Why Now? The Urgency of Advancing Religious Liberty in the Muslim World

this panel is titled why now the urgency of advancing religious liberty in the Muslim world in the next hour and a half we hope to provide a well-rounded discussion of all the relevant elements of this issue including the political social and Theological some of the questions we hope to answer include what is a general status of religious liberty in Muslim majority countries both democratic and autocratic in these countries how significant are deficiencies as well as positive Trends and religious freedom to individuals religious communities social harmony Economic Development and political success what internal resources exist to address these deficiency deficiencies or encourage these positive Trends and finally what is the role or should be the role of Muslim Americans in advancing religious freedom in Muslim majority countries joining us on the panel today is Tom far who is a director of the religious freedom project at the Berkeley Center for religion peace and world affairs and a visiting associate professor of religion and international Affairs at georgetown's Edmund wall School of Foreign Service we also have Alan hersky who was a the presidential professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma he has written extensively on religious advocacy in politics and in particular Faith motivated activism in foreign policy and next to him we have Ed Hussein who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations his work focuses on International threats from rad radicalization extremism and terrorism and finally we are joined by Sheikh Hamza yusf um in 1996 he founded the zetuna Institute which is committed to presenting a classical picture of Islam in the west and Reviving traditional study methods and the Sciences of Islam and I ask uh that everyone limit their remarks um to no more than 10 minutes thank you okay I'm first um first let me say it's an honor to be here with these colleagues I've just met shik Hamza Yousef it's a real honor to be here with you uh with my friends Asma Udin uh Alan hersky uh and Ed Hussein all of whom have been doing terrific work in in this field and uh we're we're delighted and speaking on behalf of the religious freedom project to have all of you here um I think we're just doing this alphabetically in some ways I would probably be best bringing up the end here but because I want to talk a little bit about uh as a non-expert in Islam and certainly uh some a student of Islam uh I've observed this the issue of the status of religious freedom in Muslim majority countries for some years so my remarks are are I hope somewhat informed but they're certainly not that of an expert uh someone who is very interested in the issue and so what I'd like to do is make an argument really of of a couple of Parts uh let me tell you what those parts are and then I'll come back and fill in the gaps a little bit first of all uh religious freedom is severely deficient in many Muslim majority countries it's not surprising that there that there's very little religious freedom in the authoritarian Theocratic countes such as Iran or Saudi Arabia or Sudan um we can say the same about non-muslim majority authoritarian countries such as China or Vietnam uh and certainly During the period of the Soviet Union we saw horrific uh religious persecution so it it's probably in my view not terribly fruitful to think about the way that can change because the the barriers to change in countries like Iran Saudi Arabia Sudan Sudan perhaps less than the others because of what's going on there uh I like to talk about those countries and we can certainly do so if people are interested but I think it's far more interesting and fruitful potentially fruitful to speak of the Muslim majority democracies in the world um including those uh that are relatively stable democracies have been around for a while and and are successful to one extent or another such as turkey and Indonesia Indonesia of course the largest Muslim country in the world and the only large Muslim country that has been ranked free by freedom house most of you or many of you have heard of freedom house and its uh rankings of annual rankings of countries is free partly free or non-free Indonesia is the only large Muslim majority country I think there are a couple of others Mali perhaps sagol that have made that that rank but this is the only one of of true speaking as an American Diplomat geopolitical significance that has reached that level and yet it still has very significant problems with religious liberty it still um officially persecutes uh the amadia uh uh minority it it has terrific problems both official and non-official uh with U sanctioning or at least uh if not sanctioning then acquiescing in the presence of religion-based extremism um similar problems exist in Turkey uh although uh and so I guess the point I would make on those two countries that are the most mature of the large Muslim uh uh democracies is that religious freedom remains a missing link arguably a a primary Missing Link and their movement from democratic proceduralism and and and sort of chugging along as democracies that are making some progress uh to democracies that are truly Consolidated and by that I mean democracies that that protect the equality of all of their citizens under the law including and especially the religious minorities neither turkey nor Indonesia have gotten there but they're certainly further along than the the category of