The Uprising Against Facism

'There is a real feeling that this is just a publicity stunt'

By Jerome Taylor
Published The Independent: 27 November 2007

For just the briefest of moments yesterday, David Irving and Nick Griffin must have thought they had got away with it – that despite the outcry, their debate at the Oxford Union was going to be a breeze. When the controversial speakers rolled up at the famous debating society's headquarters on St Michael's Street in separate black cabs shortly after 5.30pm, the media scrum outnumbered the protesters.
Maybe it had something to do with traditional student time-keeping, but the crowds of anti-fascist and minority rights campaigners simply hadn't turned up yet. But an hour in student politics is a long time and when the protesters finally did show up they nearly succeeded in doing what they had promised to do: cancelling a debate with two people that many believe stand for little more than intolerance and bigotry.
To say that the hierarchy of the Oxford Union were taken by surprise at just how controversial their event was would be a gross understatement. But no one was more caught out than the union's eloquent and now notorious president, Luke Tryl. The confident smile he had worn all afternoon as he smoked cigarettes and chatted outside the union disappeared once the protesters turned up in force. In its place, a look of flustered exasperation took over as he fought to find a way from stopping his evening from going under.
By 7pm, one and a half hours before the debate was due to take place, St Michael's Street had turned into an impassable bottleneck as protesters converged in their hundreds. Within 30 minutes, they began blockading the small wrought iron gate that was serving as the only entrance to the 100-year-old building.
As one of the protesters, a second-year chemistry student called Max Tzard, said: "I'm absolutely appalled we invited these people in the first place, no good can come of this. There is a real feeling that this is just a publicity stunt and we as members of the union are paying a price that most of us are not willing to pay."
Cheered on by the crowd, a small group of hardened anti-fascism activists pushed through the gate and over the walls to rush the main chamber where the original debate was to take place. A sit-in ensued and the building went into a lock down.
Even after the speakers were separated, just getting to the cramped, oak-panelled room with the BNP leader Nick Griffin for the start of the debate was a Herculean task, after a day of farce that would make a Charlie Chaplin day out look organised.
But by 9.45pm the academic jousting could begin and a small crowd of approximately 150 students sat on the floor to hear him speak.
Flanked by two shaven- headed heavies, Mr Griffin swept into the room wearing a well-cut suit finished off with a red tie and beige scarf. As the temperature in the room rose, one of the heavies retrieved a perfectly folded paper fan from the inside of his jacket pocket and began fanning himself – the academic heat was on.
Two university debating stalwarts were up against Mr Griffin: the 23-year-old Jess Prince and the 25-year-old James Dray. Ms Prince was the first to speak. A Canadian national who said she had been debating for 11 years, she opened by saying she relished the opportunity to debate against a man she described as "abhorrent".
Beginning a rapid fire assault on why free speech should have its limits she evoked the memory of her grandfather, who had fought against the Nazis in the Second World War. "Never did he think that his granddaughter would have to stand in the Oxford Union debating against someone like Mr Griffin," she said. "What this man stands for is disgusting and abhorrent. You ask how far is too far? This man is too far."
Mr Griffin wasted no time in reeling off his own family's war history. "My father fought in the RAF and my grandfather in World War One, so we're quits on that one," he retorted.
Never one to shy away from bold statements, the BNP leader's speech was littered with the sort of soundbites that have made him such a controversial figure – but a method to his arguing was hard to come by.
From supporting the rights of indigenous people living in the rainforest to "cut off the heads and stick on poles" those loggers and miners who would steal their natural resources, to stating that immigration was bad for the environment – "Every time someone from Africa comes over here, think of the carbon footprint" – Mr Griffin's arguments verged on the obscure.
But the one area where he could not help but win grudging agreement from his audience was on the subject he was asked to defend – the fundamental right to free speech. "The moment you have an establishment or an elite saying 'This is wrong' your heading towards a totalitarian state. Every generation has its sacred cows, its certainties, but very often they are wrong," he said.
It was an argument the audience spent little time trying to defeat. Instead they concentrated on dismantling the BNP, which Mr Griffin had a much harder job defending. Told by a self-confessed "integrated British Asian" that he would have no intention of "going home" were the BNP to win an election and try to force him to, Mr Griffin simply stuttered: "Well stay then."
Unlike most debates at the Oxford Union, however, there was no official motion and therefore no vote. The union decided to label last nights debate a Free Speech Forum and, while the discussions took all the forms of a debate, there was no way for the audience to express whether they liked what Mr Griffin had to say.
Sitting downstairs in the union library as he signed a guestbook that has the signatures of luminaries such as Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama, it was clear that Mr Griffin felt good about how the event went. "How do I feel? I think it went pretty well," he said to the dying chants of the protesters outside. "At least it wasn't called off. Now we just have to find a taxi." Told by a union member to have a safe journey, the BNP leader looked slightly unsure of himself for the first time that evening. "I guess we'll have to see," he said.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3198966.ece

