Subtlety and Complexity
\r\nListening to a woman or a man, being attentive to their expectations, to their problems, to their doubts, is acceding to complexity. Our concept of the world may be simple, our principles may be crystal clear, but life is complicated – as are the hearts and intelligences of every one of us. Anyone who is attentive and to his own needs others knows this. It is strange indeed that what we know almost instinctively in our daily and emotional relationships should vanish into thin air as soon as we consider others, belonging to another religion, another culture, and another history. Here, our relations are built on concise, quick, clear-cut, almost definitive information: as if we wanted to understand our friends deeply, but found it sufficient to gather superficial information about other people’s realities. We give some people, out of friendship and love, what we refuse others out of indifference and prejudice. Yet all the time we advocate dialogue. What we know about others seems obvious, not because we have taken the time to listen to them and to understand, but because we have heard it repeated again and again. With speed and the era of satellite communications, the obvious, what is obvious to us, has changed in nature.
\r\nIt is vital that we relearn the meaning of study, of in-depth understanding, and accede together to a deeper perception of the complexity on which other people’s lives are organised. Listening, learning to understand again, admitting at times that we do not understand, are all paths leading to deep, subtle thought, often silent and without judgement. Our enemies today are caricature and prejudice: lack of information used to keep us ignorant of some cultures, some realities or some events; now sketchy, superficial information, if not misinformation, gives us the illusion of knowledge. But today’s illusion is far more dangerous than yesterday’s ignorance: it breeds complacency, definitive judgements and intellectual dictatorships. The movement goes both ways: one should, on the one hand, be careful to avoid simplification, and on the other hand, grant others access to the complexity of one’s being and perceptions. This seems to be the challenge of dialogue in a culturally-plural society.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n \"To Be A European Muslim\" - Tariq Ramadan