Singapore, 2005

A few weeks ago, a young

Muslim lawyer in Singapore told me about a recent

experience he had had in an East Asian airport. Unlike

others holding Singaporean passports who were

clearing immigration, he was told to stand aside. When

he asked the reason, the immigration officer muttered

that there were "too many Mohamads" that day.

Smiling to himself, the Singaporean waited patiently

and peered around, wondering how long he had to wait.

The officer then warned him to stand still. He suddenly

felt a chill along his spine.

Muslims all over the world are being profiled by

security agencies. Since 11 September 2001, Muslims

travelling to Western countries have been subject to all

manner of interrogations and searches. Although the

profiling is now done more subtly now, it continues.

And in East Asia, profiling is increasing.

When sudden threats appear, perhaps it is natural

to expect a certain overreaction from the affected

communities. After Pearl Harbour, all Japanese people

living in America became suspect, including those born

there. Many were interned. By today's standards, that

was an affront. But at that time, it was widely felt to be

a necessary precaution. Shocked by that reaction,

Japanese-American leaders set out to prove their

Americanness, for example by forming the Japanese-

American 100th Infantry Battalion, which fought

heroically in the European theatre.

The travails of the Japanese-Americans were not

unique. Tribalism is a basic human instinct. We may

proclaim that all men are brothers, but we reflexively

distinguish degrees of closeness. Divisions of race,

language, culture and religion run deep in human

society and emerge under stress. The ascendancy of the

West in the past few centuries created tremendous

stress in non-Western communities, upsetting all

relationships and giving rise to a variety of responses,

all of which sought to reconcile each communityís

sense of self with the needs of a Western-defined

modernity. In Asia, for example, the re-emergence of

China and India on the global stage has been a

prolonged struggle of reconciling transformation with

tradition.

That is the broader historical context against

which the relationship between Muslims and non-

Muslims in the world must be viewed today. It is a

subject that concerns us all deeply in the United

Nations.

There are two evolving developments which feed

on each other. The first is change within Islam itself;

the other is the relationship between Muslims and non-

Muslims in different parts of the world. Both require

our close attention.

The response of the Islamic world to the

challenge of modernization will affect the development

of the entire world in this century. In some ways, it is

comparable to that of the Chinese response to

modernization, and it will probably take much longer.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth

century took place at about the same time as the

decline of the Qing Dynasty in China. Both collapsed

at the beginning of the twentieth century. After many

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twists and turns, China has finally re-emerged onto the

global stage with a bright future ahead of it.

There are about as many Muslims in the world as

there are Chinese. In contrast to China, however, the

Islamic world is unlikely to re-coalesce in the

foreseeable future. Once Ataturk refused the caliphate

and with iron determination started reforming Turkish

institutions on the Western model, the Islamic world

lost its centre. From then on, different Islamic societies

experimented with different approaches and moved in

different directions. It has been a mixed story.

The different responses of Muslim societies to the

challenge of modernization are accompanied by a great

ideological debate among political and religious

leaders. Good governance has become a major issue,

with calls for greater transparency and more

democracy. In this debate, it is natural that some

groups should look back to a romanticized period when

the Islamic world was united and pristine and seek its

re-establishment in the twenty-first century. Such were

the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood, which emanated

from Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The ideology of that movement continues to inspire

Islamic groups in various parts of the world today. If

only Muslims were to abide strictly by the teachings of

Islam, there would be no corruption, Governments

would be just and effective and Islamic societies would

become strong again.

In many Islamic countries at various times, these

groups have been suppressed for being subversive, and

those who funded them were thought to have ulterior

motives. This struggle for the soul of Islam is an

ongoing process. However, it is not a struggle unique

to Islam. For more than 200 years, Europe was

bloodied by religious wars, which ended only with the

Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which created the system

of modern European States. But even then, there was

still religious persecution, which led many Europeans

to flee to the New World. In the twentieth century, the

soul of Europe was torn by communism, fascism and

anti-Semitism. It was precisely to overcome those

divisions that the European Union was established by

stages, creating the longest period of peace on that

continent.

How Islamic society evolves in the coming

decades is mainly for Muslims to decide. Generally

speaking, non-Muslims would have no standing to

participate in this debate but for two factors which

have become critical and which have strategic

importance for us all.

The first factor is the emergence of the ideology

of Al-Qaida and its sister organizations, such as Al-

Jamaía al-Islamiyah. This ideology is a malignant

mutation of the ideas associated with the Muslim

Brotherhood and other groups that argued for a return

of Islamic society to an idealized past. It takes those

ideas to an extreme and preaches hatred against non-

Muslims worldwide, justifying violence against

innocent bystanders even if they are Muslim. The

suicide bomber has become a potent weapon in its

armoury. The followers of this ideology will not

hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction if they can

get their hands on them. We have a duty in the United

Nations to join in the global war against them.

