Fareed Siddiq is a successful businessman and a father of two. He lives in Chagrin Falls, Ohio””a 19th-century mill town built on a river and known for its scenic waterfalls and dams””in a five-bedroom house he recently paid for, in cash, with his savings. Prominent in local civic and religious organizations, including the Red Cross and the chamber of commerce, Siddiq was invited to the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Cleveland earlier this month along with about 400 other business leaders to hear President George W. Bush speak.
He was moved to ask his president a question: “What,” he asked, hauling his 6-foot-5, 245-pound frame to the microphone, “are we doing with public diplomacy to change the hearts and minds of a billion and a half Muslims around the world?” What should he tell his friends and relatives in Pakistan about why he continues to live in the United States?
“Great question,” answered the president. “I’m confident your answer is, ‘I love living in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, the country where you can come and ask the president a question and a country where””’ Are you a Muslim?”
“Yes,” answered Siddiq.
“Where you can worship your religion freely. It’s a great country where you can do that.”
It was a good answer, says Siddiq, but not enough for him””not when he, a financial adviser at a major investment bank, is afraid to use the bathroom on flights because he doesn’t want to frighten his fellow passengers as he walks down the aisle. He thinks anti-Muslim sentiment in the country is getting worse, not better.
The clear, obvious answer is for people like Siddiq and Muslim leaders in the U.S. to come out with strong, forceful, visible statements denouncing terrorist leaders and ostracizing Imans (such as those from the recent airline debacle) and those who preach approval of terrorists and their tactics.
Thankfully, some are. Glenn Beck hosted a few of these on several of his CNN shows recently, and got good ratings from it. Bring them on more interview shows like this but across the liberal/conservative divide. Let’s see them on GMA, Today, Lou Dobbs, Charlie Rose, etc. Not just the ‘conservative’ shows.
Peace
Jim Elliott
Most of them won’t take that route because at the end of the day, the disagreement is simply over the tactics to be utilized against American foreign policy in the Middle East. And if a large enough atrocity is committed by the US in their eyes, at that point they will agree on the tactics.
If Muslims in the US find anti-Muslim sentiment troubling, I urge them to move to nations where there is no anti-Muslim sentiment. They won’t do that either, because they know they fulfill their part in the jihad simply by populating the West with themselves.
Good question by Siddiq and good answer by Bush.
Actually, he didn’t answer Siddiq’s quoted question. He answered the Newsweek writer’s question.
If I were president, I’d have people from my administration the State Department an meet with Dr. Siddiq, solicit his views in detail, and then hold focus-group meetings with Muslim Americans born abroad (some with Muslim leaders, some with ordinary Muslims) to discuss how best to respond to Siddiq’s question. We would probably get some good ideas that would not have trickled up through the usual channels.
I agree that the world’s peaceful Muslim majority needs to denounce terrorism. But the United States also needs to do a better job of telling its story to Muslims. What about a series of Arabic-language TV commercials spotlighting Muslim immigrants like Dr. Siddiq and letting them tell, in their own words, why they’ve chosen to live here?
The Muslim world, including Muslims living in the US, is diametrically opposed to US foreign policy. Again, the disagreement is solely over the tactics to combat the policy. The crucial question was sidestepped by Bush to answer a question that issues from false premises. The Muslims, to greater or lesser extents, really do hate us for our freedoms or, more to the point, they despise the license and apostasy that our charters enable. Note that Siddiq is happy that he is free to practice Islam in the US. He was not asked if he was happy that others are free not to practice Islam. (Actually, he apparently only answered that he was a Muslim.)
To work, Irenaeus’s proposed campaign must first overcome the indelible images of dead children from US bombs and images of Palestinian squalor. Understand, I make no comment one way or the other on the merits of US policy at this point. My point is only that it is highly doubtful that Arab sentiment can be so easily won. The US pays hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up Muslim regimes that are detested by many of their citizens. Further, the premise of such a campaign is that the Arab world must not know our freedom-loving, tolerant nature and if they did, they wouldn’t hate us. This is naive; terrorists thrive in free, tolerant societies and the terrorists know it. Further, and again, it is these very freedoms that lead to the license and cultural degradation that devout Muslims despise.