For the main news report written by Andy McSmith and I see here.

Unveiled: The Pakistani tribe that dares to defy the fundamentalists

(PHOTO: Jerome Taylor)

Published, The Independent: 18 July 2007

In the North West Frontier Province, the mullahs' word is law and the veil is worn. But one ancient tribe refuses to cover up. Jerome Taylor reports from the Rumbur Valley

In Pakistan's deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, the veil is simply a way of life. Whether in the bazaars of the capital Peshawar or high up in the myriad of Himalayan villages bordering Afghanistan, women wishing to leave their houses do so under the cover of a niqab or a billowing burqa. So important is the Islamic concept of purdah that the fort-like houses in the tribal areas usually contain separate living quarters for women and men.
Give or take the occasional advertising hoarding or glitzy film from Lahore, most men are unlikely to see an adult female face outside of their immediate family until they marry.
But in the remote Chitral region nestled high in the Hindu Kush mountain range are the last remnants of a tribe where the women walk unveiled in bright red and black dresses. Lavishly decorated with orange bead necklaces and colourful hats made from cowrie shells, they dance in public and are often free to marry and take lovers. They are the Kalasha, one of Pakistan's only remaining indigenous non-Muslim communities and a remarkable living throwback to a pre-Islamic era.
Yet according to the Kalasha themselves, their unique way of life is under attack like never before. Thanks to rising extremism among a small minority of Pakistanis and the growing appeal of populist orthodox mullahs who espouse sharia law and Taliban-like austerity, the Kalasha are increasingly in the firing line.
"We've always been called kafirs (infidels) but most people simply left us alone," says Azam Kalash, one of the few members of his 3,500-strong community who managed to go to university and now campaigns for his tribe's welfare. "Now we are deemed enemy number one. Particularly after September 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the missionaries and mullahs are determined to see us wiped out."
Isolated from the outside world by the remoteness of their valleys and the heavy Himalayan snows that block the mountain passes in winter, the Kalash somehow managed to survive successive waves of Muslim invaders and missionaries that pushed back the pre-Islamic Hindu, Buddhist and pagan tribes who once filled the fertile plains of the Indus valley.
Until last century, very few outsiders had ever made it as far as the three valleys of Rumbur, Bumboret and Birir where the Kalasha now live. Even today the valleys are only accessible by 4x4 along a tortuous road perilously carved into the shifting mountain side. But 20 years ago, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of the religious mujahedin, things began to change.
"For a long time the Kalasha lived in total isolation," says Cecil Chaudhury, General Secretary of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. "I remember going there in the 1950s with a mountaineering expedition and they were blissfully happy living in their own distinct social system. But with the mujahedin came the missionaries and the Kalasha were always going to be an easy group to target. Now the extremists are back."
Although the fighters have largely disappeared from the Chitral region, the Kalasha are now outnumbered in their own villages by converts and outsiders. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the notoriously brutal Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar used the valley as his hideout and many believe he has returned to the region to continue his fight against Nato forces and the Afghan government.
After a 10-year lull, the missionaries are returning and many fear that if orthodox preachers, such as those who, until recently, ran Islamabad's Red Mosque, continue to increase their appeal, the country's last non-Muslim tribe may sink into oblivion.
No Kalasha would mean no Zonor Bibi. The mother of five sits on the front porch of her mud-walled house perched high above the swollen glacial river that roars through the heart of her village. It is harvest time and apricots lie drying in the summer sun eyed by her eight-year-old daughter Walena.
Zonor's husband has just set off on the daily three-hour walk to the grazing meadows that lie high above the village but that does not stop Zonor from welcoming outsiders with open arms, an act that would be unthinkable to her Muslim neighbours.
Deeply proud of her culture, she bursts into laughter when asked how long it takes to make the iconic cowrie shell hats that all Kalasha women wear.
"They take us months," she says. "It is important to continue our traditions so not to anger our spirits and god."
