Article quoted in full from The Daily Jang
Campaign Launched to celebrate Ramadan festivities with all communities
LONDON: A unique campaign says it use the holy month of Ramadan to bring the different religious and ethnic communities together to promote the inclusive and diversity of Islam.
Titled ‘Ramadan Festival’, the campaign is the brainchild of Pakistani origin activist and artist Mohsin Abbas who says that Ramadan is not just about fasting & spiritual reflection, it’s also about celebrating hospitality and generosity.
The Ramadan Festival campaign started yesterday at a ceremony in London and was attended by representatives of many Muslim countries including an official from the Pakistan High Commision.
Sufi Musicians from Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey are set to perform at the cultural events lined up by the campaign en route Notting Hill Carnival. On the floats on the route, Muslim cultural expressions in the form of artefacts and traditional music from different Islamic cultures.
Director of Ramadan Festival UK Syed Mohsin Abbas explained the likelihood is that most people in Britain eat food from the Islamic world prepared, cooked and served by British Muslims at least once a week.
“From Chicken Tikka Masala to Lamb Shawarma - from Indonesian Cuisine to Moroccan delicacies: takeaways to fine dining - Britain can’t get enough of the culinary delights served up by British Muslims every day” he said.
Ramadan Festival campaign believes that Iftar is the perfect time to celebrate all the richness of the Muslim contribution to British culture and this year it will make sure that non-Muslims are invited to open fasts with Muslims to see from close the spirituality that the whole experience of Ramadan generates. Muslims are being asked to help the British homeless and destitute and try their best to reach out to those who don’t know much about Islam or have misconceptions.
Abbas explained that Iftar celebrations will bring people of all races, faiths and cultures together. “Muslims in this country are sick of extremists constantly being given centre stage and marginalising the silent majority, it’s a chance for them to stand up and be counted”.
The Ramadan Festival has been running successfully in Holland for the past three years and has this year launched in Norway with France and the US in the pipeline.
“Our intention is to arrange forty days of tantalising Arts & Cultural events in 2008 which will reflect the diversity of British Muslim cultural expression that exists in the UK” said Abbas.
The annual event hopes to help raise the standard of dialogue on extremism and community cohesion to a more nuanced and sophisticated level in order to promote greater mutual understanding and provide a chance for Muslims to shout out a clear message against the violent extremists from all backgrounds.
“The inter and intra faith dialogue is vital as is that between Muslim and secular society. The real integration and communtiy cohesion is not however going to happen in pubs, clubs, bars, mosques and madrasas for now and the danger of communities living in parallel is already a reality in many regions.
”The natural social interaction is going to take place at homes, schools, youth and sports clubs perhaps cafes, restaurants, community centres, workplaces and institutions too - in fact its got to happen at every level. That’s why it’s important to speed up work on community cohesion or too much water will have passed under the bridge,” he added
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