[Senate Hearing 111-60]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-60
ENGAGING WITH MUSLIM
COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
[DATE OF HEARING] deg.February 26, 2009
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin Republican Leader designee
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
David McKean, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Albright, Hon. Madeleine K., Former Secretary of State,
Washington, D.C................................................ 9
Fallon, Admiral William J., USN (Ret.), Former Commander of U.S.
Central Command, Cambridge, MA................................. 11
Prepared statement......................................... 13
Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator From Massachusetts............. 1
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator From Indiana................ 4
Mogahed, Dalia, executive director, Gallup Center for Muslim
Studies, Washington, DC........................................ 29
Prepared statement......................................... 32
Patel, Eboo, executive director, Interfaith Youth Core, Chicago,
IL............................................................. 36
Prepared statement......................................... 38
Zeyno Baran, senior fellow, Hudson Institute, Washington, DC..... 42
Prepared statement......................................... 44
(iii)
ENGAGING WITH MUSLIM
COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present. Senators Kerry, Cardin, Shaheen, Kaufman,
Gillibrand, Lugar, Risch, and Wicker.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. Good afternoon. This hearing of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee will come to order.
I apologize for the delay in starting. We've just had two
votes, and we're still on the back end of one of those votes.
So, I'm confident that colleagues will be on their way, and we
look forward to their participation.
I'm excited about this hearing, and I'm glad that we're
having it, and I'm excited about the witnesses that we are
going to have here today as we really explore what, for too
many people in too many parts of the world, is an unknown, or a
``misunderstood.'' And I think it's important for all of us to
do our utmost to try to understand each other better before we
start making global decisions that implicate the actions of
nations, and young men and women, and our treasury for years
and years to come.
As the President made clear in his speech on Tuesday night,
America has started a new chapter in our history. And part of
this must be a new chapter in our relations with the Muslim
world.
I've just returned from a trip to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon,
Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza. At every turn, I heard a
newfound willingness. I actually heard a thirst, saw a thirst,
felt a thirst, felt an incredible hunger throughout the world
for a new dialog and for a new direction, and I found a
willingness by people and governments alike to take a fresh
look at America. Frankly, this moment won't last forever, if
even for long. And so, we need to seize it.
Let me acknowledge, up front, that even speaking of a
single Muslim world, as we often hear people do, is a misnomer.
We must recognize the spectacular diversity of a religion that
encompasses a fifth of humanity, many Sunni and Shia
denominations, democracies and dictatorships, hundreds of
languages, and uncountable thousands of tribes and ethnic
groups. Most Muslims live far outside of the Middle East, from
the fishing villages of Senegal and the rice paddies of Java,
from the suburbs of Paris to the streets of Dearborn, Michigan.
For all of these differences, today we must send the simple
message to all Muslims: We share your aspirations for freedom,
dignity, justice, and security. We're ready to listen, to
learn, and to honor the President's commitment to approach the
Muslim world with a spirit of mutual respect.
We have a great deal of work to do, my friends. An alarming
number of Muslims today believe that our goal is not to end
terrorism but to dominate or diminish Islam itself. And their
mistrust is reciprocated by many westerners who now wonder
whether the gaps between us are unbridgeable, whether higher
walls or fewer visas can substitute for difficult tasks of
coexistence.
These perceptions are harmful to America. Each undercuts
our efforts in what I see as the larger struggle, not a cooked-
up clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, but a
struggle within Islam, between the overwhelming majority who
share our basic values, and a small sliver who seek to pervert
the Quran to justify bloodshed or move their societies
backward.
Nobody thinks that national security policy should be a
popularity contest. But, what should be equally clear is that
our legitimacy matters. Not only do we need it to dissuade
those vulnerable to an extremist message from taking up arms
against us, we also need the active support and cooperation of
their governments and communities. Part of restoring trust will
be broadening relations with Muslim nations beyond the few
lightning-rod topics that have defined them since 9/11, to
include combating poverty, climate change, investing in human
development, and creating knowledgeable societies. Breaking
people out of poverty is perhaps one of the most singularly
important of those challenges.
Among our most effective steps to counteract extremism, for
instance, was providing the humanitarian aid to Pakistan and
Indonesia in the wake of natural disasters. I was in Pakistan
in the mountains at a time when we were delivering earthquake
assistance, and I remember how perceptions of America changed
in the whole country during that period of time, and people saw
us differently. I also saw children who came out of the
mountains and were attending schools in tented camps for the
first time in their lives.
So, among our most effective steps to counteract extremism
is that kind of intervention and engagement in the lives and
cultures of countries. What mattered wasn't merely the
assistance; it was the sight of American troops working
actively to save Muslim lives.
At the same time, unless we take a different approach to
addressing them, a handful of symbolically charged issues have
the potential to poison the well and reduce all our efforts to
nonstarters or to afterthoughts in the minds of those that we
seek to influence.
That's one reason why I'm so pleased that the President
reiterated his commitment, on Tuesday night, that, ``Without
exception or equivocation, the United States does not
torture.'' No public relations effort can erase the sting of
Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. And while strong words are helpful,
the world will ultimately judge us by our actions.
Restoring our moral authority also inescapably demands that
America return to our traditional role as an honest, fair, firm
broker in the Middle East peace process. In Gaza, I visited a
village called Izbet Abed Rabbo, and I saw little Palestinian
girls playing in the rubble where, 3 months ago, buildings
stood. It was searing. I said publicly in Gaza, as I'd said in
the southern Israeli town of Sderot just earlier that day,
standing with Tzipi Livni, that if Quincy, Massachusetts were
lobbing rockets into Boston, I would have to put a stop to it.
But, the reality is that people on both sides deserve better,
and we know what it's going to take to get them there. Two
states, side by side, in peace and security.
I'm not going to delve deeply into Israeli-Palestine issues
in this forum, but suffice it to say that, without a
demonstrated commitment to peacemaking as an honest broker,
this will remain a millstone around any effort to reach out to
Muslims anywhere in the world. And as we work to empower
partners from Morocco to northwest Pakistan, we can't afford
policies that make it unsustainable for locals to be seen as
pro-American. We can't afford to be politically radioactive.
If we truly want to empower Muslim moderates, we must also
stop tolerating the casual Islamophobia that has seeped into
our political discourse since 9/11.
As we gather here today, a Senate colleague of mine is
reportedly hosting a screening in the Capitol Building itself
of a short film called ``Fitna'' that defames a faith practiced
by 1.3 billion people. The movie's director has not only
compared the Quran to Hitler's ``Mein Kampf''; this director, a
supposed champion of free speech, has suggested that his own
Dutch Government ban the Quran outright. So, I'm glad you're
here rather than there.
Let me also take a moment to recognize the important role
of America's Muslim communities. Your patriotism is a source of
security for all of us, and your freedom to worship is a
powerful counterargument against those who say our values are
incompatible with Islam.
In some ways, our tasks should be easy. Most Muslims are
far closer to Americans, in their love of life, family,
freedom, and prosperity than they are to the core values of al-
Qaeda. The data shows that the more Muslims know about al-
Qaeda, the less they like al-Qaeda. We should build on these
trends, these beliefs, by seeking out and restoring the
partnerships in education, science, technology, arts, and
culture which for decades sustained good U.S.-Muslim relations.
We should expand educational exchanges and seriously invest in
foreign language capabilities. We also need smart public
diplomacy that is embedded in our political and military
decisionmaking. It is also encouraging that both sides
increasingly see the need to deepen and improve our dialog.
From the ``Common Word'' letter from Islamic religious
leaders, to King Abdullah's Interfaith Conference in Madrid, to
President Obama's appearance on Al Arabiya, to the U.S.-Islamic
World Forum in Doha, Qatar, which our first two panelists
recently attended, we have these opportunities. And I might
just comment, last summer I had the privilege of speaking again
with former Prime Minister Tony Blair at a Yale Divinity
School-sponsored conference at which there were about 70
mullahs, imams, clerics, ayatollahs from around the world,
together with some 70 evangelicals from the United States,
including some very well-known ones, like Dr. Robert Schuller.
And there was really an unbelievable sense of common ground at
that gathering, of the commonality of our Abrahamic roots, each
of us, those who share those particular roots. But, there is no
reason that Jews and Christians and Muslims shouldn't be
finding much more to talk about that we agree on, rather than
disagree about.
We're very honored to have with us today some really
special voices, experienced voices in these arenas, respected
voices, in order to speak to this issue.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been a leader in
these issues through the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project.
Admiral William Fallon, former CENTCOM and PACOM chief, has
unique insights into how our military actions and political
goals can suffer without the active cooperation of local
communities.
And then, on our second panel we are going to hear from
three experts who will help us better understand, How do we
move forward to effectively engage with the broader Muslim
world?
Dalia Mogahed is the coauthor of ``Who Speaks for Islam?''
It leads Gallup's opinion survey of over 1 billion Muslims
worldwide. Dr. Eboo Patel is the founder of the Interfaith
Youth Core, now active on some 50 American campuses, and he
focuses on cultivating religious pluralism amongst young
people, and was recently appointed to the President's Advisory
Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. And Zeyno
Baran is an expert on Eurasia and currently sits at the Hudson
Institute, and she will offer her perspective on the spread of
radical ideology in Europe.
I welcome all of you. Thank you for lending your expertise
to this crucial topic, to what we will hope could be remembered
as the beginning of our efforts here, as a pivotal moment in
our relations with the Muslim world. This is not going to be a
one-time, free-standing event. This committee is going to be
committed to engaging actively in ways to try to bridge this
gap as part of America's public diplomacy, and we look forward
to an exciting and important dialog.
Senator Lugar.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Lugar. Well, I thank you, Senator Kerry, for
holding this very important hearing on Muslim communities. And
I join you in welcoming Secretary Albright, Admiral Fallon, and
other distinguished witnesses.
In 2006, the committee held two hearings closely related to
this topic. We heard from administration, counterterrorism, and
intelligence officials, scholars and authors, on how we could
improve engagement with the Muslim world. We also examined how
we could best respond to radicalization that induces
individuals to become terrorists and creates support for
terrorist organizations among Muslim populations.
This hearing continues that oversight and provides a chance
to explore new opportunities that have been created by the
global interest in President Obama.
A poll released just yesterday by WorldPublicOpinion.org
demonstrates the complexities of this issue. The report found
that strong majorities in several Muslim countries disapproved
of terrorist attacks on American civilians, but a majority of
respondents, simultaneously, endorsed al-Qaeda's goal of
forcing the United States out of the Middle East and its
military bases. Furthermore, large majorities in several Muslim
countries expressed approval of attacks on U.S. troops
stationed on Muslim soil.
President Obama's actions in the first weeks of his
Presidency indicate he is determined to provide leadership in
reaching out to Muslims. Through his interview with an Arab
television network, and his appointment of Senator George
Mitchell as a special envoy to the Middle East, he has
attempted to strike a more positive tone. And these steps have
created some momentum toward productive engagement.
But, President Obama's popularity alone will not guarantee
success in the absence of a consistent and compelling American
narrative that is closely synchronized with our policies. This
narrative must be embraced and implemented throughout our
government, and it must be echoed by diplomats, development
experts, contractors, military professionals, alike. We must
continue to support exchanges that bring people from other
nations into contact with talented Americans capable of
explaining and representing our country. And we must also
improve recruitment of Muslim Americans and those who have
expertise in Muslim cultures into diplomatic and military
service.
A lynchpin in the development and leadership change and the
primary management of outreach programs to the Muslim world has
been the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Since
this post was created, in 1999, some very talented people have
occupied it. Unfortunately, no one has occupied it very long.
During the last 10 years, the post has been vacant more than a
third of the time, and the longest tenure of any Under
Secretary was a little more than 2 years. This circumstance has
severely hampered attempts to implement a public diplomacy
strategy, and it's contributed to others in our government
inventing their own narratives. President Obama and Secretary
Clinton must remedy this shortcoming by ensuring continuity in
focus and message during their tenure.
This committee stands ready to support the Under Secretary
of State for Public Diplomacy. We want the Under Secretary to
have the power, the funding, the political backing required to
do the job. Funds for public diplomacy will have to be spent
efficiently and creatively if we are to explain the views of
the United States, display the humanity and generosity of our
citizens, and expand opportunities for interaction between
Americans and foreign peoples.
Our rivals in the marketplace of ideas are playing
hardball. Al-Qaeda has an astonishing Web presence, including
such features as multiple-angle videos of suicide bombings. The
Iranian Government not only materially backs Hamas and
Hezbollah, it maintains an outreach program in 47 predominantly
Muslim, African, and Asian countries. And among other means,
this program employs Iranian Cultural Centers that offer
Persian language classes and extensive library resources.
This is one of the reasons why I recently introduced Senate
Resolution 49, which calls for reassessment of whether we could
safely reestablish American centers in major foreign cities.
These centers offer libraries, outreach programs, unfiltered
Internet access, film series, lectures, and English classes
that enable foreigners to meet and interact with Americans of
all walks of life. In past decades, American centers attracted
young people, as well as community leaders, journalists, and
policy experts. But, with the end of the cold war and the onset
of more active terrorism concerns, most American centers were
either phased out or downsized and moved behind protective
embassy walls.
After taking into account security considerations, we
should determine whether American centers can be re-established
in some key locations.
Despite challenges, the United States has advantages that
can be brought to bear on the problem. Our country is still
admired for its democracy and freedom of political expression.
Our disaster relief efforts in Pakistan and Indonesia in recent
years produced measurable improvements in public attitudes
toward the United States. And there is broad recognition in
many Muslim countries of the importance of the United States in
addressing global challenges like climate change, hunger, and
technology development.
I look forward to hearing the perspectives of our witnesses
on how the United States can construct a coherent program of
engagement that builds on our Nation's strengths and takes
advantage of the opening created by the new administration.
Mr. Chairman, I ask consent that a statement by Jim
Sciutto, a reporter and author who has traveled and written
extensively on this topic be submitted for the record. Mr.
Sciutto was asked to testify, but could not get clearance from
his supervisors at ABCNews.
The Chairman. Without objection, the statement will be
included in the record.
Senator Lugar.I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information referred to by Senator Lugar follows:]
An excerpt from: Against Us: The New Face of America's Enemies in the
Muslim World\1\ by Jim E. Sciutto, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC
News
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\1\ Harmony Books, September 2008.
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For five years, I've lived in Notting Hill--home to fashion
boutiques, gourmet delicatessens, Park Avenue rents and half a dozen
guys planning for martyrdom. My neighbors are terrorists. I found out
the first time in July 2005. After attempting and failing to blow
themselves up on the London subway, three young British Muslims were
captured in an apartment just down the street from me and right around
the corner from ``Travel Book Shop'' where Hugh Grant's character
worked in the movie ``Notting Hill.''
London's collective sense of security had already been shattered
two weeks earlier, when four other British men detonated bombs on three
subway trains and a bus across the capital. Those attackers had been
successful, killing 52 people and themselves. As an American, I
marveled at Britain's calm. London was shocked but not frozen. The
buses and trains started running again almost immediately. Friends kept
their dinner dates that night. Londoners proudly recalled the Second
World War: We survived the blitz, we can survive this. But this time,
the threat came from home. Britain's own people were killing their
fellow citizens, and these were good British boys, with jobs, families,
favorite soccer teams and unmistakably British accents.
There would be other chilling reminders of this threat every few
months. In August 2006, a plot was uncovered in Waltham Forest, East
London to blow up half a dozen airliners over the Atlantic using
chemicals carried on board in soda bottles. If the alleged planners had
been successful, they would have killed thousands: A
9/11 over the sea. In February 2007, Scotland Yard foiled a plan in
Birmingham to kidnap and behead British soldiers returning from Iraq
and Afghanistan. Several newspapers shared a single headline for the
story: ``Baghdad comes to Birmingham.''
Each plot seemed more sinister than the next. In July 2007, two men
tried to blow up car bombs outside two London nightclubs. When the
bombs failed, they drove ten hours to Scotland to set themselves on
fire outside the departure terminal at Glasgow airport. Like the
Birmingham suspects, they had intended to bring Iraqi-like violence
home to the British people. But this conspiracy had a new twist: The
attackers were doctors. And they were my neighbors as well. Two of them
had addresses just down the street from me, again, in idyllic Notting
Hill.
What worried me was that the hate--against Britain, against
America, against the West--had become a part of the fabric of everyday
life. In early 2002, I had embarked on a traveling, educational tour of
the Arab World as a foreign correspondent for ABC News. After 9/11, I
knew we had dangerous enemies in the region. But they were, I thought,
easily identifiable: Terrorists, radical imams, infiltrators from far
away places. One hundred assignments later, from the Caucasus in the
north, down through Afghanistan and Iran, the Persian Gulf, and into
the Middle East, I was changed, even floored. In Afghanistan and
Jordan, I'd met al-Qaeda fighters who told me it was their dream to
kill me. That was no surprise. But for everyone from Egyptian democracy
activists to Iraqis who had once supported the U.S. invasion to ``pro-
western'' Lebanese lawmakers, America seemed to have perfected some
sort of perverse art in alienating people.
The U.S. as foreign menace is a nice distraction from poverty,
corruption and utter failure at home. Still, among Muslims, there is
something distinct and demoralizing about their anti-American
sentiment. Many Muslims I've met have long believed that the U.S. is
trying to control their lives, nearly always with the worst intentions.
They don't blame me personally. They usually make the distinction
between the American people and their politicians (though that
distinction is fading). But they do treat me as America's official
spokesman, or as its defense attorney in an international court of
public opinion where the facts as we see them don't matter much. Here,
the September 11th attacks were a joint plot of the CIA and Israeli
intelligence. Mayhem in Iraq is not failed policy, but a deliberate
American plan to occupy Muslim land and steal oil. The Israel-Lebanon
War was a brazen attempt by the United States and Israel to send a
violent message to Muslims by killing Lebanese civilians. Such
assumptions extend even to native-born European Muslims. Among many
British Muslims, the July 7th London subway bombers weren't murderers,
but innocent young men framed by the police (though they'll often add
that Britain deserved the attacks anyway).
After 7 years of reporting on this subject, I came to an unsettling
truth: The al-Qaeda-inspired view of an evil America bent on destroying
Islam has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. Today, America's
enemies are not the wild-eyed radicals I had imagined but often
moderates--and many of those whom we thought were our friends are now
some of our most virulent detractors.
Positive views of America--already anemic--have grown slimmer and
slimmer. A 2007 poll by the U.S.-based Program on International Policy
Attitudes in four Muslim countries (Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and
Indonesia) found that 79 percent believe the United States seeks to
``weaken and divide the Islamic world.'' Strong majorities (64 percent
on average) even believe it is a U.S. goal to ``spread Christianity in
the region.''
Between 2002 and 2007, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that
the number of people who rated the U.S. favorably declined in 26 of 33
countries. By 2007, there were 9 countries in which less than 30
percent of the population rated the U.S. positively. Eight of them were
predominantly Muslim: Turkey, Pakistan, Palestine, Morocco, Jordan,
Egypt, Malaysia, and Indonesia (Argentina was the odd man out).
In more than 30 years as a pollster, Andrew Kohut, the president
and director of the Pew Research Center, said he has found no frame of
reference for the current decline.
``We don't have any experience with this. We never got the breadth
of discontent with America as we have now,'' he said. ``In other
countries, it's disappointment, resentment, envy. Among Muslims, it
ranges from strong dislike to hatred.''
