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Tariq Ramadan: Intelligent ghetto creates chimeras Racism – Analysis – News –

In life there is joy and happiness, tears, pain, the endless doubts about the meaning of life and death. Looking around, observing the society and individuals, studying philosophy and religion, we understand that not alone in his solitude. Each by itself, we all look like their uniqueness and otherness. After all, since time immemorial to the present day there are different ways, an infinite number of ways, running through our cities, districts and neighborhoods: Diversity is a hallmark of humanity. In the end, we have no other choice.

And yet, is that enough awareness to make us accept the reality with all its diversity? Can the realization that we all have the same aspirations and hopes, by itself force us to reconcile our differences, to accept the fact that we have looked like, and to bring these differences to the benefit? Sitting behind a desk, a cafe, for lunch at school, in the living room, a lecture or conference … we are again and again all I can say about it, with conviction and wisdom on which our intellect is capable of. In theory, or in everyday life, when we, perhaps due to their financial circumstances, are faced with differences in others, only a very small extent, the generosity, of course, very useful, but it has no relation to real life and does not help to resolve difficulties arise because of our differences. When life is limited by tight little world of friends who look like us and think like we do, building a grand and beautiful philosophical system based on tolerance and pluralism – is only a virtual display of generosity, a clever way to avoid the need to be objective and impartial. It’s just good intentions, a demonstration of our opposition to racism in intellectual terms, because in their daily lives, we do not face – or almost never encounter – with the blacks, Arabs or Asians (or white, if we negros, Arabs or Asians). Rejection of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, when we live in, intentionally or not, at a respectful distance from the Jews and Muslims, it is certainly worthy of the intellectual position, but in fact it says nothing about the true respect of human theorising in this way, to these phenomena. In life in the ghetto, whether it is physical, social, intellectual or mental, has its own characteristics and consequences: the submission of the inhabitants of the ghetto itself or the surrounding world is always rather contrived than real. In the ghetto of intellectual and idealistic theories, many people intolerant and racist, and not even realize it. In fact, these people quite a lot.

look around and understand the need to understand their reason of existence of human diversity, lifestyles and beliefs, it is only the beginning. This is far from enough. With this diversity, we must give up their lofty theoretical and idealistic notions, and plunge into real life, we must leave the safety of the ghetto’s noble mind and enter the world of serious, stubborn and sometimes reckless and dangerous emotion. We will have to move from a controlled and ordered the intelligence in the area of chaos and disorder – that we feel the heart and, as they say, “gut”. To live with others, to perceive their differences in terms of color, style of dress, beliefs, customs, habits, psychology and mental logic, we should ask ourselves, our inner horizons, and its subjectivity. Unable to control all intelligence: the other senses, too, react and show themselves. Outside the living rooms and lecture halls, they may well possess us. The presence of “other”, with all their visible and / or perceived differences, manifested both light and dark sides of our human essence. If these “others” seem so confident and calm while we do doubt their true if the visibility of their presence is felt as an invasion into our living space and a violation of established habits, if we think they capture the few remaining working place, if their well-being reminds us of their own difficulties, or even poverty … they arouse in us emotions, similar to the survival instinct in animals. This reaction is almost impossible to control: all our fine words lose their meaning, and we are back to their gross human nature. We must overcome their emotions, heartfelt inclinations and feelings of our “insides” that take in mind the fear, suspicion, a feeling of rejection and bias. Net, conscious racism is rare and marginal. The rejection of another – consciously or not – always arises from a mixture of doubt, fear, insecurity and loss of livelihoods, coupled with real or imagined rivalry in wealth, numbers or valid: the everyday problems of immigration, unemployment, poverty, from a sense that ” come in large numbers “,” all captured “and so on. This is, in fact, the deeper nature of man and human life: the prisoners in their cozy little world we despise and condemn dogmatists and racists, but in no case can not be neglected are often quite instinctive fears and doubts, which, in certain situations, cause a complete rejection of the other . This is not an attempt to justify or minimize the harm of racism, intolerance and xenophobia, but rather an attempt to understand where they appear, as developed and how, ultimately, they can inflate and use. Power populist arguments and appeals against the “other” consists precisely in their ability to awaken and to address these serious emotions, fears, and “interior” feeling, nourish them extremely simplistic arguments and explanations. Idealistic theoretical considerations must be brought into line with life, can not ignore the realities of human nature in all its senses.

Tariq Ramadan, Ph.D., professor at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, the president of the Muslim organization of Switzerland