Conversations with History: John L. Esposito

welcome to a conversation with history I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies my guest today is John L Esposito who is University professor of religion and international affairs and founding director of the Center for Muslim Christian understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service Georgetown University a past president of the middle Middle East Studies Association he's editor in chief of the full volume Oxford encyclopedia of the modern Islamic world editor of the Oxford history of Islam and the author of numerous books including unholy war terror in the name of Islam and the Islamic threat myth or reality and most recently the Oxford Dictionary of Islam professor Esposito welcome to Berkeley thank you thank you five where were you born and raised raised in Brooklyn New York and looking back how do you think your parents shaped your thinking about the world well I think my parents gave me was an appreciation for education and you know a sense of being curious they didn't so much get me into the area of International Affairs that came much later in my life my first track was to go off to a monastery for 10 years and I think that that was part of my background it was only later that I got on with my real life which parenthetically I should mention I married 37 years so oh there are two sides to my life and so what did turn you on to International Affairs I was finishing a degree in what I thought was a degree in world religions with a focus on Hinduism and Buddhism I'd already done graduate work in Catholic theology and was teaching that actually to college and the chairman of the department man named Bernie Phillips said to me you really should do a course on Islam or hiring Muslim scholars and I basically politely declined this was 1967 I had very little interest in the Arab world and Muslims and in many ways I typifies a lot of Americans what I did know were group of stereotypes but he convinced me to take one course with a Muslim scholar and it just turned me on to the whole area and then that led me into my interest in basically the Muslim world relations between the Western the Muslim world and international affairs in general and where were you at school then Temple University in Philadelphia yeah and did you have any educational mentors in addition to the one that you just mentioned who really sort of up my rate my men main mentor was Ishmael 40 who is a Palestinian Muslim scholar and then we also during that time had an Egyptian Hassan Hanafy who is back teaching at Cairo University those were the the people in in my formative years I would say mm-hmm looking at your work so I think you you convey a very strong sense of the way that we misperceive the Islamic world and so I thought I begin talking about your work by asking you when when a Muslim looks around what is what does he see when he thinks about the West just the typical Muslim I I feel that we don't have a sense of their perception of us yeah I think that um you know the Muslim world in some ways can be as the versus when we talk about the Western world the difference between certainly we see today between France and America but I think in general rather sophisticated or unsophisticated educated or less than well educated many Muslims have a sense of on the one hand admiring let's say America that's why so many have come here want to come here they come to study they come to live they buy property etc but even though that's the case there is a sense among many Muslims who feel close to America let alone extremists that the West there's been a long history of rivalry there's a strong memory of a militant Christianity the Crusades and of European colonialism and more recently a sense that in general as great as America is in terms of its principles when it comes to its foreign policy and it's Apple in the Muslim world a double standard is seeing and I think the most generic observation also is that you know many simply believe that despite the number of Muslims and their visibility across the world and now in Europe and America Islam generally still tends to be a misunderstood religion often seeing through characters or through the headline events that focus on the acts of extremists and on the other side what what stands out in the in the way we miss perceive the Islamic world I think that we often fail to see the diversity of you know that we know that there's a diversity you know when Muslims say the West we will say well wait a minute difference between Europe and America or when they say the West in Christianity and we will say this is in Christendom any long any longer we tend not to see the diversity than was the world we tend until recently we tended to continuously over the years equate Islam with Arabs when they only constitute 23% of the Muslims or we tend in the past when we talk about for example women we'd always had images of women in Saudi Arabia talk about the fact that they couldn't drive cars or that there was sexual segregation or that they had to be completely covered in public and and often equate that with what would be the reality let's say of Muslims in Egypt or Muslims in Indonesia Malaysia I think the other thing is we tend to equate the minority of extremists who are in fact out there and are dangerous with the majority religion for example when an extremist you assassinates a prime minister of israel or an extremist Christian commits an action in our gut as Americans we distinguish that from mainstream Judaism and Christianity you know the average person doesn't say there go those Christians and Jews again you know and we use the word extremist meaning viewing from the norm when Muslim extremists do it that distinction doesn't occur even when we use the word extremist we don't really mess thoroughly mean that their extremist relative to the norm and of course that perception gets reinforced by certain voices in the Christian right Franklin Graham and Robinson who in fact don't make the distinction themselves they don't say extremists or evil they say Islam is evil and I think that that is a post-911 it's become exacerbated exponentially and and is it ignorant that