Increasingly, negative views of America as a country are extending
to the American people. Another Pew poll found that less than one-third
of Egyptians, Moroccans, Palestinians, Pakistanis, and Turks have a
favorable view of Americans, characterizing us as greedy, violent, and
immoral.
Just after 9/11, President Bush declared nations around the world
``with us or against us'' in the war on terror. Now, those in the
Muslim world are against us in greater numbers than ever before--and
they have a new face. A remarkable variety of people--normal people--
believe the U.S. intentionally obstructs rather than promotes progress.
Al-Qaeda may be losing the military campaign but, in considerable ways,
it is winning the ideological war.
``Al-Qaeda's ideological claims now have credibility, that the West
is waging war against Islam,'' said Fawaz Gerges, friend and long-time
Middle East analyst. ``There is a crusading spirit in the West. It
helps shape the Muslim view that the U.S. is trying to control their
lives. The U.S. is convinced Al-Qaeda is an evil-doer. Al-Qaeda has
convinced Muslims that the U.S. is an evil-doer too.''
The hostility galvanized my own patriotism. I found myself eager to
raise the alarm at how deeply our image has been damaged and search for
ways to repair it. I found some of the answers by getting to know some
of the people who see every event of their lives affected--stage-
managed, even--by the U.S. For Iraqis, every car bombing has an
American imprint. For Palestinians, it's every foot of the wall Israel
has built along the border of the West Bank. For Afghans, it's the
electricity that's still off most of the day. We have no connection to
them, but they feel every connection to us. Their anger is as real as
their humanity. These people aren't monsters. Through the profiles that
follow, I hope to show how average people buy the conspiracy theories,
answer ``yes'' when asked if America is seeking to weaken the Muslim
world, and place more hope in holy war than in America.
In the eyes of many Muslims, America is the victim of its own
mistakes. The United States has lost its moral compass across the
region. For them, the gap between what we preach and what we do has
always been wide, but today it is unbridgeable. The Iraq war was the
worst advertisement for American intervention. Torture matters.
Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib matter. Our relationships with dictatorships
matter too. Muslim friends laugh when we call Saudi Arabia and Egypt
``moderate'' regimes. This is why dissidents in Egypt today see their
cause as stronger without America than with it. ``Without you getting
involved,'' a young Egyptian pro-democracy blogger told me, ``We'd be
fighting just (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak, not Mubarak and
America.''
There is a strange contradiction at the root of much of the hate:
while they resent us, many Muslims remain in awe of American power--so
much so that they believe U.S. failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the
occupied territories were America's intention all along. Nothing else
could explain the disparity between American promises and performance.
As a result, the Iraqi trauma surgeon I've known since the invasion of
Baghdad doesn't credit America for the calm after the surge. After 5
years of piecing together the war's victims, he is convinced America
planned the mayhem from the start. He even believes the U.S. was behind
many of the suicide bombings. To him, regardless of who's responsible,
the deaths of more than 150,000 Iraqis (as estimated by the World
Health Organization through 2006) was too high a price for his country
to pay. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are nothing compared to what al-Qaeda
has done, but held up against America's own standards, they are the
crimes that have come to define us.
This feeling of being under attack has helped solidify a new Muslim
identity--a new cause--of its own. Anti-Americanism is a form of Middle
Eastern nationalism that transcends borders, even religion. That's why
I easily found Christians in Lebanon who revere Hezbollah as devoutly
as Shiite Muslims; they see it as resistance against American
imperialism. Across the region and even among Muslims in Europe, hating
America has become a cause, a modern-day youth movement. Hippies didn't
trust anyone over 30. Muslims have learned not to trust anything
American.
As Americans, we can react self-righteously. I've lost my cool in
dozens of cafe debates with Muslim friends. But that will not bring us
closer to winning them over. The truth is, they see a different set of
facts and a different world. Looking far past 9/11 and into the next
presidency, Americans can wish the hostility away or look for the
elements of it we can address. We had opportunities to turn the tide of
hate: After 9/11, when much of the region unanimously opposed al-
Qaeda's brand of violent nihilism, and again in 2005, when elections in
Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Gulf states gave some hope
that the U.S. might be on to something.
Polling consistently shows Muslims' priorities mirror ours: Family,
economic opportunity, reform, and a political system they can
participate in. It's just that today they see America as standing in
the way of these values, rather than promoting them. To us, freedom
means elections. To many Arab Muslims, freedom means freedom from
American influence.
There are ways we can save ourselves, I've been told, to turn the
tide of hate. Sometimes, the solutions are straightforward, such as
putting roofs over the heads of students in Afghanistan or getting pro-
democracy campaigners released from Egyptian prison. More often, they
are long-term and complicated.
``Many Muslims are still deeply enamored of America the idea,''
said Gerges.
There's the hope. Today, America the reality, though, is a
disappointment and a threat. This is the new philosophy--the new cause
uniting disparate people in disparate places. America is the aggressor,
the real impediment to peace, the enemy, and those standing up against
us are not just masked gunmen in far-off desert hideouts, they are
graduate students in Lebanon, democracy campaigners in Egypt, doctors
in Iraq, and even young men in by neighborhood of Notting Hill. Their
attitude towards the U.S.--and Americans--comes from years of living as
unwilling subjects of our foreign policy. Their insight into our
country is at times grounded in profound wisdom and experience. At
other times, it's based on pure bunk. But seeing through their eyes
will help us understand their vision as well as America's position in
the post-9/11, post-Iraq, post-George Bush world.
The Chairman. I thank you, Senator Lugar. It's a pleasure
to join with you in hosting this hearing, and I'm glad that we
can do it.
Secretary Albright, thank you again for being here with us.
We really appreciate it. Admiral Fallon. And if, Secretary,
you'd lead off, we look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT, FORMER SECRETARY OF
STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dr. Albright. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
Chairman Lugar. It's a pleasure to be with you and members of
the committee. I'm very pleased to be here with my colleague,
Admiral Fallon, and to address the question of engaging the
Muslim communities around the world.
I recently did participate in a study on this subject which
recommended the following: Vigorous use of diplomacy to resolve
conflicts, support for improved governance in Muslim-majority
states, efforts to enlarge economic opportunity, and steps,
based on dialog, to enhance mutual understanding.
Each of these approaches has value, and each should be
explored during our session today, but I would like to use my
time, at the outset, to make some additional observations.
First, as the subject of this hearing reflects, there are
numerous Muslim communities around the world, including the
United States. And these communities, as Chairman Kerry said,
are diverse and cannot be portrayed accurately with a broad
brush.
Second, successful engagement between any two groups
involves certain rules. Each side has a duty to scrutinize its
own actions, state clearly its expectations of the other, and
listen with an open mind to opposing views. These principles
are easier to recite than to fulfill, which is why disputes so
often arise around the question of double standards. For
example, the United States is frequently accused of applying
one set of standards to its own actions and another to that of
Arabs and Iran. For our part, we fault Arab States for
rationalizing violence, suppressing political rights,
perpetuating harmful myths, and refusing to accept
responsibility for bad decisions. As a result, instead of
dialog, we tend to have opposing monologs. This creates a
climate in which advocates of compromise are routinely accused
of betrayal. The way out is through leaders brave enough to
admit that each side has faults and smart enough to translate
shared frustration into a motive for common action. Such
leaders do not arise often, but they are needed now.
Third, the West's interest in Muslim communities spiked
after
9/11. That is understandable, but awkward. A dialog driven by
such a traumatic event is sure to evoke accusations on one side
and defensiveness on the other. And this means that, if we're
serious, we should separate our engagement as much as possible
from the context of terrorism. The West has many more reasons
than al-Qaeda to improve relations with the Muslim world.
My fourth point is related. Western media are full of
references to ``Islamic terrorism.'' But what does that mean?
We do not portray the Oklahoma City bombing as Christian
terrorism, even though Timothy McVeigh thought of himself as a
Christian. McVeigh was guilty of mass murder, and there was
nothing Christian about it. The same principle applies with
Islam. When Muslims commit terrorist acts, they are not
practicing their faith, they are betraying it.
Fifth, as any experienced diplomat can testify, engagement
comes in many flavors, from tea to vitriol. Often, the stronger
the brew, the more useful the encounter. Thus, American policy
should be to talk to anyone, if, by so doing, we can advance
our interests.
An example of the kind of hardheaded engagement I have in
mind is that between the U.S. military and Iraq's Anbar
Awakening, which turned former enemies into tactical allies. As
this precedent suggests, conversation is not the same as
negotiation, and smart engagement is not appeasement. Looking
ahead, our Secretary of State and our special envoys should
have all the flexibility they require.
Sixth, we need to repair our relationship with Pakistan.
The world appears different from Islamabad than it does from
Washington, and we cannot expect Pakistani leaders to place
their interests beneath ours. At the same time, no country has
suffered more from violent extremism.
Pakistan's primary challenge is governance. Nothing
improves the climate for extremism more than the failure of
official institutions to fill such basic needs as security,
education, and health care.
In trying to help, we should bear in mind the distinction
between the different and the dangerous. In Pakistan's
northwest, people ordinarily worship, dress, and think in ways
unfamiliar to us. This does not make them a threat, for their
political horizons tend to be local. That changes, however,
when we hurt the wrong people. A family whose loved ones are
accidentally killed by an American bomb will no longer have a
local mindset. So, we have a very difficult line to walk.
Military operations against hardcore elements are still
essential; but, we will never win if, through our actions, we
inadvertently create more terrorists than we defeat.
Seventh, our engagement with Muslim communities should
include explicit support for democracy. This preference need
not be heavyhanded, but neither should it be so timid as to be
inaudible. It is true that the democratic brand has been called
into question, but for every question there is an answer. Armed
groups, such as Hamas, have no place in an election. But
democracy is why women have led governments in four of the five
most populous Muslim-majority states. Recent provincial
balloting in Iraq has helped to unify the country, while
parliamentary debate has been useful in channeling anger.
Upcoming votes in Iran and Afghanistan will no doubt influence
the course of those nations. Democracy's advantage is that it
contains the means for its own correction through public
accountability and discussion. It also offers a nonviolent
alternative for the forces of change, whether those forces are
progressive or conservative.
And finally, religion matters. I know there are some who
would like to engage with Muslim communities without bringing
religion into the conversation, but to them I say good luck. As
Archbishop Tutu has pointed out, religion is like a knife; it
may be used to slice bread or to stab your neighbor in the
back, but it cannot be ignored.
Both the Bible and the Quran include enough rhetorical
ammunition to start a war and enough moral uplift to engender
permanent peace. The determining factor is less what the words
say than the message we choose to hear.
Accordingly, I would like to close with a quotation, ``If
Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at
peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world, with
Christians and Muslims intertwined as never before, no side can
unilaterally win a conflict. Thus, our common future is at
stake. So, let our differences not cause hatred and strife. Let
us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works.''
This is a citation from a document entitled, ``A Common
Word Between Us and You,'' signed by a diverse group of more
than 300 Muslim scholars. It is based on the shared commitment
to monotheism and love of neighbor that is central to the
Quran, Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the bridges to
be built through engagement with Muslim communities are not
political, religious, intellectual, cultural, or economic. They
are all of these at once. And this means that we each have a
responsibility and a role.
Our purpose cannot be to erase differences, but to manage
them so that they enrich, rather than endanger, our lives.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Admiral Fallon.
STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL WILLIAM J. FALLON, USN (RET.), FORMER
COMMANDER OF U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND, CAMBRIDGE, MA
Admiral Fallon. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, distinguished
members of the committee, it's a great pleasure and an honor to
be here in your presence, and in the presence of my
distinguished colleague, if I could be so bold as to, at least
for today, try to rise to that occasion. Madam Secretary, a
pleasure to see you again.
As you know, I've had some recent experience dealing in
countries in much of the world that contain significant Muslim
populations, and I think that this subject of the hearing today
is really very appropriate; it's an area in which we've got to
figure out how to move forward because the potential on the
upside is terrific, and the other course of action, on the
downside, is not where we need to be continuing.
I think that the business of engaging with the Muslim world
is extremely important for our country, for a host of reasons
certainly. First and foremost among them would be the large
number of people that are involved here. As Senator Kerry
indicated in his opening statement, we are talking about almost
a quarter of the population of the world, and there are a host
of other economic, demographic, political, security, and other
reasons why this subject is so important to us.
There are a lot of historical factors that I believe are at
play in the current state of relations. I would point out that
we can't do much about the past, but we can certainly do
something about today and the future. And I think that's where
we ought to really focus. And so, there are things that have
gone on in history that have set the stage for the current
state of affairs. Certainly, the aftermath of the events of 9/
11 played a major role in the situation, and the ongoing
conflicts in the Middle East adding more fuel. The result is a
significant image issue, as you are well aware, and the purpose
of this hearing.
Today we have some new opportunities, for a number of
reasons. First and foremost, with the new administration, my
sense, as I travel around the world, is a tremendous amount of
enthusiasm and very high expectations for just something
different and for goodness to occur. And I think it's a really
great opportunity for us to try to leverage that goodwill.
Another fact of life is that the situation in Iraq has been
dramatically improved over the last year and a half, and that
this offers us some great opportunities.
And another one that might not, at first glance, appear to
be positive, but in the aftermath of the financial and economic
crises that's reverberating around the world, we've got a great
opportunity here, because if we are going to solve these
problems, we're going to have to work closely together. And I
think, by now, people all over the world have a sense that this
isn't going to be confined to a certain country or a certain
part of the world, that everybody's going to feel it, they are
feeling it right now. And this fact, alone, ought to motivate
some behavioral change that would put us in good stead.
We have a problem that has been certainly uppermost in
minds of people in this country and around the world since 9/
11, and that's the terrorist threat. It existed before that,
but it reached new heights. And it's been my experience that,
if we're going to continue to work to try to resolve and
minimize the impact of this challenge, it's going to require
very, very close cooperation. And the more help that we can get
from more people in different parts of the world, the better
off we're going to be, and the more likely we're going to be to
succeed in this challenge.
We can leverage goodwill. There have been events, in recent
years, that have demonstrated that the U.S.--and really it's
the people of this country--care about their fellow man. We
have devoted enormous sums of money, a tremendous amount of
effort, goodwill, to help people in hardship. There are a
couple of events that occurred in parts of the world that were
in my responsibility. The disastrous tsunami of late 2004, and
the aftermath, changed, dramatically, opinion in the most
populous Muslim country in the world, Indonesia.
I arrived just as the cleanup was really getting underway.
And the difference in tone, the difference in a willingness to
work with us, was just remarkable over a relatively short
period of time. And I know a similar set of events occurred in
the wake of another disaster: The earthquake in Pakistan.
One of the reasons I highlighted the current fiscal and
financial and economic crisis, was because from these
challenges, typically, great opportunities arise. Our ability
to react in a positive manner to these things is really
important, and we have to do a lot of things, I believe, to set
the stage. But, the opportunities are certainly there.
I've always found that actions speak louder than words. And
we will need to demonstrate, as we are doing, by our actions,
that we really care. And that's really the message, and that's
what people look for. And so, as we contemplate, and as you've
asked for input on ways and means and things that people might
do, I think doing the right things to try to build confidence,
to build trust between people, is the real deal here. And how
do you do it? You've got to engage. You have got to interact
with people. They have to see you, and they have to feel you,
and they have to have a sense--my experience--that you really
care and that you're interested.
So, treating people as we would like to be treated, and
respecting them as individuals, is really the bottom line. And
I think we are well within our capabilities to do that and to
change the negative image that seems to persist in many parts
of the world, to turn this around, and to make it mutually
beneficial to these millions of folks around the world, as well
as ourselves.
So, I'm delighted to be here and would be happy to answer
your questions. I would ask that you take my few pages of
written testimony and enter it into the record for your
reference. And I'll be happy to take your questions, should you
have any.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Fallon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Admiral William J. Fallon, USN (RET.)
Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, distinguished members of the
committee. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to testify about
``Engaging with the Muslim World.''
It was my great honor to serve and often represent U.S. interests
in the world during more than four decades of service in the U.S. Navy.
During that time I had many opportunities to interact with people from
Muslim majority countries and to understand the high value of frank and
mutually respectful relations between people.
During the past 4 years in particular, while serving as Commander,
U.S. Pacific Command and Commander, U.S. Central Command and most
recently at the Center for International Studies at MIT, I have
participated in many matters of high interest to the U.S. and other
countries around the world. These interactions in Muslim countries have
often been difficult due to a combination of negative perceptions,
policies and bureaucratic issues.
I believe that engaging the Muslim world is of great importance to
us for demographic, geostrategic, security, economic and military
reasons. First, more that 1.5 billion people representing almost \1/4\
of the world population claim Islam as their faith. These people
inhabit countries around the world but are concentrated in an area from
North Africa through the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. This
area includes many of the most troubled and security challenged zones
of conflict, as well as key sources of raw materials, especially oil
and gas. These lands also front many of the critical maritime choke
points, through which flows the majority of world commerce.
Many Muslim majority nations have historically shared good
relations with the U.S. Others like Indonesia and Pakistan with
checkered relations in the past are currently high priorities for
engagement. As you are well aware, since the attacks of September 11,
2001, negative perceptions based on insecurity have clouded relations
between America and Muslim nations worldwide. The causes of these
frictions are many, several predate 9/11, and include U.S. policies
during the Cold War, recognition of and close relations with the State
of Israel and the large U.S. military presence in the Middle East. The
U.S. has oft stated and compelling rationale for its actions but the
combinations of these and other factors have contributed to rising
tensions. Recent large scale U.S. military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan have intensified the situation and mutual distrust has
become pervasive. Of course the catalyst for this bad feeling is the
terror activities of a relatively small number but deadly cadre of
Muslim violent extremists. And this intense security concern is a
critical reason why engaging the Muslim world is so important.
With the start of a new administration in Washington, the
substantial improvement in the situation in Iraq and the global
reverberations of the financial and economic crises, I believe we have
a grand opportunity to reengage the Muslim world to our mutual benefit.
Although each of the three factors I have chosen to highlight are very
difficult, they each offer the potential to help us reshape the recent
situation.
There is great anticipation and expectation for change and positive
developments with the advent of the Obama administration. Emotional
expectations are high worldwide.
The improving security situation in Iraq, the drawdown of U.S.
troops there, and increasing cooperation between countries in the
region should improve the overall atmosphere in the Middle East. The
reduced levels of violence, the return of displaced persons and
increasing political competence of the Iraqi government are
neutralizing what was only recently, a very negative factor in the
region.
Although the current economic and financial crises are causing
global impacts which are detrimental to many, the very scope and scale
of the problems mandate intense international cooperation to resolve
this gives us all an opportunity to work very closely together, to
demonstrate concern, compassion and take positive steps to remediate
the causes and address the effects of the crises.
I would suggest a number of steps to improve relations with
Muslims.
First would be to listen to their side of the issues and be willing
to visit with them and discuss the challenges. Messages are
important and President Obama sent a good signal with his
recent interview on the Al Arabiya television network.
Demonstrating our interest in peace and stability with the majority
of like minded Muslims by engaging in the Middle East peace
process and outreach initiatives across the world, puts action
to words. The early designation of Senator Mitchell as Special
Envoy is commendable.
Lending a helping hand, as we are doing in many countries to assist
the less fortunate with economic, health, education and
security issues.
Demonstrate, by simple acts of respect and kindness at our U.S.
points of entry in treating people the way we want to be, and
they should expect to be, treated.
Fix the bureaucratic process and embarrassing delays in the
visitors VISA program for people coming into this country for
meetings, conferences and other exchanges.
