ISLAM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

228 IF ISLAM IS AT SCHOOL FAX MESSAGE 9/11 – 1998 Date: A: Dr. Ernesto Galli Della Loggia FROM: G. Eid Subject: If Islam is at school - published Monday, 31 August 1998 November 9, 1998 With the approaching of the celebra- tions for the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by the United Nations on De- cember 10, 1948 I would like to present share reflections. The first one is that the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights issued by the Islamic Council of Europe at the UNESCO headquarters on 19 September 1981 is in stark contrast to that of the United Nations. This explains some of the behaviors and statements of the Islamic centers established in Europe. It is well known that Islamic Law (Sharia) is based on different customs and traditions from those of the Western world; therefore it may seem normal for Islamic leaders to be willing to import them into Europe. However, the laws of the Arab world are not the same across all countries: with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Sudan, Arab countries only apply the sharia in the fields of the family and succession, i.e. personal status, and not all of them are applied the same way. I would like to point out to our leaders something that I consider to be of crucial importance: to undertand the difference between requests for adherence to a reli- gious imperative and others that concern customs and traditions that are prevalent in the Islamic world, and more precisely the Arabic one, which is the main source of Muslim immigration. It seems to me that the individual requests concern living standards prevailing in the Gulf countries and are less common in other Arab coun- tries: Meshraq, Egypt or Tunisia. Without going into the merits of the indivi- dual requests (scarves, chadors, canteens, gymnastics, study of the mother tongue - Arabic or Hebrew or Filipino or Indonesian or Chinese-), some of the norms mentioned in your article are not in force in Arab coun- tries or they have been in force only in the last twenty years, and not in all social envi- ronments. More precisely, they are more common in rural areas than in cities. I sat the classical Egyptian baccalaureate exams alongside peers of both sexes, then the uni- versity organized trips for students without distinction of sex (obviously in separate ro- oms) and I don't even remember a case of chador. No importance was given to a scarf isolated on the head of a girl (the chador is another thing). The University sports com- petitions involved Mixed-sex events. And it was definitely not for this reason that they were less Muslim or less practicing. I fully agree that the school is the ideal place for the integration of young immi- grants in the society they chose to share, to learn language, culture, history and, why not, know the principles of the Chri- stian religion predominant in the country. Adopting and living the rules and regula- tions of the country of adoption, without renouncing their own identity, prevents the formation of ghettos that become the time bombs of future years. Continuing on the subject of coexistence, I would like to mention one of my books on the immigration of Arabs, Christians and Muslims into our country (Christians and Muslims around the year 2000 a possible coexistence). Editorial Pauline books. I myself, Egyptian by birth, Italian by adop- tion, business economist, wanted to put my international experience at the service of Italy in order to bring the peoples of the sho-