is the root cause here that that the extreme should are the part or the piece should be taken for the whole I think it's ignorance in reality I think that it's ignorant of the diversity and of the whole but I think it's also the impact of reality the fact that if you don't know a lot about people you are going to generalize about them from the realities that you see and most Americans engaged Islam with the Iranian Revolution and Americans held hostage and with extremists events after that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and certainly the impact of 9/11 and that makes it that much more difficult when we created the Center for Muslim Christian understanding in 1993 we were to address these issues and at our last meeting one of the people on my board said you know it's phenomenal what you achieved in the first eight or nine years but regrettably 9/11 has put us back 20 years now what should the average American know about Islam I mean what are its its central tenants as a religion that that that we don't look at in the in the context of these misperceptions I think there are two things I think one is an awareness that it is in fact not just the judeo-christian but a judeo-christian Islamic tradition that's what got me interested in Islam I had studied Christianity I studied Judaism I'd studied Hinduism and Buddhism and when I studied Islam I thought that I was going to be studying a religion that was over there because in those days in graduate school and even an undergrad you talked about Judaism Christianity and then you put Islam with Hinduism and Buddhism and suddenly I discovered a religion that in I recognized the revelation of the Torah and the New Testament recognized Moses and Jesus traced itself back to the patriarch Abraham and back to quote the one true God a share division of moral accountability human responsibility had a vision of God human beings angels Devils judgment etc I think that was beyond what I could appreciate and then I think the second thing is for Americans to realize the similarity in many ways in emphasis of Islam and Judaism Islam and Judaism in contrast to Christianity emphasize religious observance you talk about an observant Jew an observant was more than Dogma or doctrine and in Islam recognizing the the five pillars and what they call upon a Muslim to believe it you know the the absolute monotheism belief in God prophecy in revelation prayer five times a day fasting pilgrimage paying a tithe to support those that are poor that all of that is there along with then dealing with the issues of violence radicalism and extremism now why do you think as a social scientist this was sudden such a sudden awakening for you it suggests that the work had not been done to see these kinds of comparisons before you came on why why do you think that was the case I I think that there were a number of things operating I think that history the encounter of certainly Christendom and the Muslim world while there were many points of cooperation there are many points of conflict and a long process then of demonization you know it's it's reflect if reflecting in Dante's Inferno for example ironically Dante borrowed from Muslim writings but then where he came out in the end he put Mohammed in the lowest of the hell's etc I think there was a kind of a period of and at the points of conflict of almost mutual Satan ization and I think that also there was a lack of any real appreciation from a scholarly point of view and full knowledge of Islam we knew a lot more not only about Judaism Christianity but certainly Hinduism and Buddhism and this was clearly the case in America in America the study of Eastern religions came in in the 60s and 70s but the last religion often to be studied or the last faculty members to be high in those early days were in Islam the interest tended to be in Hinduism Buddhism Zen Buddhism and so we had that tendency in terms of our own religion and culture to say we are Jews and Christians and the rest are over there and immediately that implies that Islam shares an awful lot with Hinduism and Buddhism and not that much with Judaism Christianity so so this sets the ground for the Sept ability to an argument about there being an inevitable clash of civilizations which is the argument that Huntington made with the end of the Cold War what what is wrong with that argument and and and how do we move beyond it I think Sam was right and identifying points of conflict but I think Sam first of all came at it as as indeed most social scientists of his era with a certain kind of bias to begin with Sam was one of the founders of the modernization and development school which he has since moved away from but the implications at that time of that school you know would have somehow put Islam on the back burner in the back field I think also a sam comes from that period the Cold War period where you are seeing the world in terms of us in them and doing you know constantly doing therefore looking for the next threat and it came in a climate where post Cold War people were looking for the next threat I think also one could look back at that history of conflict that would reinforce it the Gulf War but I think wait he was wrong was that he talks about civilizations it's not just Islamic but Chinese is if they're this monolithic compared to what Christian civilization first of all what's Christian civilization me can we can we can we say that Britain and France which are very secular countries today I have a great deal of a religious commonality let's say with with America and look at the differences civilization alia among us the bloc of Chinese what the Chinese in Mongolia share with Chinese in Singapore and even Islamic civilization while religiously Muslims see themselves as connected look at the centuries long conflict between Iran and Iraq the conflicts between Egypt Libya and the Sudan so along with any kind of unity there's always been this enormous diversity I think that's where Sam was wrong I think he was right in saying that in the post Cold War it's not state to state that religion and ethnicity become stronger that there is a proliferation you have a growth of youth in areas that are economically