Kalasha believe that failure to practice their ancient traditions has profound religious implications and can bring disaster on the village which may explain why their dress and distinct practices have managed to survive against such odds.
The role of women in Kalash society is perhaps the most obvious aspect that separates their culture from their Muslim neighbours. Where Muslim women in the region generally remain indoors or hidden from public view, their Kalash counterparts are conspicuous in the fields working alongside their men. During the festivals that celebrate the various summer harvests and preparations for winter, it is not unusual to find Kalasha women drinking apricot wine and dancing in public with males that are neither their husband nor family. Although some marriages are arranged by families, it is perfectly acceptable for Kalasha women to choose their husbands. If they are treated unkindly during the marriage the women are expected to leave the house and take a lover.
Such comparative sexual and social freedom has led to the false but commonly held perception among many lowland Pakistanis that the tribe's women are sexually promiscuous. But while Kalasha men do seem to extend a greater level of physical and social freedom to their other halves, the lives of their women-folk are still strictly regimented.
To the Kalash the world is divided into two states, onjesta (pure, sacred) and pragata (impure, profane). Women are considered pragata, particularly during menstruation and childbirth where they are exiled to special huts away from the village. Only once they have purified themselves can they return to the tribe. Certain fields and shrines considered pure and sacred to the community are also out of bounds for the tribe's women.
Such peculiarly distinct customs have fascinated anthropologists, linguists and travellers alike for centuries, not just because the survival of the Kalasha in a sea of Islam is so unusual but because no one is sure exactly where they came from.
Their tongue, like many of the dialects spoken in the Hindu Kush range, is closest to the Dardic branch of the Indo-European languages of Central Asia. But Kalash oral history tells a different story, that they are descended from Shalak Shah, one of Alexander the Great's generals whose armies conquered as far as the Indus river before turning back towards Europe. Although blond hair and blue eyes are common amongst the Kalash, recent genetic testing has suggested that they may be an aboriginal group that are, in fact, indigenous to the area.
But how did the Kalasha manage to cling on to their distinct polytheistic pagan traditions in an area renowned for its particularly orthodox brand of Islam?
"I think they were just lucky," says Siraj Ul Mulk, a direct descendant of the Sunni Muslim royal family that once ruled the Chitral region until they ceded to Pakistan in the 1960s.
"Despite their orthodox appearance, Chitralis have always been very relaxed about the Kalasha and other minorities. The missionaries always tend to come from outside." Walking through the dusty fort that his father, the Mehtar of Chitral, once used as his summer palace, Mr Ul Mulk also offers another explanation for why the Kalasha of Pakistan remained unharmed: India's partition. "Under British partition we were lucky enough to be placed on the Pakistani side," he says. "If we'd ended up in Afghanistan I doubt the Kalasha would have survived."
Two hundred years ago Afghanistan was also home to numerous Kalasha tribes, known locally as the Red Kafirs, but they were annihilated at the end of the 19th century. After receiving a bloody nose in two disastrous conflicts with the Afghans, the British simply stood by as the founding father of modern Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, systematically forced the non-Muslim tribes in the east of the country to convert at the point of a sword. A small number of Afghan Kalasha managed to flee towards Chitral and can still be seen in the upper valleys wearing their distinctive red dresses but all Kalasha are fully aware of the threat that extremist beliefs pose to their very survival.
That the Kalash are frightened of the current climate in Pakistan is testament to how seriously they take the current threats. They survived the marauding armies of Tamerlaine, the religious zeal of Abdur Rahman and even the anti-Soviet mujahedin. But now, like many of Pakistan's religious and ethnic minorities, they once again feel unprotected and vulnerable.
"We've survived so much over the years and we're not about to give up now," says Azam Kalash. "For centuries we have lived happily alongside our Muslim neighbours but thanks to extremism our numbers are dwindling. Whether we'll survive this century I simply don't know."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2779426.ece