Most of the things that make a difference in relations between
people come down to issues of trust. We build trust by personal
engagement and treating people with respect. In my experience
this entails little risk and works well with a majority of
people.
Thank you for the opportunity to express my views. I stand ready to
address any questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you, Admiral.
Thank you both for your testimonies. It's almost hard to
know where to start, because it is such a vast and complicated
topic, but let me just ask, at the outset, if I could--you just
said, Admiral, that, you know, how to do it is sort of the
critical question here for all of us, and that we have to
engage. I assume you would both agree that the policies we
choose to pursue are going to be critical in shaping how people
see us. I mean if we, for instance--pretty much everywhere I've
gone in the region, whether I'm in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the
Middle East, elsewhere, we--or elsewhere in the world--we hear
tremendous kickback on America's involvement in Iraq and the
policy choices we made there. We started out, in Afghanistan,
with 100 percent support for what we were doing. Just 100
percent. A 100-percent support for the Karzai government, a
100-percent support for us. Now we've seen a rapid turnaround,
with increased support for the Taliban, which al-Qaeda and
other entities take advantage of, but which has come about
because of the absence of what Secretary Albright talked about,
which is good governance and the delivery to the people.
So, the question is, sort of--I mean, is there sort of an
order of priority of the things that we can pay attention to
that will make a difference--i.e., getting our policy right in
Afghanistan, Pakistan--getting our policy right in these
areas--or is it, notwithstanding the policy, that if we did
more on the humanitarian front, more on the education front,
and so forth, that it will negate that, or it won't matter?
Secretary Albright.
Dr. Albright. It's very important to get the policy right.
I think that not everything that has gone wrong is due to
American actions. But, I do think that the direction of our
policy clearly has an effect. And it's kind of like an umbrella
under which some of the other points that you raise have to
take place. And one does not exclude the other, frankly. But, I
do think that we have to figure out what our objectives are--
wherever we are. I think the problem with the war in Iraq is
that it was unclear what exactly it was about. And in
Afghanistan, we lost our way. So, I do think there needs to be
a sense about the direction that we want to go in.
It's a combination. You have to have security in order to
move forward on some of the governance issues. And then, the
governance is also important, in order to make sure that the
people can get benefits out of everything that's put in. If you
have corrupt leaders in any country, the benefits never get
there.
So, what I would like to see is a concerted effort,
obviously in redefining policy, but also having a vibrant
program on governance issues--not the imposition of American
institutions, but the assistance and support for those who want
to develop their own institutions. But, I find it very hard to
decide we would only do policy and not do the education and
various issues that you and Senator Lugar were talking about.
The Chairman. Well, take--how--where would you say that the
Taliban fit into the description that you've given us of, sort
of, this challenge? I mean, they're reacting to the lack of
security; they are reacting, obviously, to their interpretation
of their faith and their desire for Shari'ah, in its fullest
interpretation, which many people within Islam would disagree
with, as to whether or not it is a legitimate full
interpretation.
I was just in Syria. One high-level official told me how he
has a photograph of his mother, 20 years ago or so, visiting
the Omayan Mosque, wearing a long skirt, not below the knee,
and no cover, because she wasn't going there to pray. She was
going there to visit with somebody, to show it to them. And,
under the requirements, as interpreted, if you're not there to
pray, you don't have to cover. Today people are covered,
everywhere, in increasing numbers.
So, these interpretations tend to become, to some degree,
part of an entire, sort of, cultural and quasi-political
movement, if you will, to challenge the orthodoxy of other
entities or people, or even religions, in some cases. You see
that with the extremes of the Taliban and in other parts of the
world.
Whose responsibility is it to try to draw those
distinctions, or to try to create the tolerance that might
exist? Because our legitimacy in trying to do that, it seems to
me, is almost nil. And there's no central authority, otherwise
within the religion, that does that. So, it's subject to that
kind of exploitation. Now I wonder, How do we address that? And
particularly with respect to something like what's happening
now in Afghanistan with the Taliban.
Dr. Albright. Well, I mean, you ask a very difficult
question, and a very basic one. Clearly, when I was in office,
we had very serious problems with Taliban, because they were
making women be voiceless and disappear, and generally made
life impossible. I went to visit refugee camps where the women
told horrendous stories. And I won't go through that. The
Taliban have done dreadful things to the population of
Afghanistan.
But, a point that came out in our last Doha summit, that I
think is worth mentioning here because it fits, Anwar Ibrahim,
who was the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, now is a leading
opposition leader, said something that is vital, and that is
that many of the changes and the weeding out of extremists has
to be done by the Muslim communities themselves; that when we
tell people who's good and bad, it can backfire--either we like
somebody, and that's kind of a kiss of death; or we make
somebody evil, and that gives them greater stature. And so, I
do think we need to look for members of the Muslim community
that can help.
We've had problems even with the vocabulary. We talk about
``moderate Muslims.'' The bottom line is that moderate Muslims
do not believe moderately. They believe passionately about
moderation. And so, we need to somehow engage them to help us--
--
The Chairman. Well said.
Dr. Albright. [continuing]. In that particular problem.
The Chairman [continuing]. That's very well said. I'm
almost--my time is up, so Senator Lugar, and then we'll do
another round.
Senator Lugar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Albright, I mentioned, in my opening comments,
the American centers that used to be around the globe. It is
obviously easy for an outsider to advise the Secretary of State
and our State Department to open such centers. But, let me just
ask, from your experience, what is the practical effect of
this? We've taken extensive security measures to move our
embassies, in some cases, far out of the capitals, out of touch
with the coffee houses and the ambiance that used to be a part
of our engagement and diplomacy because we felt that our
employees and others might be bombed and lose their lives. But
even where security challenges are not critical, these centers
were shuttered. Nevertheless, now there is a thought that
perhaps these centers might be opened in some localities where
the security situation allows; that this is an opportunity for
our message to reach people who earnestly would like to read,
study, be a part of that. Do you have any overall comment and
first reflections?
Dr. Albright. Senator, I have your resolution here, and I
was looking at it with great interest, and I must say, I feel
this one very personally. I am the Secretary of State who
brought public diplomacy into the State Department. I think it
was the right thing to do. It was very important to get public
diplomacy and policy together. I also was the Secretary of
State, on August 7, 1998, which was when our Embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania were blown up. And I went to get the bodies and
brought people home and dealt with the families. And the issue
was about security.
Senator Lugar. I see.
Dr. Albright. And it was the hardest thing to think about--
what to do. Our embassies are supposed to be the eyes and ears
of our country, in foreign countries, to be open and welcoming,
and yet we have had to move them out, put them behind walls;
and obviously the information systems were also a part of that.
I love your resolution. I love all the ``whereases.'' I
have a problem, because--you raise it at the end--the security.
That's a very big issue. And so, I hope that we can do what you
are talking about. The best of America is in our openness and
our capability to explain our story. And during, for instance,
the period of communism, it was always amazing to go to one of
the American centers. When I was in Prague, I went to something
called the jazz section, where their proudest document was an
album from the ``Rolling Stones.''
We have so much to offer, but the security part of this--I
hope that, as you propose, the ``whereases'' really are used,
and that the security people look at this. But it's great to
think about this. Absolutely.
Senator Lugar. Well, thank you for that very important
encouragement.
Dr. Albright. Yes.
Senator Lugar. Let me ask--during your tenure--and you
described this in your book, ``A Memo to the President''--you
twice offered to sit down with Iranians, without conditions, to
discuss all issues. And, as you described it, both times,
various ways, you were rebuked. Now, this hearing is about
engagement, and once again that word is being used with regard
to Iran. And suggestions are being made, perhaps, that Dennis
Ross or others may think through formulas as to how we approach
this indirectly, or maybe more directly. But, what counsel
would you give, at this time, to our Secretary of State, or to
our President, with regard to engagement with Iran?
Dr. Albright. I do believe that it is very important to
have engagement with Iran. And this fall, five former
Secretaries of State--three Republican--Kissinger, Baker,
Powell--and Warren Christopher and I--all agreed that we should
have dialog with Iran, without preconditions. We can't learn
about what it is they are thinking, nor can they learn about
what we are thinking, without that engagement.
That doesn't mean it's easy, because, as you point out, we
tried; they missed the signals. In many ways, Khatami did not
know exactly how to respond, and there were questions about who
was really in charge. Iran is an incredibly complex society,
but we will know nothing if we do not have engagement at a
variety of levels. And so, I hope very much that the
administration is able to go forward on this, with your
support.
Senator Lugar. Admiral Fallon, currently, maybe even as we
meet here, there are important officials, including the Foreign
Ministers, the Defense Ministers, those involved--pardon me--in
intelligence operations, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, meeting
with our Secretary of State and our Secretary of Defense and
others. It's remarkable, coming together of three countries in
Washington at this time. I salute Dick Holbrooke, as well as
Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates, for the contacts at
Veirkundea and various other places that made this possible.
And Senator Kerry and I were privileged to visit, last night,
with the participants, many of them. And they did seem to have,
as you've pressed, a sense that security is an existential
problem in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And it is not doing us a
favor by trying to clear up a few people who might once again
attack New York and Washington.
But, from your experience, how deeply is this felt, and how
likely is it that there can be a confluence of interest in
which we all feel a problem of security and therefore--as
opposed to doing favors to one another--are able to work on the
same wavelength?
Admiral Fallon. We all need things--pardon me--we all need
things, and everybody in the world would like to have some
things. And so, there are always opportunities to get together
and make trades. But, I think I'd like to answer this by
circling back to a couple of questions that the chairman asked,
and we vetted, to your question, as well.
The business of engagement--and we talk about it all the
time--and who understands what it is. To me, it's a long-term
commitment to actually working with people. And, it seems to me
that we get worked up about the engagement. We get pretty
exercised about trying to solve problems in the wake of
untoward events. Pretty easy to see how that happens. But,
related to policies, and related to long-term behaviors, which
I think are--again, it's what people see and observe that
really makes a difference--we could be helping ourselves, I
believe, by relatively modest investments in time, treasure,
and people, for the long haul, that would preclude us getting
into a lot of these deep holes that we now find ourselves
trying to dig out from. And so, engagement, to me, is actually
being in the world, as our forward-deployed forces are--
certainly our diplomatic people in the various embassies, but,
increasingly today, the many thousands of military people that
represent us around the world who are actually out there on the
oceans, in the skies, and on land in various countries.
And I think equipping these people with the tools that
would make them effective in engagement, convincing to people,
that we really care, is critically important. And frankly, from
the policy standpoint, the resources that I've found available
to do these things were pretty minimal. And I think it's pretty
obvious now that people see this, across the board. We've got a
Secretary of Defense, Mr. Gates, who's publicly stated, a
couple of times, the benefit of having more of an investment
and working closer with our Department of State, USAID, and
other people. So, I think this is really important.
Regarding the downside of policies and the effects of near-
term swings--I'd like to highlight two examples.
Indonesia and Pakistan, two countries that are in the
forefront of interests today, for different reasons. Certainly
Pakistan, with the conflicts and the origins of the terrorist
activities, and the difficulty in fixing things in Afghanistan
without addressing the complications, and so forth. We went for
about 10 years with no relationship, military to military, with
leaders in that country, because of our policies. I understand
the motivations and a lot of the history, but the downside was
that we lost the confidence of many people in that country, and
more importantly, we lost an ability to influence behaviors.
And so, it's difficult to recover from that.
Indonesia, again, different circumstances, but similar
kinds of challenges. And were it not for the very, very tragic
tsunami, I'm not sure that we'd be much further along today
than we were back in 2004. And these are things I have found,
as I came and appeared before you and your colleagues in other
hearings, to be difficult sells, frankly. To look at these
policies in a different light than the viewpoint that
originated them, and for example to get buy-in to long-term
investment up front in those things that would be so helpful--
as the Secretary has enumerated here.
How does all this come together? And what goes first? And
what really makes a difference? Without stability and security,
all of the other desired engagements with education and
politics and commercial things and so forth, are very, very
difficult to do. In an atmosphere where people are just
concerned about surviving, day to day with security dangers, as
we've just seen, certainly in Iraq and Afghanistan and other
places--it's very difficult to get effective engagement
programs going. So, the element of security, stability--
uniquely enabled by our military people--again, working these
things in advance pays huge dividends. And so, again, we're not
going to undo what's been done in the past, except by our
actions now and in the future. And I think focusing on those
for the long term would be very, very helpful.
Thank you.
Senator Lugar. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Lugar.
Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Thank you, Secretary Albright and Admiral Fallon, for being
with us this afternoon.
I want to pick up, a little bit, Admiral Fallon, on what
you were just saying about better equipping the military to be
the face of the United States. What kinds of resources, what
kinds of assistance, could we provide to our service men and
women in Muslim countries so that they could better represent
the United States?
Admiral Fallon. Thank you. The list of unique things is
probably pretty short. The best thing we can do is to train and
equip, in a general way, our people to go about their business
in the world professionally. Their example, in the way they
carry out their normal military duties, is hugely important.
The image that they carry with them, based on their day-to-day
performance, is really very critical.
But, we have all kinds of capabilities that can be brought
to bear, as we do from time to time, in addition to the
standard professional military expectations. Certainly,
hospital ships--we were able to very effectively employ those
in Southeast Asia, and recently in other theaters, in Europe
and in Latin America.
We can actually put military people in areas that would be
considered high risk by other civilian organizations; and, by
our military presence in some of these places, doing
humanitarian things, we can supplement our presence with
civilians who would not likely go unless they had that security
and stability blanket that comes with our forces.
And I think there are other things that are really helpful.
It's been my experience that the thing that really makes a
difference is people being confident that their own governments
can take care of them. And the issue of governance, and how
problematic that is in so many areas, is important.
What we've tried to do in the military is to train the
local security forces to be able to take care of business on
their own. They're the faces that really ought to be on the
streets. It's great for us to come in from time to time and
help out and do humanitarian things, as well as our regular
security business, but a major effort is training and equipping
those local forces.
Some of this is policy, and the resources and clearances
are necessary for our people to engage in different countries,
and then having our people available to go out and actually do
the engagement, but--so, there's a list of things, but there
are not many that are specifically unique to Muslim countries.
These are just things that would be helpful, in general.
Thank you.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Secretary Albright, you talked about women in the Muslim
world and some of the women that you encountered. Should the
U.S. do more to promote women's rights in Muslim countries?
And, if so, what kinds of activities, efforts, should we
undertake to do that?
Dr. Albright. We do need to be true to ourselves and be
able to explain why we believe that having women politically
and economically empowered helps to strengthen societies. But,
we also need to work with the women in a particular country and
get a better understanding of it. I have found that--as I
travel, that, for instance, Saudi women want to be heard. Not
all of them want to drive, but they do want to be heard. We
need to work with them, take some guidance from them, in terms
of the things that they would like us to help on.
We should do everything we can to encourage women to be
involved in political activities. I have read, with great
pleasure, that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has, in fact, now
named a woman to be a Deputy Minister. That is a step forward.
And in other Muslim countries, there are women that are active.
We should do what we can to help, but we should not do it in a
way that is counterproductive to the women in the country
themselves. So, we have to work with them. And I think we make
a better society if we help women to be politically and
economically empowered.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
both.
This question is for both of you, but I will begin by
quoting from Secretary Albright's testimony. Thank you for
emphatically stating that our engagement in Muslim communities
should include explicit support for democracy.
I recently returned, with a Cardin delegation, from
Ramalla, Jerusalem, Damascus, and other locations. We had an
opportunity in our delegation to meet with one of the chief
negotiators for the Palestinian Authority. And I don't know
that I'm quoting him precisely, but the essence of one of the
statements that he made was, ``Anyone who says democracy is not
appropriate in the Middle East is a racist.'' I'd like to ask
both of you to respond to that statement.
And also, Secretary Albright, you mentioned that armed
groups, such as Hamas, have no place in an election. And yet,
they won the parliamentary election, regrettably. That allows
someone like President Assad in Damascus to respond to us that
he's comfortable hosting a leading Hamas faction in Damascus,
because they are part of a popularly elected political party.
So, the second part of the question is, Was there some
failure in American foreign policy that allowed this Hamas
success to occur in the parliamentary election, which has
resulted in a divided government for the Palestinian Authority?
Dr. Albright. Thank you very much, Senator. I am chairman
of the board of the National Democratic Institute, and have
been spending a lot of time on democracy issues. And I do
believe in democracy, and I do think that there is no part of
the world that isn't ready for democracy. So, I think we can't
just decide that some group of people are not ready to make
decisions about their own lives. It doesn't necessarily have to
be an American-style democracy, but I have thought that
everyone is ready for some form of it.
NDI now has 30 programs in various countries--including
Muslim countries, and Gaza and the West Bank. So, this is
something that I feel very strongly about. And what has been
unfortunate is that the war in Iraq has given democracy a bad
name. You can't impose democracy; you have to support it. And
I've worked very hard on that.
On the issue of Hamas, it is a very complicated aspect of
this, because what happened--and I speak only for myself--is
that the U.S. pushed for those elections at a time when it was
unclear as to whether Hamas was going to give up its violent
approach, in terms of participating in a democratic process.
I'm very glad that Senator Mitchell is the negotiator, because
he understood what happened in Ireland, where the IRA split in
a way that there was a political arm, Sinn Fein, that could be
dealt with, that allowed it to be part of the political
process. And that hasn't happened with Hamas.
So, I think there should be an entry fee for entering into
a democratic election, and Hamas did not--was not asked to pay
that entry fee.
Senator Wicker. May I interject? Should they have been
prevented from offering candidates in the election?
Dr. Albright. Well, I think there was a real question about
the timing of the election, frankly.
Senator Wicker. I understand.
Dr. Albright. They could have, maybe, offered candidates
but the goal should have been to divide some of Hamas, those
who are willing to recognize Israel, give up violence, and then
live up to former agreements from those who are not.
The reason why Hamas actually did as well as it did, is
that people need to vote but also to eat. Democracy has to
deliver. And so, Hamas and Hezbollah, and other organizations
sometimes, are providing important services to the people. And
therefore, part of what has to happen--and it goes to your
point earlier, Senator Lugar--is, there has to be economic work
and education and a way that people see some benefit to
democracy. Hamas did not win by that much in each of the
districts, but it was primarily, I think, because they were
delivering, and Fatah wasn't.
Senator Wicker. Admiral.
Admiral Fallon. Certainly, the Secretary is the expert in
the political dimensions here, but I'll tell you that, from my
experience, people around the world like choices. They don't
like to be told they have to do things. And getting back to an
earlier comment about the Taliban in Afghanistan, the people
don't like the Taliban. They've had a good taste of this. And I
recall, back in Iraq, a year or so ago, Governor of Anbar
telling me, you know, ``We've had al-Qaeda; we don't like
them.'' But, people have to have some confidence that there's
an alternative. And I think trying to set the conditions that
allow opportunities so the people do have choices is really
important.
Senator Wicker. Thank you. And having been to the Middle
East, I can tell you that Secretary Mitchell is universally
well-received as an envoy from the United States.
Madam Secretary, I'm glad that former Secretary Kissinger
is part of a group that spoke with a unified voice on this
issue. You say ``religion matters,'' and you ask the question,
``What is Islamic terrorism?'' I think we'll agree, there is
such a thing as Islamic terrorism. Secretary Kissinger said
publicly, with respect, that, ``One of the things that is
needed is for an Islamic reformation.'' Would you respond to
Secretary Kissinger's statement? Do you agree with that?
