Beyond the signs of anger

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After weeks of angry demonstrations in Arab and Muslim countries against the cartoons that were printed by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in violation of all the rules of wisdom and sensitivity, the Muslim world needs to ponder its next move. Beyond the demonstrations and boycott campaigns -- which have both proved effective in prompting some sort of apology for the grave wrong doing -- Muslims around the world now need to ponder a more effective approach, not just to punish the insult and its perpetrators but to explain to the world why Muslims have every right to be angry and why the West needs to refrain from making such a mistake again.

The need for a serious and high-level dialogue between Islam and the West has become urgent. Despite the many forums that over the past few years have tried to bridge the gap between Arab and Muslim culture on the one hand and Western culture on the other, misunderstanding still prevails. A serious dialogue should not be restricted to intellectuals, clerics and members of civil society. It should include representatives of key Muslim and Western countries. It should be held under the umbrella of the UN with the objective of reaching a clear code of conduct by which Western and Muslim countries must strictly abide. And just as Muslim countries are expected to abide by the UN General Assembly resolution that condemns any questioning of the Holocaust, the West should be made to agree to an equally effective UN General Assembly resolution that prohibits the incitement of anti-Islamism.

In their forthcoming summit expected to be held late March in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Arab leaders need to agree on a draft communiqué to condemn and penalise all forms of Islamophobia. Along with relevant resolutions of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit, that was held earlier this winter in Jeddah, the proposed Arab summit communiqué should also offer a basis for a UN resolution that strongly condemns Islamophobia.

Meanwhile, Western officials should stop hiding behind the pretext of freedom of expression -- which has never been used in defense of anti-Israeli criticism even when launched by Western intellectuals. Officials who felt sufficiently comfortable to criticise Roger Garaudy and David Irving for their remarks on the Holocaust should have the courage to come clean about the insults directed against over a billion Muslims.

The reconciliatory message that was brought this week to several Arab capitals by Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, is a welcome step. However in the absence of a clear collective European declaration of denunciation of all forms and practices of Islamophobia, Solana's Islamic and Arab tour will unfortunately be pretty ineffective.