Love that can be lethal: Muslim couples in fear of 'honour' killing

(Photo for illustrative purposes only)

By Jerome Taylor
Published: The Independent, 29 June 2007

Rebin and Khaleda never thought falling in love would force them into a life of hiding. At first glance, their London flat looks like the home of any other newlyweds. By the front door, five pairs of his-and-her shoes are lined up in a row and the kitchen fridge is plastered in little heart shaped magnets and private notes.
But for the 25-year-olds, this small and cramped one-bedroom apartment is the only place where they feel safe. Two years ago, they were forced to go on the run after gun-wielding members of Khaleda's family threatened to kill them.
For dozens of couples in the UK, such threats have become all too real. Police are now investigating more than 120 deaths they suspect of being "honour killings". It has been estimated that 12 women a year die in the UK as a result of such terrifying acts.
The supposed "honour" comes from the claim among killers that they are protecting their family's reputation. Yet for those whose only crime was to fall in love there seems little honourable about the threats being made against them.
The full horror of these killings was highlighted earlier this month when the father and uncle of Banaz Mahmod, a Kurdish woman from south London, were convicted of murdering her.
Like Banaz Mahmod, Khaleda fell for someone that members of her family did not approve of. Khaleda was born in the West Midlands to conservative south Asian parents who wanted her to marry a distant cousin from her ancestral village. Instead, she fell for the boy next door.
Their forbidden love first sprang from fleeting glimpses through the kitchen window. "The first time I saw her she instantly grabbed my attention," Rebin, 22, said. "I thought she was the most beautiful person in the world, so calm and innocent."
As a teenager, Rebin had fled Saddam Hussein's persecution of the Kurds and had moved into the West Midlands street Khaleda had grown up on. Eventually, he plucked up the courage to talk to the shy but alluring girl next door.
Desperately in love, the couple were shattered when Khaleda's parents flew her cousin to the UK to organise her marriage to him. As the cousin moved into her room and began the negotiations, Khaleda and Rebin simply eloped and married.
Any notion a compromise could be reached was dispelled when more than 20 of Khaleda's family and relatives arrived at Rebin's father's house brandishing knives, machetes and guns.
Those most keen to kill Khaleda and Rebin were not the older first generation family members who had been born and brought up in south Asia, but her brothers and cousins - young men who had lived their whole lives in the UK. According to the UN, at least 5,000 women a year are killed worldwide by their relatives in such killings. There have been more than 5,000 documented cases in Pakistan in the past five years alone.
Khaleda is mortified that anyone might believe Islam justifies honour killings. "It has nothing to do with Islam," she said. "In the Koran it says a Muslim girl can marry anyone as long as they are also a Muslim and it clearly states she has the right to say no. They make you believe it's justified by religion but it's not, it's cultural. Either way, I think forcing a girl to marry someone they don't love it's like raping your own daughter."
Had it not been for the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, a charity that helped them relocate, Rebin and Khaleda could have ended up like Banaz Mahmod. She had fled an abusive two-year marriage and warned police of the danger she was in. But still she died.
Horrified by the number of killings taking place in Britain, Diana Nammi set up the charity in 2002. "Since we started, we have been able to save at least 50 women's lives," said Ms Nammi, in her east London office. "We have even saved two men." As Rebin knows, men's lives are in danger too. A year after fleeing, Rebin and his wife are safe but the pressures of living in hiding are immense.
The threats have become more severe. One day, Rebin received a phone call from one of Khaleda's cousins.
"He said he was holding a gun to my friend's head and if I didn't send Khaleda back he'd shoot him."
Khaleda is still too scared to leave the house and Rebin, who gets by working 60 hours a week as a driver, says he is always looking over his shoulder.
But they are convinced they did the right thing. "We fell in love," said Rebin. "It's a beautiful thing and we shouldn't be ashamed of it. How any parent can believe love is a shameful thing I will never understand."

