Close up: Zoned out By Salama A Salama Just as we need to look into the cultural divide between Islam and the West, we're drifting further towards unbridled consumerism. Look at what's happening in Ramadan. Life is turning into an obsessive ritual of dining and entertainment, with television offering endless soap operas that lack urgency or substance. Ramadan brings us a flood of artistic and not so artistic outpourings, none of which address our real problems. No one is thinking of how we can make things better for our co-religionists or the world beyond. No one is answering Western writers who question everything about Islam. No one is bothering to examine in depth the tenets of Islam, or explain its stand on violence. No one is telling us why Muslims have been so unable to adapt with the values of our time. Millions of Muslims live in the West, yet their host countries are becoming less hospitable by the day. The police monitor Muslim communities closely. Immigration restrictions are fashioned especially for people like us. And our countries are generally viewed with suspicion. In all Western airports, being an Arab or Muslim guarantees you unwelcome attention. Muslims are not welcome anywhere, or at least this is the message one gets from following developments in the Western world. As Muslim acts of violence increase, so does Western suspicions. The perpetrators of violence are not solely from our region. Muslim Asians and even European converts to Islam are often involved. And since 9/11, things haven't improved. Violence has spread from one European country to another, and now Muslims are all held to account. Conversion to Islam is currently frowned upon in Europe and America. Faith used to be an individual choice. Not anymore, and not after Muslim-related outrages were committed in one European capital after another. Now the Western media is railing against Muslims, and Western security services are not taking any chances. The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have worsened tensions between Muslim immigrants and their host countries. Several European countries were bitten. Several governments were caught in the middle between US wars and Muslim threats. Italy and Spain, for example, sent troops to Iraq then pulled them back. Germany declined to send troops to Iraq, but then had to humour the Bush administration with a dispatch of troops to Afghanistan. This too backfired. Two German Muslims and a Turkish man were implicated in a recent bomb plot in Germany. Things are getting worse for Muslims around the world. And the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are adding to increasing tensions. Suspicion of Muslims is on the rise, and not just because of Al-Qaeda's notoriety. Across Europe, Muslim communities have failed to integrate into their adopted countries. The West may be paranoid. But what we have here makes one yearn for good old paranoia. What was once fear of Muslim terror has morphed into fear of Islam as a religion. Westerners wonder whether Islam, as a faith and way of life, is to blame for what's happening. This is a question we can only ignore at our own risk. Suspicions about Islam as a faith have replaced suspicions about Muslims as individuals and groups. And when European converts begin engaging in violence, that doesn't exactly put us in good standing. Such is our dilemma, and yet we have no time to address it, what with all those Ramadan soaps we have to see!
