Greetings for Ramadan: The politics of good wishes

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AS MUSLIMS all over the world face the tough slog of mixing daily work with dawn-to-dusk fasting, at a time when days in the northern hemisphere are formidably long, they can at least be assured that their political leaders wish them well—especially in the English-speaking countries.

In the Anglosphere, but not in most other Western countries, offering warm words to Muslim citizens as they begin their fast has become an annual ritual, just like a Christmas or Easter message. David Cameron's was particularly warm, effusive and substantial this year, whereas the greeting offered by Barack Obama was more modest in scope than in previous years. For example, the message from the White House pointedly avoided any reference to Arab struggles for democracy and confined itself to generalities about the Muslim belief in care for others and community spirit. Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper was more concise, but he recalled that Ramadan was "a time for fasting, worship and contemplation as well as a time to share with family, friends and community."

The British prime minister used a slightly tired expression—he called Ramadan "incredibly special" for Muslims, exactly as he had described Easter's import for Christians—but he went on in a rather unexpected vein. Noting that Ramadan was about "charity, contemplation and community" he praised the altruism of Muslim citizens, as reflected in sporting and charitable activities organised by mosques and the fact that British Muslims had donned their gumboots and gone to help victims of storms and floods last winter. (A new meaning, perhaps, for "green wellies"?)

In the course of their forthcoming Ramadan-inspired reflections, Mr Cameron suggested, people should pause to meditate on another topical theme—the contribution of thousands of Muslim soldiers to Britain's forces during the first world war. The "selflessness and courage" of these soldiers, mostly from India, has helped to secure the liberties that Britons now enjoy, he added.

Now that is an intriguing note to have struck. Britain was, it has to be said, fighting the Ottoman sultan-caliph whom many revered as the leader of global Islam. But at the same time, as the novel Greenmantle recalls, spies from Britain and its enemy Germany were vying to persuade simple Muslims, Ottoman and otherwise, that their cause was a "holy war" to which followers of Islam should flock. (Only a few years ago, Erasmus had the weird sense of re-entering the world of Greenmantle when the British and German foreign ministries organised rival conferences on Islam's future, on the same weekend, in different parts of Istanbul and he had to shuttle discreetly between the two.)

Whichever of the rival powers of the old world you regard as the more Islam-friendly, the fact is that the first world war was a time when Muslims were generally used as pawns in European imperial games—whether they were Indians who fought for Britain, Senegalese or Algerians who fought for France or Turks who fought on the German side. Fighting on any side in the first world war was a pretty miserable experience, and that certainly deserves to be remembered. But Islam's collective memory of that period is probably a bit different from the European one.  

My wife and I are Catholic. Our dearest friends are Jewish. Every year when the High Holidays approach we send them a card to wish them well as they observe those special occasions. They, in turn, have joined us for Easter dinner. We attended their children's Bar-Mitzvahs, they attended our christenings.
This has nothing to do with faith or "tolerance." It is simply a nod of friendship toward people who are dear to us and is part of the small change that makes life agreeable.
In the City, it was, once upon a time, not uncommon for a Christian neighbor to help Orthodox Jews with small things such as turning on the lights (so that no "work" was done by the observant) during the Jewish Sabbath.
When I was a tad, the lunchroom always served fish sticks on Friday in order to make life easier for those of us who were Catholic. It also made it a point to never serve ham (my school was probably about one-third Jewish) so as to make life easier for our Jewish playmates.
Small courtesies are appreciated.

Short generations indeed.

Check the historical maps and see how few generations it took them to conquer/unify much territory.

Generations are long horrible things to experience in the moment, but from the perspective of historical analysis, this is short time.

I don't know how much of this unification was achieved by force and how much be diplomacy or threat of war, but again, the territorial spread was phenomenally rapid from a historical perspective.

I don't know who's prepping for the Armageddon, but just in case there are enough nut jobs out there, perhaps some of the rest of us should be prepping for the nutjobs who might think to try and bring it on. They should be marginalized at all times and places, in particular so the masses will not be manipulated into supporting wars that benefit narrow, entrenched, and occasionally elite interests.

Actually, I personally note atheism is a kind of faith. It is just "faith" not in a deity. That clarified, I entirely agree with you: One rule for all.
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It would be a mighty weird first meeting between two persons for one to say, "Hi, I am John. My faith is X. What's yours?", and then the other to reply, "Ah. I am Tim. My faith is Y. Let's fight."
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I think, as one commenter above wisely observes, most human relationships begin as one person getting to know another person and then decide they are friends or not along a time line of mutual discovery. What the other person's personal faith/religion is does not frequently enter the picture as a "major item".
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Then as they get to know each other, one may discover "Gosh, I like this person even though I discover we are of different faiths.", Or, "Gosh, I dislike this person even though we are of the same faith."
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Friendship somehow has a way of helping us get beyond differences, even religious differences. Seeing another person as a human being above all, is what causes us to get beyond these differences.