Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, but Arab culture is not the culture of Islam.
Cultures are never merely intellectual constructs. They take form through the collective intelligence and memory, through a commonly held psychology and emotions, through spiritual and artistic communion.
We need to challenge the dominant culture: by ethics, principles and values.
Culture constitutes an essential element of social and political liberation. As people rise up across the Middle East and North Africa, the diversity of their cultures is not only the means but also the ultimate goal of their liberation and their freedom.
We need to deal with three things that are important: first, we need a very deep reconsideration of how we are dealing with the economy. Second, there must be a very deep reconsideration of our way of life. We cannot simply adopt American-style consumer culture. To Islamize that is to de-Islamize Islam.Thirdly, it is important for us to understand the economy and the environment are common challenges for everyone. This is where the singularity of Islamic principles needs to join the universal values that we share with others.
There is the philosophy embedded in the culture we are living. It is quite clear for example that Arabs have a different culture than Malaysians.
Unfortunately there are some trends that are changing this but you don't have for example as strict and narrow understanding of the relationship between men and women. And then there is the philosophy we have to extract in the relationship between text and culture.
Destroying the nation state are mainly three things: the global economy, global communication technology and global culture. And this is where we are lost in the process. What could be something that can provide us a transversal political sense of belonging? At the end of the day, without an alternative we end up with populism in the name of very narrow identities.
My experience of living with people of diverse religions and cultures taught me that one will never be at peace with the other if one is at war with oneself.
In the Muslim-majority countries you can't do without Islam, we can't do without their culture, in which way they are going to come back to this Islamic reference to find a way to deal with the true challenges and not the superficial political questions.
As Muslims, we are all equals, we abide by the laws and we understand that we have to be active citizens wherever we are. Our goals are first to live by our principles, to remind people of these values, to reconcile our respective societies with these shared universal values and to try our best to push for a spiritual agenda with more ethics in society, in politics, in economics, and in culture.
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