countries that I really want to talk about and I would call them struggling or nent democracies within the Muslim majority World in particular uh Iraq Afghanistan two countries For Better or Worse in which the United States has been heavily involved for uh better than a a decade and uh but also Al Pakistan and the Arab Spring countries in particular Egypt these are countries uh in which American foreign policy and our and our own interests I think it's fair to say however one defines our interests and we we may disagree over that however we Define them the stability of those countries their their success in achieving democracy is very important to the United States of America but here we move Beyond in my view the the some of the philosophical discussions which I found intriguing this morning about religious freedom and which you'll find in the book uh that you have to the second half of the book which deals with the Strategic arguments if you will for Religious Freedom they are uh they are those arguments in the book are characterized by an American point of view because Americans wrote them but we as we say in part two of the book we believe these are arguments that can be made by any country in the world that wants stability wants their neighbors to succeed when they are choosing democracy and I think that's Egypt is the country where we can say that most completely Egypt has chosen democracy it is struggling toward it and yet religious freedom is a major major issue and the final point I'll make and I'll come back at the end to this is that uh the United States as many of you know has officially had a policy of advancing International religious freedom now since 1998 uh I was privileged to be in the office very early during that tenure and and indeed have spent the last better C part of the last decade thinking and complaining about uh the uh some of the shortcomings of of that policy but uh complaining from within the fraternity if you will or the fraternity SL sorority of of diplomats who really want this to work uh and the reason I want it to work is not only because advancing religious freedom is in the interests I truly believe of every country in the world where there is a religious human being which is every country in the world but it's also in the interest of our country to do this successfully uh and and so I want to end up with a couple of remarks on that why should Egypt just to take one example but you can substitute any of these Nation struggling democracies Pakistan Afghanistan Iraq why should they want religious freedom why should they care about it um because we tell them that it's in their interest because because uh the United Nations uh uh declaration and the iccpr article 18 and both of those says that that this is an international Norm well sure those are very important propositions and I think any self-respecting democracy wants to uh to try to adhere to International norms and international law when they can but it seems to me that U you know we we've been doing international law and international human rights now for well over half a century um I I'm not sure that we've ever had since the end of the Holocaust and the end of the second world war more Fidelity in word and less Fidelity ined internationally to religious freedom and this is true in particular of countries like Egypt why should they adopt it in my view the answer is because you're not going to get what you want if you don't it's an argument to self-interest if in fact your goal as some would attribute to to the Muslim Brotherhood is to uh you know just get power and move toward a caliphate this argument doesn't work uh if in fact their goal is simply to gain control of Egypt and abgate the Camp David Accords and and uh and create some kind of radical islamist movement then then I acknowledge that this argument is not uh terribly fruitful and and it's no mistake that people who believe that to be the case in Egypt uh are not terribly receptive to the argument that that that I make which is an argument about American National Security it's an argument that we want Egypt to succeed and the other countries but they won't do it unless they can get this religion State relationship right it doesn't mean the first amendment it doesn't mean this certainly doesn't mean the separation of church and state I was interested in Bill mcclay's discussion of his uh you know being pressed on this when he went around Turkey um separation of church and state is to me the wrong way to appeal to Muslims in Muslim majority countries about the way that they should do their religious State balance the way we should convey to them our interest in their success is that the United States while it has an Institutional separation of church and state has not removed religion for politics from Politics as much as some I believe harking back to what Tim Shaw said at the end of the last panel some earnestly would like it to happen because it causes problems for domestic Politics as we heard from the last panel but religion has always been in the American Democratic experiment the notion that it shouldn't be involved in politics even if it were a good idea which I personally think it isn't is nonsense it's not part of the why do you suppose we have a First Amendment protecting the free exercise of religion it's not the free exercise of contraception folks sorry it's the free exercise of something that the founders considered to be important this we can say to the Egyptians we can say to them hey we're not here