An Open Letter to Muslims

Originally posted to Gaia.com on May 26th, 2007

Stop the Clash of Civilizations

I've always believed that open communication is the most likely means of building bridges of understanding and goodwill between vast chasms of opposing cultures and religions. Dialogue with Muslims here in the U.S., throughout the world and in the Middle East is the best method we have to avoid war and make peace.

I am a human being who was raised in a fundamentalist Christian church in Colorado. As a child I became aware of nuclear weapons early in life. When I was six or seven years old, one of my friends told me there are rockets with massive bombs under the ground all around us waiting to be launched and they could kill millions of people. At first I thought he was lying to me and that this idea was crazy. When I asked my parents if this was true, they confirmed that it was.

I grew up in Colorado during the height of the cold war with Russia. They played the movie, 'The Day After' on TV around 1987 about nuclear war and it heightened my fears. When I'd hear planes flying over head I thought they might be nuclear missiles flying off to mark the end of the world which my Christian church taught us would be any day.

One of the books I was subjected to as a youngster was called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. It was about a little girl in Japan who survived the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima only to die later on from radiation poisoning. The idea of this potentially recurring horror made me promise myself I'd do everything I could to help convince others why we must avoid the nightmare of the next world war.

If you lived in Colorado at this time, it was difficult to not think about nuclear war because in rural areas along the planes, you would see underground silos dotting the horizon where nuclear missiles were poised and ready to launch. One of my church school teachers took us all on a field trip to a military base in Wyoming where they train personnel to man the nuclear silos and keep the missile launch capabilities ready.

I now live on the east coast and have psychologically detached from my fundamentalist upbringing, which has been a difficult journey. When you're a kid, you are very impressionable and if you have family members and authority figures who are the closest thing to God telling you that he is wrathful, jealous and vindictive to those who don't believe, it's a bit like being brainwashed.

Because I was able to transcend fundamentalism, I was also able to connect with people of other faiths who had made the same journey. Reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X in high school had a huge impact while giving me a profound respect for Islam. I have also connected with those of mystical Islam through Sufi dance and music in the Colorado Dances for Peace.

Knowing that people can journey through mainstream religions and transcend their fundamentalist forms even when surrounded by those who believe and obey without question, has given me renewed hope for the future of relations between the Middle East and West.

It is clear we have a long way to go and what concerns me the most now is the tragic American occupation of Iraq. Going to major protests with fellow Americans who believed the war was a big mistake did little to change the course of events.

http://homepage.mac.com/eliw/index/week/images/1.27.03.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/eliw/index/week/images/2.23.03.jpg

It is discouraging when militant factions in your government ignore the people's wishes to avoid unnecessary war in favor of a much more desirable state of peace. It is also discouraging when the people who justify such wars against fanatical factions in the Middle East, ignore the same kind of factions that exist here in America. And this is why I believe the fires of fundamentalism over there are fueled by the fans of fundamentalism over here.

I wrote a screenplay depicting the danger of fundamentalism in America and how it could lead to a third world war. Even though the scenario I paint seems impossible, there are enough signs to make one wonder if we need to take precautions to prevent an American theocracy from taking hold. Even if this scenario is unlikely, we should still recognize why the tell tale signs of American theocracy are likely driving Iran’s desperate attempts at seeking Nukes.

http://bob.machighway.com/~firesofc/worldw1n

My hope is that these concerns may foster constructive dialogue between us all to see that we have a lot more in common as human beings than differences and only together can we all recognize what must be done to avoid history repeating itself again with a world war more destructive than ever before. Our very existence as a species is at stake.

Sincerely,

-Eli

p.s. Remember that even though we may all come from different religious backgrounds, they all teach about going to the same place; a world ruled in peace and prosperity:

http://www.earthpledge.net