The right questions are not being asked or answered.
But the United States also needs to do a better job of telling its story to Muslims. What about a series of Arabic-language TV commercials spotlighting Muslim immigrants like Dr. Siddiq and letting them tell, in their own words, why they’ve chosen to live here?
I think that’s an excellent idea. After 9/11, a former Muslim resident of my town called me at the newspaper office and wanted to tell his story to help diffuse animosity. He is a wonderfully articulate man and managed to convey both his love for his faith and his love for America and we welcomed the opportunity to give him a platform.
The world’s peaceful Muslim majority needs to denounce terrorism, just as the world’s peaceful Christian majority needs to denounce imperialism.
Terrorism is the weapon of the weak against the strong. The Muslim majority is passionately opposed to a US foreign policy that peaceful tactics are unable to stop, [i]other than by populating the West with Muslim voters[/i]. (Remember those words.) Thus, the Muslim reserves for himself a qualified support of terrorism if the [i]casus belli[/i], in his eyes, is sufficiently egregious.
Terrorism is always wrong. No matter what the ends, they do not justify the means.
As to U.S. foreign policy being the cause of muslim extremist attacks, nonsense. Yes we support Israel. But we also pump billions of dollars into Islamic countries, too (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemin, etc.). And nations that don’t support Israel or have diplomatic relations with that country are also being attacked by Islamofascist terrorists.
What’s out of kilter is the ‘destroy Israel at all costs’ mantra of the extremists such as we hear from Iran’s president, who use that as an excuse to foster and support terrorist groups.
Whether something is right or wrong from one’s perspective is a useless inquiry. The Muslims oppose US foreign policy, for right or wrong, and reserve for themselves a qualified support of terror tactics. (Incidentally, democracy itself provides a vehicle for legitimizing terrorism, since the terrorist’s casus belli is presumably supported by the citizens’ democratic majority. As noted though, one tactic to combat US foreign policy is to populate the West with Muslim voters.) Simply put, we cannot simultaneously invade the Muslim world and invite the Muslim world. The comments on this thread are simply an exercise in wishful thinking.
What does this guy expect, when most of the muslim world is against us?
Perhaps Dr. Siddiq could do something as simple as getting an American flag luggage tag or some such thing for his carry-on luggage, or carry some ordinary American magazine for reading.
“Imperialism” is not an exclusively Christian vice. The Islamic world was ruled by a series of empires, finishing with the Ottoman, and Osama bin Laden was specific in saying that his goal is to create a new caliphate. He mourned the loss of the Ottoman empire, and of the Muslim empires before it.
That said, there are indeed Muslims who deplore, if quietly, the violence of the Wahhabi and Shia extremes. We should indeed encourage any Muslims who sincerely want to counter the fanatics. Once you scratch the surface, “the Muslims” are no more monolithic than “the Christians.” If indeed, as news reports are telling us, Iraqi Muslims are growing sick of the al Qaeda violence and beginning to help root out the extremists, this is a positive trend. Much as we, as Christians, would like to convert them all, there are far too many Muslims for us to be able to stop the violence from outside the religion. If the violence is going to be stopped, it’s going to have to be stopped from within Islam.
When did Moslems get to be a billion [i] and a half [/i] ? Most estimates I have seen place the total at just under a billion. Where did the extra half billion come from?
Or does he mean “a billion”, and “a half”, the half being that Episco-Moslem, Ann Holmes Redding?
One of the things that still worries me is the attitude of Muslims in America that they are NOT Americans, but rather ([u]insert country of choice[/u]) Muslims who LIVE in America.
My daughter had a friend in High School who’s parents were from Syria, and that was their attitude, their lifestyle, their customs, even choosing a husband for their daughter (20 years her senior) was done according to Syrian law/custom rather than integrating to American ways.