to ask you to move Islam out of the Public Square we're not here to tell you that religious freedom means the expulsion of Islam to the margins of politics we're here to tell you that we persecuted our own by the way I'm not sure it's been remarked but the picture on this the front of our book is May Mary Dyer this is not a Muslim woman this is not a uh this was a Christian woman a Quaker who was hanged on Boston Commons in 1660 for prizing the Quaker Faith we've persecuted our own we're not perfect I would argue we have the best system of religious liberty in the world witness these discussions but my real point is that we have an opportunity to speak to the self-interest of other countries especially Muslim majority countries not by arguing in a French style forgive me I always have to B Bash France at least once but here it is the French don't understand this but Muslim majority countries think that when we're promoting religious freedom in their country we're French that what we mean is the expulsion of religion from the Public Square nothing could be further from the truth and so in some what we ought to be doing I know I'm speaking in great generalities you're welcome to press me I'll be more specific but I'm painting with a broad brush brush so that I can stop talking I want to get to US foreign policy briefly we need to make arguments not just with diplomats but with programs with money with American foreign policy that says to these countries we can help you not just by putting you on a list and condemning you not just by writing reports about religious freed freom but by helping you to understand how you will not succeed at democracy building if you don't succeed at religious freedom if every C every individual in Egypt no matter what their religious belief is does not have full equality under the law to worship and to act on the basis of their religious beliefs within the Norms of democratic discourse then Egypt will not succeed as a democracy final point we haven't done a very good job of this in American for policy for reasons for many reasons one of which I think Tim Shaw hit well upon let me paraphrase it in less elevated terms cluelessness about religious freedom some of it is our political Elite it's just Garden variety aggressive secularism ISM they haven't darkened the door of a mosque or a synagogue or a church and they find puzzling maybe they're amused at those who do okay fair enough I say at the Foreign Service Institute when I speak to my friends my Diplomat my diplomatic friends some of whom I know are are lapsed Catholics or atheists or whatever and it's impolite to ask and I don't know but I know they're there I it doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are your job is to engage the world World in defense of American interests and the world is religious get over it you're not going to succeed in advancing religious freedom unless you understand the cultures that you're going into and can bring those cultures to understand that religious freedom doesn't mean leaving a religion at the public at the door it does mean that you have to accept some hard compromises no anti-blasphemy laws no an anti- apostasy laws you can't kill people because they leave your faith you don't have to be happy about it you don't have to celebrate it but you can't use the force the police powers of the state to prevent people from leaving Islam or any other took the Catholic Church a while to understand that but it has come to understand that it Embraces religious freedom for all people but mind you and let me say this to my Muslim friends the Catholic church does not argue it doesn't matter matter whether you leave Catholicism or not it doesn't argue that we don't really care if you're Catholic please become a Baptist if you feel better about that no it continues to argue that the Catholic church is the fullest expression of of the truth but as Robbie George said so eloquently today it defends the right of human beings to do this on their own if we can get Muslim majority countries to accept that then I think we will have done a great deal I I said finally several times here and I know asthma doesn't believe me but this really is finally the current ad all the administrations that have had religious freedom Clinton and then Bush for eight years and now President Obama I think have failed to grasp this and I've said this consistently throughout I think they have not given enough resources to the office of religious free Freedom which was created in 1998 it has not given enough status to the Ambassador large it's about positions it's been true of every one of them they're buried bureaucratically we don't train our Foreign Service officers sufficiently to do this now let me say this about the Obama Administration and I I haven't said a lot of positive things in print about it but it has instituted in the Foreign Service Institute Training that has not existed before on the issues of religion and religious freedom I hope that they'll take the next step and make it mandatory for far service officers so it isn't viewed as this Niche issue and you go to that course if you can if you have time so in some Muslim majority countries have deficiencies in religious freedom all of them do those that are struggling for democracy we have an opportunity to reach by making a simple point you won't get what you want you won't succeed at what you want if you don't get this right we have a history with this that that makes us understand the difficulties and the