There is a time for prayer, and a time for prudence

I will not lie: the sight of a large group of Muslims gathered in prayer in front of the Msida Church caused me a pang of disquiet and a lot of mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I’ve always kept an open mind about the right to religious worship and my stand has always been that if it doesn’t interfere in my life, then who am I to stop others from praying to “their” God? Don’t try to shove your religion (whatever it may be) down my throat, and we will get along fine. Don’t kill or injure others in the name of religion, and that is even better.

However, this public Muslim gathering for prayers cannot be seen in a vacuum, but has to be taken into the context of what has been happening all over the world, as well as the current climate which has long been brewing in the country. I think what bothered people the most were two factors: (a) the large crowd which seemed to serve as a blatant “I told you so” to vindicate those who have long been trying to stoke the flames of underlying fear that the Muslim population in our country is growing with all the implications which that brings with it and (b) the fact that they chose to hold their prayers in front of a Church, which was interpreted by some as a sort of slap in the face of the Catholic religion.

Now, there are those (many of whom are not practicing Catholics) who will shrug and say ‘so what?’, pointing out, quite reasonably, that it is no different to when villages all over Malta hold their processions to mark Good Friday as the devout follow the statues, reciting prayers.

But, the rebuttal will be, that is “our” religion, so it is OK. We can publicly manifest our faith as loud as we want, so there.

Another argument is that: “they” have to adapt to us, and not us to “them”. But if we are going to be so intolerant of other religions, what does that make us, but just another fundamentalist country which is breaching a basic human right, which in effect makes us no better than the fundamentalist countries which we despise so much?

Logic tells me that if it’s acceptable for Catholics to pray outside in the public in a free country, then why not Muslims? Why is one considered acceptable because the Catholic religion is actually enshrined (very debatably, in my opinion) in the Constitution, while the other is considered a provocation when the right to freedom of religious worship is also included in our Constitution?

It is rather ironic, for example, that in the midst of all this, we learned that the claims of the self-proclaimed mystic Angelik, that he had been seeing visions of Our Lady, and who for years was drawing crowds of people to pray on a hilltop, have now (finally) been debunked by the Church itself.

However, and it is a big ‘however’, there is the very crucial other side of the coin. The reality of fanatic extremists who are using the Muslim faith as a pretext for carrying out atrocious acts is there, on the news, every time we switch on our TV or go online.

We also cannot overlook the fact that all this comes in the wake of the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults on hundreds of women in Cologne. Were they all Muslim? According to latest reports, “asylum seekers and illegal migrants from North Africa comprise the majority of suspects”. And while a group of Muslims gathered to denounce the attacks, Merkel’s open door policy for refugees just a few months ago is now under heavy criticism.

The fear, distrust, bigotry and prejudice will not just go away that easily and what is being described as a pre-planned molestation of women simply reinforces all this. So seeing a large manifestation of men gathered together, even though they were praying, is understandably going to make people nervous. This was not a wise move on the part of Malta’s Muslim community.

Carmen Sammut in her blog rightly asked the question “since when has prayer become dangerous?” and went on to point out that the Maltese are not happy with having another Mosque being built or with Muslims praying in garages either. If I wanted to be frank, I would say that a good chunk of Maltese people would happily wake up tomorrow to find that all Muslims had left Malta for good. But seeing that is not going to happen, there is a way for Muslims to make themselves be perceived as less of an ominous threat which does not come across as a provocation.

If I were them, rather than holding “in your face” public prayers, I would take a leaf out of what one American-Muslim woman did in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She plonked a stand on the pavement with a sign: “Talk to a Muslim – free coffee and doughnuts.” She realized that most of the hatred and fear stemmed from a lack of knowledge and decided to do something about it by opening up a straightforward channel of communication. Much to her own surprise, she did not meet with much negativity but with people who were happy to just talk. I believe that if we are to ever break down the barriers of hostility and negative perceptions, that is the only way.