deprived I think all of that is there and I think he's right in many ways today his theory would be right because I think we run a risk today on both sides and this is what I worry about that if the Bush administration isn't careful in the way that it pursues the war or it would be any administration in this post 9/11 period it along with the extremists on the other side can in fact promote what will be seen by both sides as a clash of civilizations and indeed that's the way in which many on both sides now see it now let's talk a little about Islam and in this question that you touched upon which is the relation of Islam to modernity and and and one of the I think bones of contention is the extent to which it is possible or let's put it this way that in our own history in the history of Western civilization what emerged over many years hundreds of years was a separation of church and state and we see this as a key element in modernity and then we we in quotes then look at Islam and say well that hasn't happened there and that is a problem help me understand what's wrong with with kind of reasoning well I think that it is true that it hasn't happened but I think there are a number of reasons for that a big first of all on the one hand you can say yes there are many Muslims out there who see Islam holistically in some ways that religion is related to politics and society but certainly if we look at pre-modern times this was true of most major world religions to one extent or another Hinduism but related religion to a social system a Christianity talks about separation of church and state well it certainly stopped existing after Constantine you know it was never an absolute separation the Holy Roman Empire right down through the the the ages I think the modern period yes you have that modern transition but now where has the space bin for any kind of debate about the relationship of religion to state in society in the Muslim world Muslim worlds may didn't have a period of transition you went from centuries of if you will Islamic rule of Islamic territories to European colonialism colonial powers worrying about addressing these kinds of issues post colonialism post independence let's say the mid twentieth century you wind up with modern nation-states emerging most of them authoritarian States so where is the open debate about the relationship of religion to politics then the late 60s and 70s come and with the experience perception of the failure of modern States you see the resurgence of religion and in that resurgence of religion there's a sense of the discrediting of the modern Western secular model and the reclaiming of Islamic model but often that the Islamic models reclaimed are in fact new creations said to be resurrections of some sort of pristine model and so the kind of discussion and debate that has gone on in the West has hasn't begun to happen in the Muslim world I mean it's begun but it's been severely restricted there are now Muslim thinkers across the Muslim world talking about issues of Islam and modernity pluralism and democracy but clearly it is a process that is only at the beginning and the problem is there isn't very much time to do it and the nature regimes will have to change in order for there to be the kind of openness in the educational system in the media etc for the debate that needs to be had when we have this misperception of the Islamic world which sees everything as boiling down to terrorists hijacking a religion one misses this this whole whole realm of what you call the revivalist phenomena help us understand that a little because in most of your books you're grappling with and trying to help us understand the different ways that Islam is trying to change itself as it it it confronts both the constraints posed by by the West on the one hand but also by the the local political situation on the other in the late 19th and early 20th century as Muslims engaged of colonialism but also look to the future you know what might independence look like you had a number of schools of thought you had secularists who emerged and said there has to be a separation of religion in the state you had a large body of what conservative sectors led by many of the religious leaders in effect the circling the wagons and the light of colonialism and if anything becoming more entrenched and saying you don't want to borrow from the enemy you know Islam is fine the way it is you had Islamic modernist thinkers who were saying Islam is compatible with modernity and in defining it and then you had the beginnings of Islamic with revivalist groups who basically said we don't wanna be completely Islamic modernist because they define themselves in terms of Western standards so they wind up with a westernized Islam or if you will a Protestant ization of Islam parenthetically Roman Catholics used to fear that in the mid twentieth century when one talked about liberal reform within Catholicism that in the 60s and 70s late 60s the arab-israeli war the 67 war the six-day war a riots in Malaysia in 69 90 71 the civil war in Pakistan became Pakistan Bangladesh mid-70s in Lebanon and then the Iranian Revolution you find across the Muslim world for differing reasons a sense that modernity is failing us the modern nation-state isn't working these Western models aren't working and a push from a minority but a very strong minority that say we need to get back to our religion to reclaim our identity and values now what emerges from that is both governments and reform movements and opposition movements appealing to religion we're using religion to buttress their various forms of nationalism etc and what emerges also is on the one hand out a mainstream Islamic activism but also a strong virulent extremist activism and you know we see it in terms of for example when the Iranian Revolution came along in the confrontation with you know America we see this as militant Islam personified we also saw it in Lebanon with hijackings and hostage-taking now the situation becomes exacerbated with the soviet-afghan war in the soviet-afghan war you have in fact what I call the global jihad that is the struggle the sacred struggle to the defense of Islam was not only taken up by