importance of it let's have a conversation about religious freedom and how it can help you and by so doing help American national interests okay thank you thank you asalam alikum I took 15 minutes so you get five okay thanks Tom I'm watching my clock um when Tim asked me to serve on this panel and then I saw who the panelists were I thought why am I here I'm on a I'm I'm really humbled to be on a panel with distinguished individuals that I have admired from afar and finally get to meet and um uh and I guess the reason I'm here is that as a political scientist who started his career studying religion and politics in America uh and then evolved into someone concerned Rel with global religion and religious freedom I've spent really and I was telling my students I teach a class on global religion in American foreign policy at the University of Oklahoma and I told my students the other day you know for the past decade I've read more interviewed I've read more about Islam I've interviewed more Muslims I've been inspired by more Muslim Heroes of conscience than any other Arena involved with religion and global politics so in a sense as as someone who's come to this I come with a fresh perspective perhaps and also as a political scientist so what is the status of religious liberty in uh Islamic societies around the world well Tom has alluded to this it's paress uh the the Pew form on religion and public life has issued two major reports one in 2009 one just recently uh on uh the uh uh the status of religious freedom around the world both in terms of government restrictions and in terms of social hostilities that repress religious exercise uh and in their first report the five of the top 10 countries in government restrictions were Islamic Society Saudi Arabia Iran Egypt Maldives Malaysia uh and in Social hostilities uh a number of the top countries uh were Islamic societies Iraq Pakistan Afghanistan Indonesia Bangladesh Somalia Sudan and Saudi Arabia um and and one of the most sort of telling um findings of their report was that on this what they call the Social hostilities index the the index of the degree to Which social hostilities and violence in society uh a religiously infused really uh present a chilling environment the Middle East and North Africa was at 4.4 and the closest region next was 1.7 so it's a it's a it's a challenging situation and the most recent report on Rising restrictions around the world found that among countries where there have been rising restrictions either to government policies or social hostilities um a number of countries are Islamic uh societies Egypt Algeria Malaysia Yemen Syria Somalia uh which is not to say there aren't many factors involved here but one of the things the report does uh which I think is helpful uh the most recent report on Rising restrictions on religion at the Pew forum is it looks specifically at laws on blasphemy apostasy and defamation of religion and how they affect a chilling uh atmosphere for Religious Freedom and here are a couple of the findings of the 44 countries in the world that have anti-blasphemy laws and enforced penalties 59% had higher very high restriction rtion on religion or hostilities but 15 countries that have such laws but do not even enforce them they also 60% have high restrictions or hostilities on religion uh and then of the rest of the countries that do not have anti-blasphemy laws so forth only 177% have high restrictions on religion so they found significantly a close correlation between having laws against blasphemy apostasy and Def defamation are predictive of restrictions on religion either governmentally or in terms of society so we do have it is clear that there's there's a challenge here what is the role then of religious freedom in the future the fate of Islamic societies around the world I would argue argue it's urgent and it's pivotal uh we have great empirical data quantitative data on the close correlation between the protection of religious freedom and other aspects of democratic consolidation civil liberties women's status um rule of law um limits on state power uh educational success and so forth so the fate of aspiring Islamic societies is very much bound up the flourishing of those societies with regimes that protect the the the rights of people to uh practice their faith and exercise their faith um that's pretty well established but I think the more interesting and compelling narrative to me is that protecting religious freedom fully uh what Robbie George was calling in full uh this morning um protecting religious freedom is actually pivotal to the Islamic faith itself and I don't draw this conclusion on my own I draw it from people that I have come to admire who are uh deep deeply embedded in the Islamic uh discourse and and World um for a variety of historical forces historical factors authoritarianism Colonial legacies uh collapse of the Ottoman Empire or a variety of historical factors Islamic Societies in the 20th century came in many cases to be ruled by authoritarian regimes that were or were repressive or were Theocratic um and what it is clear it's clear that that Legacy presents a chilling environment for the free exercise of exploration of Islamic faith and identity and I'll get back to what I think the the unique role of American Muslims is at the end but classic Islamic scholarship def depended upon reason and inquiry and exploration and discourse and debate and dialogue um if if you read the classic Islamic scholars the learning is is just so rich and rewarding