http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120602661
"State Department Office Reaches Out To Muslims
"A new division opened in the State Department this year: the office of the Special Representative to Muslim Communities. Farah Pandith's mission is to reach out to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. She tells Steve Inskeep the office will influence how Muslims perceive the United States."
Well, judging by the "Special Representative's" comments and responses to questions, we don't want to talk about anything remotely substantive or relevant. Lots of doubletalk. Lots of evading questions.
The only silver lining I see here is that fanatic muslims probably won't want to talk to a female envoy at all, so at least she won't spend a lot of time with the communities that are calling for jihads against us.
As for her bright hopes for the new generation... is this the generation only 40% of whom think islamics executed the 9/11 attacks? 47% of whom think of themselves as muslims first, americans second at best? And that's in the US. She's talking about the world.
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Lot's of "let's talk about the Bush policy", "No let's not."
Her office seems to be aimed at the correct area, the Muslims who have not formed a hard opinion against the US. We don't have much hope of making the current generation happy, but we have a chance to make the next generation see us in a better light. Not love the US, certainly, but be more willing to get along with the US. I'll admit I'm not sure this is a economical use of limited resources, but the idea itself doesn't seem bad.
40% think Islamics executed the 9/11 attacks. How many thought terrorists were responsible, not Islamics? How many thought that those responsible couldn't be Islamics, because doing such a thing would cause you to lose your status as a good Islamic. What I'm getting at is that no-one who thinks 9/11 was a bad thing wants to be associated with the people who did it. So if you have an association, you'll tend to downplay/rationalize it away/ignore it as much as possible. As Americans, this is a good thing. There are a lot of people who claim to be Islamic out there. If we can get them to split themselves up into a large group of more or less calm people, and a small group of crazy bomb throwers, it'll be much easier to deal with the bomb throwers. But the calm Islamics need to be able to believe that we can tell the difference between them and the crazys. And they need to see the crazys as "not part of us".
47% think of themselves as Muslim first, Americans second. Hmmm, I wonder how that compares to Catholicism, or any of the other major religions. I truly do not know the answer to that one, but I would not be surprised to find out that anyone who had a religion would place it higher on their list of self-identifiers than their country. Name me a religion that doesn't demand that you place it before everything else.
"Name me a religion that doesn't demand that you place it before everything else."
Well, Jesus said "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's".
My understanding is that Wicca also typically takes second place, if not lower, quite happily.
Naturally every religion has its extremists, and most if not all have a violent lunatic fringe. My problem with Islam is that at least at the moment, and from what I can tell historically, the violent and extremist elements of Islam appear to be dominant.
Christianity, Judaism, Hindi... all of these are "live and let live" religions; your neighbors may be going to hell but it isn't your job to send them there. Islam's creed is that ALL must be in submission to Allah's will.
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