ANALYSIS: 'Training is needed to recognise dangers'

By Diana Nammi, founder of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation.

When Khaleda and Rebin came to me last year their story was one I had heard numerous times before. As a Kurdish woman from Iran, I had grown up in a country where women were made victims both by their own family and through their government's perceptions of honour.
In Kurdistan a woman could be killed or executed for simple "crimes" such as wearing make-up, rejecting an arranged marriage, dressing inappropriately, seeking divorce or being in love. Little did I know that when I came to Britain, a place where women's basic rights are supposedly respected and guaranteed, some women would still be at risk of death for bringing "shame" on their families.
In 2002 I set up the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO), a charity that helped Kurdish, Farsi and Arabic-speaking women in London to find the protection they desperately needed. At the time, honour killings were usually treated as nothing more than domestic murders and were simply not dealt with properly. Not wanting to appear culturally insensitive or - worse - racist, the police tended not to realise how much danger some of these women were in.
Then, two months after we set up IKWRO, Heshu Yones was murdered by her own father. A bright and beautiful teenager, Heshu's "crime" was to have fallen in love with a Lebanese boy. Her father, Abdulla, stabbed her 17 times and then slit her throat, all in the name of regaining his "honour". The judge sentenced Abdulla to just 14 years in prison, arguing that the lenient sentence should take into account his cultural background.
Heshu's murder should have forced the police and the Government to confront the fact that honour killings were not just incidences of domestic violence but a deeply serious and organised crime that could not be excused regardless of cultural sensitivities. They promised to learn from her death, increase training for police officers dealing with these crimes and thankfully began re-examining more than 100 murders that may have been honour killings.
But I am yet to be convinced that the police have learnt. Last month, the father and uncle of another Kurdish girl, Banaz Mahmod, were found guilty of her murder. Banaz had gone to the police for help four times but was turned away.
Honour killings do happen in Britain and whether we like it or not we must stop them. Care workers, teachers, GPs, hospitals, welfare officers should all be trained to recognised when someone is in danger of becoming a victim of an honour killing and help them. Rebin and Khaleda were lucky. They have been able to start their lives again. But they will always be looking over their shoulders.
Diana Nammi is the coordinator of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation: 020 7490 0303.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2720096.ece

Turkey has double New Year's Eve celebration

(Photos: Jerome Taylor)

