Newest edition of CGNews-PiH ; for constructive & vibrant Muslim-Western relations

Common Ground News Service
Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)

for constructive & vibrant Muslim-Western relations

24 - 30 January 2007

If this email is not displaying properly, click here.


The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about
Muslim-Western relations. CGNews-PiH is available in Arabic, English,
French and Indonesian. To subscribe, click here.


For an archive of past CGNews articles and other information, please
visit our website at www.commongroundnews.org.


Unless otherwise noted, copyright permission has been obtained and
articles may be reprinted by any news outlet or publication. Please
acknowledge both the original source and the Common Ground News Service
(CGNews).

Inside this edition

1) Islamic banking - opportunity or threat? by Rodney Wilson

In the fifth and final article in our series on economics and
Muslim-Western relations, Rodney Wilson, director of postgraduate
studies at Durham University's Institute for Middle Eastern and
Islamic Studies, considers the emergence of Islamic banking in the
West. Looking at how it is being implemented as well as what this means
for both Muslims and non-Muslims, he argues that banking should be
about "extending choice, not restricting options".
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 23 January 2006)

2) Iranians' love affair with America by Ali G. Scotten

Ali G. Scotten, a PhD student in anthropology at the University of
Chicago and former Fulbright scholar, describes the opinions of
Iranians about US-Iran relations as experienced during his recent trip
to Iran. Suggesting that when it comes to hearts and minds, Iranians
already appreciate America and Americans, he warns that "U.S.
intervention seems to be the only issue that will unite most Iranians
with the Islamic regime" and against the United States.
(Source: Christian Science Monitor, 19 January 2007)

3) Religious symbols in public spaces by Tariq Ramadan

In light of the debate over religions symbols taking place in many
countries in the West, Tariq Ramadan, professor of Islamic Studies and
senior research fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford University,
asks "who can confirm with any certainty what he or she has the right
to say, to show?" Looking at various human rights and freedoms, he
explains what we can do to exercise our various freedoms while
appreciating our diversity.
(Source: www.tariqramadan.com, 2 January 2007)

4) It's "complicated" for a Muslim in America by Mona Eltahawy

Mona Eltahawy, a New York-based journalist and commentator, describes
the answer she gives when people ask her what it's like for Muslims
in the United States after 9/11. Providing a series of stories that
illustrate her complicated answer, she summarises: "Two Americans,
two views."
(Source: www.muslimwakeup.com, 10 January 2007)

5) Why is everyone so paranoid? by Olivia Snaije

Olivia Snaije, a Europe-based contributor to Lebanon's Daily Star,
describes a London exhibition on paranoia by Belgrade-born
curator/artist Predrag Pajdic inspired by the atmosphere of fear and
hysteria that has become the stuff of everyday life since 9/11. Pajdic
explains, "The pumped-up stories in the media were actually fuelling
this paranoia. Westerners were portrayed as liberators. Then what were
all the other people? I tried to see the Middle Eastern side of the
story as well."
(Source: Daily Star, 16 January 2007)


1) Islamic banking - opportunity or threat?
Rodney Wilson


Durham, England - Islamic banking, which implies the avoidance of
interest, has become a substantial industry during the last four
decades. One obvious question is whether its emergence further
segregates Muslims from Western values and norms, creating a financial
ghetto. An alternative view is that as increasing numbers of people in
the West are dissatisfied or sceptical about the banking services they
receive, and see them as exploitative or even unethical, the emergence
of Islamic banking with its own distinctive morality results in Islam
projecting a much more positive face.

Many Western bankers view Islamic finance as a curiosity, and perhaps
even a business opportunity, but seldom as a threat comparable to that
from Muslim extremism. Indeed, Islamic banking and finance can be
regarded as a gentler aspect of Islam, and one that lends itself to
dialogue between Westerners and Muslims.

Islamic retail financial institutions, including the Islamic Bank of
Britain, the European Islamic Investment Bank and Lariba Bank in
California, are now well established in a number of Western countries.
Furthermore, the leading international banks, including Citibank, HSBC
Amanah, Deutsche Bank and UBS of Switzerland, all offer Islamic
deposits and shari'a-compliant financing facilities.