Dr. Albright. I think that--and it's something that I
answered, partially, to Chairman Kerry--is that some of the
changes have to come from within Islam, that they--they have a
process whereby there is discussion and debate within the
Muslim community, but it's nothing that we can tell them to do.
I don't think it's possible for us to tell them, ``Have a
reformation.'' But there are those--and I have met many
Muslims--who see that there needs to be some approach that
allows them to have greater debate. But, it is not up to us to
tell them to do that.
Senator Wicker. Thank you, ma'am.
The Chairman. Senator, we're going to our next panel. I
think we're going to have a couple of experts who can sort of
help address some of the specifics of that. And it really is an
interesting question.
I might just comment also, quickly, that when Secretary
Albright says that there wasn't a, sort of, entry fee, if you
will, to be paid, and the opponents were unable to deliver
services, and Hamas could--I think it really underscores one of
the great missed opportunities, frankly, for the West with
respect to this entire process. I know that, at the time, the
Palestinians did not want to have the elections; they wanted
them delayed, because they foresaw the difficulties. The
Israelis, likewise, foresaw the difficulties. And frankly, we
are the ones who insisted on the election taking place, and
then we're surprised with the results of the democracy that we
had insisted on. So, it's really part of the convoluted history
of, you know, bad vision and policy. It's the question I asked
about the policies and what their out--you know, implications
are.
I would also add that I remember visiting with President
Abbas the day he got elected in 2005, and he explained to me
that he knew very well what the challenge was that he faced,
but he didn't know how he was supposed to meet it, because he
didn't have the resources. And frankly, for about 4 successive
years, we, the West, as a whole, and some neighbors in the
vicinity, ignored his needs. And they never had the ability to
deliver and develop the governance that we've always demanded
of them.
So, in many ways, you know, we all, sort of, share some of
the responsibility for where we find ourselves now, and it's an
interesting part of the history of this.
But, I do think the next panel can get more specific on
some of this, which we look forward to.
Senator Kaufman.
Senator Kaufman. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for
holding this hearing. And I'm pleased, also, to hear--which I
totally agree with--this is just the first step. This is
clearly one of the most important questions we are going to be
dealing with in this Congress and, I think, Congresses to come,
unfortunately.
Secretary Albright, what of the tools of public diplomacy--
I mean, a lot of this is about public diplomacy--as you said,
you brought public diplomacy to the State Department--what
tools of public diplomacy do you think are most useful in
engaging with the Muslim world?
Dr. Albright. Senator, I think that there are a number of
them. First of all, you know, when we think of public
diplomacy, most people think it's us talking at them. For me, I
think one of the most important parts of it is listening and
getting a dialog going. Exchanges, whether they are of students
or intellectuals or opinion leaders or legislative leaders, are
a very important part.
We also need to be more attuned to modern technology. Our
competitors know how to use a lot of new technology, so we must
be able, as innovators, to use every aspect. And I hope that,
as the new people get into place, then the Board of
International Broadcasting basically can look at a variety of
those tools.
And then, we also ought to use their tools. I don't think
it hurts if we go on al Jazeera in order to explain ourselves.
And so, President Obama did al Arabiya. It is very important
for us to tell our message, but also to listen. So, the tools,
I think, should be those that allow exchanges, visas, all those
various aspects that bring us into contact on a number of
different levels.
Senator Kaufman. You know, I'd really like you to think
about this--American centers, you know, and how we deal with
this. I--it isn't just the cold war. I was in Johannesburg,
where Libra Yosi had the--used to have the library there, and
Mandela and Umbeki, and all the leaders of the ANC came into
that library in order to learn about democracy. And when we
talk about democracy, and wanting to force a democracy, I think
giving people an opportunity to kind of read history and see
history is really an extraordinary thing. And I also understand
the incredible security problems we have. But----
Dr. Albright. I think it would be wonderful to do them. And
I think it is the security issue--I just know how awful we felt
when we had to close down a lot of it. And--it's very
difficult--and I remember, as a professor, traveling around and
visiting the places, and having opportunities to give lectures
and various things. So I agree, and I hope we can figure it
out.
Senator Kaufman. Admiral, I can't think of better words
than ``actions speak louder than words,'' and I think you are
absolutely right. What are some of the actions that you think
we should take that would send a message to the Muslim world?
Admiral Fallon. If I could follow up on the questions you
asked----
Senator Kaufman. Sure, absolutely. Yes, thank you.
Admiral Fallon [continuing]. The Secretary, to answer this
question, because I think there are things that would be
impactful immediately. In central Asia, which is a majority
Muslim population, in just about every country, there is
virtually no impact--zero--from U.S. media. People hear what
they've traditionally heard in that area, and that's Russian
language T.V. broadcast, because it used to be part of the
former U.S.S.R. And if you would ask any of our ambassadors,
they would, I expect, concur, U.S. television would be
extremely useful. Not easy, but certainly not grossly
expensive. And it's something that I think would have an
impact, because it would give people an opportunity to hear
something else. We don't have to aim it to them, we can just
let them have access into things like the way we run our
business and so forth. I think it would be immensely useful.
Al Jazeera: The President did Al Arabiya. I did an Al
Jazeera interview last year, actually the year before last now,
that hadn't been done before. I did it on the Arabic channel.
And I thought it was a tremendous opportunity to answer some
tough questions, but to let people see that we weren't
intimidated, We need to go out and do them. I think things like
that are really important. For a lot of reasons, we shy away
from those things.
I share your conviction that the small outreach centers--
the libraries and information stations in other countries--are
of immense value. Plainly speaking, this comes down to a
willingness to take risk and making judgments about risk, every
day. It's relatively--however difficult in implementing,
relatively easy to give blanket guidance regarding risk. So,
``We've got a terrorist threat here; can't do this, can't do
that.'' So people immediately go to ground, and we put policies
in place that prevent us from acting. Walls go up and you can't
get there.
I think that we need to consider local situations, empower
our leaders on the scene to be able to make choices and make
decisions, and to flex, as they see things. But, until and
unless we can actually get these places open so people can come
to them, we will not progress. The tremendous impact of our
troops in Iraq, for example, getting out from behind the walls
and among the population--that is phenomenal in helping us to
recover that security situation. In a more peaceful
environment, in these other less violent countries, even more
leverage, because there's less intimidation on the front end.
So, you can't easily edict these kinds of things, from a
policy standpoint, but I think we can try to build in the
flexibility and encourage our people on scene to make
decisions. Certainly, there's risk entailed every day, but,
then again, crossing the street around here is a challenge
sometimes.
Senator Kaufman. Great.
Admiral Fallon. Thank you.
Senator Kaufman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I've got to make one comment, and that is, with the
discussion of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, we have a station,
called Al Hura, that 27 million Arabs listen to every week, and
a radio station called Sawa, which 20--17 million listen to.
So, we have good communications. And I think the more we
develop this--Al Jazeera has a budget of 300--over $300
million, Al Hura has $100 million. The most powerful economic-
political machine in the history of the world--the United
States--is spending one-third on satellite television than Al
Jazeera is spending on theirs. So, I think, you know, an
opportunity--we have an opportunity to do these things, and I
think you are absolutely right, in terms of what we should be
doing and how broad our public-diplomacy reach should be.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Kaufman.
We have a vote on. We're on the back end of the vote.
Senator Gillibrand, you should have time to be able to get
through your round, and then there's a grace period, and I'll
tell them that you're on your way, to cover you.
Meanwhile, Senator Feingold is on his way back here to
continue the round of questioning, and I'm going to go and come
back immediately. So, Senator Feingold did want to ask this
panel, if he has a chance--and I know he's on his way; and then
we'll keep rolling through. Thanks.
Senator Gillibrand.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing.
Thank you, to our esteemed guests.
Secretary Albright, I'd like to ask you a little about
Pakistan. In your testimony, you said that we need to repair
our relationship with Pakistan, and the primary challenge is
governance. I want to talk a little bit about, and ask your
opinion on: What types of investments and what type of work can
we do with the Pakistani leadership that will be helpful? And,
in particular, I want to ask about--certainly, there's very
large refugee populations in the FATA region. And should we or
should we not be investing in education, health care, economic
development, types of microlending that could create futures
for families and people that live there, so that we don't have
the ease with which the Taliban or al-Qaeda can recruit now in
areas where there is extreme poverty and a lot of hopelessness?
I'd like your views on which kind of investments America should
look at, and what kind of strategy, in particular, should we be
engaged with in Pakistan to help with the issue that you bring
our attention to, which is governance?
Dr. Albright. It's so nice to see you, Senator.
I think that Pakistan provides more problems, I think, than
any other country. I've often said it has everything that gives
you an international migraine.
It has nuclear weapons, poverty, extremism, corruption, and
is in a very difficult location--and it has a weak government.
I think that we could do better by providing assistance that
would help on economic issues, such as education and health.
This has been suggested previously by Senator Biden and Senator
Lugar. The question is how to decide what the amount is, and
then to whom to give it, and whether it should be distributed
to nongovernmental organizations, or in some other ways that
doesn't get caught up in the troublesome parts of the system.
The problem with it is that it will be hard to show
immediate results to the taxpayers of the United States, who
are being asked to do many things at the moment They will want
to know, what are we getting for that dollar? But, I think our
assistance can be invested well--in education, for instance,
because part of the problem is that the madrassas are educating
some of the young people in ways that are not helpful. So,
putting money into those particular programs through
nongovernmental organizations, and then adding some to help
governance and institution-building is very important.
Senator Gillibrand. And do you have any thoughts about
processes to put in place for oversight and accountability?
When I visited Pakistan, one of the generals that I spoke to--
his largest concern was that there is no way, with billions of
dollars that are given to the government, that we've ever had,
to establish some level of accountability so that investments
are going in the places where they're intended. Do you have any
thoughts about--and maybe, Admiral Fallon, this is an area
where you have expertise on--if we do continue investment, and
we want to do investments in certain areas to have a long-term
intended result of combating terrorism, what would your
recommendations be for how we, not only deliver the funds, but
how do we keep accountability so that the American taxpayer
knows that these investments are to keep their children safe?
Admiral Fallon. This is a complex issue, for a lot of
reasons. We provide assistance to foreign countries, and many
are very grateful for that assistance, but they are sensitive
to the fact that the package comes with lots of strings. And
it's something we have to really be careful of. There are some
things that we can do on our own, where we can maintain the
accountability for such things. And in the business of security
assistance, we have a number of these procedures that are
pretty well inscribed in policy. And I think--taking the
appropriate steps to ensure that we abide by the regulations
and that we don't create more problems for ourselves--but, is
important I think we have to be sensitive to the fact that
people are proud, particularly in Pakistan.
There are a lot of things that the Pakistanis are accused
of; but, my experience is, they are proud of their
achievements, and there's a significant well-educated,
hardworking middle class in this country, and they would like
to be recognized as such. So, I think we need to be sensitive
to that.
But if I could piggyback on something the Secretary said,
there's some expectation that we're going to have instant
results, you know, we're going to make an appropriation, and
next year the seeds will sprout and everything will be
wonderful. Just doesn't work that way. It requires long-term
investment.
And again, we have, for a lot of reasons that this
committee or the graybeards here on the committee would
certainly know a lot about, we enacted policies, in past
decades, that have now come home to roost--in many respects,
because we just had no way to leverage, no way to get inside
and actually have influence on either the way money was spent
or in the priority of things.
So, as you consider the policy implications of various
laws, just a recommendation to try to take the long view,
whenever possible, because the issues in Pakistan are not going
to be solved overnight; it's going to take a long time.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you both. I would love to have
this conversation last for many, many more minutes, but I do
have to go vote. So I'll come back, if you're still--I'll ask
more questions.
Thank you.
Senator Gillibrand [presiding]. We will put this hearing
into recess until the chairman returns so we can continue the
panel.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
The Chairman [presiding]. Folks, thank you for coming back
to order. I apologize, but, as is often the case, the floor
schedule is clashing with the hearing schedule, and that
happens around here a lot. The result is, we actually have a
couple of votes coming, so it's just going to truncate the
process. So, we're going to have to wrap up this panel and try
and get started with the next panel, and just be a little
flexible.
If I could just ask you both sort of a quick question, as
we--it struck me, in the last trip that I took, that, more than
ever, there has been a transformation, to some degree, in the
entire arena of South Asia, Middle East. And what we viewed
previously, almost exclusively, as sort of Arab-Israeli and the
Palestinian issue, is transforming, now, into moderates versus
extremists. And that secular governments, secular moderate
governments, Arab governments, are increasingly concerned about
this radicalization that is taking place.
Sort of a last question on the table--and we've talked
about the public diplomacy, we've talked about the policies
themselves, we've talked things--but, is there any major step
or initiative that, in your judgments, could have the greatest
impact? Or is there some outreach to a particular entity, or
group of people, whose engagement might make the greatest
difference in pulling us back from this precipice?
Secretary Albright.
Dr. Albright. Well, I believe--and I think it's the new
modus operandi of the Obama administration, as well as for you,
Mr. Chairman. The trip that you just took was exceptionally
important, in terms of the countries and the timing--looking
for partners among the Arab or Muslim governments, to see if
they can help us.
I also believe that there is no incompatibility between
democracy and Islam, and that it is therefore vital to work on
governance issues.
And then, if I might--and it's the basis of my book about
the role of God and religion--I think that religious leaders
can play a very important role, in terms of bringing various
groups together in conflict prevention, and get ahead of the
issue. I wouldn't have religious leaders negotiating, but I
would have them there. And also young people. I really think--
and you're going to hear from Eboo Patel, in terms of--I think
the next generation is the one that really has to be worked on.
But----
The Chairman. But, if I----
Ambassador Albright [continuing]. May I say, Mr. Chairman,
I think this is an extremely important set of hearings. And to
the extent that I can be helpful in a continual way on this, I
would be very pleased to do so.
The Chairman. Well, you've been enormously helpful to be
here today, and I really want to look to you for advice and
counsel and help as we go forward. And we will go forward, and
I just commend everybody, though we're not in the job of
selling books on the committee, but ``The Mighty and the
Almighty''--I feel like a talk-show host or something, but----
[Laughter.]
The Chairman [continuing]. The introduction by President
Clinton--but it's a terrific piece, and it does confront a lot
of these issues. And in the next panel, we have the ``Who
Speaks for Islam?'' These are important books, and it's
important for all of us to try to understand this better.
So, Admiral, do you want to add a last word?
Admiral Fallon. Just a couple. There's no magic, here. It
requires a long-term commitment to try to let people have
choices in this struggle between extremists and so-called
moderates or--I think that giving encouragement to the
majority, who want stability, want security, and they want to
be able to live their lives in some semblance of normalcy,
removing some of the obvious distractors--things that are
pointed to constantly as, ``Well, if only that were solved.''
We're not going to solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem.
They're going to have to solve it, the people there on the
scene. But, we can help. We can provide encouragement. We can
try to remove, to the best of our ability, these--I call them
distractors--that are often put up as excuses.
And people are people. Human nature being what it is,
always looking for ways to either have somebody else take the
hit or to avoid, often, responsibility for our own actions.
So----
The Chairman. Right.
Admiral Fallon [continuing]. Encouraging responsible
leaders to actually take charge, to step up and take the
initiative, with some sense that they're not just going to walk
the plank, that if they're going to operate in an arena of some
risk and some insecurity, that we'll be there to help them, as
best we can. And I think that pursuing those kinds of policies,
long term, gives us the best chance.
The Chairman. Well, we thank you.
Admiral Fallon. Thank you.
The Chairman. We all have to remember that the concept of
diversity, pluralism, and tolerance didn't even come easily
here. And the history of my State is written partially by
people who escaped from a place called Salem, wandered through
the woods for a winter, and found a place that they named
Providence, which is now the capital of Rhode Island, as well
as people who fled to what is now Connecticut, because they
were seeking refuge from religious extremism. And that was,
indeed, the original purpose of a whole bunch of folks coming
to Massachusetts and to this country. So, we've been through
this.
You can go to Europe in the 1600s, 30 years of a war
between Catholics and Protestants, and opportunists who took
advantage of their struggle. And an awful lot of people have
died in the name of someone's sense of their rectitude about
the good scriptures of any religion.
So, as Madeleine Albright said today, the Bible and the
Quran are filled with a choice of which rhetoric you want to
choose to employ, and you can make war or you can make peace.
That's our struggle. And we are going to continue to explore it
in greater detail, and uninterruptedly, I hope, on occasion.
But, I thank you so much for being here today. Thank you
very much. Thank you, Secretary. Thank you, Admiral.
[Pause.]
The Chairman. Now, to bring our second panel to the table,
if we could, as fast as possible. Thank you very much for
joining us.
Dalia, would you begin? Thank you.
If we could try to keep opening statements to 5 minutes.
I'm going to have to disappear again, because there's a vote
on. I'll try to wait as long as I can, in hopes that someone
appears to continue. If they don't, we'll have to recess.
Thanks, Dalia.
STATEMENT OF DALIA MOGAHED, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GALLUP CENTER
FOR MUSLIM STUDIES, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Mogahed. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for inviting
me to share the findings of our massive poll on Muslim opinion
around the world. It's a complicated issue, and so, for the
sake of time, I will get just--get right to the highlights.
Though many have weighed in on the question of whether
there is an inevitable clash between Muslims and the United
States, and the West as a whole, the group that we seldom hear
from are ordinary people. And that's why I felt that it was
very important for our research to be heard by this panel.
The Chairman. Could you just tell us quickly----
Ms. Mogahed. Sure.
The Chairman [continuing]. How you--who you are and how you
do that?
Ms. Mogahed. OK, absolutely.
Ongoing since 2001, Gallup has conducted tens of thousands
of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with Muslims in more than
40 nations, including Europe and the United States. We spoke to
men and women, young and old, educated and illiterate, from
urban and rural settings. In totality, we surveyed a sample
representing 90 percent of the global Muslim population, making
this the largest, most comprehensive study of contemporary
Muslims ever done.
Our research uncovered a number of surprising insights, but
the most important was this. A massive conflict between the
U.S. and the Muslim world is not inevitable. Our differences
are driven by politics, not a clash of principles. Our findings
suggest that Americans and Muslims, who are Asians, Arabs, and
Africans, share a great deal in common, but that three primary
filters shape the views of those who disapprove of the U.S.
They are perceptions of being disrespected, politically
dominated, and anger at acute conflicts.
To improve relations and further decrease the appeal of
violent extremism, we must turn to what I will call the three
R's: Resolution of conflict, political and economic reform, and
mutual respect.
So, contrary to popular media images, residents of Muslim-
majority countries share a great deal in common with many
Americans. This includes a shared admiration for democratic
values and good governance, valuing faith and family, and a
good job, as well as an overwhelming public rejection of
violent extremism against civilians.
Most agree that interaction between Muslims and Western
communities is more a benefit than a threat. And majorities
worldwide, from Boston to Baghdad, also say better relations
between the two communities is of personal importance.
In general, Muslims around the world are slightly more
likely than the American public to unequivocally reject
targeting civilians by individuals or the military. Our study
found that those who sympathize with attacks on American
civilians support that position by using political ideology,
not religious fervor. In contrast, those who say that terrorism
is wrong explain that position using religious prohibitions on
murder. This means that what is at the heart of support--public
support for terrorism, is not religious extremism, but an
extremist political ideology.
