Lead by example, SBY tells summit

Riyadi Suparno ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Dakar   |  Sat, 03/15/2008 2:30 AM  |  Headlines

Islamophobia in the West presented itself again on Friday as a major topic for discussion here at the OIC summit, triggering Indonesia's President and other Islamic leaders to call for concerted efforts to fight the so-called phobia.

Speaking on the second day of the 11th summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Islam had been unjustly associated with violence.

"We must disabuse the world of this terrible misconception," he said.

"We must heal it of the disease of Islamophobia. In this regard, we must strongly denounce the irreverent portrayal of Islam and its sacred symbols in mass media.

"But we must not resort to violence -- because that would prove our detractors right. Instead, we must reach out to the rest of the world through dialogue -- inter-faith, inter-cultural and inter-civilizational," he said.

Efforts at dialogue would not succeed unless Muslims led by example and this meant behaving strictly as Muslims in every way, he said.

"We must strive for good governance and attend to our democratic deficit," Yudhoyono said.

Speaking at the opening of the summit on Thursday, host Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said Islamophobia was "fueled and sustained by evil-spirited people".

On Thursday, Wade called on Muslims to exercise restraint in responding to insults from "evil-spirited people".

He cited examples of so-called insults including the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad in Denmark and the looming release of an anti-Islamic film by Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

"They do not deserve our contempt, nor do they deserve our reaction," he said.

"We should ignore them and pursue our foreword march."

United Nations Secretary General Bank Ki-moon said the UN and OIC must "stand side by side" in their rejection of links between terrorism and Islam, among other issues.

"You have spoken up against those who seek to justify violence in the name of religion," the UN chief said on Thursday.

"Your efforts reinforce the UN's own steps to promote tolerance and understanding through the Alliance of Civilizations initiative, and I look forward to increasing UN-OIC collaboration in this area," he said.

OIC, which represents one-fifth of the world's population, was founded in Rabat, Morocco, in 1969, as a response to the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, Palestine.

A just and legitimate Palestinian cause was the historic basis of the OIC and is still central to the current summit, organizers said.

All heads of states and governments speaking at this summit mentioned the prolonged problems in Palestine and condemned Israel's military aggression.

President Yudhoyono said he had hoped for the establishment of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008, as envisioned at the Annapolis Conference late last year, but continued violence in the region was not a good sign, he said.

"We must quickly silence the guns as we intensify the quest for a just and peaceful solution," he said.

Yudhoyono said South Africa and Indonesia would convene later this year at the "Afro-Asian Conference for Capacity Building of the Palestinian People".

Indonesia, Yudhoyono said, would also contribute to the OIC Solidarity Fund to help improve the plight of poor Muslims around the world.

Currently only a few countries have contributed to the fund which aims to raise US$10 billion. The fund had so far collected $2.6 billion.

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