the Mujahideen in Afghanistan it was taken up by America by Europe as well as Pakistan Saudi Arabia and now post Afghan war a lot of these new jadi those who came from other Muslim countries who are called Afghan Arabs whether they were Arab or Afghan they go back to their countries having had a chance to struggle for what they believe then they go back to many of their authoritarian regimes and suddenly find themselves in confrontations with the state and then a whole set of issues emerges post gulf war that leads to the kind of radicalization of people like Osama bin Laden and many of these other groups you're touching on something that that that's very interesting about Islam which is this notion of I guess we can say the the global versus the local and what what what one of the roots of our misperception seems to be that we we are not subtle in seeing the diversity which you've reached huge section which comes about by the local situation transforming Islam in creating a lot of uniqueness in in the religion basically so we lose sight of that interplay is that fair between but there on one hand there's a global identity and in the global religion but on the other hand there is this mosaic created by all the local situations in which Islam comes into being and as and has essentially changes and changes the locality that's right I mean there's an enormous difference between Islam is practiced in Saudi Arabia and Islam is practiced in many parts of Africa and certainly in Malaysian Indonesia and I know myself I did my studies but most of my my teachers were Arab and so my focus was on the Middle East and I remember when colleagues invited me to Southeast Asia I kept thinking who needs to go I know what I need to know about it's live today and when I got to Malaysia and I went through Kuala Lumpur the first thing I couldn't believe was how many signs were in Chinese I wasn't prepared to even deal with that but also it was during Ramadan and what I couldn't believe was that you could walk into a restaurant and you could have a meal during the hours of fasting because of course for the Chinese restaurants were open society was moving around I had also if you focus with Arab Islam particularly let's say especially if you've been dealing with the Gulf you will see you know far more of a restricted notion when it comes to the use of music and religion yeah you then see the way in which in Africa even the Shahada the confession of faith will be chanted to an African beat I remember a colleague of mine had only dealt with the Arab world we were in an African country he was watching this mass demonstration and he said my god this would never be allowed in the Arab world so I think that that excruciation of a local for the average American simply isn't there just as an appreciation for the if you will average of arabo-muslim but we know our leading political leaders the talking heads right and then we have this other term we use the arab street and most people think the arab street are sort of the i don't know what the hoi polloi that you know when in fact really mean by the mob when in fact by the arab street you really mean a cross-section of society but it's yeah how many americans engage you know your average arabo-muslim successful a businessperson professional that's only been happening very much in recent years it wasn't on our screen and i think another thing we forget about America when I began to study Islam people said to me why are you going into that abracadabra field you'll never get a job Islam was invisible in the Academy in general except for some major universities invisible in the Academy and in our landscape today Islam is the second or third largest religion in American Europe that wasn't the case in the past so again you know how do we generalize it's a bit like my youth raised in in in Brooklyn and in a totally Italian neighborhood and then I encounter my first Irish person and that Irish person happens to be a classmate who's an attractive young woman great personality but it's gets left back three times in grammar school what conclusion do I draw I receive to be nice but not all that bright or people who engage Italians and conclude that all Italians are emotive people like myself mm-hmm when in fact there are all kinds of personalities you know and I think that that's it and it's certainly if you just take a look at the movies and the TV media in the last few years who are the bad guys how are they portrayed the terrorists that people that like to slap the women around even our more prominent shows you look at a show like jag and go back and look at the way in which Arabs and Muslims have been portrayed on that show and other shows and it's I mean it's it's pretty astonishing a post 9/11 it you know it's it's an open field in terms of what one can say and get away with now a good case for that is the the complexity of the relationship of Islam to democracy all over the world and how in in our perception and way of looking at it when you talk about Muslim politics you talk about extremism and fanaticism but that's no by no means the case and help us understand that I mean there are many experiments with democracy despite the dilemma in Islam about whether you know you have the rule of the Quran and and Sharia verses you know the rule of people but but we there is a lot of diversity there in an attempt to kind of come to terms with democracy in an islamic stateö setting yeah talk to us about that a book that a colleague of mine John Boel and I did a few years ago called Islam and democracy one of the first things we try to say is look the first thing you have to remember is that democracy has taken many forms in the West from the Greeks to today you know from direct to indirect the such and their enormous differences in terms of the relationship of religion in the state if you look at the United States visa vie Canada or Germany and the issue with Islam is often how come there is no democracy very little isn't it that there's a contradiction between Islam and democracy or democracy in our culture what I try to say to people as distinguished between pre-modern and modern Judaism and Christianity and all world religions that