By Jerome Taylor in Istanbul

Published The Independent: 01 January 2007

Turkey had two particularly strong reasons to celebrate the arrival of 2007 on Sunday evening thanks to a chance meeting of the Islamic and Gregorian calendars, which only occurs once every 64 years.
In a remarkable day of contrasts that epitomized the country’s ability to marry its Islamic heritage with the pro-western, secular outlook espoused by its modern founding father Kemal Ataturk, Turks began the day ritually sacrificing thousands of sheep and cows and ended the evening with beer-fuelled New Year’s Eve parties and vibrant street dancing.
Unlike most other Muslim nations who choose to mark the Islamic New Year, usually celebrated on the first day of Muharram, Turkey has long been an avid supporter of partying in the New Year alongside its European neighbours in a style that might shock more austere Islamic countries.
But thanks to the Muslim festival of Eid ul Adha falling on the 31st of December this year, New Year celebrations across Turkey began with much more spiritual reflection than usual.
As the sun broke over a bitingly cold Sunday morning mist in the capital Istanbul, the city's faithful filed towards one of the many mosques that dot the city skyline for early morning prayers.
In the small white marble courtyard of the Eyup Sultan mosque, Istanbul’s holiest shrine and the resting place of one of Prophet Mohammed’s companions, Muslims of all ages, wrapped in scarves and wooly hats, listened intently to the Imam’s sermon before making their way to the slaughter houses in the hills overlooking the city
Known as Kurban Bayrami to Turks, the Muslim festival of Eid ul Adha commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael and is the second most important festival in the Islamic calendar. As God gave Ibrahim a goat to sacrifice in place of his son, Muslims around the world symbolically cut the throat of an animal to celebrate what they regard is Ibrahim’s unselfish devotion to God’s will – a fundamental teaching of the Islamic faith.
“This sacrifice is highly symbolic for us,” says Eren Ahmed, a 36-year-old businessman who had sacrificed a young bull before heading back into the city bars to drink to the New Year with friends. “Normally we would spend the evening with our families but as at is New Year that will have to wait. It is not very often we get to celebrate two important festivals in one day.”
The contrast between the symbolism of Eid ul Adha and the hedonism of New Year could hardly be more profound.
In Sariyer town, a suburb of Istanbul 25km from the city centre, families lead the cows they have bought to a specially erected blue tarpaulin tent. Many will have saved for months to buy a cow. Inside, halal butchers slit the animal’s throat to chants of Allahu Akbar before passing the dead animal onto tanners who donate the highly valuable skin to charity. Families then take the meat home and are expected to give away a third of what they bring back to the poor.
But this year, as the last of the muezzins, calls to prayer have died down, a completely different Turkey emerged into the evening, one that enthusiastically looks West and embraces the hedonism of a secular New Year. Compared to the somber morning prayers that began the day, the evening atmosphere could hardly be more different. In Taksin Square, Istanbul's equivalent of Trafalgar, hundreds of thousands of Turkish men and women danced the night away to a deafening mix of Turkish, Middle Eastern and Western pop music.
“I went to the mosque this morning and now I am out partying,” said one reveler sporting a red and white Santa hat and a can of beer. “There is no problem with this in Turkey. Being a good Muslim is more important than not drinking”.
Such an image is one that pro-Europe Turks are keen to see publicised.
“Europe may think of themselves as a Christian club but Turkey is not just an Islamic nation,” says Mr Ahmed. “Maybe this New Year people will see a different side of Turkey. I hope it does not take another 64 years.”

ends.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2117194.ece

Ritual slaughter and street dancing - Eid meets New Year as Turkey shows her split personality

(Photo: Jerome Taylor)

For New Year's 2006-2007 I was invited by the Turkish daily Vatan, along with a number of other European reporters, to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Adha - known as Kurban Bayrami in Turkey.

The festival is immensely popular with Turks but this year's celebrations were even more remarkable because for the first time in 64 years, Eid ul Adha fell on New Year's Eve and as Turkey is the only Muslim country to really celebrate theWestern New Year, a double party was planned.

It was a day of incredible contrasts that revealed Turkey's wonderful split personality - Islamic and secular, modern and traditionalist, European and Asian.

Vatan asked me to write an article for them outlining my impressions of the festival. Below is what was translated into Turkish by them and published on 4th January 2007.

By Jerome Taylor in Istanbul

Published Vatan, 4th January 2007.

Seeing the incredible celebration that was Kurban Bayrami over the weekend reminded me of a similar eye-opening experience I had recently that helped me to question the inevitable preconceptions we all have about each other's cultures and religions.

Two months ago I was fortunate enough to be able to take part in another highly significant religious ritual. I had traveled to the deep south of India’s Dravidian heartland to report on Tirumala, one of Hinduism’s holiest temples and a place all Hindus are expected to visit at least once in their lifetime. On average, 40,000 Hindus journey to this ancient temple every day and the authorities claim it rivals Mecca and the Vatican on the sheer number of devotees making pilgrimages there each year.