There has been much dialogue between the Western bankers working in
these institutions and the shari'a scholars who advise what is, and
what is not, permissible. This dialogue extends to insurance, where
Islamic takaful companies have become increasingly active, their
distinguishing feature being that they do not hold conventional
interest-yielding bonds, and that shareholder funds and premiums paid
by policy holders cannot be co-mingled, which could result in the
former exploiting the latter's misfortune.

As shari'a is about universal, divinely inspired principles rather
than national laws, leading international law firms have also become
involved in Islamic banking and finance, as contracts need to be
drafted under English or American law in a way that is consistent with
shari'a. Indeed, the main job of the shari'a committee members who
serve on the boards of Islamic banks and conventional banks offering
Islamic products is to ensure that new contracts are compatible with
shari'a principles and, if they are not, to pursue a dialogue with
the lawyers concerning amendments and redrafting.

The aspiration of many Islamists is to have divinely inspired shari'a
replacing man-made laws, perhaps even the establishment of a universal
caliphate under which everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim, should live. Not
surprisingly, such an aspiration is unacceptable for most non-Muslims,
and indeed for many Muslims, as it denies choice.

Islamic banking and finance can point the way forward: it is about
extending choice, not restricting options. As each institution has its
own shari'a board, shari'a compliance is effectively privatised,
rather than being a matter of national law. Indeed, each shari'a
board passes its own fatwas, or religious rulings, which further
extends choice in the marketplace for religious ideas. Religion, of
course, flourishes under competitive conditions and Islam is no
exception, whereas when it is nationalised, its adherents soon become
alienated.

The Islamic Republic of Iran can be regarded as an example of how not
to encourage the development of Islamic banking and finance. There, all
banking has been shari'a- compliant since the Law on Interest Free
Banking was passed in 1983. Bank clients have therefore no choice but
to use the shari'a system. The banks, however are state-owned and
have little autonomy, even in determining what deposit and financing
products to offer. They also do not have shari'a committees, the
argument being that this is unnecessary as the law ensures shari'a
compliance in any case.

The result has been that banking development has been slow, there is
little financial innovation, and most Iranians do not have bank
accounts. In contrast, on the Arab side of the Gulf and in Malaysia,
where Islamic and conventional banks compete, Islamic banks have
attractive products on offer and an growing client base. Al Rajhi Bank
of Saudi Arabia has become the world's largest Islamic retail bank,
and its range of services and delivery channels compares favourably
with the best that Western banks can offer.

Islamic banking is here to stay, is an opportunity rather than a
threat, and has an exciting future. Gaps remain -- there is no Islamic
bank in Israel for example to serve its Muslim population. But if the
Central Bank of Israel licensed such an entity it could create much
goodwill. It might also encourage the Jewish population living there to
question whether the operations of their own banks are compatible with
religious teaching in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Ultimately Islamic banking and finance is about the emergence of a
distinctively Islamic form of capitalism that may co-exist and interact
with Western, Chinese, Russian or any other capitalism. Such a
development should be welcomed and facilitated, and not hindered or
suppressed.

###

* Rodney Wilson is director of postgraduate studies at Durham
University's Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. He is
co-editor of The Politics of Islamic Finance and co-author of Islamic
Economics: A Short History. This article is part of a series on
economics and Muslim-Western relations distributed by the Common Ground
News Service (CGNews), and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Visit the Washington Post's interactive website to join the
discussion on this article -
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2007/01/west_should_promote_islamic_ba.html.


Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 23 January 2007,
www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.


2) Iranians' love affair with America
Ali G. Scotten


Tehran, Iran - "What do Americans think about us?" asked an old lady
on the bus. That was the question most often asked of me during my
three-month stay in Iran last year. Messages to the American people
were also common. "Tell the Americans that we're not crazy, scary
people," she continued. Her comment came after she and others had been
dancing in the aisle (with curtains drawn so the police wouldn't see)
while the rest of us - along with the driver - clapped as we raced
down the highway. So maybe they are crazy. But in a good way.