began in pre-modern times legitimated divine forms of government you know kings etc feudal systems of government then they reinterpret themselves okay whether or not in to what extent Muslims will do that remains the case but what we do see in recent years is countries that have experimented with democracy Pakistan Malaysia Turkey now why the limited forms of democracy again you go from the pre-modern to modern modern you have European colonialism colonial powers were not about creating strong civil societies and democratic institutions independence comes you have modern nation-states artificial boundaries therefore fragile who Kings military ex-military therefore what we have in most Arab and Muslim countries are in fact government's that create a culture of authoritarianism not of democracy on the other hand in recent years along with some of the experiments the push from below on the part of many critics of regimes is to criticize them by in fact what you might call democratic standards to call for more political participation more accountability rule of law Iran is a perfect example of that struggle within a society house how well that will move ahead is very much up for grabs a lot of it has to do with the nature of regimes if you continue with the kinds of regimes we have it means that that impacts on your educational system both secular and religious the seminaries it impacts on your media it impacts on your public space on your civil societies and in some with some Society at countries political parties trade unions are banned or restricted and so a lot of it has to do it how do these societies develop and what role do European and let's say American governments play in terms of either reinforcing authoritarian regimes or reinforcing the need for broader political participation and one could really make the argument I guess that that our hands are not completely clean with regard to some of the regimes that we support in the region because of national security concerns rightly or wrongly I remember after the Gulf War several of us were on a panel at the Kennedy School at Harvard and the colleague whom I often debate with and strongly disagree with made the statement I don't understand why didn't loose limbs turn more against the Soviet Union you know why is there more anti Americanism after all they were there unbelievers you know the Soviets and you know we're believers to which a member of the State Department said to the person look the reality of it is what our foreign policies are what governments have we've been associated with why did you have such a strong actually on the part of some were many Iranians during the Iranian Revolution well there was a memory of the role that the United States played in keeping the Shah on the throne when the Shah was driven into exile bringing him back the role of the CIA the role of our military a similar situation in terms of anti-americanism in the Muslim world today it has to do with a lot of our foreign policy it has to do very much with the roles that we play the support that we give to governments whether it's israeli-palestinian or it's talking today in terms of Russia visa vie Chechnya President Bush was very clear before he became president in shining Russia with regard to the Chechens you look at policy today where where are we in terms of attitude towards Iraqi sanctions whether it's a Clinton or Bush you know where are we when it comes to talking about the problems with Pakistan but not sufficiently India when it comes to Kashmir our support for many authoritarian regimes in terms of military support I mean in many of these countries they see our aid is not an aid that is given for a country to defend against the outside but an aid that is often used against its own population we often have played a role not only with our aid but also in selling the equipment and in training security forces military etc so that's not lost sight of let's talk about some examples as you do in your book unholy war and I should show it on holy war terror in the name of Islam you you focus on on three moderates who in in in different settings in Indonesia and Malaysia are trying to come to terms and the president in Iran trying to come to terms to deal with some of these issues of democracy and so on and well again we don't focus on them we don't see the constraints that there are operating under what they're trying to achieve for example the president I ran in trying to bring democracy even in the context of this clerical rule I think that Iran provides an interesting case because you know we know the reign of the mullahs we know what happened post post Revolutionary time both under Khomeini immediately under Khomeini and then and then his successes in terms of restrictions but I think what we lost sight of was however restricted Iran moved to a point where there were regular parliamentary elections again restricted but regular parliamentary elections where in fact after a struggle about women's role in society and there's been an ongoing struggle in fact women in terms of public space are visible like function in jobs etc not to me is a reflection not just of his reformist thought and many would say that he increasingly as has failed as a reformer in terms of being able to get the right leverage he's a reflection of the society itself a significant number of Iranians young people women and others what a more open society more political participation more accountability and indeed some want it with a religious flavor a character and some want religion to be pushed into private space but we certainly see during the cottony period a real attempt to open up a debate and to press for broader democratization similarly if we jump over to Indonesia I mean it's interesting that after Suharto went you had democratic elections and in those first democratic elections the leader of one of the largest Islamic organizations in the world the noctilum on that has maybe 35 million people on the earth non-white head was democratically elected and indeed when he was somewhat pushed out the democratic process continued in Indonesia now it's in fits and starts it's fragile but it's clear that it's there and I think that that's