The temple is perched high up on a forest-clad mountain and throngs with all the colour and vibrancy one would expect from such a popular spiritual meeting place. To my surprise, one of the first people I met once I had reached the temple enclosure was not a Hindu. His name was Zafar and he was a Muslim pir, a Sufi teacher who had made a journey of over 1000km to visit the shrine of a Hindu god. It was not the first time he had done so.

The temple of Tirumala, I learnt, is in fact visited by a number of Muslims every year and even has wealthy Muslim businessmen who donate to the authorities that run the shrine. The Hindu priests there recognize all religions and it is one of the few significant Hindu temples to allow non-believers into the "inner sanctum", the central part of the temple complex that houses the god's idol.

What Zafar's pilgrimage reminded an outsider like myself is that religions are not monolithic entities and that the more one explores different cultures and religions, the more apparent this is. Religions are, in fact, remarkably syncretic systems and more than able to assimilate different beliefs and traditions when they cross paths. In India, a country where the majority of the population is Hindu, many Muslims are happy to embrace some local worshipping customs and the exchange is often both ways. Many Sufi shrines are equally popular with Hindu pilgrims.

The chance meeting of the Islamic and Gregorian calendars over the weekend that enabled Turkey to celebrate Bayram and New Year together is another example of where different belief systems or cultures can more than happily accommodate each other, even on the same day.

Geographically positioned at the entrance to both Europe and the Middle East, Turkey has always been in the fortunate position to act as an ambassador for both cultures and as a result has, in Istanbul particularly, some of the most cosmopolitan and historically varied urban spaces in the world.

Clearly New Year is not a religious belief system comparable to Islam and Hinduism, but it is still a deeply held cultural tradition in Western society that dates back centuries (Britain first began celebrating the Jan 1st New Year in 1752 but the tradition can be traced back as far as Roman times). And as Europe increasingly turns away from its own Christian festivals, it is the secular cultural traditions which will ultimately come to replace them and are therefore what her people hold dear.

What I was most struck by over the weekend was Turkey's ability to hold two very different but equally symbolic celebrations on the same day. This year’s Bayram was undoubtedly a day of complete contrast. The soleful cry of the muezzin’s first call to prayer could hardly be further removed from the deafening Turkish pop music that rattled through Taksim Square long into the early hours.

To start the day with the beautiful words of the Eid ul Adha namaz, spend the afternoon watching families commemorate Ibrahim's devotion to God with ritual sacrifice and then greet the New Year with the kind of beer-fuelled street parties that would give London's Trafalgar Square a run for its money is a truly enlıghtenıng experience. It shows the outsider that Turkey can happily be both Islamic and European. Religious and secular. Traditional and modern.

But why is such an observation important? For two reasons that I believe are now more crucial than at any other time in recent history.

The first is that since September 11, the West has repeatedly fallen into the trap of thinking of and describing Islam as a monolithic, unanimous entity, where agreement is guaranteed and consensus automatic.

The West’s understanding of the Islamic world is slowly getting better. After all, most people at least now know the difference between Sunni and Shi’a. But too often politicians and commentators try to view Islam - a religion with 1 billon believers from Morocco to Malaysia – as a single quantifiable and easily describable body. But like any religion, Islam cannot be neatly packed into just one box.

Turkey’s tolerant, generally liberal, brand of Islam, revealed by the way she celebrated Bayram this year, forces us to question those generalizations just like Zafar the pir did.

The second, I believe, is that to the average European it is the fact that Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, and NOT economic or practical reasons, that many people remain unconvinced by the country's entrance into the EU.

Ask the London taxi driver or a Berlin baker what they fear about Turkey joining Europe and the reply, sadly, is likely to be that it is because Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country. As Turko-skeptic politicians rely on their voters, winning the European people over to Turkey is the key to assuring her entry into the EU.

This weekend’s double celebration is an example of how little Europe has to fear of Turkey not “fitting in” with the supposedly Secular (or Christian) Club that is Brussels. I hope the same ability Turks have to amalgamate Europe’s secular celebrations and the country’s own Islamic traditions will be reciprocated by the bureaucrats in Europe, but I am afraid of what will happen to the ritual sacrifices of Bayram should Turkey join the EU.

