In conversation after the lunchtime press conference Dr Gabriela Guellil, from the German Foreign Ministry’s Cultural Task Force seemed surprisingly straightforward. When it came to reaching across the widening gap between the Islamic world and the West, Dr Guellil said, the usual round of diplomatic rituals between elites and powerbrokers was not sufficient.
Since September 11 her task force has adopted a more pragmatic approach. Across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, it targets the non-government sector, the intellectuals and professionals of the new middle classes who often open windows of opportunity for those around them. They are also often the voices of moderation spanning traditional strictures and modernisation.
‘There is a sense’, she said, ‘in which all Muslim countries are Islamist because religion plays a fundamental role in every aspect of life. Of course this does not mean they embrace terrorism.
‘You have to understand al Qaeda are newcomers. Like Bin Laden they are wealthy but outside the old traditional networks that make up a kind of aristocracy. Because of this, they bear a sense of humiliation. They don’t have the self-esteem of belonging to privileged groups. And the fact that al Qaeda is a franchise makes them dangerously flexible.’
This week the task force’s latest initiative was hosted by Minister of State Kerstin Müeller, as part of its ‘European–Islamic Cultural Dialogue’. It gathered together in Berlin middle class Islamic women from almost 20 different Muslim countries and from Germany’s large Turkish community. From morning until late into the evening, women teachers, social workers, journalists, scientists and academics passionately debated the rights of women, the wearing of head scarves and burkas, sharia law, the glass ceiling and, above all, the conflicting challenges of family and career.
They were a formidable gathering—articulate and confident, with an experience of life that had mostly demanded great courage. For example, Dr Sarah al-Fadil Mahmoud Abdel Karim from the Sudan trained as a sociologist in New York and now works for an non-government organisation (NGO) in her home country. Bone-thin, elegant, strongly religious, she was imprisoned for six years and tortured by the Sudanese military, an experience which left her hospitalised with paralysis.
In a statement which resonated with the history of Christian churches, she told the gathering, ‘Interpretations of the Qur’an by scholars made room for many developments including oppression.’ Present conditions in the Sudan where millions have fled before a regime of murder, rape and plunder, ‘stem