Salutations brothers.
Let’s try this from another angle Ken.
There are basically two ways to elicit change from a group- any group. This is whether or not one is a member of that group or not.
1) Force, use of coercive powers to force change, by policy, persecution or prosecution.
2) By gaining their trust and working with them to obtain change.
I’d always thought that (2) was the way to go - yet I know there are limitations, & in some cases it doesn’t seem possible to put into practice; look at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in Gaza, Hebron, etc.
It can work if you are willing to stay alongside them, to respect what is positive in their cultures and to use objective learning and real lived experiences alongside them to elicit change. But the cost is real engagement- without derision or contempt. It is about helping them to obtain dignity and to build on what they have that is good. It may require punitive measures where laws are broken.
Yes, I agree - on an individual level, willingness to engage pays off.
When I was teaching Year 6 (& a few Year 5s) in Blacktown back in ‘06, at the end of the year one of my Y6 girls (from an Afghani Muslim family) stated in the yearbook that her favourite teacher during her time at the school had been me.
I can only hazard a guess as to why - I suspect it was because from April to December 2006, I would often casually ask her to tell me about the religious festivals she & other Muslim kids observed (e.g. Eid) - I showed an interest & was open to what she told me about the faith she was being brought up in.
At the same time I know that for Muslim communities in the Australiasian region, e.g. Australia & Indonesia, the most radical, resistant or terrorist influences actually come from outsiders, foreign speakers from overseas who are invited to speak at mosques/other gathering places. The imams, for example - like that man who recently came to Australia & was notoriously known for calling Western women “uncovered meat”. (And I believe he came by plane - not in a rickety boat.)
It’s similar in Indonesia, according to one of the guest speakers at CMS Summer School, an Indonesian local pastor. He told us that Indonesian Muslim communities influenced by radical Muslim speakers from other countries (e.g. Afghanistan) were the ones that tended to become more radical in their religious views. These foreign, non-Indonesian Muslim radicals would target poor/marginalised Muslim youth & whip them up into a religious frenzy. Resulting in events like the Bali bombing (2002?). And I rather doubt these radical foreign teachers of Islam travelled by boat to reach the communities to whom they wanted to preach their radical Muslim views.
When people are on that extreme in the spectrum, way (2) seems close to impossible. And way (1) just begets more violence.
This thread now seems way off the actual topic.
TZ.
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