Whose Voice to Listen To

In this blog, I've touched the topic of misconceptions about Islam and also misrepresentation of muslims in the world. Many "westerners" get the wrong idea about Islam because the true voice of Islam, i.e. the silent modern majority, doesn't make a sound. Most of the people speaking for Islam in this huge world had been terrorists, lunatics, ultraconservatives, and narrow-minded people living in medieval times. When Osama speaks, it is as if the whole muslim world agreed with him. When Ba'asyir talks, as if all muslim Indonesians wants Pancasila changed. This phenomenon also happens to the western world. When Dubya speaks, all Americans are cursed to hell. If someone's a Jew, it seemed that he/she doesn't deserve to live.

Then, innocent civilians will be the victims of these misunderstandings. Citizens of the world, from the US of America to Afghanistan, from Indonesia to Israel to Palestine, had sufferred greatly. Many lost their lives because others lost their sanity. The global unrest breeds terrorism, bombings, attacks, threats, and other inhumane actions which will never be justified, let alone under the name of God.

In the midst of this mess, there are fortunately still many people and groups of people with common sense. They seek world peace, not world domination. They want to achieve mutual understanding between human beings that transcends all barriers, an understanding unhindered by race, ethnicity, belief, or religion. These are the real "religious" people, regardless of whether they adhere to a religion and who/what they believe in. Their voice is the voice which should be heard louder, as they speak for humanity.

Queen Rania of Jordan (her website) is an excellent example of a good, modern spokesperson for Islam. She is famous for being a vocal advocate of women's rights in the muslim world. She has also made huge efforts to fight misconceptions against Islam. She reached out to the whole world, appearing in mass media to portray what Islam really is. She has shown that Arab countries are also moving into modernity, although some are still lagging behind (IMO, Saudi Arabia). She was on Oprah, she got the "10 Questions" from Time magazine, she posted a question on Yahoo! Answers, and recently, she posted official Queen Rania videos from her YouTube channel.

There are millions of other spokespersons, or would-be spokespersons, whose voices are worth hearing. With the advance of technology, every individual can exercise his/her freedom of expression more easily in more ways than ever. If we can embrace this, the whole world will progress toward a better future. As an example, this is a video by Avaaz.org that campaigns for peace in Middle East. It won the YouTube Video Awards 2007.