The second factor necessitating the involvement

of non-Muslims in the Islamic debate is the growing

Muslim diaspora in many non-Islamic countries. As

minority communities, Muslims living in countries like

France and Germany, for example, have to accept

certain limitations in the practice of their religion. With

growing religiosity in recent years, issues like the

wearing of the headscarf have surfaced. What

constitutes a reasonable compromise varies from

country to country. For example, Singapore allows

aspects of sharia law to apply to Muslims, including

Muslim men being allowed four wives, although only

under stringent conditions. It would be hard for non-

Muslims to accept this in Europe.

The fact is that while some human values are

universal - and we should find more of them - many

are not. We have to accept this diversity in the world.

A greater tolerance of diversity in the world would

create better conditions for peaceful cooperation

between Muslims and non-Muslims and would

influence the debate within Islam itself.

If non-Muslims tar all Muslims with the brush of

terrorism and non-Muslim majority communities treat

minority Muslim communities as problem

communities, the future will be troubled for all of us.

In such a climate, Muslim extremists will gain

ascendancy, and the terrorists will find fertile ground

for recruitment everywhere.

It is ridiculous to argue that terrorism is inherent

in Islam. To do so is to play into the hands of the

terrorists. That such views are increasingly being

expressed in reputable journals and newspapers is

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troubling. Of course one could find blood-curdling

passages in the Koran and the Hadith, but these

passages must be read in context. We find similar

passages too in the Old Testament. As we would not,

therefore, argue that terrorism is inherent in Judaism

and Christianity, so we should not make Islam the

problem. That would be a big mistake. There were

periods in history when Islamic society was

considerably more advanced than Western society.

Equally, it would be a big mistake for Muslim

leaders to allow Muslim extremists to make claims on

behalf of Muslims worldwide without contest. This

causes non-Muslims to suspect that Muslims are

generally in sympathy with them. To be sure, there are

genuine grievances that have to be addressed, like

Palestine, Chechnya and the future of Iraq, but these

are issues that are more political than religious. The

strategy of the extremists is to polarize Muslims and

non-Muslims worldwide, thereby widening their base

of support. Muslim leaders have to counter this

strategy. It is also essential for them to reach out to

non-Muslim audiences as well. The recent bombings in

London led to a strong anti-Muslim backlash at the

grass roots that threatened the fabric of British society.

This in turn put pressure on Muslim leaders in the

United Kingdom to condemn the terrorists in clear

terms.

In the end, the fight against the terrorists has to

be won within Muslim communities themselves. It is a

battle for hearts and minds that requires Muslims to

work together with non-Muslims against a common

enemy.

We have to make a concerted effort to understand

each other better. With globalization, all societies have

become multiracial and multireligious to a greater or

lesser extent. The pluralism we hold as an ideal in the

United Nations is not a choice; it is a vital necessity.

In 1998, at its fifty-third session, the General

Assembly declared in resolution 53/22 that 2001 would

be the United Nations Year of Dialogue among

Civilizations. In 2001, at the fifty-sixth session, the

General Assembly adopted the Global Agenda for

Dialogue among Civilizations (resolution 56/6). And

this year the United Nations sponsored numerous

meetings on interfaith dialogue. A few months ago, the

first Asia-Middle East Dialogue was held in Singapore

to promote greater understanding between two

important regions of the world.

We need to translate our declarations of principle

into everyday language and into practice. Are there

limits to what politicians can say to win votes? Should

religious leaders be allowed to preach hatred, even in

close confines? What do we teach our children in

school? What does all this mean to the immigration

officer at the airport who does not know that

Mohammed is the most common name in the world?

Singapore, a cosmopolitan city-State with a

multiracial and multireligious population, is

particularly vulnerable. We have experienced ugly

racial and religious riots before and have learned that

racial and religious harmony should never be taken for

granted. It has been necessary for the Government to

involve itself in many aspects of ordinary life,

including discouraging Christian missionaries from

targeting Muslims for conversion, stopping mosques

from sharply turning up the volume of their

loudspeakers when calling the faithful to prayer,

limiting the size of joss sticks which Buddhists and

Taoists burn for their rituals and arresting those who

incite racial and religious hatred. What may appear to

be a small thing to one community can be a serious

provocation to another.

This has become the world we live in. We cannot

ignore the diversity around us in our everyday life or

the tribalism which is in our nature. We will continue

to disagree on many things such as the nature of

democracy, gender relationships, the death penalty,

stem-cell research and what we can or cannot eat. The

moment we dismiss those differences as unimportant,

or lightly condemn those who disagree with us, the

trouble begins.

Therefore, as we strive to achieve the Millennium

Goals in the United Nations - and they are worthy

Goals - a key task for us is to accept, even celebrate,

the differences that divide us in our daily lives. To

paraphrase Pope John-Paul II, it is only because we are

many that we are one, and the United Nations

expresses that ideal.