Many Westerners are afraid to come to the Middle East nowadays, and
understandably so. But it's at times like these when face-to-face
contact is most crucial. As I travelled alone through the Iranian
countryside conducting anthropological research, I took note of local
opinions about US-Iran relations. I was heartened by what I heard.

After speaking with numerous Iranians from all walks of life - lower
and upper class, religious and secular, Westernised and traditional,
government-affiliated and civilian - I became convinced that this
vilified member of the "Axis of Evil" is actually one of the most
welcoming places for Americans to travel in the Middle East. Indeed,
all Iranians with whom I spoke shared a positive opinion of Americans.

Iranians don't hate America. On the contrary, many of them envy
Americans to an unrealistic degree and think of the United States as a
paradise, a land where no problems exist.

One encounters this sentiment in even the most unexpected places. For
instance, when I ran into problems renewing my visa, an austere senior
official at the immigration ministry offered to help. "Because you're
American, I'll do this for you," he said. This was not unusual.
Generally friendly to foreigners, Iranians were especially friendly to
me once they discovered I was American. It was as if they were trying
to prove a point. "Go home and tell the Americans we like them," the
official continued. "You know, I have family in Chicago. Can you help
me go see them?" On the way out, a soldier in the lobby was excited to
see my passport, handling it as one would a priceless object. "How can
I come study in America?" he wanted to know.

Paralleling Iranians' favourable opinions of Americans as a people,
however, is their unified opposition to any U.S. government
intervention in their country. This directly contradicts what Vice
President Cheney and others believe - that if the United States were
to attack, the population would rise up to help the Americans fight the
Iranian regime. In fact, U.S. intervention seems to be the only issue
that will unite most Iranians with the Islamic regime.

We can blame the Bush administration's poor grasp of daily realities in
Iran on an almost three-decade-long freeze of contact between the
American and Iranian governments. As a result of this isolation,
so-called experts who have never been to Iran (or at least not since
the Islamic Revolution of 1979) advise U.S. government officials on the
opinions of the Iranian populace. The comment by one influential US
scholar comparing Iran to a concentration camp in which people would
rather be bombed than live another day under such conditions, is a
glaring example of misinformation.

At a private party in a trendy suburb of Tehran, I sat down with a
group of young professionals as they relaxed after a busy workweek.
Iran is not like a concentration camp, they assured me. Yes, they're
repressed by government restrictions, but they find ways to get around
them.

In fact, politics was the last thing on their minds - that is, until
I brought up the possibility of U.S. intervention. "As much as I
despise this regime, I love my country more," said Reza, a
20-something. "If America were to attack Iran, I would be the first to
lay down my life. Ask anyone and you'll hear the same."

And indeed I did. Whether they were the village teenagers in southern
Iran who took me to eat chicken kabob and drink smuggled Turkish beer
in the forest, or Hamid, the opium smuggler in Bam who moonlighted as a
taxi driver, the reactions were the same: though unhappy with the
Iranian regime, they would join forces with the mullahs to deter an
outside attack. Listening to them speak, I couldn't help but think that
these young moderates could well become the future insurgents in an
expanded regional conflict.

This may be avoided if we actually listen to the voices coming out of
Iran. Iranians are overwhelmingly in favour of normalising relations
with the US, but oppose any intervention in their nation's internal
affairs. Forces seem to be aligning in favour of direct dialogue
between the two estranged governments.

Pragmatic voices are wresting control from both neoconservatives in the
US and their fundamentalist counterparts in Iran. Opening up relations
with Iran is not appeasement; it's necessary because it allows
home-grown democratic forces to work on their own terms.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, overt U.S. calls for regime change and
direct support of dissidents and NGOs have a negative effect on Iranian
civil society because they result in government crackdowns and increase
popular anger aimed at the American government.