Furthermore, Muslims are more likely than the American
public to say that they themselves are afraid of being victim
to a terrorist attack, and feel--even more often mention this
than the American public--that they must work to stop violent
extremism in their own communities. So, though violent
extremism may seem to be at the heart of what divides the U.S.
and Muslims around the world, it is actually our common enemy.
With so much shared, why do so many in Muslim-majority
countries have unfavorable views of the U.S.? Rather than a
hatred of our principles, three policy-driven perceptions drive
the views of those who disapprove of the United States. They
are anger at acute conflicts, perceived political domination,
and disrespect.
Acute conflicts begin this list. Most believe the invasion
of Iraq did more harm than good, and very few believe that we
take an evenhanded approach to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. In addition to these conflicts, as you pointed out,
Mr. Chairman, other events, such as abuses in Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo Bay, contribute to perceptions of being under
attack.
Political domination is the second, and it's very important
to understand that many Muslims around the world admire what
they say are universal values that are practiced so well in the
West, including good governance and self-determination, as well
as human rights. However, they doubt that the United States--
they are skeptical as to the United States true intentions in
promoting these values in their region, and point to our
support, or our perceived support, for dictatorships.
Finally, disrespect. And I will spend a few minutes on
this, because it's so important. When asked what the West can
do to improve relations with the Muslim world, whether we were
talking to someone in Casablanca or Kuala Lumpur, the most
frequent response was for the West to demonstrate more respect
for Islam, and to regard Muslims as equals, not inferior.
Where does this perception of disrespect come from?
Ironically, it stems from the perception that we don't live the
values that they so admire about us in our treatment of them--
rule of law, self-determination, and human rights. Many believe
that the U.S. is denying Muslims these rights by supporting
dictatorships, direct occupation of Muslim lands, and what is
seen as passive support for Israeli violence.
To explain the perceived gap between America's espoused
values and its treatment of Muslims, or perceived treatment of
Muslims, they turn to this idea that we must be singling them
out and looking at them as less than we are.
What is the way forward? And I will refer to the same
report that Secretary Albright mentioned, the ``Changing
Course'' report put out by a high-level commission. I'm going
to focus on one specific aspect of that report, in addition to
what I just said, which is this idea of mutual respect. How do
we show mutual respect?
First, we move, think and speak and act to the reality that
Muslims are allies, not suspects, in the fight against violent
extremism. We must talk about this issue by recognizing that
they are the primary targets of terrorism.
This will mean deemphasizing the unquenchable demand for
mainstream Muslims to condemn terrorism, again and again, as if
this assumes their co-membership in one group with the
terrorists, instead of with us, as fellow victims of terrorism.
Terms like ``Islamic terrorism'' or ``jihadists'' glorify
the terrorists by giving them religious veneration. Instead of
using terms like this, or using terms even like ``radical
Islam,'' which is a little like saying ``totalitarian
democracy''--that's simply a contradiction in terms--we should
use a term simply like ``bin-Ladenism.'' And----
The Chairman. Could I stop you there?
Ms. Mogahed. Un-huh.
The Chairman. Pardon me, because I have some questions, but
I need about 2 minutes to go vote.
Ms. Mogahed. Absolutely.
The Chairman. So, we need to recess until we get back,
and--so, we'll stand in recess for a few minutes.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
Senator Kaufman [presiding]. We'll call the committee back
to order, and we'll continue with the testimony by Dalia
Mogahed.
Ms. Mogahed. Thank you.
Second, we will have to condemn Islamophobia as un-
American. This is where the U.S. must stand head and shoulders
above what sometimes seems as Europe's less-developed
comprehension of free speech. We don't use racial slurs in
public, not because they are prohibited in the legal realm, but
because our society has evolved beyond that in the moral realm.
European societies, for whom living in a multicultural society
is still relatively new, must grow in the same way. This also
includes constructive exchange in accurate depictions of media.
Three is listening. While many Muslims are critical of
actions carried out by both our government, as well as their
own, from the wars in Iraq and Gaza to economic corruption and
lack of freedom, the majority reject terrorism as a legitimate
response. To further weaken the extremists, we must listen to,
not necessarily agree with, mainstream Muslim's concerns over
injustices, and engage those peacefully working to address
these concerns.
And finally, I'll end with the vital role for Muslim
Americans to play. Not only are Muslim Americans ambassadors of
America's inclusiveness in engaging Muslims around the world,
but represent a valuable brain trust for crafting smart,
equitable policies for an interdependent world. Groups like the
Muslim congressional staffers and many other groups are vital
resources for thinking about these issues. In addition, Muslim
Americans' legal and social welfare in their own country is
viewed as a litmus test for America's position toward Muslims,
in general. We must therefore continue to promote our core
American values of due process, justice, and equality in our
treatment of all people.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mogahed follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dalia E. Mogahed
Mr. Chairman, ranking member Lugar: Thank you for inviting me to
share findings from Gallup's ongoing research on Muslims around the
world, and what our analysis suggests is the best way forward in
reversing the apparent downward spiral in the relationship between the
United States and these diverse communities. This is a complicated
issue, and given the time constraints of this hearing, my remarks will
necessarily sound general. I apologize for this, but I would like to
just outline the framework for tackling this challenge. These ideas are
more fully developed in my book,\1\ along with a new report on Muslim
Americans to be released Monday, which we'll make sure all of you
receive.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, John
L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed (Gallup Press, 2008)
\2\ ``Muslim Americans: A National Portrait,'' Gallup Center for
Muslim Studies, March 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many claim to speak for Muslims, and therefore an accurate
representative understanding of this silenced majority from their own
perspective is a critical first step to building effective strategies
to improve relations. My remarks this afternoon reflect extensive
Gallup research on global Muslim attitudes. Ongoing since 2001, Gallup
has conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews
with residents of more than 40 nations with majority or substantial
minority Muslim populations. The sample represents residents young and
old, educated and illiterate, female and male, and from urban and rural
settings. In totality, we surveyed a sample representing more than 90%
of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, making this the largest, most
comprehensive study of contemporary Muslims ever done.
Our research uncovered a number of surprising insights, but the
most important was this: A massive conflict between the U.S. and
Muslims around the world is not inevitable. Our differences are driven
by politics--not a clash of principles. Our research suggests three
primary filters shape Muslims' negative views of the U.S.: Perceptions
of 1. disrespect; 2. political domination; 3. acute conflicts. To
improve relations and further decrease the appeal of violent extremism,
we must turn to what I will call the 3 R's: Resolution of conflicts,
and Reform and Respect, rather than looking to religious explanations
for Muslim behavior.
Common Ground
Contrary to popular media images, residents of Muslim majority
countries around the world share a great deal in common with most
Americans. This common ground includes an admiration of democratic
values and good governance, valuing faith and family, and an
overwhelming public rejection of violent extremism. Ordinary people
around the world also agree that greater interaction between Muslim and
Western communities is more a benefit than a threat, including more
than 70% of Americans. Majorities worldwide, from Boston to Baghdad,
also say better relations between these communities is of personal
importance.
Our findings suggest anti-American sentiment is not borne out of a
religiously inspired hatred of Western culture. For example, though
anti-American sentiment is rampant in many Muslim majority countries,
especially in the Middle East, it is not shared by Muslims in sub-
Saharan Africa. At the same time, it is not exclusive to Muslims. Less
than 10% of the general public in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany, and
Spain approved of U.S. leadership in 2008, whereas strong majorities--
more than 70% of Muslims in Mali and Sierra Leone expressed approval.
Moreover, even those Muslims who view the U.S. and the U.K. negatively
have a neutral to positive view of France and Germany--in fact, as
positively as they view other Muslim majority countries. These results
suggest Muslims' views of countries fall along policy and not cultural
or religious lines.
Despite widespread disapproval of U.S. leadership, Muslims
worldwide said they in fact admired much of what the West holds dear.
When asked to describe what they admired most about the West in an
open-ended question, the most frequent response was technology,
expertise, and knowledge; the second most frequent response was freedom
and democracy. Moreover, when Americans were asked the same question,
the top two responses were identical. Majorities, including more than
80% of Egyptians, say that moving toward greater democracy will help
Muslims progress. Contrary to what might be assumed in light of the
Danish cartoon crisis, Muslims around the world, in majorities greater
than 90% in Egypt, Indonesia, and Iran said they would include free
speech as a fundamental guarantee if they were to draft a new
constitution for a new country.
However, while acknowledging and admiring political freedom in the
West, Muslim communities did not favor a wholesale adoption of European
models. Very few associated ``adopting western values'' with Muslim
political and economic progress. Our data suggest that while admiring
fair elections in the West, many Muslims envision a democratic model of
their own. We found the majority in virtually every country surveyed
believed Sharia should be at least a source of legislation.
At the same time, a vast majority of those surveyed, in addition to
their admiration for political freedom in the West, also said they
support freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly--as well as a
woman's right to vote, drive, work outside the home, and lead. In
addition, a mean of 60% say they would want religious leaders to play
no direct role in drafting a country's constitution (and even among
those who take the contrary view, most would want clerics limited to an
advisory function). So while Muslim support for Sharia is high, so is
their support for democratic and egalitarian values, including women's
rights and freedom of speech. At the same time, majorities do not want
a ``theocracy'' or a government run by presumably infallible theocrats.
Counter intuitively, our analysis suggests Sharia is viewed as
representing ``rule of law''--a set of rules and rights that no
dictator is above because they are God given--unalienable rights
endowed by the Creator. For example, a near unanimous 96% of Egyptian
women associate Sharia compliance with protecting human rights.
Government's role, therefore, should be to protect those rights. Thus,
complete secularism can mean for many the lifting of all constraints in
preventing government-sonsored tyranny--in fact taking away people's
God-given rights.
Aspirations were also common. When respondents in Muslim
communities around the world were asked to describe their dreams for
the future, we didn't hear about waging war against the West, but
instead we heard getting better work and offering a better future to
their children. This response was heard among 70% of Indonesians and
54% of Iranians. A recent Gallup survey found that Americans wanted
President Obama to talk about `jobs' in his speech to Congress this
past Tuesday, followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The poll
could have been from any number of Muslim communities.
Like Americans, the overwhelming majority of residents of Muslim
communities around the world reject attacks on civilians and consider
them morally wrong. Those that sympathize with attacks on American
civilians are no more religious than the mainstream and defend their
position with political ideology, not religious theology, while those
who oppose terrorism explain their position in moral or religious
terms. The most frequent response to what Muslims should do to improve
relations with the West was to modernize, project a more positive image
of Islam, and to help stop extremism. It is also interesting to note
that among the most frequent responses to the question about their
greatest fear was being a victim of terrorism. Violent extremism is a
common threat to everyone.
With so much in common, what is standing in the way of greater
engagement? Three primarymutually reinforcing perceptions shape
America's negative image. They are perceptions stemming fromacute
conflicts, the perception of political domination, and disrespect.
Acute conflicts: It would be difficult to overstate the sense of
moral outrage many Muslim communities feel, especially in the Middle
East, about the acute conflicts currently involving the U.S. as a
direct or indirect actor. Iraq tops of this list, but also includes
Afghanistan and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Majorities around the
world, including 90% of Egyptians and 57% of Iranians, believe the
invasion of Iraqdid more harm than good. Only percentages in the single
digits believe the West takes an even-handed approach to the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. When asked what the U.S. can do to
improve relations with the Muslim world, people in the Middle East cite
the U.S. pursuing a more balanced approach to this conflict near the
top of the list. However, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is less
central to Muslims in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa except during raging
conflict like the past war in Gaza. In addition to these conflicts,
other events such as abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prison
contribute greatly to the filter of being under attack.
Political domination: Many Muslims around the world, while admiring
of Western values, believe the U.S. does not live these values in their
treatment of Muslims. For example, significant percentages of Muslims
do not believe the U.S. is serious about democracy in their regions.
This is the view especially in countries where democratic promotion has
been the loudest, such as Egypt, where 72% doubt American promises of
democratic support, and Pakistan, where 55% have this view. Doubting
American intentions with regard to democracy are closely tied with the
perception that America is a hegemonic, neo-colonial power that
controls the region. More than 65% of Egyptians, Jordanians, and
Iranians believe the U.S. will not allow people in their region to
fashion their own political future the way they see fit without direct
U.S. influence.
Disrespect: When asked what the West can do to improve relations
with the Muslim world, Muslims around the world, whether in Casablanca
or Kuala Lumpur talk about respect. They speak about respect as
reciprocal and say that Muslims must also show respect for the West to
improve relations. However, while the majority of Muslims say they
respect the West, most do not believe the West respects them.In some
cases, they are right. The majority of Americans also say they do not
believe the West respects the Muslim world, and when asked what they
admire most about the Muslim world, the most frequent responses were
``nothing,'' followed by ``I don't know.''
What Muslims say they admire most about the West is what they
associate most strongly with the U.S. citizens' liberties. At the same
time, many believe the U.S. is denying Muslims these same rights of
self-determination and human rights through support for dictatorships,
direct occupation including human rights violations, and what is seen
as tacit support for Israeli violence.
To explain the perceived gap between America's espoused values of
democracy, human rights, and self-determination on one hand, and its
treatment of Muslims on the other--Muslims turn to the belief that
America and its allies must be hostile toward Islam and regard Muslims
as inferior. Meaning, since the perceived way Muslims are treated is
antithetical to cherished Western values, these same Western powers
must be hostile to Islam and Muslims. This perception is compounded by
anti-Islamic rhetoric, or the desecration of Islamic symbols,
especially by those in positions of authority.
So, not surprisingly, when we asked Muslims worldwide what the West
can do to improve relations with the Muslim world, the most frequent
responses were for the West to demonstrate more respect for Islam and
to regard Muslims as equals, not as inferior. For example, when we
asked this question of Lebanese respondents just days after the end of
the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel--a conflict respondents
blamed on America almost as much as it is blamed on Israel--people had
this to say:
``They (the West) should consider us humans and should end
war and be at peace with Muslim World.''
``West should treat Muslims equally to improve their
relations because they look down upon us.''
Other respondents from around the globe echoed this sentiment. For
example, a respondent from Morocco said, ``The West has to change and
moderate their attitudes towards Muslims. They have to not look down on
our people.''
The New Way Forward
This analysis was the basis of a new bipartisan consensus report on
U.S.-Muslim engagement, which I took part in drafting, titled
``Changing Course.'' \3\ The report's recommendations fall under the
three R's: resolution of violent conflicts, reform (political and
economic), and respect (mutual).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ ``Changing Course: A New Strategy for U.S. Engagement With the
Muslim World''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resolution of conflict
Muslims, like all people, want to live safe, prosperous, and free
lives. Resolution of violent conflict and responsible withdrawal from
occupied land is the most important step we can take to squelch public
anger at the U.S. This includes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as
well as continuing to de-escalate tensions with Iran and Syria. These
also include helping to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For
these reasons, President Obama's immediate selection of envoys to these
trouble spots was crucial. However, since many of these conflicts are
likely to rage on for several more years despite our best intentions,
we will need to manage the interim by setting realistic expectations
and by speaking and behaving like fair brokers of peace. For example,
though we seldom talk in these terms, Palestinians need security as
badly as Israelis and bear the brunt of civilian casualties in the
conflict. We must therefore talk about and work for security for
Israelis and Palestinians.
Reform (political and economic)
Reeling from what appeared to many as disastrous policies promoting
democracy in the past several years, many are leery of promoting
political reform. However, ``Changing Course'' \4\ concluded it is in
our best interests to strengthen institutions of good governance in
Muslim communities, support democratic processes--not specific
personalities--and widen our definition of acceptable election
outcomes. In addition, business partnerships that promote economic
growth and job creation are important foundations of a thriving middle
class and civil society, which are the bedrocks of democracy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Respect
Since this is both a priority of President Obama and a critical
issue from the perspective of Muslims, I will go into the most detail.
According to our research, ``respect'' is reflected in words and
actions. The two most significant statements associated with respect
were refraining from desecrating Muslim symbols and treating Muslims
fairly in the policies that affect them. Four specific recommendations
emerge from our research:
1. Muslims and Americans vs. violent extremism: Our language must
reflect the reality that the primary victims of violent
extremism are Muslims abroad, and that they fear falling victim
to political violence more than Americans do. We are,
therefore, natural allies against this common threat. This will
mean de-emphasizing the unquenchable demand for mainstream
Muslims to condemn terrorism again and again as this assumes
their co-membership in one group with the terrorists, instead
of with us as fellow victims of the same crime. Use of terms
like ``Islamic terrorism'' or ``Jihadists'' glorifies the
terrorists with religious veneration, while fueling the very
perceptions they work to exploit - that America is at war with
Islam.
2. Condemn Islamophobia as un-American. This is where the U.S. must
stand head and shoulders above Europe's underdeveloped
comprehension of free speech. We don't use public racial slurs,
not because they are prohibited in the legal realm, but because
our society has evolved beyond them in the moral realm.
European societies, for whom living in a multicultural society
is still relatively new, must grow in the same way. With all
our faults and ongoing struggles, America has something to
teach the world about multicultural relations. We have learned
through our civil rights struggle, at least in principle, that
our democracy is stronger when it no longer excludes entire
segments of its citizens, and that our freedom is protected,
not compromised, when our definition of civility includes them.
3. Listening. While many Muslims are critical of actions carried out
by both our government and their own, from the wars in Iraq and
Gaza to economic corruption and lack of freedom, the majority
reject terrorism as a legitimate response. To further weaken
the extremists, instead of defending our way of life, we must
listen to--not necessarily agree with--mainstream Muslim
concerns over injustice, and engage those peacefully working to
address them.
4. Muslim Americans' vital role. Not only are they ambassadors of
American inclusiveness, but as one of the most educated and
diverse faith communities in the nation,\5\ they represent a
valuable brain trust for crafting smart, equitable policies for
an interdependent world. Groups like the Muslim congressional
staff's association can be a vital resource for thinking about
these issues. In addition, Muslim Americans' legal and social
welfare in their own country is viewed as a litmus test for
America's position toward Muslims in general. We must therefore
continue to promote our core American values of due process,
justice, and equality in our treatment of all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Muslim Americans: A National Portrait,'' released by Gallup
March 2, 2009 www.MuslimWestFacts.com and www.Gallup.com
Senator Kaufman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Patel.
STATEMENT OF EBOO PATEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
INTERFAITH YOUTH CORE, CHICAGO, IL
Mr. Patel. Mr. Chairman, my name is Eboo Patel. I am the
founder and director--executive director, of an organization
called the Interfaith Youth Core. Our mission is to spread the
message of religious pluralism to tens of millions of people
worldwide, and to train and mobilize tens of thousands of young
people to be its architects.
I would like to say that I am the son of Muslim immigrants
from India. They came to America, not just for the
opportunities of personal and professional advancement, but
also for the opportunity to contribute to a nation that was
built on the contributions of many from all over the world.
They view my testimony here as a partial fulfillment of their
American dream.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that the question of the 21st
century will be the question of the faith line. That is, how
diverse religious communities choose to interact, whether that
interaction moves with conflict or toward cooperation. The
biggest mistake we can make on the question of the faith line
is to define it wrong. The wrong definition of the faith line
pits Muslims against Christians, or believers against
nonbelievers. If we define the faith line as Muslims against
Christians, we are left with a world of 2 billion people at war
with a world of 1.3 billion people. That is an eternal war.
