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	The Peacemaker - Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf by Geraldine Doogue ABC Online   Dec18, 2005   Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a major international Muslim scholar and activist who is emerging as a global leader in addressing interfaith conflict.   Geraldine Doogue: This week’s clashes on Sydney’s beaches and the subsequent attack on churches have been a real shock. And forced us to re-think out public codes of behaviour in places like this especially as we head into the summer holiday season. Never has the voice of Interfaith reason and peace been more critical, so we bring you the Peacemaker, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who visited Australia earlier this year.   Imam Feisal is a prominent American Muslim Scholar and cleric, and since September 11 he’s emerged as a global leader addressing issues of interfaith conflict, he brings a powerful message of peace and hope but he also offers some practical steps to help diffuse, cultural and intercommunity tensions.   Imam Feisal is on a global mission to heal the relationship between Muslims and the West. His prayer mat has been spread in hotel rooms around the world where he’s now emerging as a prominent peace activist.   Imam Feisal: You cannot win this by brute force alone. You have to use finesse and you have to use Islamic arguments.   Geraldine Doogue: This is Imam Feisal’s second visit to Australia. He is sought after not only by inter-faith activists, but also by politicians aiming to diffuse community tensions.   Bob Carr: I think he’s a voice who is saying clash of civilisations is wrong. We all share this planet, we’ve got to find ways of having a dialogue with one another.   Narration: A key part of the Imam’s strategy is reaching out to other faith traditions, especially to Jewish people.   Norman Schueler: He enunciates the things that we like to hear, namely that there are possibilities of normal relationships between Jews and Muslims.   Narration: And wherever he goes he addresses local Muslims – and speaks out against terrorism.   Imam Feisal: Islam is against terrorism; terrorism has no place in Islam…   Irfan Yusuf: He didn’t scream and shout his message. He was the complete opposite of what people regard as the typical firebrand Sheik… I could look at him and say, “Yes, I’m proud to be Muslim.   Narration: The day Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf arrived the world was reeling from news of the London bombings.   Imam Feisal : I felt nauseous. I felt deeply aggrieved and very upset about it   Narration: As soon as he landed here he was met by local journalists… The London bombings are the latest terrorist attacks that Imam Feisal has had to contend with. His mosque in lower Manhattan is close to Ground Zero. I first met him in New York City when he was still dealing with the aftermath of September 11 and he was at the center of debates about Islam. Born in Kuwait into an Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship, he was educated in Britain, Malaysia and the United States, where his family eventually settled.   Geraldine (interview): I want to take you back to your own formation. How did your upbringing do you think reflect upon the man you’ve become?   Imam Feisal: I went through a major identity crisis, not knowing if I was Arab or English or Malay, whether I was oriental or occidental. And the personal journey I went through to both assimilate all aspects of those components of my life experience into an identity was a very difficult and challenging task. But it also prepared me for the work that I am doing as a bridge figure between the West in general and the Islamic world in particular.   Geraldine (interview): So when people start turning to violence or extremism, what does that suggest to you about their identity?   Imam Feisal: If I were a young man today going through the identity crisis I went through, not knowing if I was a western or eastern and hearing the notion of clash of civilisation I could very easily see myself internalising that clash of civilisation… And find myself attracted to making a decision either for western, against Islamic or vice versa. And that’s the danger in how some of these ideas are expressed and projected in the marketplace of ideas.   Narration: At his public lectures Imam Feisal offers insights into why some young Muslims turn to violence.   Imam Feisal at Hawke Centre Lecture: How many of you have seen the documentary Farenheit 9/11? Remember the scene of the Iraqi woman whose house was bombed and she was just screaming, “What have they done?” … Her house was gone, her husband was killed, I think, “What wrong did he do?” I found myself weeping when I watched that scene and I imagined myself, if I were a 15-year-old nephew of this deceased man, what would I have felt?
