BUENOS AIRES – As the holy month of Ramadan gets underway the large Muslim community in the Catholic hub of Buenos Aires is busy making preparations. An inter-faith event organised by the city’s government is promoting through music and dance, a theme of harmony among all religions.
STORY-LINE:
Muslims prepare for the holy month of Ramadan in what seems to be the most unlikely of all backdrops: the Pope’s birthplace.
Known to be predominantly Catholic, Buenos Aires is in reality an inter-religious hub. It is home to both Muslim and Jewish communities in addition to Christian families.
Islam reached Argentine soil with Spanish invaders in the 16th century. The Islamic community grew later on with immigration waves from Syria, Lebanon and Turkey.
Today, there are about one million Muslims across Argentina, according to the Pew Research Centre.
Language is not a barrier. If only few Argentine Muslims speak Arabic, the language of the holy book, the Quran, Islamic centres bridge the linguistic gap thanks to Spanish translations.
Argentine Muslims are well integrated into society, and women can choose to wear the headscarf or not.
Nancy Falcon, the head of the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue in Buenos Aires, and her husband Augusto Kumvich, are both Muslim converts.
Falcon, a native Argentine, chose not to cover her head in public because she feels that is not what makes her a good Muslim.
“I don’t know if it’s only in Argentina, in Buenos Aires or in the world that Muslims are associated with Arabs. It’s somehow a stereotype: Muslims have to wear a headscarf. So when a Muslim doesn’t have Arab origins or isn’t from an Arab country, it’s difficult for those who don’t know to explain why this person is Muslim.”
Kumvich opted for what he calls a different “intellectual path.” He has a Jewish father and a Catholic mother.
“In my family, the most difficult was to reveal my religion to them, to tell them that although I follow a religion, although I follow norms – because the Islamic religion has a specific way of life with rules regarding food and fasting – I haven’t become intolerant of other ways of life,” he says.
Despite the election of the first Latin American pope, Catholicism has declined in the region, including Argentina, in the face of the world’s fastest-growing religion: Islam, according to the Pew Research Centre.
An April 2015 study by the organisation found that Muslims are likely to surpass Christians as the largest religious group on the planet.
As an example of the growing role of the Muslim community as well as its integration in Argentina, Falcon and Kumvich promote inter-faith dialogue through culture and especially music.
Bringing together a band playing Hebrew and Yiddish prayers for peace, a Catholic artist and an Islamic orchestra is a means for Kumvich to display the conviviality between religious groups.
As a leader in his community, he acts as the intermediary between Argentine Muslims and the government of Buenos Aires to ensure cohesion between all faiths.
“For me, it’s important to bring different ways of thinking together – whether they’re religious or not. I believe that looking for a common ground and respecting different ideas is key,” he says.
One of the musicians at the event, Gaston Gandolfi, practices Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam popularised by the whirling dervish. The young Argentine native says embracing tradition is a way to preserve the cultural fabric of society.
“I think that it’s a very good idea so that (musicians from different religions) get to know each other and their respective traditions. We live in an era where traditions are getting lost. Modernity is invading everything and is slowly destroying traditions.”
Gaston says that the professor who taught him to play the kanun, a popular instrument in the Arab world, is Jewish.
This mixture of religious identities struck a chord with the audience.
“I’ve been to other countries and it’s very difficult to bring different religions together to talk about their traditions. Here, I feel that people accept more others’ religions, they’re keener to work together and they’re more open.”
Although Argentina guarantees freedom of religion, there has not been any religious census since 1970. The official stance is one of secularism – that religion is a private matter.
Pedro Brieger, a journalist and a Middle East academic in Buenos Aires says he does not want to idealise the religious harmony in the country.
Inter-faith diversity can be an asset to the society as well as a litmus test for integration, he explains. He compares Argentina to other countries that have long been held up as bastions of cultural heterogeneity.
“In Lebanon, up until today, political division has to do with a census done 80 years ago. A new census would reflect a different reality of the balance between the different communities. Here, Evangelical groups have grown a lot. A census on religion would help see that the Catholic Church isn’t as strong numerically as it shows it is.”
Muslims throughout Argentina will be fasting and celebrating Ramadan with a number of events planned, such as an inter-religious iftar, the breaking of the daily fast, which will gather religious leaders of the main communities.
This video was produced exclusively for Associated Press on June 16, 2015. Click here to watch it.