In the dispute over nuclear enrichment, the stakes are growing higher
each day. If Iraq is the beginning of the end for security and goodwill
toward America, then an attack on Iran would be the nail in the coffin.
We should take Iranian nationalism seriously when even Shirin Ebadi, a
Nobel Peace Prize winner, vows, "We will defend our country to the last
drop of our blood. We will not let an alien soldier set foot on the
land of Iran."

We must instead convince the Iranian people - through displaying the
courage to open dialogue with the ruling regime - that we are
committed to furthering our shared ideals of universal life, liberty,
and justice.

###

* Ali G. Scotten is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of
Chicago and former Fulbright scholar. This abridged article is
distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be
accessed at www.commongroundnews.org. For the full visit
www.csmonitor.com.

Source: Christian Science Monitor, 19 January 2007, www.csmonitor.com
Copyright © The Christian Science Monitor. For reprint permission
please contact lawrenced@xxxxxxxxx


3) Religious symbols in public spaces
Tariq Ramadan


London - There is nothing unique about the controversy over religious
symbols that raged over the Christmas holiday in Canada. In the wake of
heated debate over the issue of the headscarf in France, many Western
countries have been the scene of similar protests. These have targeted
excessively visible crucifixes, then overly prominent minarets in
Switzerland; there have been complaints against "offensive"
religious garb in Holland and England, and the latest is a series of
curious decisions involving the removal of Christmas trees in the
United States and Canada. At every turn, we are confronted with
impassioned and irrational reactions that either feed into a sense of
victimisation among those who see Islamophobia wherever they turn, or
that magnify the feeling that a country's cultural homogeneity is at
risk, that it is being colonised by a foreign religion.

So acute has this sensitivity become that legal or artistic authorities
anticipate negative reactions, and even take preventive measures. One
has only to look at Germany, where an opera by Mozart was recently
postponed because a single telephone caller suggested it would be
unacceptable to Muslims. In Canada, Christmas trees are dismantled
because they might offend non-Christians.

Discomfort levels in our societies are rising, or so it would seem. In
theory, we invoke diversity and tolerance. But in real life, we raise
our hackles and withdraw into ourselves. Today, who can confirm with
any certainty what he or she has the right to say, to show? Is the
expression of difference commensurate with the rights of citizenship?
The situation is serious; the dangers we face should not be
trivialised.

It is urgent to remind ourselves that what allows us to live together
in mutual respect is the legal framework - the common legislation -
that makes all citizens equal before the law. Within this framework,
which forms the basis for the rule of law, and which all citizens and
permanent residents must recognise, fundamental freedoms must be
respected. These include the freedom of conscience, of religion, of
expression and of movement. In recent years we have witnessed a slow,
steady erosion of these basic rights, which are being called into
question in a particularly insidious manner.

The debate over multiculturalism and identity has become saturated with
these questions, these fears, these raised hackles. The problem is not
one of legislation but our own fears and perceptions, which divide us,
set us against one another, and incite some to attempt to change the
law. What is unfolding before our very eyes is a sharp "clash of
perceptions". If we do not exercise due caution, we stand to forfeit
not only our confidence in ourselves and in our fellow citizens, but
also our freedoms, which would first affect Muslims, then impact later
upon all citizens.

Some believe that the only solution is to obliterate all religious or
cultural symbols that indicate difference. This would, its advocates
argue, ensure equality and avoid giving offence. The display of
diversity, others contend, can only minimise possible fears. But the
process of globalisation reminds us every day that it is not enough to
observe differences for us to be able to understand them in a positive
way.

However, we are unlikely to overcome the fear of diversity and
difference by hiding them or over-exposing them. The debate can take
place in a climate of serenity on three conditions.

First, we must respect the law of the land and apply it in equitable
fashion to all citizens, and with respect to every religious and
cultural community.

Second, rather than calling for the removal of all distinctive signs
from public space, these signs should be, as a matter of urgency, made
an integral part of the educational curriculum. Our pluralist society
must provide its citizens with the tools to understand religions, their
symbols and their practices. To overcome fears, we must offer proper
instruction to our young people; we must cultivate their understanding
and their critical spirit. This means acquiring a better understanding
of the other's philosophical and cultural orientations: seeing the
other's world as a source of richness, and not as a threat.