I prefer to divide the faith line--to define the faith line
as a line that divides people I call ``religious pluralists''
from ``religious totalitarians.'' I have a very simple
definition for ``religious pluralist.'' It's somebody who
believes in a society where people from diverse backgrounds
live in equal dignity and mutual loyalty. I have a very simple
definition of a ``religious totalitarian.'' It's somebody who
wants their community to dominate, and everyone else to
suffocate.
I believe that young people will make the difference
between whether we live in a century defined by religious
pluralism or a century defined by religious totalitarianism.
Unfortunately, I believe we are losing this battle. And the
answer to that is very simple. It is because religious
extremist movements target, in particular, young people. Al-
Qaeda can very easily be understood as a movement of young
people taking action. Osama bin Laden himself was recruited,
when he was a teenager, by a man barely a decade older than
him. When he became a 20-something, he in turn started
recruiting teenagers for a new global force that he called al-
Qaeda.
The youth bulge, particularly in the most religiously
volatile parts of the world, is remarkable. The median age in
Iraq is 19.5. There are more children in India than are
citizens in the United States. We cannot forfeit this powerful
terrain, this major opportunity, to religious extremists simply
because they are the ones targeting, training, and mobilizing
these young people.
The other truth is that young people have played an
absolutely key role in building religious pluralism throughout
the ages. Martin Luther King, Jr., was only 26 years old when
he led the Montgomery bus boycott. He worked, through the
inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi, arm in arm with the Rabbi
Abraham Joshua Heschel, and through an inspirational
correspondence with the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist
monk.
Mahatma Gandhi, the great Indian Hindu leader, was 24 when
he started his movement against the racist laws in South
Africa. And a too-little-known Muslim leader, named Abdul
Badshah Khan, was a young man when he mobilized thousands of
Muslims to be part of the movement to free the subcontinent.
These are the youth leaders of interfaith cooperation. They
exist amidst us today. We need to be inspiring them, training
them, and mobilizing them. America and Islam have an enormous
shared value when it comes to pluralism. As the American
philosopher Michael Walzer once said, the challenge of America
is to embrace its differences and maintain a common life. That
strikes me as deeply resonant with a line from the holy Quran.
In Sura 49, we are told that god made us different nations and
tribes that we may come to know one another.
I think it is--the time is now to declare the 21st century
the ``Century of Religious Pluralism,'' and to declare this
generation the architects of that value.
I have a couple of specific recommendations for the United
States Government to make. My organization has had a presence
on six continents. Many of our programs have been facilitated
by wonderful institutions, like the State Department.
Unfortunately, too many of those initiatives have been ad hoc.
I believe it is time to move from scattered initiatives to
strategic approaches. I believe it is time to go from seeding
programs to scaling programs.
Two of my colleagues recently did a tour of European
countries, where they engaged several hundred mostly young
Muslim leaders in Europe, and trained several hundred others,
to be the architects of religious pluralism. Why shouldn't this
be tens of thousands? It is simply a matter of concentrated
resources and coherent mechanisms at institutions like the
State Department.
Mr. Chairman, imagine if the 2 billion Christians on the
planet and the 1.3 billion Muslims, the several hundred million
Hindus, the 50 million Jews, viewed themselves as partners in
fighting malaria, or AIDS, or the various ills that afflict
humankind. That is the century we could live in. The United
States can play a major role in that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Patel follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Eboo Patel
Introduction
Chairman Kerry, Senator Lugar, and esteemed members of the
Committee on Foreign Relations, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on the very important topic of engaging Muslim
communities around the world. As your invitation to testify indicated,
before we can engage Muslim communities, we must first attempt to
understand these communities. My testimony will highlight some of the
characteristics of Muslim majority countries and the Muslim community
in Europe. My recommendations for engagement, in turn, are premised on
the belief that we must involve young people in our strategies and use
interfaith action to build a better relationship with the Muslim world.
Trends Among Muslim Youth
There are several factors that underscore the importance of
engaging with young people.
Globalization has given rise to unprecedented interaction among
diverse religious communities around the world. Ultimately, it is young
people, as they in particular have embraced new forms of global
communication, who will decide how these interactions tend. This
increased communication has led to new forms of identity engagement
amongst youth, which are less reliant on traditional nation-state
boundaries and more likely to be influenced by transnational factors.
This interaction can lead in one of two directions: conflict or
cooperation. The dominant theory that outlines this interaction is the
``clash of civilizations'' as outlined by Samuel Huntington.
Alternately, many see the world through a different paradigm,
separating not civilizations but, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., those who choose to live together as brothers or perish as
fools.
In Muslim majority countries, three additional trends are at work.
First, there is a youth bulge. In Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip, the
median age is about 17 years; in Iraq and Pakistan it is barely 20, and
in Syria and Saudi Arabia the median is about 21.5 years. This trend
extends all over the Middle East and North Africa--the median age is
under 27 in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan.\1\ How these youth
express and engage their religious identities has influence far beyond
their individual reach. Will we have a generation of young people who
believe that their way of being, believing, and belonging is a barrier
against diversity, or worse, a bomb to destroy it? Or will young people
understand their faith as a bridge to promote equal dignity and mutual
loyalty amongst diverse religious communities? I believe that with the
appropriate attention and investment, there is an effective way to do
the latter.
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\1\ CIA World Factbook
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Second, these youth are faced with changing socio-economic factors
that create insecurity. There is a clear lack of job opportunities and
services to meet the needs of these youth. The unemployment rates in
Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip have been estimated at close to 40%, and
in Jordan and Iraq this number is around 30%.\2\ Without gainful
employment and the potential for traditional social roles or upward
social mobility, these young people are becoming frustrated and lost.
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\2\ CIA World Factbook
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Third, at this moment, as youth seek identity and purpose in their
lives, they are confronted with a global religious revival. Scholar
Thomas Farr writes ``Faith, far from exiting the world's stage, has
played a growing role in human affairs, even as modernization has
proceeded apace. Iran's Shiite revolution in 1979, the Catholic
Church's role in the `third wave' of democratization, the 9/11
attacks--all illustrated just how important a global force religion has
become.'' \3\ According to Todd Johnson and David Barrett,
``Demographic trends coupled with conservative estimates of conversions
and defections envision over 80% of the world's population will
continue to be affiliated to religions 200 years into the future.'' \4\
Sociologist Peter Berger states that ``the assumption that we live in a
secularized world is false [. . .] The world today [. . .] is as
furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than
ever. \5\
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\3\ Farr, Thomas. ``Diplomacy in an Age of Faith: Religious Freedom
and National Security,'' Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 2. Pg 110.
\4\ Farr 112.
\5\ Berger, Peter. The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent
Religion and World Politics, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999.
Pg 2.
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Religion remains a primary source of identification for many and is
a robust transnational identifier. Groups who promote intolerance,
violence, and segregation have used religious identification in young
people to actively promote division and mistrust. The power of
religion, however, can be used by youth to build peace and productive
engagement.
Youth identity is not an issue that is relevant only in the Middle
East. Muslim communities in Western Europe are a key demographic that
cannot be ignored. As of 2003, there were 15 million Muslims in the
European Union (three times more than in the United States at the
time). Moreover, in 2003 the Muslim birth rate in Europe was triple
that of the non-Muslim birth rate. By 2015, the Muslim population in
Europe will have doubled, while the non-Muslim population will have
declined by 3.5%.\6\ Many of these European young Muslims face issues
such as discrimination, economic deprivation, underemployment, and
residence in ghettoized communities. Among native-born Muslims in
Europe, there is often a feeling that they do not have a stake in
larger society, and must choose between their religion and citizenship.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Taspinar, Omer. ``Europe's Main Street,'' Foreign Policy,
March/April 2003.
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Two trainers from Interfaith Youth Core recently traveled to Italy,
Spain, France, UK, Netherlands, and Belgium to deliver a series of
``Religious Pluralism'' trainings to audiences of religious youth, many
of whom were Muslim. We observed a widespread sense of frustration
amongst Muslim youth at their inability to freely express their
religious identity, a feeling of isolation, and a willingness to
identify oneself in opposition to the larger society. It is imperative
to engage these groups, increase youth capacity as bridge builders
between communities, and help them form social networks and
partnerships beyond their faith communities.
Religious Extremism is a Youth Movement
The United States can be a better partner in engaging Muslim
communities around the world by realizing the power of investing in
young people. If we are not engaging and educating young people in
interfaith cooperation, there are others who are pushing them towards
extremism.
Osama bin Laden, for example, is a brilliant youth organizer. At
fourteen, he was recruited to an after-school Islamic study group where
the organizer, a young adult, introduced to him the idea of violence as
a means towards fulfilling religious obligations. At university, Osama
fell under the spell of a radical, charismatic teacher, Abdullah Azzam,
a Palestinian who had joined the Muslim Brotherhood as a young man and
later helped found Hamas, Azzam wanted to find a way to make Sayyid
Qutb's vision of the violent overthrow of corrupt regimes a reality.
Azzam traveled around the world to spread his message, raising money
and recruiting young people to join the armed effort. He opened dozens
of recruitment centers, known as services offices. Osama bin Laden was
the first to answer Azzam's call. At the age of twenty-three, he
financed Azzam's Peshawar Services Office. It was here that bin Laden
met a young doctor from a prominent Cairo family, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The two were struck by the range, quantity, and commitment of Muslim
youths pouring into Peshawar, eager to wage jihad. Like entrepreneurs,
they realized the potential of this massive market of young Muslims for
the ``product'' of totalitarian Islam. The result of this recruitment
was an international network of Muslim youths schooled in the ideology
of totalitarian Islam, taught to hate the ``imperialist infidel,'' and
trained to kill--and that is who became Al Qaeda.
Just as a skilled totalitarian youth organizer convinced a young
Osama to answer the call of jihad through stories of the power of youth
to return the ummah (collective Muslim community) to glory, so bin
Laden is doing the same for this generation.
Bruce Riedel describes al-Qaeda as a set of highly effective
leaders who have created a compelling narrative, based partly on
American missteps in the Muslim world, and a remarkably resilient
organizational structure that seduces a small group of young Muslims to
destroy in a highly strategic manner.\7\ This combination of effective
leaders, compelling narrative, resilient structure, willing youth and
strategic destruction is one that can be defeated with the right
vision, message and strategy. To counteract those like bin Laden who
see an inevitable conflict between the Muslim world and the West, we
must invest in young people to build religious pluralism and
cooperation and take interfaith action.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Riedel, Bruce. The Search for Al Qaeda, Brookings Institution
Press, 2008.
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Opportunities for Engaging Youth Towards Interfaith Cooperation
Interfaith action counters the clash of civilizations and is an
alternative way to engage young people of faith. It focuses not on our
differences, but on our shared potential. Instead of pitting people of
different religions against one another in an endless war, interfaith
action builds mutual respect and understanding through cooperative
service and constructive dialogue.
Looking back we see alternative models for how young people of
faith can positively engage a religiously diverse world. Consider the
young Martin Luther King Jr., a devout Christian who worked with Jewish
leaders and used the methods of a Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian Hindu, to
build a more just and equitable America. Learning from King, we must
empower young people of faith to work with those of different religions
to foster peace and cooperation.
This is not just a Christian or Hindu philosophy, it is also found
in Islam. The tradition of Islam teaches the importance of interfaith
cooperation and a central tenet of the tradition is one which embraces
diversity and promotes pluralism. The Quran states ``O Mankind, We
created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you
into nations and tribes, that you may know each other. Verily the most
honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous of
you.'' (Quran 49:13). There are many examples of Muslims who have
promoted pluralism, from the Muslims in South Africa who joined the
struggle against apartheid to Badshah Khan, a Pashtun who was inspired
by Gandhi's non-violent approach, and recruited thousands of young
Muslims to rally for a free Subcontinent.
The organization I founded and lead, Interfaith Youth Core, brings
young people of different faiths together to serve others by building
houses, serving the poor or restoring the environment. From this shared
service experience, Interfaith Youth Core helps young people realize
the shared values of all religions, such as compassion, mercy and
peace. Service to others and a shared values dialogue help young people
understand how they can maintain their own faith identity while working
together with those from different faiths to create not a clash of
civilizations, but a more peaceful and just world.
When I attended interfaith conferences as a Rhodes Scholar at
Oxford, I saw that they were filled with senior religious leaders. I
also recognized that those who were on the front lines of religious
violence were not senior theologians, but young people. If movements of
violent extremism were mobilizing thousands of young people to action
everyday, and the interfaith movement only involved theologians and
academics gathering at conferences, we would forfeit the ground to
terrorists. It was upon this realization that I founded the Interfaith
Youth Core to build a global movement of young leaders taking action to
advance religious pluralism.
Interfaith Youth Core affirms and strengthens the religious
identity of young people while helping them embrace the vision of
religious pluralism. We nurture their leadership skills and invest in
them with resources and opportunities worthy of their boundless
potential for good. We connect them with one another to form networks
so they will understand the world's diversity on a personal level and
be empowered by other interfaith leaders.
As indicated above, last month two Interfaith Youth Core staff
members, both Muslim women, embarked on a three week training tour
across Western Europe supported by the State Department. They conducted
trainings for about 400 young European interfaith leaders in Belgium,
the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France, with the goal of sparking an
interfaith youth movement across Europe. Many of the communities they
visited included recent Muslim immigrants to Western Europe, as well as
established Muslim minority communities. The goal of this training trip
was to build bridges between communities in Western Europe and
illustrate a new way of engaging people of different faiths including
the Muslim community.
This grant gave Interfaith Youth Core the opportunity to spread the
message of religious pluralism, expand our network of interfaith bridge
builders, and gain valuable experience of the context of the countries
we visited. It gave Interfaith Youth Core the opportunity to begin to
plant the seed for interfaith cooperation; however a greater investment
needs to be made to take this to scale.
We have been on the ground in over a dozen countries, and we
currently have several more pending requests for our services by the
State Department. Though this approach is fruitful, it has been too ad
hoc and scattered; it needs to be more strategic. There needs to be a
structure in place in government institutions that enable a more
coherent and full scale approach.
Recommendations:
The U.S. needs to involve young people in our engagement strategies
and use interfaith action to build a better relationship with the
Muslim world. Interfaith cooperation is one most critical issues of the
21st century and it is imperative to equip young leaders to take
action. The following are a set of recommendations towards realizing
this goal.
1. Promote religious pluralism as a core commitment globally.
Religious pluralism in the United States can serve as a model
for engaging religious diversity around the world.
Change the framework of U.S. Engagement with Muslim communities
from the ``clash of civilizations'' to the framework of
``pluralism vs. extremism.''
Rather than the current characterization of counterterrorism
efforts as ``freedom and democracy versus terrorist ideology,''
policymakers should frame the battle of ideas as a conflict
between terrorist elements in the Muslim world and Islam.
2. Empower young leaders to advance interfaith cooperation in their
communities.
Government should identify and amplify civil society forces that
have innovative and effective models that promote youth-led
interfaith cooperation.
Equip young leaders with the knowledge base and skill set for
interfaith action.
Invest in institutions that focus on increasing the training and
capacity building of interfaith leaders.
3. Continue to prioritize citizen diplomacy efforts for engagement
with Muslim communities around the world.
Facilitate interfaith exchanges, cross-cultural education, and
religious literacy programs in a public diplomacy initiative
that is coherent, strategic and comprehensive in nature.
Enable partnerships between U.S. institutions and partners in
Muslim communities around the world.
Highlight the Muslim American community as a key example of
America's vibrant pluralism, and use them as citizen diplomats
to engage other communities around the world.
addendum to the testimony of dr. eboo patel
[At the conclusion of testimony before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on February 26, 2009, Senator Ted Kaufman
asked the panel to forward practical suggestions on how to
engage youth in the Muslim world in positive relationships.
Over the last 10 years of working with young people, I have
learned that we need to empower young people to become leaders
and equip them with the knowledge base, skill set, and networks
to effectively build pluralism and organize interfaith action
inorder to create conditions for peace and stability. The key
question is how can we accomplish this?]
The first step to building pluralism is providing the framework.
Pluralism has three parts: respect for identity, mutually enriching
relationships between people of different backgrounds, and concrete
action for the common good. Correctly identifying ``us'' and ``them''
is critical to shifting how young people think about the world and
their place in it. We want them to know that the line is not drawn
between Muslims and Jews, or Americans and Middle Easterners. Very
simply, ``us'' includes all people who believe that we can live
together in peace, and ``them'' includes those who seek to destroy
diversity. At this time also let me clarify that when I say
``interfaith'' in the context of the Muslim world, I mean not only
engaging with other religions, but confronting internal tensions
between different sects within Islam.
In part, this means providing young Muslims both physical and
intellectual space to discuss issues openly and without fear. We need
to support organizations that provide such space where diverse young
people can interact, work, learn and teach. A State Department Official
estimated that radical groups have spent 70 billion dollars
proselytizing over the past 30 years. We need to commit to a
substantial investment to counter the impact of this sustained
targeting of young people.
The second step is to provide the skill set needed for organizing.
We must teach these young leaders how to bring people from different
perspectives together, facilitate an effective dialogue, and assess
their communities to identify needs and how they can rally young people
to address their concerns. As interfaith organizers, these youth will
be able to take action to build cross-cultural relationships and mutual
understanding, serve their communities and strengthen the fabric of
their civil societies.
The third step is providing the networks of support. Young people
building pluralism in the Muslim world should be connected to one
another, but also to Americans building pluralism in the U.S. and
Germans building pluralism in Germany. International exchanges serve
this function of networking and connecting young people, as well as
provide a space for discussing issues and building skills. Rather than
funding the international exchanges on an ad-hoc basis, we must
organize a federally funded, cross-departmental investment in a
strategic international exchange program.
Above and beyond these physical exchanges, social networks are
effective points of connection in our globalized era. I would point to
IFYC's network, ``Bridge-builders,'' where in just five months over
1000 young people from all over the world have congregated to
collaborate on events and programs, share ideas, projects and
resources, and post testimony, photos and videos of their interfaith
activities. This network opens up a virtual discussion forum to discuss
the challenges they face in their work and how to overcome them.
By empowering young people as leaders in their communities we will
answer their questions of ``Who am I? How do I relate to you? What can
we do together?'' Just as the youth recruiters of Al Qaeda reach young
people at an early age with answers to these questions of identity, we
can equip young people as leaders to build more pluralistic societies
throughout the Muslim world, and connect them to other young leaders to
bridge the gap between the West and the Muslim world.
Senator Kaufman. Thank you.
Ms. Baran.
STATEMENT OF ZEYNO BARAN, SENIOR FELLOW,
HUDSON INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Baran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
I believe the biggest challenge in outreach programs is the
inability to identify what it is that America wants from
Muslims. In other words, what is the purpose of engagement? Is
it merely to stop terror attacks against Americans and its
allies? Is it to learn about a religion and its many cultural,
political, and historic aspects? Is it to genuinely try to
improve the lives of Muslims, whether they live in Pakistan,
Somalia, or in America?
I would argue that we will see an end to terror,
radicalism, and extremism when our intention becomes the
empowerment of Muslims so they can achieve their full human
potential.
However, for a long time we've been trapped in a war-on-
terror mindset, and thereby forgetting that terror is a tool
used as part of a bigger strategy. This strategy encourages
division, separating the West from the rest, so that those in
the latter category will be left with no choice but to support
Islamist political ideology.
I've written extensively about the difference between
Islam, the religion, and Islam, the political ideology, and how
we need to expose the extremists' cynical exploitation of their
religion as a means of convincing the moderate majority of
their fellow Muslims that the current conflict is religious in
nature.