what becomes important the same thing is true of Malaysia I wrote about Malaysia five years ago and saw a far more rosy picture it's gone through a much more limited form of democracy in recent years but I think that there are pressures within the society to move forward the same is now happening in Turkey in the recent elections a group called the Justice and Development Party och which has Islamist roots but now has cast itself more broadly almost as one talks about Christian Democrats as sort of Muslim Democrats they in fact succeed in an election so that you now they have their first they have their own prime minister in terms of control of the government and they and they are the predominant for us in the parliament and these experiments are taking place the reality of it is that while there are reformers they're pushing for these reforms democracy is a messy game as I try to tell people you know we forget that the American Revolution was followed by the civil war even bloodier we forget the French Revolution in the post French Revolution so what we shouldn't be surprised particularly when you're coming out of authoritarian cultures that we're going to see a lot of failures along with the gradual kind of success it's going to be a struggle both at the intellectual level and at the political level we forget when we talk about the Reformation and the Enlightenment we tend to think that it was just an intellectual conversation Luther and the Pope Calvin sat around that there were religious wars now at the local level at the level of a turkey or Iran the interesting complex things are going on sometimes more subtle than we can understand but but at the global level help us understand the extent to which the extremists that the Osama bin Laden type has has a monopoly or the question is does he have a monopoly on the global identity of Islam or is that just the way we're perceiving how has all of us come together where Islam as a force internationally is perceived or misperceived in in in the format in the of Osama and al-qaeda I think here a couple of things I think number one in general Islamic movements with mainstream er extremists primarily particularly in the past we're up with in particular country and they were responding to their countries to their regimes okay and you see that certainly in the case of the right-hand man of Osama bin Laden Ayman al-zawahiri the Egyptian both grandparents were University rector's father the Dean of a pharmacy school I'm in a physician he joins one of the most extremist groups in Egypt his enemy is the state later on he goes global okay the reality today is that you have movements that are both national but also you have movements that are international and certainly what 9/11 pointed out to us was that many of the movements were going global post Gulf War local as well as global and it really exploded with 9/11 the risk post 9/11 is that in fact Osama has and continues to be a symbol there's a certain lure in terms of the attraction Osama is seen by many as look I mean this is somebody who came from a privileged family a wealthy family who had a good education and gave it all up to go off and fight the good war in Afghanistan and then later on at the Gulf War period of post Gulf took on his own government when he saw that the Hamada was coming and warned that it would come and not leave that it would become have a disproportionate amount of influence and presence in the Gulf and Osama played to many of the grievances not only of extremists the grievances of the mainstream and what they see as the double standard in which they see the West not living up to its own standards when it comes to the Muslim world okay whether that's promotion a democracy arab-israeli conflict you name it I rock you sanction okay now what do we see post 9/11 post 9/11 initially you see a Muslim world that sees even the mainstream in the Muslim world sees at America but is leading a war against global terrorism however having taken or moved against Osama and al-qaeda and then decided that no we've got to expand the war Gaveston doesn't stop there but says in the name of the war we begin to talk about second frontiers when we get axis of evil kicks in when we get the rock now we talk about also suddenly moving from disarmament to regime change to saying that it's really to promote democracy and so that means that we also become critical of our allies even albeit authoritarian regimes but our close allies what happens is that that can play into the extremists that say see it's an unfocused war it's a unilateral it's a new Empire and look at what's happening the agenda is not simply to address this issue for that issue it's open-ended and it's going to be one country determining or redrawing the map of the Muslim world now it's interesting that that concerning criticism is also coming out of some of our European allies and so what we see then is both the extremists if we're not careful playing to this and perhaps attracting from what would have been mainstream those who become more and more disenchanted marginalized and alienated this is one of the risks of let's say an attack against Iraq and then particularly depending on what we do in Iraq and we also see emerging which I think should be troubling to America in terms of its future the fact that when you look at polls not just in the Muslim world but in the non-muslim world in Europe and other places a high percentage of any Americanism and a strong sense will fear that America is and sees itself as an imperial power even an imperial power with a religious destiny this is one of the concerns that some have in terms of President Bush in the role of the Christian Right so how can we have a foreign policy that is subtle enough to understand the complexities of this well because what you're suggesting is that you know a uni in a unipolar world the u.s. a deciding that it will determine where to preempt where we perceive there's a threat a lot of these places maybe in the Muslim world will be inter intervening and after intervening will seek to democratize in in terms of the way we see democracy as opposed to the Islamic law so so what is the answer in in bringing a more subtle