The third condition concerns both common sense and civility. We must
become accustomed to debating social issues in a thoroughgoing and
critical way, without trading on our principles, and without confusing
criticism with mindless, hurtful and sometimes ill-intended and
cowardly provocation. In the guise of defending freedom of thought,
some intellectuals, journalists and politicians are actually
legitimising the racist hate-speech that is undermining our
democracies, thus generating exactly the opposite of what they claim to
defend.

To aspire to such a responsible, reasonable expression of diversity in
our societies, we must explain, educate and learn to know one another
and to know and respect our neighbours. It is up to us to decide how we
will exercise our freedoms.

###

* Tariq Ramadan is a professor of Islamic Studies and senior research
fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford University and at Lokahi
Foundation, London. He is also President of the European think-tank,
European Muslim Network (EMN), in Brussels. This article is distributed
by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at
www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: www.tariqramadan.com, 2 January 2007
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.


4) It's "complicated" for a Muslim in America
Mona Eltahawy


New York, New York - I was born in Egypt but moved to the U.S. in
2000 and am eligible for citizenship this year. During my most recent
visit to Egypt in November, I came up with what I thought was the
perfect answer to that near-universal "What's it like for Muslims
over there after 9/11?"

"It's complicated," I'd say.

And I'd tell this story.

On Sept. 11, 2001, my brother and his wife were visiting me in Seattle,
where I lived at the time. They are both physicians who work in the
U.S. We did not leave my apartment for two days after the attacks
because we worried that my sister-in-law, who wears a headscarf, would
be harassed or attacked as we had heard happened to Muslims and those
who appeared to be Muslim.

As it happened, she was treated very kindly. Other Muslim women were
not so lucky. One Muslim woman was almost run over by a car and another
woman I knew - a Pakistani American Muslim - told me while out with
her husband one evening, a group of young men asked him "What's it
like to (sleep with) a terrorist?"

A few days after 9/11, a man poured gasoline in the local mosque's
parking lot and tried to set it on fire but was stopped by two men
coming out of night prayers. He pulled out a gun and tried to shoot
them but he was too drunk to aim straight and when he tried to flee in
his car, he drove into a tree. He was arrested soon after.

The next day, and for weeks afterwards, two people from the
neighbourhood around the mosque stood a 24-hour guard outside it
holding placards that read "Muslims are Americans".

One of the two Muslim men who stopped the wannabe-arsonist visited him
in jail and told him he forgave him. The Muslim told authorities he
wanted to drop charges. They told him it was too late. So he testified
in defence of the man who tried to shoot him. Instead of getting 75
years in jail upon his conviction, that man got six-and-a-half years.

On a more personal note, my brother was one of the 5,000 Muslim men
interviewed by the FBI shortly after 9/11 and he had to submit to
Special Registration that required he be fingerprinted and photographed
for the records of Homeland Security.

More positively, my sister-in-law is the only female OB/GYN doctor in a
small Ohio town where her waiting list is long and it matters little
that she wears a headscarf. I am sure her patients think that it
matters even less that she reads the Koran whereas they read the Bible
or the Torah.

At times you can see the two Americas talk and argue and it's a
conversation more of us should hear.

I was lucky enough to be privy to it during my first visit to the White
House at the end of 2005. There, kneeling outside the President's
residence a young man wore an orange jumpsuit, Guantanamo style. His
hands were tied behind him and he wore a hood over his head. In front
of him was a white *** of board with the words "End torture now"
written across it.

In Egypt, I had marched in several street protests against President
Hosni Mubarak. None of them took place in front of our White House.
Also, Egypt is the number one destination for renditions - the
process by which U.S. secret service agents abduct terrorism suspects
and take them to friendly, compliant countries where human rights
records leave much to be desired but enough to do what the Americans
apparently didn't want to do themselves - torture. My country was
doing the U.S. administration's dirty work.

