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From Mideast prosecutor to peacemaker

Professor fosters understanding of terrorism in Muslim world

By: Carol Sanders

Posted: 05/27/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

He used to prosecute terrorists but Amr Abdalla now promotes peace through education. He's teaching a course at U of W.

The title of the university course alone is enough to raise the hackles of some.

But that's not the aim of Terrorism and Peaceful Transformation in the Muslim Context. The goal of the class at the University of Winnipeg's Global College is to go beyond the juicy sound bites and hyperbolic headlines.

The intensive week-long course is digging into the historic, political, economic and religious roots of the issue to look for answers.

It's being taught by Amr Abdalla, who was on the job as a prosecutor in Cairo five days before Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader who signed the Camp David accords was killed by religious fundamentalists.

Abdalla was part of the team that interrogated 3,000 assassination suspects and witnesses. In the end, 300 were found guilty of conspiracy or implicated in the killing of Sadat. Five received the death sentence.

After years working as a terrorist prosecutor, Abdalla got a chance to promote peace. He left Cairo to study in the U.S. and is now a professor at the University for Peace in Costa Rica.

At the U of W this week, he's teaching a course designed for westerners trying to understand the roots of terrorism in the Muslim context: "Who is so angry and what is the rationale, so they can understand better."

Abdalla said understanding the roots of the problem rather than just dismissing deadly jihadists as "crazy" can give people more effective tools for promoting peace and dealing with terrorism -- and some of the fear and controversy here in Canada that's been attached to the Muslim faith.

In Quebec, there is debate over banning women wearing veils in some settings. There is nothing in the Qur'an or in the Prophet Mohammed's hadiths (sayings) telling women to cover their heads, Abdalla said. The religious requirement is to not be sexually enticing in public. Some countries such as Iran insist women wear a veil.

The female genital mutilation that happens in some Islamic countries in Africa has nothing to do with the tenets of the Muslim faith and more to do with culture, Abdalla said.

The cultural rules of the countries that adopted Islam over time became thought of as religious rules, he said.

As Islam quickly spread throughout the Arab peninsula 1,400 years ago, it shifted the balance of power and trade and there was fighting.

The Muslim armies were so convinced by the righteousness of their faith and its spread, some parts of the Qur'an that promoted peace, kindness and compassion were abrogated by the new rules for winning and staying in power.

Abdalla compares it with the push by western powers to impose democracy on other countries. For instance, the belief in the righteousness of that cause led U.S. authorities to justify the torture of detainees in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, Abdalla said.

The prosecutor turned teacher said he's optimistic understanding can transform the way people get along.

Tonight at 6 p.m., the public is invited to a discussion at Convocation Hall. Abdalla will be joined by David Matas, honorary counsel to B'nai Brith Canada; Menno Simons College Prof. John Derksen, the co-editor of Peace Research: The Canadian Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies; Bilquis Khan of the Winnipeg chapter of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, and University of Delhi Prof. Alka Kumar, who is a PhD student in peace and conflict studies at the University of Manitoba.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 27, 2010 A5

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