understanding to what our foreign policy should be in this part of the day I think first of all I think we need to be more focused in defining what it is we're doing hmm what that global mission is I mean a war against global terrorism could be an unending war there's always going to be some global terrorism out there I think also we have to be very more focused that supposedly initially it was to go after Osama and al-qaeda the danger now is that we will simply conflate that with whatever regimes that we don't like weather don't like us mm-hmm and say that this means that we need to move ratchet that into regime change but I think that initial positive signal was given by the Secretary of State a few months ago actually was a policy that he announced about a year year-and-a-half ago but it wasn't announced all that publicly and that was a policy that that did say publicly that look our public diplomacy is not just going to be about public relations and telling people what America is about or you know why they misunderstand this but we're going to deal with foreign policy issues and he said you know he admitted that the United States had not often listened when it came to the issue of democratization it hadn't listened to many people in the area he also said that we would be open to seeing more democratization and even if that meant that parties would be elected that might not be our preferred party that parties that might be quite independent in terms of the way that they dealt with us he also said that part of that therefore would mean that we would deal with a political economic and educational reform because these are the conditions that encourage extremism and he said in light of the Turkish elections I believe that the United States was open to Muslim parties or activists again the presumption being as long as they're functioning with the mainstream society to what extent we will actually pursue that as a policy is the real challenge and how we're going to do that or will it simply be seen by cynics as a rationale being laid down as we moved from saying disarmament regime change and then suddenly said no no the real purpose is to liberate Iraq establish democracy and let that be an example to the rest of the Middle East and then to go on and promote it there I think we're we're these are very tricky waters that the United States will be in for the foreseeable future what are the key resources for the extremists to the extent that they attempt to monopolize the Islamic identity to hijack the religion seems to be tied up with the israel-palestine conflict and our inability to see this as a problem for the Islamic world separate from you know the radicals who want to hijack the religion talk a little about that that that sensitivity to that issue as one tries to create a global Islamic identity that's separate from what the terrorists might want it to be I think that what extremists do is they exploit real issues that's always been the case real issues that are out there that both mainstream Muslim societies are concerned about as well as extremists and those issues have everything to do with political participation as well as American foreign policy and certainly the arab-israeli conflict has been there in fact what extremists would say today if they're a mainstream that say say it too you know the Bush administration backed away from the real conflagration the real violence and terror that's being committed by both sides in Israel and Palestine and turns to Iraq you know in the interim and so I think that extremists play off that extremist play off a long resentment among both mainstream as well as extremists with regard to not what America stands for in the West stands for but the difference between that and what is seen as lack of balance in our foreign policy with regard to the Muslim world in general and the arab-israeli conflict in particular and a sense of saying look there is not a balance or a parity in terms of American foreign policy when it comes to this region and so for example extremists can continue to say something like look when sharona in the military went into the West Bank in Gaza the Secretary of State and the president were very quick to say this must stop in a matter of days three four days eight days and in fact the United States did what it hadn't done in the past it moved in the UN working on two resolutions to say in effect cease and desist but the same time that happened in New York President Bush in Washington is saying Arafat is responsible for terrorism and certainly Arafat should should be held responsible for the failures of his regime but says cherone is a man of peace and in the interim they would say months have gone by and no longer is there an attempt to put any restraints there is an attempt to limit as it should be limited the suicide bombing and and and and the you know the the killing of the innocence but there isn't an attempt to limit the violence and terror on the other side that is being perpetrated in Israel Palestine and that is an issue across the Muslim world and that and that is what Muslims know about and see we forget that in recent years they often until recently they see more than we see that is in the Arab and Muslim world you no longer have to depend on the American media or the European media to tell you what's going on you have al Jazeera mm-hmm and similar and every day people can watch whether they're having coffee in the morning or tea in the afternoon they can be watching live what's going on what we tend to see in America is the horrendous scene of the effects of suicide bombing we don't see the Renda scenes in the West Bank in Gaza we don't see the use of Apache helicopters and f-16s and American bulldozers to bulldoze homes those images and visions go out and the extremists can seize upon that sense of outrage the many feel and play to it and you see this I've come back from the Gulf and other places it's not just among young Islamists in fact if anything it's often among the young discontented in the next generation who look at their own governments and see them as corrupt see many people is not standing up for something and they look at somebody like Osama and he becomes