Sir, - Eighteen years ago this month, the first Islamic fundamentalist state was founded by the Ayatollah Khomeni in 1979 in Iran. This event was greeted with near universal distrust by the Western world, as the arrival of such a fundamentalist regime was bound to destabilise the ever sensitive Middle East region, with profound geo political effects.
The challenge for the European Union and other Western states is simply how best to deal with the rise of Islam. At present, the West seems to be adopting a Cold War, approach to its relations with Islamic countries, with Muslims replacing communists as the bogeymen of the West. In one sense, the easiest approach is to fight it. The hardest approach is to try to forge a new understanding.
The principal problem with this conciliatory approach is that many people within the EU do not understand, and do not wish to understand, the Islamic religion. The purity, certainty and absolutism of their faith is incomprehensible to many in the secularised Western world.
The second problem is that there are different degrees of tolerance within the Islamic faith itself. Often it is the most extreme form of Muslim fundamentalism that forms Islam's image in the West.
Each evening, when the sun sets in Cairo during the feast of Ramadan, the chic cafes are filled with the Egyptian capital's professional classes. This is but one manifestation of a process which has been put in place by President Mubarak to open up the Islamic religion to more tolerant ways. However, such cafes are not springing up on the streets of Kabul as a result of the arrival of the fundamentalist Taleban Movement, or in Tehran, where, notwithstanding the approaches of Premier Rafsanjani the Iranian Islamic Government continues to rule with an iron fist.
However, the West, and the EU in particular, must recognise that the world of Islam is here to stay and that in all our interests, new relations and new channels of communication must be forged." The EU must now endeavour to find a common ground between the various interpretations of different Islamic governments. This will be a difficult, although not an impossible task.
Islamic countries in turn, such as I ran, must stop any tacit or active support for terrorism and halt support for the more brutal and fundamentalist form of Islam which is spreading across North Africa at this juncture. Issues such as inequality and discrimination based on gender must be addressed by the leaders of Islam, as a matter of urgency. Discussions can also take place at a religious and cultural level between Christian Church leaders and their Muslim counterparts.
In essence, either we continue with the policies that we have pursued regarding fundamental Islamic states over the last 18 years, which have got us nowhere, or we try to build a better future in which cultural diversity, human rights and different religious viewpoints are respected and understood. - Yours, etc.,
43 Molesworth Street,
Dublin 2.