art of Response.

In my view, the David Kirkpatrick article is a model of what appears to be deliberate animus toward post-Islamist Egypt. It is headed: "Egypt Destroying Far More Homes Than Buffer-Zone Plan Called For."

I shall use it as a sample illustrating the art of response as a demolition tool. Here is a suggested technique honed through my practise as a defense attorney.

First: Find consistency of bias by his paper - The New York Times.  And show how that consistency is in violation of the obvious facts. Bias is basically an irrational smothering of the facts. The New York Times has nearly always attacked post-Islamist Egypt through its editorials and its reporters based in Cairo. It is a bias in favor of the mother of terrorist organizations called the Muslim Brotherhood. That paper still regards the Brotherhood as a legal and peaceful opposition.

Second: Impeach the source or sources of that article. This one is fairly easy. The sources are invariably the same. Kirkpatrick invariably seeks out the same poisonous wells. In the case of this article, these are: Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization in search of funds. Through attempting to interpret the facts about the New Egypt to fit its own theoretical notions of what constitutes the upholding of human rights. It is a private corporation in search of aggression through intervening in internal affairs via the human rights pearly gate. Ignoring that in countries in transition, like Egypt, the collective rights of the populace trump the rights of the individual.

Third: Parsing the offending text: This is the coup de grace -the stage of the death blow through correct factual analysis. While doing so, put a big mirror fronting the faces of the likes of Kirkpatrick. This is intended to uncover the idiocy of bias through reporting. Here we cite only 3 excerpts.

• (1) "The government has destroyed more than 3,255 homes and other civilian buildings... More than 3,200 families have been displaced... And security forces are still in the process of levelling the entire border town of Rafah, which has a population of 78,000."
• Counter-points: Terrorism in Sinai is an outright warfare. Egypt is acting on the western adage: "Everything is fair in love and war." Sovereign Egypt cannot wage that war with its hands tied behind its back. Its military commanders are in no need of consulting before acting. US pilotless drones over Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen do not pre-warn their victims. I, have seen the huge devastation in Falluja, Iraq, during two US demolition operations. Following the total defeat of Nazi Germany, the allies in 1945 levelled the city of Dresden for no obvious defensive reasons.
• (2) "The government has produced no public evidence that militants have ever received weapons or aid through the tunnels."
• Counter-points: This is the abyss of idiocy. No need to cite instances of "public evidence," which Kirkpatrick himself ignores in making his mythical case. Common sense is sufficient evidence, when asking: "From where did the Gazan and other terrorists gotten their weapons? But thanks, David, for at least admitting that the tunnels exist or existed." But for what purpose? Please also note that when a weapon is smuggled through the tunnels dug by Gazans, the weapon is not stamped "Tunnel-Procured."
• On the very date of that offending Kirkpatrick article, US Congress heard testimony on the role of those tunnels in terror warfare. In a hearing for 2 hours before the Senate Armed Services committee. The witness was General David Petraeus, former CIA Director (2011-2012) and former Commander in Iraq and Afghanistan. So please hear him declare to the approbation of all committee members. "The Egyptian Government has done an excellent job in destroying those tunnels through which weapons flowed."
• (3) After a militant attack on a checkpoint killed 28 soldiers, the Sisi government announced plans for a buffer zone in October. 
• Counter-points: At long last, Kirkpatrick sets forth the legitimate reason for Egypt's need to create that buffer zone. But what he concedes by one hand, he, without shame, takes away by the other. That is particularly where he describes those legitimate actions by Cairo as "scorched-earth tactics." He conveniently forgets that Sinai was earth-scorched only twice, in 1956 and in 1967. During two wars of aggression by Israel against Egypt.

A buffer zone in Sinai to keep ISIS affiliates in Gaza, including the murderous terrorists of the so-called "the Province of Sinai" cannot compare in magnitude with US actions in 1941/42 against American citizens of Japanese descent. Remember the concentration campus established by the Roosevelt administration in which thousands of citizens were herded. Ostensible justification: national security in the aftermath of the sneaky attack by imperial Japan against Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

This is although Kirkpatrick is not the only example which could be used to demonstrate the art of response in rebuttal.

For we have other examples taken from the present campaign for nomination by the Republican party for US President in 2016. One of these is Dr. Ben Carson. An Afro-American physician who made a most egregious declaration against Islam and Muslims during a debate in Las Vegas.

Carson said that he regarded Islam as incompatible with the principles of the U.S. Constitution. Then added that therefore no Muslim could ever be president of the U.S. Yet contrary to Carson's demagogic assertion, my research in 2016 for the American Bar Association proved that Islamic Law and the U.S. Constitution have 80% of their principles in common.

So when the Carson campaign called me recently for a contribution, I fully employed my art of response. In my refusal to make a financial contribution, I could not possibly dwell on the virtues of Islam. Not to, a confirmed bigot. Therefore, I simply reminded that caller that Carson, through his racism, was endangering US security. By providing jihadists with ammunition for their claim that Islam was disrespected, denigrated. Worse still, that Islam was under attack.

Because of their idiocy, shameless individuals, like Kirkpatrick and Carson, deserve to be objects of the Arab proverb: "Those without shame have no limits to what they do or say!!"