a Robin Hood the character wrongly but is perceived you know as somebody who takes on with his mouth but also you know supposedly you know across the board you know with his action so I think that's what we are dealing with today we began this discussion talking about your discovering of the third faith Islam alongside Christianity and Judaism I'm curious as somebody who sought a lot about religion it is it fair to say that that in some ways fundamentalism extreme fundamentalism in all three religions is is is a is a major problem of modernity these days that is the board absolutely I think that you know we forget it's the in recent decades there's been a religious resurgence and it's mainstream in most faiths but you have this fundamentalist but I like to put it as as follows those people we call fundamentalist are generally people who subscribe to a but at the end of the day is a rather exclusivist theology they see themselves as right and therefore if I'm right you're wrong we're the forces of good for us of evil forces of God forces of Satan and that exclusivist theology tends to be weak on pluralism and our religious tolerance that doesn't mean they're going to kill other people they just know other people are wrong and often for many of them they know that when the next when you die you're gonna go to hell it doesn't mean I feel I have to dispatch you that you see the extremists is the one who basically takes this exclusivist theology this kind of polarized worldview harnesses it into a should and says no if we have the truth and you represent untruth we're the army of God then you're the army of Satan then we have an obligation to pursue and that struggle is not just you know a struggle of words and of missionaries etc it becomes an armed struggle and of course they dovetail it with political social and economic grievances and I think that's what you see and so for example the assassin of mr. ravine could be somebody who would pour over religious texts to be able to find some way to read that religious text or find some writer - that legitimate mm-hmm the grievance mm-hmm and he was he was Jewish yeah he was Jewish yeah the the your Institute is addressing in a way some of these problems on the domestic side looking at the promotion of a Christian Islamic dialogue tell us a little about you know that agenda and and what it is attempting to achieve and the possibilities there our Center was created in 1993 within the walls School of Foreign Service and the full title of the Center is Center for Muslim Christian understanding history and International Affairs so although we do summit but we're not primarily interested in theological dialogue and we we addressed the whole issue of the relationship therefore in history and international fest past and present so we run programs domestically and internationally and we run them in the United States you run them in Europe we run them all over the Muslim world we speak and write about contemporary issues we write briefing papers we write books to deal with the role of Islam in Muslim politics with regard to gender issues we work with think tanks we work with religious groups universities and even government's running workshops and conferences all over the world and we do an awful lot with the media domestically and internationally and many for many of us our writings are translated not only into European languages or Chinese and Japanese but into Muslim languages and so we attempt an engagement not only in Washington and across America but in fact we attempt this kind of engage internationally so so in a way what you work you're really talking about is is elevating the consciousness in the same way that your consciousness was elevated as you began your pursuit of scholarly studies precisely I mean our whole idea is really to open up that window mm-hmm to try to say to people you know yes you know something mmm but often it's that something that's coming through through what I call the explosive headline events because the media is about grabbing your attention and selling newspapers you know it's not about what the average person is doing and and or you know where the average person is coming from and trying to for example say to people anti-americanism is broad-based in the Muslim world but it's also blood based outside but anti-americanism in Europe and and in the Muslim world does not mean hatred of America however that anti-americanism does in the hands of extremists become a hatred of America that in fact advocates violence but to make those kinds of distinctions in a way we're doing what post 9/11 the Bush administration tried to do in some of its public diplomacy regrettably it didn't address sufficiently the foreign policy issues but when it said we want to explain to people because we believe that people out there really don't understand the whole picture they don't really know what America is about well we're trying to kind of blood in that picture on all sides to the extent that we can one final question requiring a short answer how would you advise students to prepare for a future where international politics is going to be important the Islamic world is going to be important and and we have to deal with the the challenges posed by America's enormous power in the world I think students are positioned today in a way that they weren't before post 9/11 is meant whether it's the curriculum or our media a far more visible set of opportunities to learn more and students ought to be more motivated I mean after America was attacked and it is part of their future and this is in the war that's being fought over there so I basically say to students you know you have an obligation as a citizen let alone the opportunity as a student to explore International Affairs and to attempt to make your contribution on that note we're very pleased to have had you here today and and thank you very much for joining us for this conversation with history thank you is fun thank you very much for joining us today

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

Views: 17,396

Keywords: John, Esposito, Islam, west, history

Id: 1j33J7G8CXs

Length: 56min 11sec (3371 seconds)

Published: Thu May 01 2008