25 March 2008
editorial
Kampala — PRESIDENT Muammar Gadaffi of Libya has done a noble thing for Muslims in Uganda by providing money to build the largest mosque in Africa. However, it was unfortunate that he should have courted controversy by launching an attack on the Bible and by implication, all Christians.
His stance differs very little from when he first visited Idi Amin, in the 1970s when he urged him to declare Uganda an Islamic state. There are also Christians in Uganda who behave like Gadaffi in their attack of the Koran and Muslims.
The scenario is replicated worldwide, although generally speaking, Muslims enjoy more freedom to practise their religion in predominantly Christian countries than Christians do in predominantly Muslim countries.
Uganda has generally been a model of good relations between the two faiths. But there are fundamentalists on both sides that threaten to muddle this relationship. Theological arguments between two rival positions cannot resolve differences any more than reasoned argument can resolve differences between people with politically opposed views. The best approach, therefore, is dialogue. Neither Islam nor Christianity is indigenous to Uganda.
The two religions were respectively brought to us by Arab traders and White missionaries. Our ancestors embraced one or the other and passed their beliefs on to their children. While many people convert or believe as a personal choice, the religious beliefs of the majority of people depend on geography and ancestry. Therefore, Ugandan Christians and Muslims should respect each other and engage in inter-faith dialogue instead of engaging in unfruitful polemics against each other.
There is a danger that religious conflicts internal to certain countries may spill over into our country. For example, Gadaffi has his differences with Saudi Arabia, some Arab countries, and Europe. We do not need to get caught up in these.
If Gadaffi wants to bring about Afro-Arab unity, he should acknowledge that Christianity and Islam are majority religions between the two peoples. They must work out ways of co-existing.
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