well today Islamic scholars in many societies flee because they can be charged either by the state or by societal actors radicals and so forth with apostasy or blasphemy um and so there's a chilling environment for academic Pursuit for freedom for free inquiry and most important for the free submission to the will of all how can you be a true Muslim if you don't voluntarily submit isn't that the inherent nature of you know and to all of us who are believers I mean how can you be uh how can you have an Ascent to the Divine unless that is truly free freely given not coerced um and so forth and as I look at some of the people that I've gotten to know or have read it's interesting how much they are making this case that to be a that to be an authentic Muslim requires the Free Will Ascent to the Divine and then in repressive societies that is very difficult or perilous and so you look at someone like Abu SED in Egypt who had great Islamic scholar who had to flee in order to make his case that there are forms of modern scholarship that can be helpful in understanding uh the Islamic tradition uh you have people like abdulla s who makes the case against apostasy laws from an Islamic perspective that how can you have true Free Will offering if if um uh you can be charged with blasphemy or apostasy um and certainly ad Hussein and Hamza YF have made arguments about the importance of the freedom in Islam to read you know the depths of that tradition and DeLucia or or uh whatever it may be uh the person I want to highlight uh is uh is um a great Iranian dist Abdul Karim zou um who U uh has written numerous letters to the uh regime uh challenging in Iran challenging its repression of its people and if you read his great work on the freedom of religion in Islam and and and the connection between freedom of religion and democracy uh what you find is a notion that Faith must be free so rouch's argument is that the nature of Faith itself is has to be free um and therefore regimes that repress that coerce it deny it are actually denying something fundamental about what it means to be a human being and what it means to be an authentic Muslim that Faith must be free well when we look at the situation in some Islamic societies today we see how government policies or societal movements uh are U repressing that inherent Freedom if you look at the situation in Pakistan the the the harsh blasphemy was not enacted by Democratic procedures it wasn't it was enacted by General Zia as as a as a strategic device to to you know of AR wrap himself with the Islamic mantle but once that law is in place it presents a chilling impact on free inquiry women's status minority rights uh the ability of Muslims to explore their own faith um because it's not only that someone can be accused of black blasphemy by the by the state but more likely by a neighbor who resents You by someone who wants something you have uh and and vigilante activity is actually one of the most repressive as aspects and of course the assassination of shabaz bati is an example of that or in Afghanistan where journalists women's rights Advocates and others have have been accused of apostasy and Blas blasphemy or in some cases um uh expelled or or chased out of the society and in that sense I I Echo what Tom said that that the the test in a way the Arab Spring the test of the great aspirations that so inspired many of us really is whether these societies will Embrace religious freedom in full because that will not only protect religious minorities Coptic Christians amadis Shia so forth but will protect the ability of Muslim thinkers and students and others to explore their faith fully how can a faith be truly mature if it can't question itself and how can you question yourself if you will be accused of blasphemy apostasy and so forth and in a way it's very interesting to look at the different trajectories of two very similar societies and how the Embrace of religious freedom was transformative and I like to use the example of Saudi Arabia versus Qatar uh Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both Gulf States both Sunni majority States societies which for 1400 years had very similar trajectories Faith backgrounds and so forth but the society the IM Amir and qar made it a decision and in a sense in conversation with a very enlightened American ambassador who understood and deeply respected Islamic culture to allow religious Christian religious worship in this case in in in Doha and the first Catholic church and Protestant Church were built there and allowed there and what's interesting is that that act I think was actually pivotal and helping that small rep you know that small Kingdom become a player in terms of uh International discourse and business and universities and I think there's a brookens institution that's centered there now and there's there's sort of flourishing intellectual social business life in part because there was a strategic decision made um and I think it's pretty safe to say that that's a dramatic comparison to the state of Saudi Arabia but the the final thing I want to say about this is that going back to suou in Iran is that um when suou wrote his angry letters during the the the the protest in Iran during the election and he basically said um that this regime was undermining faith in religion and faith in Islam because by using naked Power to stay in power military force Thugs and so forth to undermine the will of the people the clerics in Iran were actually undermining troducing in a sense