This very engagement speaks to a matter that we differ on, given that this is, in fact, the anniversary of the partition of Palestine. So much of what holds us, as Jews and Muslims, apart in South Africa has its origins in the Middle East. We all live with that memory.
Historically, Jews and Muslims have not been so polarized, from the Crusades to 1492 and our common expulsion from Spain, to the Holocaust.
To a large extent the impact of the 29th of November is an act of modern political history. It is important on a day like this that in South Africa we use the space we have for engagement because our country has shown the world an ability to overcome deep fractures between people.
We, as South Africans, particularly have a responsibility to show an example to contending forces elsewhere that we co-exist in society, in the economy, and within a single nation.
We uphold each other's right to expression, to movement, to speech, of course, short of hate speech.
Indeed, this is how we build identity, faith, community and nation, despite the persistent challenges of inequality, of residual racism, of transitional pains and occasional fundamentalism.
Muslims and Jews have an even stronger glue: what holds us together is a common, indivisible God; a common humanity; a common spiritual tradition that comes from Abraham; and we have a common set of values based on justice, on peace, on compassion.
What is needed most is consistency, so that what we cherish in South Africa we must hope for the Middle East and the world. What we demand here as minorities, we must grant where we are powerful. The way we apply our values is the test of true faith. Once we start to open up those areas of debate I believe it takes us into the conversation of the middle ground - a middle ground that avoids the extremes of certitude on the one hand and conservative orthodoxy on the other.
What stands often between us and solutions is where we locate ourselves in the conversation. It is easy to locate yourself on the extremes of the conversation because you don't take responsibility for the solution, having satisfied yourself that you have held firm to your views, you have not compromised. The difficult conversation is that of the middle ground because it seeks solutions through engagement, of looking the other in the eye and disputing honestly.
The economist, Professor JK Galbraith, said the more uncertain people are the more dogmatic they become. We live in a world of great uncertainty that has resulted in great dogma because the few certainties we claim, we are prepared to die for. It is not surprising that in a world of inequality and the marginalization of tradition, faith and culture, that it is from such affected communities that emerge some who become the ideologues of certitude: they label because they can't debate; they polarise because they can't unite; they condemn because they can't love; they kill because they can't engage. And, more importantly, they have perfected the art of dying for their cause because they have forgotten how to live their cause.
We must avoid the nihilism of certitude, but we must also avoid the inertia of conservative orthodoxy. I use the word conservative as meaning to conserve what we know, what we are and what we practise in unchanging ways. Ordinarily, orthodoxy for any culture, religion, or community is the repository of knowledge, experience, interpretation and wisdom. Orthodoxy retains the essential values and substance through changing circumstance and form.
Orthodoxy bequeaths to us that which is eternal, but conservative orthodoxy conserves form as well; creating an inertia, an inability to respond to the challenges of the time and change.
The conversation of the middle ground is based on the critical values in religious exhortations to justice and balance, compassion and tolerance, love and the search for peace.
It is based on the mutual recognition that we are all carriers of the divine within us, placing on us the onus to differ but to respect each other. This is difficult because instead of creating zones of exclusivity (Muslim, Jewish or even non-religious) we create zones where we can be who we are and yet be part of a bigger whole (a single nation) so that while we profess our variety of faiths, we give space to other varieties as well.
This middle ground requires the creation of multi-cultural societies that also avoid the extremes of assimilation (where you forget who you are to fit into the whole) and isolation (where you turn your back on the whole). We need integration where we preserve both the integrity of the part and the integrity of the whole.
This middle ground requires human solidarity which, in the words of Richard Rorty is "?.the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers?.by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people."
These are the strengths of the lessons we have learned in South Africa. South African Muslims and Jews have a responsibility to share this with the world.