If I return to Istanbul in 20 years time and see that the sacrificing of animals has died out, I will be deeply saddened. Despite the undeniably cruel nature of the kill itself, I still have no desire to see a deeply significant tradition that dates back more than a thousand years disappear. Outsiders should not look at Eid ul Adha through Western eyes. They should see it as a symbolic commemoration of one man’s devotion to god and the desire of Muslims worldwide to emulate Ibrahim’s commitment.

What I hope this year’s Bayram, (the first to coincide with New Year for 64 years) has done is allow Turkey to publicly express her split personality, and to show her European friends that they will only benefit from embracing her closest Islamic neighbour.

Such an image, I have found, is one that pro-Europe Turks are keen to see publicized.

Walking back from one of the hedonistic street parties in Nişantişi on New Year’s Eve, I spoke to a 36-year-old businessman who had spent the afternoon sacrificing a young bull before heading back into town to welcome the New Year with raki and friends. “Europe may think of themselves as a Christian club but Turkey is not just an Islamic nation,” he said. “Maybe this New Year people will see a different side of Turkey. I hope it does not take another 64 years”.

I hope it will not be another 64 years too.

NNNN

http://www.vatanim.com.tr/

Koran provides the ultimate memory test for Muslim boys

(Photo:http://www.quran.gov.ae/)

By Jerome Taylor

Published: The Independent, 11 October 2006

They come from far and wide hoping to find instant fame in what is one of the Islamic world's most hotly fought-over competitions - young men and boys hungry to display their talent to the world.But this is no glitzy ceremony searching for the next pop idol. This is Dubai's International Holy Koran Award, a highly prestigious recitation competition in which contestants as young as nine recite Islam's holy book from memory. The annual award, sponsored by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, held its final round last night. Eighty contestants aged 21 and under, from across the globe, now have a nervous two-day wait before the winner is announced."The competition has ended. Now the judges will deliberate and winners will be announced on Thursday," said Ahmed Al Zahid, a spokesman for the award who said it was the "Olympics of Koran reading".Since the start of Ramadan, when the competition begins, scores of young contestants have climbed a large stage in front of an audience of thousands and began their recitation of the Koran at a random place chosen by the judges.In scenes reminiscent of an American spelling bee, any lapses in memory or mispronunciation in Arabic were corrected by the sounding of a bell as the judges, prominent Islamic scholars from across the region, assessed the contestant's ability to recite the Koran according to Islamic practice.Reciting the Koran from memory, a practice known as tajweed, plays a central role in helping Muslims gain a deeper understanding of their faith. Entrants are expected to be able to recite the holy book - estimated to contain more than 77,000 words - in full.Mohammed Luwan, a 20-year-old contestant from Nigeria, said: "I began to memorise the Holy Koran when I was 15 and completed memorisation of the holy book at 17."The award's youngest entrant, nine-year-old Australian Abdullah al Zahabi, amazed the audience last week as he took to the stage to begin his recitation.Standing next to his father afterwards, he told Gulf News: "My brother and I memorised the Koran at an early age and with help and support from my parents." He said that he wants to be a Muslim scholar when he grows up.He competed against 10-year-old Khubaib Muhammad, who has spent hours each day for the last three years in preparation for the award. Before taking to the stage, he said: "It was hard work, but ultimately it was worth it because I got here. I'm not nervous. I'm ready and prepared."Now in its tenth year, the event has become one of the most prestigious tajweed competitions in the world, with a top prize of more than pounds 35,000. The winners can expect a raft of invitations from across the world to recite holy texts during religious gatherings.The competition also contains a separate programme for prisoners in Dubai, who can reduce their jail terms by proving that they can learn the Koran.The programme is not open for those facing the death sentence or guilty of murder, but for those on lesser sentences, memorising the whole of the holy book can knock 20 years off their time in prison. The winners can expect invitations from across the world to recite texts.

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