So I wanted to thank this young man. As I walked up to him to start a
conversation, a girl who looked like she was on a school trip
approached him.

"Do you hate President Bush?" she asked him.

"Umm, no. I'd have to say I hate what he does but I don't hate
him."

"Because of Iraq?"

"Yeah. We've killed a lot of people over there, a lot of women and
children," all this said from under his hood, with his hands tied
behind his back.

"Well they've been mean too," the girl replied.

"The women and the children?"

At this point, an adult chaperoning the children took her away. I
stepped in and talked to the young demonstrator.

"Do a lot of Americans talk to you about your demonstration?" I
asked him.

"Not really," he said. "Just those who disagree, like that man
who just took the girl away."

"Well I want to thank you for what you're doing. Torture is
systematic in my country and Egypt is the number one destination for
rendition"

"Please go and tell him that," the young man said.

So off I went, looking for trouble.

I found them. "Excuse me. I want you to know that I really appreciate
what that man is doing. Torture in my country, Egypt, is systematic and
it doesn't help anything."

"So maybe we should send them all picnic baskets and flowers,
then," he said, referring to the men held at Guantanamo for years
without trial.

"No, but torture doesn't help. Egypt is the number one destination
for rendition and I'm telling you torture doesn't help anything."

"They kill women and children in your country too," he said.

"I know and that's why I'm telling you that torture doesn't
help. It hasn't ended any of that."

"Well then maybe you should try democracy," he said.

"We want to. Maybe if your administration stopped supporting my
dictator, we could," I replied.

And there again you have- two Americans, two views.

###

*Mona Eltahawy is a New York-based journalist and commentator and a
frequent lecturer internationally on Arab and Muslim issues. Her web
site is www.monaeltahawy.com. This article is distributed by the Common
Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at
www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: www.muslimwakeup.com, 10 January 2007
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.


5) Why is everyone so paranoid?
Olivia Snaije


London - "I first felt paranoia in 1999 when I was in London watching
the [NATO] bombardments of Belgrade on television," says Predrag
Pajdic, curator of a new exhibition in London entitled "Paranoia".
The Belgrade-born artist echoes what many Lebanese in exile experienced
during the country's 1975-1990 Civil War: "I felt anxious, hopeless
and useless."

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the ensuing war in Iraq and
the bombings of London's underground transport system, Pajdic became
fascinated by the atmosphere of fear and hysteria that had become the
stuff of everyday life.

"I concentrated on what was being broadcast on television," he
recalls. "The pumped-up stories in the media were actually fuelling
this paranoia. Westerners were portrayed as liberators. Then what were
all the other people? I tried to see the Middle Eastern side of the
story as well."

The concept of a mixed-media exhibition of artworks reflecting on such
subjects as distrust, suspicion, delusion, fear and terror began coming
together. Pajdic also noticed that exhibitions inspired by politics in
the UK were few and far between.

"Escapist art is so popular but it's disconnected from reality,"
he says. "It's not what I'd call contemporary art."

With dogged perseverance, Pajdic hounded Arts Council England - the
UK's national development agency for the arts - until he was given
a grant. Other funding bodies, such as the Henry Moore Foundation,
quickly followed suit. Some 40 artists from the United States, Lebanon,
Israel, Palestine, Serbia and Bosnia submitted work interpreting the
effects of recent events, resulting in an exhibition of digital
technology, conceptual art, performance pieces, photographs, videos,
installations and drawings.

"Paranoia" is now on its third and final stop in a travelling
circuit. It opened in London last week to a packed house. And it
wasn't just any house. Pajdic has tackled serious subjects with a
twinkle in his eye. The Freud Museum, located in the last home Sigmund
Freud lived in, is currently hosting the show.

Moreover, as if to prove Pajdic's point, the day before the opening
London's widely read tabloid newspaper, the Evening Standard,
published an article entitled "Film of 9/11 terrorists celebrating is
displayed at art show". On the opposite page the headline declared
"Mosque 'promotes fundamentalists preaching hatred.'"

