{"id":377101,"date":"2010-03-01T19:07:54","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T00:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalvoicesonline.org\/?p=124884"},"modified":"2010-03-01T19:07:54","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T00:07:54","slug":"bulgaria-a-debate-on-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/377101","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria: A Debate on Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Feb. 26, some 40 people attended a debate titled “Islam as a threat – again in fashion?”, held at the Center for Culture and Debate “Red House”<\/a> in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Speakers included Saleh Breh, a psychologist at the University of Damascus, Vladimir Chukov, a specialist in Islam, and Nidal Hlayf, a student in film directing.<\/p>\n

Approximately 1 million Muslims live in Bulgaria<\/a> (whose total population is about 8 million people). Many people have an idea about Islam, because there has been a Muslim population in the country for centuries. But there are political parties that create problems between Christians and Muslims: in recent years nationalism has become stronger and more aggressive, and some people believe that Islam is dangerous. This is why a debate like the one that took place in Sofia<\/a> (BUL) is important for the society. Its purpose was to discuss whether Islam presents a danger for Europe. Among others, members of the nationalist Bulgarian National Movement party<\/a> attended the debate; according to BNM, Islam is dangerous and is an instrument of Turkish interests. (Here is a link to Vladimir Chukov's article on the “Bulgarian Ethnic Model.”<\/a> <\/p>\n

A post on the debate appeared on Muslims and American Cinema<\/em> (http:\/\/muslim-cinema.blogspot.com<\/a>), a Bulgarian-language blog on stereotypical portrayal of Muslims in the movies, administered by Hlayf Nidal, who has written a doctoral thesis in film directing in Sofia. Below are excerpts from this post<\/a> (BUL): <\/p>\n

\n

[…] The audience consisted mainly of Bulgarian citizens, some elderly, but there were also many young people […]<\/p>\n

Professor Chukov outlined the two main types of immigration patterns – Anglo-Saxon, which is more liberal in its view, and French – more restrictive towards minorities. […] To our general surprise, it appeared that Denmark has already allowed the creation of a Muslim party [see this post at Islam in Europe<\/em> blog<\/a>]. […]<\/p>\n

[Ruslan Trad] presented a slide project with a list of blogs in the Arab and Islamic world, which contained information on the ban to cover events such as prosecution of political opponents in Egypt [see this GV post<\/a> for more], imprisoned bloggers [e.g., Free Kareem<\/a> and Free Bashir El Hazem<\/a> campaigns), […], blogs of women from the Middle East who are fighting for more rights [e.g., www.feministcollective.com<\/a>]. The aim was to show the public that […] the Islamic world is not some inert mass, but is concerned about what happens to it and to the world, especially with regard to the younger generation. […]<\/p>\n

Nidal Hlayf talked about stereotypes in movies. […] [The practice] of juxtaposing the Islamic world against the West is so rooted that it is difficult to go beyond stereotypes […]. […] A debate on why the image of Arabs and Muslims is so stable […]. First, because of the still painful memories of the past clashes with Islam in the West, military or cultural; second, because the United States inherited the Orientalist imagination of the European settlers; third, since the end of the 19th century, American missionary activity in the Islamic world has increased.<\/p>\n

Dr. Saleh Brik from the University of Damascus talked about the difficulty accepting the “Other” religion due to ignorance of it. [An example of the Swiss ban on construction of minarets<\/a>]: […] the minarets are not the most important part of religion to a Muslim and they are not the main problem with Muslim communities.<\/p>\n

Maya Tsenova, an Arabist from Center for Eastern Languages and Cultures<\/a>, added that “one is afraid of what one does not know” and that “the West had had encounters with Muslims before it met with Islam.” A man who is ignorant is the enemy of ourselves and others, as one Arab proverb says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are some comments to my blog post<\/a> (BUL) for this event. One reader wrote about Islamism and terrorism in other Balkan states:<\/p>\n

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Around us [Bulgaria], it is better not to forget Bosnia and Kosovo, which are copies of those ideas in the Balkans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The situation in Kosovo is important for Bulgaria because many people fear that what happened there and in Bosnia could happen in Bulgaria, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Feb. 26, some 40 people attended a debate titled “Islam as a threat – again in fashion?”, held at the Center for Culture and Debate “Red House” in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Speakers included Saleh Breh, a psychologist at the University of Damascus, Vladimir Chukov, a specialist in Islam, and Nidal Hlayf, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6010,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}