As part of the weekly message of an Arab intellectual, which is broadcast on the YouTube channel and social networking sites, the Qatari Forum for Authors hosted the journalist, (resident in Greece), Mr. Shadi Al-Ayoubi, who discussed the topic “Between East and West Problems in Understanding and Applying Terminology”, where he talked about concepts and terminology that concern the Arab and Muslim communities in Europe, as well as the Arab and Muslim peoples. He shed light on the terminology known to everyone, which was developed and changed, so that it became closer to eclecticism than to objectivity.

He also talked about the terms used in daily speeches and writings, which he said that the uses should be reviewed because they perpetuate negative meanings about us, our values and our Arab civilization.

 

The first category, which is the terminology that has changed in its use, includes terms such as integration into western societies, which is the term occupying Muslim communities in the west since the eighties of the last century or before that.

It was theorized by many Muslim thinkers. In conclusion, what has been reached is that integration is “a positive interaction of communities with society, while preserving civilized values.” But these concepts changed to be the complete dissolution of communities in societies and the complete abandonment of their principles and cultural values. They may therefore show their annoyance at the simplest manifestations of adherence to the Islamic religion.

The second term is democracy in which many elements have overlapped and denied the people’s rule of the people, and likewise the concept of pluralism. Even though pluralism and diversity are among the basics of western societies, there are still western societies that are impatient with the different and do not see a place between them, especially if this difference offers a civilized model that can be a substitute for it or compete with it with its civilized and moral principles and values.

Among the most important problematic terms is the concept of terrorism, which, for some, has become ghosts emerging from suspicious places and striking public and private institutions and individuals, and the governmental trends that followed to support these terms.

In the same context, the term Islamophobia, as the human rights associations fighting Islamophobia in Europe have succeeded in achieving a good legal reality that maintains a reasonable measure of protection for Muslims against attacks on them and emphasizes the continuity of such associations, as well as dealing with concepts such as Orientalism and the Orientalist vision.