This article was originally published by the daily newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, on April 5th 2009

Readers will forgive me if, this week, I do not discuss the economy, in spite of the fact that the G20 has just ended, offering many ideas for comment and analysis. There will no doubt be opportunities for addressing these topics. However, in the meantime I feel the need to address another issue, one that, no less than the economy, affects the future of the world. I refer to our relations with Islamic societies, and in particular to the dangerous gap that may arise between us, should extremism end up not so much a winner, but above all remain unopposed by Muslims themselves in terrible events such as those now damaging women in Afghanistan, after what has been happening in the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

We all know what is at stake here with recently approved legislation abolishing all the most fundamental rights given to women in recent years. These laws deprive them totally of their parental authority, oblige them to give themselves to their husbands whenever asked and forbid them from leaving the house without their husbands’ permission, even to visit a doctor. In the Swat Valley the Taliban had agreed to a ceasefire after the Pakistani government agreed to reinstate Shari ‘a, starting with women once again being excluded from education. Emma Bonino has yet again launched an appeal from the website of Resetdoc (a website devoted to dialogue between civilisations) asking the Afghan Parliament and President to abolish this legislation and asking everyone with human rights close to their hearts, to sign the petition with her. At this point I believe it is absolutely necessary that the appeal should also be signed by those Islamic intellectuals who in recent years expressed positions advocating the modernisation of Islam. Scholars seeing this faith as all that leads to peace and not war, to equality among human beings and not the inferiority of infidels, to respect for human rights, primarily those of women and not to their abolition.

I have always worked in favour of a dialogue with these positions, convinced as I am that fundamentalist ideas find their source not in the words of the Islamic God, but rather in backward and ideological interpretations of these words, as also has happened in the history of the words of the Jewish and Christian God. However, I am not the one who should be expressing such an opinion on these interpretations; the Muslims themselves should be isolating them as heretical and unacceptable alien positions. I am perfectly aware that so-called moderate Islamic intellectuals would never be able to persuade those sharing the same religion, should they need to disregard the Holy Books to dialogue with us and be perceived as westernised strangers. Hence, in addition to fundamental reasons of coherence with our principles, I have instead always disagreed with the positions of those in Europe, ready to accept Muslims if they rejected their faith.

To the contrary, I have followed with interest those who work on the Holy Books, who analyse the various interpretations and support those more coherent with the values of our times. Abu Zayd, for example, wrote with persuasive simplicity that Allah communicated orally with Mohammed and therefore was obliged to use language understandable at the time. It is not however necessarily true that his teachings would today be expressed using those same words. It is not said that, for example, slaying would nowadays be suggested quite so easily as an almost normal form of punishment.

Tariq Ramadan also likes to study the Holy Books and read in them the values in which he has so often stated he believed in, from peace to respect for human rights with no gender discrimination. And because of this I criticised him less than others when, albeit clearly stating his opposition to stoning, he asked not for it to be abolished, but suspended, while awaiting clarifications concerning passages of the Koran that in some way appear to legitimise it. Now however, faced with this lacerating Afghan regression, he must assume a position, as must others, starting with Abu Zayd himself. Be advised, I am not asking them to apologise for Taliban positions now prevailing in Afghanistan, as Amartya Sen fears may happen when people are faced with such situations. Sen is right. Should I consider the entire Muslim world responsible for fundamentalist extremisms and all its actions, I too would have to assume responsibility for the extremisms implemented throughout the western world.

No, this is not the point. One must instead distance oneself from these events. As Muslims speaking to other Muslims one must state that Afghanistan’s return to Taliban positions in Family Law does not respect the Koran. On the contrary it violates it and is instead a reaction to the exasperation of a backward culture with which no one should any longer identify. I am therefore anxiously waiting to see people expressing such views, because it would be a real catastrophe if this did not happen. This event is invalidating and demands a reaction, just as stoning to death does, which also takes to the extreme and brutal consequences the same idea, the idea of women as animals at the service of men. Should there be silence, I would be forced to deduce one of the following facts. Either the Koran is effectively the source of such ideas also for its more enlightened scholars; or that these same scholars do not have the courage to say what they think and hence I will no longer be able to consider them as my interlocutors.

Nor in such a situation could I accept the argument often used by Ramadan, according to whom it is wrong to assume excessively distant positions from those more widely believed, because there would be the risk of not being listened to. No. Here we have a Muslim government that had affirmed and implemented the rights of women and that now, pro bono pacis when faced with an excessively powerful enemy, is recanting. Does this really have anything to do with the Koran? Is there anything to be feared in saying that it has nothing to do with the Koran and declaring loudly that the Taliban are wrong? After the ceasefire in the Swat Valley, Fareed Zakaria wrote that since we cannot uproot them alone, we must learn to live with radical Islam and distinguish it from non-radical Islam, relying on the potential of the latter and avoiding generalisations. I agree entirely, but the effectiveness of such as strategy depends not only on ourselves, but above all on the courage of non-radical Muslims in making themselves heard, in occupying space, in putting extremists with their backs to the wall. I believe that Pier Luigi Battista was wrong a few days ago in defining Ramadan as a “fundamentalist intellectual.” He was not, however, wrong in asking him what he thought of events in Afghanistan. I too ask him the same question. Emma’s appeal provides him with an opportunity to answer, before Karzai, as it seems he will, changes the law in his continuing silence.

Giuliano Amato is Professor Emeritus of the EUI in Florence and gives yearly seminars at the Law School of the N.Y Columbia University. Member of Parliament for 18 years, he was Minister for the Treasury, Minister for Constitutional Reforms, Minister of Interior and twice Prime Minister (in 1992/1993 and in 2000/2001). He was Vice-President of the Convention on the Future of Europe (2002/2003). Currently he chairs the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana and the Center for American Studies in Rome. He is a member of the Board of Governors of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations.

Translated by Francesca Simmons