The first article described in detail a video by Lebanese-Danish artist
Khaled Ramadan in which he shows footage of Islamic propaganda. It also
described a film by "Palestinian" artist Doron Solomons. For the
record, Khaled Ramadan's video does not figure in the show, and Doron
Solomons is an Israeli artist. Pajdic could not have invented a more
perfect example of media manipulation to prove the necessity and
timeliness of his exhibition.

The work that Khaled Ramadan has contributed to the show is in fact one
shiny red raincoat, hanging casually from the loom of Freud's
youngest daughter Anna (she was a keen weaver). On the back of the
raincoat an inscription in Arabic reads simply: "I am an Arab".

"As the world looks today, I can confidently say that I am an
unidentified subject," Ramadan says. "That is the way it is, if you
are an Arab living in the West, in a time where words have lost their
meaning and significance, in a time where human rights means torture
and egalitarianism means authoritarianism."

Doron Solomons' video, "Father", interweaves simple yet beautiful
footage of his young daughter with chilling images of a military robot
dragging a "terrorist" suspect to the side of the road, prodding
and searching the man's body for bombs.

In the heart of the Freud Museum, Freud's study, where he worked and
died and where his famous couch is aligned against the wall, another
video installation by Serbian artist Tatjana Strugar is projected onto
the ceiling. At first glance it is a lovely ballet of human bodies
swimming, shot underwater from the bottom of a pool. A closer look
reveals that the swimmers are all missing limbs - Strugar has filmed
a physical therapy session for war victims.

Jerusalem-born Larissa Sansour's video piece focuses on instances of
land confiscation and dreams. "I dream of being insecure," says one
of her subjects, who has a recurring dream of a tank entering his
house.

If Predrag Pajdic has included a large number of Middle Eastern artists
in the show, then it is not only because their work revolves around
issues that are constantly in the news. The Middle East, says Pajdic,
has "such an unbelievable contemporary art scene." Just as he felt
it was time to shake up the UK art world with pressing political
issues, he also decided the time had come to organise an exhibition on
contemporary Middle Eastern art.

###

* Olivia Snaije is a regular contributor to the Daily Star, based in
Europe. This abridged version of her article is distributed by the
Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at
www.commongroundnews.org. For the full text visit www.dailystar.com.lb.

Source: Daily Star, 16 January 2007, www.dailystar.com/lb
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.


Youth Views

CGNews-PiH also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and
journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and
promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own
communities. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are
encouraged to write to Chris Binkley (cbinkley@xxxxxxxx) for more
information on contributing.

About CGNews-PiH

The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
provides news, op-eds, features and analysis by local and international
experts on a broad range of issues affecting Muslim-Western relations.
CGNews-PiH syndicates articles that are constructive, offer hope and
promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news outlets worldwide.
With support from the Norwegian, Swedish and US Governments and the
United States Institute of Peace, the service is a non-profit
initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international NGO working in
the fields of conflict transformation and media production.

This news service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in
partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of
Jordan in June 2003.

The Common Ground News Service also commissions and distributes
solution-oriented articles by local and international experts to
promote constructive perspectives and encourage dialogue about current
Middle East issues. This service, Common Ground News Service - Middle
East (CGNews-ME), is available in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. To
subscribe, click here.

The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of
CGNews or its affiliates.

Common Ground News Service
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite #200
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Ph: +1(202) 265-4300
Fax: +1(202) 232-6718

Rue Belliard 205 Bte 13 B-1040
Brussels, Belgium
Ph: +32(02) 736-7262
Fax: +32(02) 732-3033

Email : cgnewspih@xxxxxxxx
Website : www.commongroundnews.org

Editors
Leena El-Ali (Washington)
Juliette Schmidt (Canada)
Rami Assali (Jerusalem)
Chris Binkley (Dakar)
Emmanuelle Hazan (Geneva)
Nuruddin Asyhadie (Jakarta)
Andrew Kessinger (Washington)

Translators
Grégoire Delhaye (Washington)
Rio Rinaldo (Jakarta)
Zeina Safa (Beirut)


CGNews is a not-for-profit news service.

.