The third most important story of the year

By Roger Ebert

HYDERABAD, India, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- About 6,000 Muslim clerics from around India approved a fatwa against terrorism Saturday at a conference in Hyderabad.

The Muslim world has not been eager to hate America. For many Muslims, America with its religious freedom represented for decades a refuge against what all were pleased to call "godless Communism" and the USSR persecution of its Islamic republics. After the 9/11 attacks, there was a candlelight march in the streets of Tehran in mourning for the victims.

American flags were waved. No flags are waving now. I visited Tehran once, in 1972, for the film festival. My Iranian guide took me home for tea with her parents. There was a point that her family members wanted to make. "We are not Arabs," her mother said. "We are Persians. We speak a different language. We are Muslims, but we are modern Muslims. You do not see our women covered up in the streets or locked up in their houses. America is our ideal, where all are left to worship in peace." Then the Shah was overthrown, and the fundamentalists took over. Moderate candidates have been elected to national office in recent years, but the ayatollahs have veto power over moderation.

That was an Iran I hope still exists beneath the hostile stance they are taking against us. When we sent an army to Kuwait to throw back Saddam, Iran rejoiced, because Iraq was their ancient enemy. It was after we invaded Iraq after 9/11 that feelings began to sour. The sight of our occupation of a Muslim country disturbed the entire region. If we would invade its neighbor of our own volition, was Iran next? Until very recent months it seemed as if Iran was next. The White House reportedly ordered a military plan to be drawn up.

Now we see the first light before a distant dawn. Although India has world's second-largest Muslim population, I am not naive enough to think the clerics in Hyderabad will bring a sudden change of feelings in the Middle East. But listen to a statement by the conference president. UPI reports: "He blamed Islamic radicals for their actions and the news media for failing to distinguish between the radicals and the majority of Muslims. 'We have no love for offenders whichever religion they might belong to,' he said. 'Our concern is that innocents should not be targeted and the careers of educated youth not ruined'."

University of Cape Town: Not for whites only

This is a moral statement from the core of Islam. Now journey with me to South Africa, where I spent the year of 1965 studying English at the University of Cape Town. Because of historical guarantees, UCT admitted African, Coloured and Asian students. But it was a liberal island in the sea of apartheid. Every day I saw signs saying "Whites Only." "Nonwhites" rode in the back of the bus. They called me "boss." They made long trips to and from their segregated townships, by rail tracks that could be instantly blown up. Nelson Mandela and his fellows were imprisoned on Robben Island, which could be seen from the slopes of Table Mountain. Remember that 1964 was the year Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and famously said the Democrats had with that stroke of the pen lost the "Solid South" to the Republicans. There were more "Whites Only" signs in America than in South Africa.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/the_third_most_important_story.html