Today, the Islamist movement is, unfortunately, much
stronger, compared to 2001. And it will continue to get
stronger over the next decade unless we realize we are faced
with a long-term, social transformation project. It is
transforming Muslims into angry and fearful people who can then
be easily controlled.
So what should the U.S. do? Don't reduce Muslims to people
whose main identity is their religious affiliation. They have
hopes, frustrations, and aspirations, just like everyone else.
Don't expect the silent majority to speak up until and unless
they see a clear sign that the U.S. has decided to win, which
means empowering the true democrats and ending existing unholy
alliances.
In choosing partners to engage, listen to what they say,
and look at what they do when they are with their own people,
not what they say to you in private meetings behind closed
doors. Don't assume an individual group that sounds moderate,
in fact is moderate.
It is, therefore, critically important to shine a light on
what is truly going on under the so-called Islamic regimes, so
Muslims can see for themselves and no longer be manipulated
into believing, for example, ``Life under a Shari'ah-based
legal system will be much better than life under liberal
democracy.''
Most people believe it is possible to take only good
aspects and leave bad aspects of Shari'ah. Maybe one day this
will be possible, but today the implementers of Shari'ah do not
allow such choices, because according to Islamic ideology,
Shari'ah, Islamic law, regulates every aspect of an
individual's life. And since it is considered to be God's law,
no compromise is possible.
You don't need to believe me, but please don't also believe
men whose lives are not as affected as women. And please don't,
also, believe women who have never lived under the Shari'ah
system. Just ask women who have lived, and continue to live,
under a Shari'ah system. Ask them if their lives have improved.
Or, ask them if they want their daughters to live under this
system.
Unfortunately, media, especially those sources that cater
to Muslim audiences, hardly ever show--things such images of
Muslims killed--being killed by other Muslims, imams preaching
hatred, mothers celebrating their son's suicide-bombing
success, or teachers indoctrinating young brains with hatred
toward Jews and Christians and anyone they consider to be ``the
other.'' These are not seen or heard by the mainstream, the
silent majority. They are kept ignorant and in denial. The only
time they see heartbreaking images of women and children dying
is when it is non-Muslims, especially Americans, killing them.
Most people have no idea what is going on in places like
Darfur or even in the middle of a European capital. Unless
people have the information and can analyze it for themselves,
they will never say, ``Enough,'' to the abuse of their state,
or stop hating America.
One of the most important areas the U.S. can help is by
increasing funding and coverage of information sources like
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and others.
They can find other ways, maybe like the American centers, to
enlighten people so that they can see and hear the truth for
themselves.
This is especially important when it comes to the most
critical Muslim partners, women. Of all the various segments of
the Muslim communities, women, I believe, have to be the
primary focus of engagement in addition to the youth, of
course. This is not just feminist jargon. Women are the focus
of the Islamists, who have correctly identified them as the
most important starting point. Women are the nucleus of the
family and society. Mothers raise the next generation. A woman
kept ignorant, illiterate, and living in fear can easily be
controlled. If we neglect the women, we neglect the next
generation. So, if the U.S. wants to see a different kind of
social transformation, then women have to be at the center of
all programs and not filed away under ``women's issues.''
To start, there is absolutely no excuse or justification
for beating or otherwise violating a woman. The offenders,
whether they are husbands, fathers, brothers, or cousins, need
to receive the appropriate punishment. At the same time, women
need to know where and how to get help. And places such as
shelters need to be available.
In addition to the basic safety and security, women need to
be empowered, and their imagination needs to be kept alive. And
here, culture, arts, and literature are essential tools, and it
is also why these are the first areas targeted by the
Islamists. Anything that will keep the imagination alive so
they can dream of a different life is banned by the Taliban and
the like.
It is also limited and controlled by secular authoritarian
leaders. After all, the Islamists and the secular
authoritarians are the two sides of the same coin. Both want to
control the hearts and minds. Instead, we need to free minds
and fill hearts with love. Only then will anti-Americanism
subside.
Like everyone else, Muslim women need to read, or be told,
about uplifting and empowering stories from their own cultures.
For example, the tale of Scheherazade, and her stories that
span 1,001 nights, is one of the most beautiful ones.
Unfortunately, it is still not available in most parts of the
world where the Muslims live. It is often banned, while books
that preach hatred are distributed freely.
Scheherazade's tale has many different lessons for many of
us. It is a story about a king who would marry and then kill
his wife after their first night because he would fear they
would betray him. Scheherazade, however, survived, thanks to
her wit and imagination. She began telling a tale that
continued 1,001 nights, and in this process, she gradually
opened the king's heart and soul to love. In the end, he spared
her. In many ways, she spared him, too, by awakening his
humanity.
This is the kind of story we need to be told--that mothers
need to be telling their daughters. This is the kind of a story
men need to hear as boys so they don't become hardened
radicals. They don't need to fear women or keep them oppressed.
If Scheherazade did not have the right tools to capture the
king's imagination, she would have been killed like many others
before her, and the king and the kingdom would have continued
to suffer.
By spreading stories like hers, we can help save other
women and men, the rulers and the ruled, and ultimately
ourselves.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Baran follows:]
Prepared Statement of Zeyno Baran
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lugar, Members of the Committee: Thank
you very much for the opportunity to share with you my ideas about how
to engage more effectively with the many and varied Muslim communities
around the world. There are huge expectations that the Obama
administration will undo some of the damage to the perception--and
influence--of the United States within Muslim societies that has
accrued during the past decade. I hope my brief presentation will
contribute to this effort.
I will begin by describing the biggest challenge facing the U.S.
today: the problem of ``us'' and ``them.'' While it is clear to us, in
Washington at least, that our foreign and security policies are not
directed against Islam or any other religious community, it is not so
readily understandable to many Muslims who see themselves as being part
of ``them.'' In order to engage more effectively, our first step is to
develop an accurate understanding of just who ``we'' and ``them'' are--
otherwise the U.S. may continue to alienate Muslims and strengthen the
Islamists. I will then suggest some ``do's and don'ts'' that should
guide U.S. policy going forward, before in closing emphasizing two
priorities that the President and his administration should adopt:
liberal democracy and the empowerment of women.
Engagement: With Whom and for What Purpose?
I believe the biggest challenge in outreach programs has been the
inability to identify what it is that America wants from Muslims; in
other words, what is the purpose of engagement? Is it merely to stop
terror attacks against Americans and allies? Is it to learn about a
religion and its many cultural, political and historical aspects? Is it
to genuinely try to improve the lives of Muslims, whether they live in
Pakistan, Malaysia, Somalia or North America? I would argue that we
will see an end to terror, radicalism and extremism when our intention
becomes the empowerment of Muslims so they can achieve their full human
potential. However, for a long time we have been trapped in a ``war on
terror'' mindset, thereby neglecting the fact that terror is merely a
tool used as part of a bigger strategy. This strategy encourages
division, separating the ``West'' from ``the rest,'' so that those in
the latter category will be left with no choice but to support Islamist
political ideology. I have written extensively about the difference
between Islam (the religion) and Islamism (the political ideology) and
how we need to expose the extremists' cynical exploitation of the
religion as a means of convincing the moderate majority of their fellow
Muslims that the current conflict is religious in nature-and that the
only solution is for Muslims to come together as part of a single
nation (umma) following its own legal system (sharia) in pursuit of a
new and anti-democratic world order.
Why is Islamism a threat to democracy? Because according to its
interpretations, sharia regulates every aspect of an individual's life;
moreover, since it is considered to be God's law, no compromises are
possible. The holistic nature of Islamist ideology makes it
fundamentally incompatible with the self-criticism and exercise of free
will necessary for human beings to form truly liberal and democratic
societies.
The Islamist movement is much stronger today than it was in 2001.
And it will continue to get stronger over the next decade unless we
realize we are faced with a long-term social transformation project
designed to make Muslims angry and fearful people who can then be
easily controlled.
Despite our denials, this destructive ideology is increasingly
taking hold in America as well. Consider Islamization like smoking: one
cigarette may not cause that much harm, but continued smoking will do
terrible damage to one's health. Some people die from it.
Just recently we were shocked about a beheading of a woman by her
husband who, reportedly, cited sharia as grounds for denying her a
divorce. FBI Director Robert Mueller recently talked about the first
known U.S. citizen to participate in a suicide bombing in Somalia; he
said, ``The prospect of young men, indoctrinated and radicalized within
their own communities and induced to travel to Somalia to take up
arms--and to kill themselves and perhaps many others--is a perversion
of the immigrant story,'' he said. ``For these parents to leave a war-
torn country only to find their children have been convinced to return
to that way of life is heartbreaking.'' He is right.
A Different Transformation
Death and destruction leads to further death and destruction; we
need to rebuild--above all people's imagination, and thereby freeing
their creative powers to live with joy and passion.
So what should the U.S. do?
Let's start with what not to do:
Don't reduce Muslims to people whose main identity is their
religious affiliation; they have hopes, frustrations,
aspirations just like anyone else.
Don't expect the silent majority to speak up until and unless they
see a clear sign that the U.S. has decided to win, which means
empowering the true democrats and ending existing unholy
alliances.
In choosing partners to engage, listen to what they say and look at
what do when they are with their own people, not what they say
to you in private meetings, behind closed doors.
Don't assume an individual or group that sounds moderate in fact is
moderate.
Don't look for ``spokesmen'' or ``representatives'' for Muslims as
the solution. Most of these people just speak for themselves or
their organizations. Moreover, Islam teaches Muslims that we
are our own masters; we submit only to God, and no religious
authority on earth can control our hearts and minds--unless we
let them.
It is therefore critically important to shine a light on what is
truly going on under the so-called Islamic regimes--so Muslims can see
for themselves that life under a sharia-based legal system is not, in
fact, better than under liberal democracy. When asked why they want
sharia, most people explain that they want an end to crime and
corruption and want to live with safety, security and dignity; most
believe it is possible to take only ``good aspects'' of sharia, and
leave out ``bad aspects.'' Maybe one day this will be possible, but
today, the implementers of sharia do not allow such choices. Because,
as I mentioned earlier, since it is considered to be God's law, no
compromises are possible.
You don't need to believe me, but please also don't believe the men
whose lives are not as affected as women, and please don't also believe
the women who have never lived under the sharia system. Just ask the
women who have lived or still do live under a sharia system--ask them
if their lives have improved. And ask them if they want their daughters
to live under this system as well.
Unfortunately, media, especially those sources that cater to Muslim
audiences, hardly ever show things such as images of Muslims being
killed by other Muslims, imams preaching hatred or mothers celebrating
their son's suicide bombing success, or teachers indoctrinating young
brains with hatred towards the Jews and Christians and anyone they
consider ``the other.'' These are not seen or heard by the members of
the silent majority, which is kept ignorant and in denial--the only
time they see heartbreaking images of women and children dying is when
it is non-Muslims, especially Americans, killing them. Most people have
no idea what is going on in places like Darfur or even in the middle of
a European capital. Unless people have the information and analyze it
for themselves, they will never say ``enough'' to the abuse of their
faith-or stop hating America.
For this purpose providing alternative media sources is critically
important. The U.S. can best help by increasing funding and coverage of
both the Voice of America as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
and find other ways to help enlighten people so they can see and hear
the truth for themselves.
In this context, I believe there are two fundamental priorities the
Obama administration ought to adopt, if this time things are to be
different: a commitment to liberal democracy and to the empowerment of
women.
Commitment to Liberal Democracy
Throughout the world, liberal democracy is once again being
challenged both as a political system and, more fundamentally, as an
ideology and as a set of beliefs. Whether we like it or not, we are
engaged in an ideological struggle--and the U.S. is losing ground.
Further spread of Islamism will leave America isolated and powerless to
achieve its goals in security and foreign policy.
Faced with authoritarian threats in both religious and secular
forms, the U.S. should not be questioning whether to promote democracy;
but should be deciding how. A democracy promotion effort needs to be
not piecemeal, but comprehensive; a holistic challenge requires a
holistic response. The whole concept needs to be redesigned with an eye
towards constructing a longer-term timeframe that lasts beyond any one
presidential administration. If not, the U.S. and its allies will
continue to grow weaker as its opponents strengthen.
In general, the U.S. looks for short-term successes when instead a
generational commitment is needed--as the Bush administration
originally stated. But again, the U.S. had to demonstrate success
quickly, and thus went for the ``low-hanging fruit''--at points even
sounding as doctrinaire about democracy promotion as those who oppose
democracy. Now, as a result, we are back at the same point in the
cycle--if not lower.
Despite over 60 years of on-again, off-again efforts at democracy
promotion in the Middle East and places like Afghanistan and Pakistan,
the binary model that forces a choice between autocrats in power and
populist extremists out of power has never really disappeared. It is a
mystery to me why the U.S. does not remain true to its own values and
support the third option--the liberal democrats. Yes, liberal democrats
in most parts of the so-called Muslim world are but a small minority
today--but they will never grow in support unless backed by the U.S.;
the other two sides already get all the financial and organizational
help they could want.
The prevailing view--that Islamists should be co-opted into
existing political systems--simply will not work. Often, Islamists are
willing to make superficial concessions while continuing to hold an
uncompromising worldview. The U.S. simply does not understand Islamism,
even though it has been an active and increasingly powerful counter-
ideology over at least three decades. Islamism is not compatible with
democracy; Muslims can be democrats. There is a huge difference.
The academics, analysts and policy makers who argue that a movement
like the Muslim Brotherhood today is ``moderate'' seem to disregard its
ideology, history, and long-term strategy. They even seem to disregard
the Brotherhood's own statements. It is true that most affiliates of
this movement do not directly call for terrorist acts, are open to
dialogue with the West, and participate in democratic elections. Yet
this is not sufficient for them to qualify as ``moderate,'' especially
when their ideology is so extreme. Turning a blind eye to ideological
extremism--even if done for the sake of combating violent extremism and
terrorism--is a direct threat to the democratic order.
Unfortunately, since 9/11, the U.S. has alienated many of its
allies and strengthened enemies in the Muslim world. This is one of the
reasons why the U.S. lost the support of the secular movement within
Turkey, which is traditionally the domestic constituency most closely
allied to the West. Turkey is the only NATO member with a majority
Muslim population. Today, a large majority of Turks have negative views
of the U.S., and these include people who are American educated. Why is
that? Because they (correctly) perceive U.S. policy as promoting a
``moderate Islamist'' government in their country--one that can serve
as a model for the Muslim world. Yet even the current political
leadership coming from an Islamist past opposes to be called ``moderate
Islamist'' and instead prefers ``Muslim democrat'' as a description.
Turkey is truly unique for a country with nearly all Muslim
citizens; the U.S. needs to first understand what makes it unique
before trying to change it so it fits a particular democratization
theory. The end of the caliphate and the Islamic sharia legal system
were revolutionary moves. Most Muslim countries still have sharia law
enshrined in their constitutions, something which has impeded their
democratic evolution. For its part, Turkey has evolved as a democratic
country because it was founded as a secular republic. It is in this
context the country has served as a beacon of hope for liberal
democrats across the Muslim world.
Going Forward
It is critically important to recognize that since 9/11, anti-
American movements, groups and leaders (from Russia to Venezuela) have
come closer together in a shared hostility to the Western liberal
system. The worldwide U.S. commitment to, and promotion of, liberal
democracy must therefore not be tacked on as an afterthought, but must
be at the core of the U.S. foreign and national security strategy. This
means returning to the fundamentals of what America is about: defending
and guaranteeing freedom and dignity.
Yet, it is important to keep in mind that anti-American groups will
continue to try to take advantage of open societies. Some intentionally
provoke incidents intended to promote an ``us versus them'' mentality.
They also feed conspiracy theories. The Islamist narrative is about
victimization and humiliation; it is part of a deadly mixture of the
feeling of political and economic inferiority with moral and ethical
superiority.
I believe having President Obama in office will grant the U.S. only
short-term relief; Islamists are working on new narratives and
searching for new grievances, since their need to undermine the U.S.
and its democratic vision is so incredibly strong. Hopefully, the Obama
administration will not be so eager to reverse the unpopularity of the
Bush years that it will limit the emphasis on democracy that is so
essential for advancing American interests.
America needs to be true to its values and principles. The U.S.
should not be promoting ``moderate Islam,'' but liberal democracy.
There is no Arab or Muslim exceptionalism; leaders make these arguments
in order to retain their hold on power over their people. Even though
people in different parts of the world may use different terms, the
yearning for what we call freedom and liberal democracy is indeed
universal.
There are no easy solutions, but if the U.S. does not show
leadership, no one else will. We need to be patient and focus on
institution-building to enable democratic cultures to take hold. Each
country has its own path that is based on its own history, culture and
traditions, and it takes time; there simply is no shortcut. The U.S.
seems to have a lot of patience with the ``democratization'' process in
Saudi Arabia--so why is there a different approach to Egypt?
We need to make a long-term commitment and not look for short-term
successes that jeopardize longer-term gains. It should be clear by now
that democracy is not merely about the electoral process. Holding
elections, however free and fair in a technical sense, without first
undertaking the difficult process of building institutions will get us
only one thing: Hamas. Simply put, hungry, fearful, and uneducated
people cannot be democrats. They need to be safe from being killed
purely because they are from the wrong ethnic, religious or sectarian
background. People also need to be educated--illiteracy is a problem in
itself, but what is taught is as important. If all they are taught is
how to memorize the Koran or why to hate the West, how can they
transcend this teaching? And without building critical-thinking skills
as well as teaching civics and democratic values, we will continue to
see highly intelligent Western-educated doctors and engineers
committing suicide attacks. People also need to be able to feed and
clothe their families; but material successes are not enough to imbue
one with a love for the liberal democratic system that makes them
possible.
Clearly, the U.S. cannot do this cheaply--especially given how much
everyone else is spending on anti-democratic agendas. In many of these
programs, there can be partnerships with the Europeans and others who
are similarly committed to democratic development. Moreover, compared
to how much U.S. is spending on wars and military budget, the amount
will be minimal with huge returns. And, with the economic crisis
hitting parts of the world that are so critical, such as Pakistan,
there is even greater need for the U.S. to allocate larger sums of
money for education and institution building by supporting
organizations that would eventually lead to democratic civil society-
particularly secular organizations (press, judiciary, women's
organizations, small and medium business associations, etc).
In many parts of the world, following the shock of globalization
and the resulting questioning of identities, countries are
reconstructing their own national identities. The U.S. has to be
influencing this process so destructive ideas do not take root.
Empowerment of Women
This is especially important when it comes to the most critical
Muslim partners, the women. It is also why of all the various segments
of Muslim communities, women have to be the primary focus of
engagement. This is not just feminist theory; women are already the
focus of Islamists who have correctly identified them as their most
important starting point of their social engineering project: Women are
the nucleus of family and society; mothers raise the next generation--a
woman kept ignorant and living in fear can easily be controlled. If we
neglect the women, we neglect the next generation. So if the U.S. wants
to see a different kind of social transformation, then women have to be
at the center of all programs and not filed away under ``women's
issues.''
To start with, there is no excuse or justification for beating or
otherwise violating a woman--and when it happens, the appropriate
punishment must follow. At the same time, women need to be given help;
and the existence of places that help them, including shelters, needs
to be widely publicized. Rape needs to be punished severely since it is
a form of murder--one which kills the spirit--and which is used
systematically as a weapon of war against civilian populations.