	France sets Slavery Memorial Day by Reuters, BBC News, The Guardian France   Jan. 2006   France sets Slavery Memorial Day. (Reuters)   French President Jacques Chirac has announced a memorial day to mark the abolition of slavery, his latest attempt to soothe racial tension stoked by winter riots and a law on the country"s colonial past.   Chirac said France should be proud of its history in a speech delivered days after he told his government partially to repeal a law encouraging French teachers to paint a positive picture of the country"s colonial history. The law had caused anger in the country"s overseas territories, forcing Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to cancel a visit to the French West Indies last December.   "A country"s greatness lies in accepting all of its history, with its glorious pages but also those steeped in shadow," Chirac told members of a committee working to ensure that France"s slave-trading past is not forgotten. "Our history is that of a grand nation. Let"s look at it proudly. Let"s look at it as it was," he said. Chirac set the memorial day for May 10, the anniversary of the Senate"s adoption of a 2001 law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity. The day would be marked by events in mainland France, its overseas territories and also in Africa.   Pressure groups pushing for recognition of France"s role in the slave trade were outraged by a law last year that urged teachers to stress the "positive role of the French presence overseas, especially in North Africa".   The law, quietly passed last February, became politically explosive when lawmakers from the ruling Union for a Popular Movement refused opposition calls to revoke it in November after riots by youths, many of North African and black African origin. Critics said the debate raised questions on whether France, whose empire ended in wars in Indochina and Algeria, had learnt anything from its colonial experience.   Following the riots, the government has promised to tackle racial discrimination that was seen as one of the underlying causes of the violence in poor suburbs around France. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was set to meet ministers later on Monday to discuss racism and anti-Semitism.   Jan. 2006   Chirac proposes end to colonial law. (BBC News)   French President Jacques Chirac has said a controversial law on the teaching of France"s colonial past will be overturned. The law requires teachers to stress positive aspects of French colonialism, especially in north Africa. But during a New Year address, Mr Chirac said the law was "dividing the French" and should be rewritten.   MPs from the Socialist and Communist parties say rewriting the law is not enough and it should be scrapped. Victorin Lurel, from Guadeloupe, whose Socialist Party had tried to block the law, said: "The only solution is to repeal this law of shame, pure and simple."   The colonial history law was passed by the conservative-led parliament in February last year. Overseas minister Francois Baroin told France Inter radio the law was a sore point for French people whose families came from the former colonies.   Around 44,000 people signed a petition calling for the law to be repealed. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was forced to cancel a planned trip to France"s Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe by the risk of angry protests, according to AFP.   Dec. 2005 (The Guardian)   A new law calling on schools to promote positive views of French colonialism has provoked outrage.   The ghosts of France"s colonial past have returned to haunt its present, to the embarrassment of the centre right government and the fury of historians and immigrant associations.   A heated debate is currently raging over what to do about article four of the so-called Law of February 23 2005, an amendment slipped in unnoticed during the final stages of the bill"s passage through parliament.   The disputed clause, inserted by a group of provocative rightwing MPs headed by Christian Vanneste, currently on trial for alleged homophobia, reads: "School courses should recognise in particular the positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in north Africa."   This has upset historians, on the grounds that the state should not write history. It has angered the left, from socialists through communists to Trotskyists, which, in an all too rare display of unity, has come together to demand that the clause be scrapped (and gathered 180,000 signatures for a petition to that effect).   It has infuriated immigrant groups and citizens in France"s overseas territories, who know full well that "the French presence overseas" was, on occasion, every bit as brutal and exploitative as that of any other colonising power. And it has severely embarrassed the government.   The prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, has repeatedly confirmed in the national assembly and on television that there is "no official history" in France, and that it is "not up to parliament to interpret our past".   But, with the more or less willing backing of his UMP party, he has so far refused to countenance any immediate move to repeal the law, preferring instead to wait for the results of a three-month parliamentary inquiry ordered this week by President Jacques Chirac.   (Mr Chirac is plainly feeling less than comfortable himself with the whole matter: in the same breath as ordering the inquiry, he stressed that "the recording of our collective memory can only be a task for historians", and promptly proposed a national day of remembrance for the descendants of French slaves.)   In the assembly this week, Mr de Villepin resorted to the kind of patriotic lyricism he always indulges in when he is unsure of himself. "I am proud to be French, and I accept all France"s history," he insisted, to howls of "Repeal, repeal!" from the opposition benches.   "We are a great nation that has known hard times and grandeur. In our history there are exemplary battles, the affirmation of the ideals that has forged our identity, the great principle of the 1789 revolution," he added.   There are also a number of less glorious episodes. In the words of a second petition signed by 1,000 historians, writers, intellectuals and entertainers, "In retaining only the positive aspects of colonialism, this law imposes an official lie on massacres that at times went as far as genocide, on the slave trade, and on the racism that France has inherited today."   Leading historians are outraged. "In Japan, a law defines the contents of history lessons and textbooks minimise Japan"s responsibility in the Sino-Japanese war," said one eminent professor, Pierre Vidal-Naquet. "If France wants to be like that, it"s going the right way about it."   Immigrant groups and angry citizens of France"s overseas territories are less concerned with state interference in the teaching of history than with the cruel lie that the clause perpetuates. Like most forms of colonialism, the French empire caused enormous suffering.   Laws governing how certain periods of history should be taught in French schools have been passed before: a 1990 law outlaws denial of the Holocaust and a 2001 law dictates that the slave trade be described as a crime against humanity. But those episodes are unambiguous.   "The reality of the Holocaust and slave trade is self-evident," said Thierry Le Bars, a law professor at Caen University, who has also signed the petition. "It is by no means self-evident that France"s colonialism was positive. Think of the ignoble legal status of the Muslims in Algeria, of the massacre of up to 5,000 Algerians in Setif in 1945, of all the unfortunates who endured the hell of slavery to assure France"s Caribbean prosperity."   Feelings are running so high in the Caribbean departements of Martinique and Guadeloupe that Nicolas Sarkozy, was forced to call off a planned visit last week in the face of impassioned marches and the threat of further protests.   "This law is an insult to our forefathers and wholly unacceptable in a democratic republic," said a spokesman for one Martinican association, the Collective for the Repeal of the Law of Shame. "Imagine how the reaction would be in mainland France if a road was suddenly renamed Benefits of German Wartime Occupation Street."   http://memorial.nantes.fr/en/slavery-yesterday-and-today/ Visit the related web page
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