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September 21, 2006
Evidence from the Boston Globe
Globe:
Al Qasemi College, which was founded in 1989 as the first institute of Islamic higher education in Israel, is trying to export revolutionary openness and liberalism to the wider Islamic world, leaders of the faculty told educators, Jewish leaders, and local Muslims during a four-day visit to the Boston area that ended yesterday.
Speaking at campuses, mosques, and the homes of Muslims, the Al Qasemi faculty said that it is time for Muslims to quit blaming others and examine their own responsibility for the troubles of Islamic civilization; time for Arab Israelis to call themselves Israelis, not Palestinians; and, above all, time for women to have full equality with men in the Muslim world.
All these assertions are considered radical, even incendiary, in much of the Arab Muslim world. But Mohammad Essawi , the president of the college, said such changes in thinking are needed to transform an education system in the Islamic world "that is still in the 12th century and does not have an open mind."
"There is a huge opportunity to teach openness and pluralism in these societies," Essawi said yesterday.
Posted by Post Scripts at September 21, 2006 08:01 AM
Comments
Kudos to Essawi, but I can only imagine how this will go over in the places where it's most needed. He better not plan any trips to the middleast...ever again. There's probably a fatwah out already with his name on it.
About the only place a moderate Muslim can talk freely about reform and accepting Israel is here and I'm not so sure about that anymore. Essawi better watch his back.
Posted by: Jack at September 21, 2006 08:12 AM
Jack, You are so right. Essawi is certainly a very courageous person...Al Qasemi College is also now a target. We are so used to our freedom. This is happening in America, it's surreal. There are times when I think I must be dreaming...we walked through a door into another reality, a reality only visited by most of us in a darkened theater...and the lights come up and it's over. Perhaps this is why our friends on the left are having such a hard time getting it...it isn't yet real for them.
Posted by: Tina at September 21, 2006 09:21 PM
I desperately hope that this will succed
Posted by: Nick Freitas at September 22, 2006 04:30 PM