In addition to the basic safety and security, women need to be
empowered to know their own value while being provided with the tools
to defend and protect themselves. Most importantly, their imagination
needs to be kept alive, and here culture, arts, and literature are
essential tools--and that is also why these are the first areas
targeted by the Islamists. Anything that will keep the imagination
alive so they can dream of a different life is banned by the Taliban
and the like.
It is also often limited and controlled by the secular
authoritarian leaders--after all, the Islamists and the secular
authoritarians are the two sides of the same coin: both want to control
the hearts and minds. We need to free the minds and fill the hearts
with love, not hatred; only then will the anti-Americanism subside.
Like everyone else, Muslim women need to read or be told about
uplifting and truly empowering stories--from their own cultures. I mean
truly empowering because I have in mind the story of an Iraqi woman who
was part of a plot in which young women were raped and then sent to her
for matronly advice, only to be told that becoming suicide bombers was
their only escape from the shame and to reclaim their honor. This shows
how far the destructive powers will go. Instead, we need role models
like Scheherazade, and learn from her stories that span a thousand and
one nights. Her tale is one of the most beautiful ones with many
different lessons for many of us--yet is unavailable in most parts of
the world where Muslims live; it is often banned, when books that
preach hatred are distributed freely. It is a story about a king who
would marry and then kill his wives after their first night because he
would fear they would betray him. Scheherazade, however, survived
thanks to her wit and imagination: she began telling a tale that
continued for 1001 nights, and in this process she gradually opened the
king's heart and soul tolove--in the end he spared her. In many ways
she spared him too by awakening humanity that allowed him to love
again.
This is the kind of story we need be told by mothers to their
daughters. This is the kind of story men need to hear as boys so they
do not become hardened radicals. They need not fear women or keep them
oppressed and ignorant: if Scheherazade did not have the right tools to
capture his imagination, she would have been killed like many others
before her, and the king and the kingdom would have continued to
suffer. She saved them all; by spreading stories like hers, we can help
save other women and men, the rulers and the rules, and ultimately
ourselves.
The Chairman [presiding]. Zeyno, thank you. Very important
testimony.
I apologize, Eboo, for missing your opening comments, but I
have your submitted statement here. And I apologize, to all of
you, that this has been a little bit disjointed. I hate that,
and this--the schedule seemed to be getting jammed.
Regrettably, also, the White House has asked me to come
down, now, in about 15 minutes, for a meeting on the
President's announcements on Iraq tomorrow. So I'm going to
have to leave here momentarily. But, as I said, this is a
beginning and not an ending. And what I think I may do is,
really, perhaps even set up a roundtable, maybe, the next time
we do this, and invite some of you back to be part of that, so
we can have a little more give-and-take and back-and-forth on
some of this, which I think would be helpful.
As I listened to your testimony, Zeyno, and I listened to
yours, Dalia, it strikes me that there is actually a little bit
of a contradiction in what you're saying to what the first
panel said, in the sense that, while--and even in some of my
comments, because when I draw this line of what is the real
teaching of the Quran, or the real teaching of Islam, you're
obviously painting a picture of how that's being abused. But,
we are obviously not the right people, for all the obvious
reasons, to point that out to anybody.
So, when the question was asked earlier by Senator Wicker
about sort of a reformation, or whatever you want to call it--
and it's obviously inappropriate for us to call for it--the
question looms large, Who will stand up? Who will define the
realities, here?
I mean, when you have people who clearly are told, ``If you
wrap a bunch of plastic, you know, satchels around you, and you
walk into a nightclub and blow yourself up, you're going to go
to paradise, and there are 72 virgins waiting there, and you're
going to have breakfast with the prophet,'' and so forth, what
do you do? Who does what?
Ms. Mogahed. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I think you are asking
a very important question. What I would like to propose,
though, is that this radical ideology is a byproduct of a
deeper issue, which is a radical political ideology. And that's
where we can have a much greater effect. So----
The Chairman. So who's the ``we''?
Ms. Mogahed. The United States of America. The religious
extremism is really just a veneer around a very deep political
extremism, political ideology around widely held grievances.
And so, what people are hearing is that--the terrorists are
telling them, ``We can solve your problems if you will use
violence. Violence is the way to solve your problems.'' And
they are using religious terminology to give that approach----
The Chairman. I understand that. We all understand that.
Ms. Mogahed. I understand, but let me explain--the second
piece is that if we can deal with the grievances, then--and
show people that you can change things through peaceful means,
the religious extremism will no longer appeal to people. I--the
appeal of the religious extremism is a byproduct of----
The Chairman. Of the failure of governance, to some degree.
Ms. Mogahed. Absolutely.
The Chairman. But, isn't that also a failure of
opportunity, to some degree? I mean, there are countries--I'm
not going to go through them all here now--where there are some
very unwritten--and I will use the term ``unholy alliances''--
between the existing regime and an extreme practice of
religion. And one sort of says, ``Well, we'll leave you here to
rule, but we're going to be--rule the minds and the hearts and
souls.'' And so, whether it's Wahhibism or some other extreme,
a lot of money is being invested in that----
Ms. Mogahed. Right.
The Chairman [continuing]. Today in the world. And so, who
and how--I mean, it--will stand up to say, ``This is, in fact,
a distortion. This is a hijacking of the legitimacy?'' Because
countless numbers of Muslims have come to me and said,
``Senator, you should know, killing innocent people is outlawed
in the Quran.''
Ms. Mogahed. Right.
The Chairman. And any--you can go run down the list of
things that are outlawed. And, in fact, then, on the positive
side--there isn't any religion that doesn't live by the Golden
Rule, supposedly; and yet, obviously these folks aren't.
But, you know, what we're searching for is the most
effective mechanism--I mean, there are long-term ones; we can
certainly keep reaching out and keep talking. But, if these
governments are going to ignore some of the fundamental
complaints of their own citizens, and some of the fundamental
empowerment of their own citizens, it's going to be hard, it
seems to me, for us to break through that.
Ms. Mogahed. If I may, I----
The Chairman. OK, both of you respond.
Ms. Mogahed. I will say, very quickly, our data shows that
what drives public sympathy for terrorism is not religious
fervor, and it's not even religious extremism. It is political
views. The people who sympathize with terrorism look different
than the mainstream, in their perception of politics, not in
their perception of religion.
And so, to get at that sympathy for terrorism, it's not by
reforming Islam, it's by offering people a different way to
make change than the violence that the extremists say is the
only way.
The Chairman. Zeyno.
Ms. Baran. Well, I would say the problem we have is that
Wahhibism has ``reformed'' Islam and it has not reformed it in
a positive way. Rather, it has actually silenced pluralistic
voices within Islam.
We can't say there is a single Christian voice. There are
many, many different Christian voices. Through, unfortunately,
very bloody periods, different groups were established, and now
we now who are the radicals and who are the not-radical voices.
Unfortunately, in Islam, after decades and decades of
billions of dollars spent, Wahhabism has made serious inroads,
and is now clouding over all other interpretations, all other
understandings.
There are thousands of Muslims who disagree with that. But,
usually they are silent. They don't have money, they don't have
resources, and they don't have safety. Often, anybody who
disagrees with certain views is silenced or even killed. So, it
becomes a very dangerous enterprise. And I think, if anything,
the U.S. can at least support those people.
You're right, the U.S. does not have legitimacy to speak
about the Quran or the different understandings of Islam. There
is not a single correct interpretation. But, there are people
who are trying to bring out the different understandings and
the plurality of Islam.
Now, on the grievance issue--I've studied Islamist groups
working all over the place, including in America. The grievance
will never end, because the ideology is based on sometimes
provoking confrontation and in other times overemphasizing the
grievances. We all have problems in our lives. The question is,
how do we deal with it? And if you are told that, ``The answer
to your problems is to change the world order so that we all
will live under an Islamic caliphate, and then everything will
be great, and there will be justice and peace'' the sense of
being a victim will never come to an end. So we need to do
both, making sure that ideology is no longer taking hold,
especially among youth, and also while addressing some of the
legitimate grievances, that there's always something to be
upset about.
The Chairman. Well, let me leave Senator Kaufman in charge,
here, and I thank you very much. I promise you, we will get
back and set this up in a structure where we continue this
discussion with other experts. And I promise you, it will be
interesting.
Thank you very, very much.
Senator Kaufman [presiding]. Thank you.
Mr. Patel talked a lot about youth, and I think that anyone
who looks at the demographics of many of the--especially in the
Middle East, the demographics are overwhelmingly--it's youth-
based culture.
Can the three of you kind of give me some practical
suggestions on how we should engage the youth in the Islam
world? I know you can----
Mr. Patel. So, Mr. Chair, let me begin with some of those,
and then turn it over to my esteemed colleagues here.
Let me first, though, address some of the lingering
dimensions of the past question. And let me begin by asking a
question, which is, What is going to lead, tomorrow, in the
Arab press, about the conversations about Islam on Capitol
Hill? Is it going to be this hearing, or is it going to be the
fact that an unbelievably offensive film was shown in a--
amongst the most ornate rooms of Capitol Hill?
Senator Kaufman. Mr. Patel----
Mr. Patel. Yes.
Senator Kaufman. Let me just cut--that's true about
everything. That--I mean that's not--don't take this as
personal, but every day the media is led by the outrageous, the
scandal, the--where there's division, where there's arguments--
on Capitol Hill, the unusual is always driving out the kind of
normal dialog. So, this is not special to just this question.
Mr. Patel. While I--I think I agree with that. I think that
part of what is happening is a mirror reflection of itself,
which is to say, we, here, are asking the question about, Where
are the peaceful voices in the Muslim world? My sense is, the
vast majority of the peaceful world are speaking and singing in
peaceful voices. What they hear of--what we see of them are
only the most violent voices. What they see of us are our
version of violent voices.
Senator Kaufman. Absolutely.
Mr. Patel. The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu once said--if we
do not--if you do not understand yourself, and you do not
understand the enemy, you will lose every battle.
My big fear is that we are getting the ``us'' and the
``them'' wrong. And instead of focusing, as Dalia said, on bin
Ladenism, and seeking to destroy that and uplift the rest of
humanity, there are too many people sending messages about the
``them'' being 1.3 billion people. How we get clarity around
that, get our own--communicate our own values, our own sense of
``us'' as including Muslims and Christians, seculars and
Buddhists, Arabs and Americans, and a sense of ``them'' which
is about groups of people, of whatever religion, who want to
dominate others.
My favorite line on this is simple. The terrorists of all
traditions belong to one tradition, the tradition of terrorism.
How we communicate that, I think, is going to be the difference
between conflict and peace in the 21st century.
Senator Kaufman. But----
Mr. Patel. How we communicate that to young people is going
to be especially important.
Senator Kaufman. But, could I just say that the--you know,
this is always a problem, and we're going to have to do it in a
world where we have a free press. I mean, I think--Ms. Baran
was talking about Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, Radio
Liberty, al Hura television, Sawa--all these people have--I
mean, the basic message there is freedom of the press and free
exchange of ideas. So, whatever we do, we have to do it with
the understanding that there is going to be people saying all
kinds of crazy things about--you know, about us and about
people that encourage a free press.
So, the real question here is, realizing that that's the
start--and it's compounded by the fact that many of the
countries that we're broadcasting into does not have a free
press. As you said--I think it was Ms. Baran--talked about al
Jazeera showing just one side of the story, showing just the
fact that it does not show Muslims killing Muslims, does not
show many of the things that are going on. So, it makes it even
more complicated.
So, that's just a reality. As long as we're pushing--as
long as we're saying we should have a free press, as long as
we're calling for the free exchange of ideas, which I think is
one of the basic beliefs that we have, as a way to deal with
this--it has the unintended, kind of, ugly side effect of
allowing people, that have rather radical ideas in our society,
to get a platform for doing it. But, taking that into account,
as a given--unless you don't agree that's the given--kind of,
what do we do in order to engage with the youth, understanding
that reality?
Mr. Patel. I think that that is a given. I think that there
is an additional given. I'll close with this comment, which is
that how we frame the question matters a great deal. There is
no good answer to the question, ``When did you stop kicking
your dog?''
Senator Kaufman. Absolutely.
Mr. Patel. And there is no good answer to the question,
``Why are you people so violent?'' As Dalia suggested in her
testimony, when we approach 1.3 billion people as suspect and
not allies, when we--when we say, ``Where are your peaceful
voices?'' when, in fact, the truth is, the United States has
the most prominent and important scholars of Islam in all of
the Western world, scholars who are deeply regarded, even in
the great learned cities of the Muslim world, and we don't know
them, we don't know their names in a common way, the way we
know, for example, Christian names, we reveal our ignorance in
a way that makes a fifth of humanity feel like suspects.
Senator Kaufman. I agree.
Mr. Patel. I think the fact that the majority of that fifth
of humanity are young people, and we are nurturing this
poisoned relationship--in part, by the framing of the
question--instead of saying, ``What can we--Who are you, how do
we relate to each other, and what can we do together?'' we are
saying, ``Why are you people a problem?'' That is going to lead
us downhill in this century.
Senator Kaufman. Good.
Ms. Baran.
Ms. Baran. Well, I will say, on this issue, since this
film-showing has been raised, this actually goes to some of the
basic lack of understanding of--I agree, of the--sort of, the
``us'' and ``them,'' but also, in general, what America is
about.
In America, there are all kinds of opinions that we hear,
we may detest them but we learn how to deal with it. If we
don't agree with a particular opinion, we try to get together,
and then we try to explain to others why that opinion may be
hurtful, why it may do damage, but we don't try to silence it.
Because when we silence, then we are no different than some of
the oppressive regimes of the Middle East.
Now, as a Muslim, I, of course, disagree with Geert
Wilders' understanding of what Quran is. But, I would like to
be discussing with him, in the way that we talk about engaging
with Muslims. Muslims need to also engage with voices that say,
``Well, here is some of your leadership saying these things. Do
you agree or do you not agree?'' And by just saying that,
``These things are horrible views,'' it seems almost that we
are in denial that, in the leadership positions, people are
actually doing very damaging things, in terms of poisoning
minds of people. And the difficulty, though, is, when there is
not a culture and practice of challenging or free thinking or
free press, then people assume these are intentional, these are
intended to hurt Muslims, these sort of acts are intended by
the U.S. Congress, for example, to insult Islam. I think there
is a lot of engagement that is needed on that level to explain
why some event like this might take place. We may not agree
with it, but we might be able to explain it.
And another thing is that education, then, becomes even
more important, because people need to be able to understand
for themselves, when certain things happen, that it's not the
U.S. Government, or it's not Christians, that it's individual
people. And then, we also need to learn how to deal with it.
When he says, ``Islam is a violent religion,'' if our response
is having violent demonstrations, then we only make his case.
Senator Kaufman. Great.
Ms. Mogahed.
Ms. Mogahed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My biggest recommendation to engage youth is allowing job
creation. The largest unemployment rate among youth in the
world is in the Middle East. It's higher than 25 percent. In
the Palestinian territories, it's 50 percent. The biggest issue
on the minds of young people in the Middle East, and in the
greater Muslim world, where there is a youth bulge, is
employment and job opportunities. And so, anything we can do to
stimulate economic growth to create jobs is the most--is going
to be the most important and most valuable thing that we can do
to engage young people in this part of the world.
Senator Kaufman. Great.
Listen, I want to thank you for being here. And I'm really,
really pleased the chairman says we're going to continue this,
because obviously we could go on for another 2 or 3 hours, and
not even begin to touch the surface. But, I think it's really
been an education.
And I think that, you know, to answer your question about
the message we send, the fact that we're having this hearing
today, I think, sends a message. The fact that there's two
things going on in the Capitol at the same time, why, it just
sends a message on what we're all about.
I think that one of my main concerns--I'm kind of
prejudiced, because I was on the Broadcasting Board of
Governors--but, I think broadcasting not just to the Muslim
world, but the entire world, so that people can better
understand what our system is, and see firsthand what our
system is, and understand what a free press is, and what the
examples of free press, is one of the big things we can do in
order to fix the problems.
I also think the economic issue is probably, you know, the
single most important thing to youth. But, I think, looking at
the survey data--and you know better than I do--a lot of the
youth in the Muslim world are very taken with American culture.
I'm not talking about the ``bad'' part of our American
culture--``bad,'' in quotes--but the ``good'' part of American
culture. So, I think, in many countries, as I see, you know,
the extent that our culture is out front is a good thing to
kind of help people at least begin to engage.
And again--and finally, I think you were all right, in
terms of, clearly, some of the grievances. Part of this is
about grievances, and how we deal with grievances, the--what
our policies are and the rest of it.
So, I thank you all for coming here. It's been a great
hearing, and I'm looking forward to the next one already.
So, the committee's adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:05 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Statement for the Record Submitted by Congressman
Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative From Minnesota
Let me start by thanking Chairman John Kerry and ranking member
Richard Lugar for holding this important hearing today. I would also
like to thank the distinguished members of the panels for their
participation and for their important work on this issue.
This hearing is a commendable effort toward repairing and fostering
better relations between the United States and the Muslim world. The
timing of this hearing could not have been better. President Obama's
commitment to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and
mutual interest is a groundbreaking olive branch to the 1.5 billion
Muslims in the world. Similarly, the President's recent appointment of
Senator George Mitchell as Special Envoy to the Middle East is
indicative of the vital re-engagement of the United States in the
region's peace negotiations.
Let me also express my appreciation to you, Senator Kerry, for
traveling to Gaza last week to see first-hand the situation on the
ground. As the Chairman knows, I also made the trip to Israel and Gaza
together with Congressman Brian Baird of Washington State, coinciding
with Chairman Kerry's visit to the area.
Since coming to Congress, I have had the opportunity to visit
several countries throughout the Muslim world. I have found a
consistent interest for more dialogue and better relationships with the
U.S. among Muslim leaders. These leaders hope for the U.S. to have a
better understanding of the Muslim world, and they wish to move beyond
the negative characterizations that have colored our relationships in
the years following 9/11.
In my view, there exists a delicate, yet robust interconnection
between the United States and the Muslim world that provides both
challenges and opportunities. Muslim countries share a religious faith,
but they are also distinct countries with diverse cultures, traditions,
and ideologies. They should not be viewed monolithic or homogeneous.
The national security and economic interests of the U.S. are better
served if we preserve and build our relationships with the leaders and
people of the Muslim world. In fact, the U.S. has had, and consistently
maintains, several important allies among Muslim countries. To cite one
example, Morocco, a Muslim country, was the first country to publicly
recognize the Unites States in 1777, and remains our oldest and closest
ally in North Africa.
The American Muslim community also reflects the diversity of the
larger Muslim world. American Muslims live in every state and community
in America. They are proud and patriotic Americans, yet they maintain
ties with their extended families in their countries of origin. We can
develop better relationships with the Muslim world through increased
dialogue with American Muslim leaders and organizations.
There is a need, however, to broaden the scope of our engagement
beyond counter-terrorism and security. We must take a more
comprehensive view of other areas of mutual benefit such as economic
development, trade, cultural understanding, and educational exchange.
Our national security interests will be best advanced by
initiatives being undertaken by President Obama, including outreach to
the Muslim world, a responsible ending to the war in Iraq, the closing
of Guantanamo Bay, and renewed leadership in the Israel-Palestine
conflict.
This hearing represents a significant step toward increased
dialogue on these critical issues. Most importantly, we need to send a
clear message that we are determined to interact in peace with the
Muslim world based on respect and understanding. I believe that, with
this paradigm shift in our thinking, we will meet with greater success
in our relationships with the Muslim world, including a more profound
security for America and the world.
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