faith and their religious leadership who really believes these are really devout religious men in a sense after what they had to do this is sh's point um so in a way he was saying to coerce religion in the Islamic world is to stigmatize it to undermine it um and so there's not only good strategic reasons for the United States in a sense to promote religious freedom but um we can do so with good faith of of Muslim societies around the world that we in a sense upholding something Central to the faith that gets me to the final point about policy there are many things we could discuss and other points that have been discussed but what I would like to say is that in terms of what we in the west either as academics think tanks foundations or American government can do we can defend and uphold the heroes of conscience in the Islamic world people who are at Great sacrifice and personal risk sometimes their very lives and livelihoods making a case for freedom of conscience from a deeply Islamic perspective they are my heroes they are the people that I feel uh akin to in a sense and to the extent that we can provide a megaphone we can uphold that and we can help them fight the bullies who would intimidate uh who would chill and silence voices of consci ience we ought to do so we should not sit by while people of conscience uh around the world are at least not being uh uh upheld and uh celebrated for what they're doing uh to allow bullies to chill and intimidate and silence them uh is is to undermine ultimately uh the aspirations of people all over the world uh and that's partly why I think getting to the last point about Muslim Americans why I think Muslim Americans will are and will be some of the best ambassadors for this vision of freedom of religion within Islam and the idea that freedom that Faith must be free to be authentic because Muslim Americans are living that experience and can speak to it around the world uh and once again I think we have not been very Adroid at drawing upon the resources of our own citizens in our foreign policy and I wish we would do so thank you thank you and um much like Alan I also feel daunted on being uh on this panel but if anyone here knows anything about Tom you can say many things to Tom but you can't say no to him um I try to squeeze myself out of this one but um I had to delay my flight to London to be uh speaking here today but I don't want to say much and I really want to hand over my time to she Hamza and give him more time to speak to many of the themes that have been raised today and much of what I wanted to say has already actually been referred to by both Tom and Alan in terms of policy prescriptions and developments in the uh in the Middle East at the moment but before handing over to she Hamza I just want to say something somewhat personal in in the same vein as Tim sha also in the vein that the task Force's publication opens up with personal stories um I remember being 19 in uh a summer camp in in in the of England and uh waking up in that summer camp I think about 10:00 in the morning and hearing the voice of a of an aidite American Muslim scholar who questioned the very fundamentals that my generation of Muslims who had been born and raised in England went to University in most European countries and the narrative that we had embraced that somehow it was our own personal religious duty to Advocate an Islamic State or a caliphate that would be a confrontational towards the West B suppress religious minorities rights along the lines that were suggested earlier C confront Israel de obliterate democracy and you know the the the the stereotypes that we he were the kind of uh uh the mindset that my generation of Muslims had embraced but that morning I woke up to a Muslim scholar coming out in black and white terms and this is in 1997 well before 91 saying that the that within the Muslim tradition there was no such thing called the Islam state that in early Muslim history it was referred to as or this affair will speak more more to these themes but that Muslim scholar for me as a 19-year-old that questioned that Narrative of extremism that leads ultimately to terrorism of separatism of negating religious pluralism that Muslim scholar was Sheik Hamza um 911 happened and I remember looking around the Muslim scene both in Europe and the broader West but also in Muslim majority countries the voice that came out most clearly uh in the aftermath of 9111 and said that the 19 men who were involved in the plane hijackings weren't Martyrs but were murderers was against shik Hamza and I remember seeing him in England at the time and the personal threats that he had faced for taking that line boldly and several other lines that led to hardliners within Muslim communities feel upset by his intellectual Clarity and and spiritual wisdom and also commitment to the truth capital T truth in what he advocated I then went on to live in the Middle East I mean I was in Syria for 2 years Saudi Arabia for about a year and you spoke about the need for Muslim American ambassadors I remember going to sermons both in Mecca Medina and jeda on Fridays but before I would go to pray at the at these mosques and you know different Fridays on on NBC which is a very popular Arab uh television channel from Saudi Arabia and almost everyone on the Friday morning at home in Saudi Arabia watches that channel there was sh Hamza on a program called Hamza being beamed into to 300 million Arab homes in which he was taking delegations of Muslims and others to the Library of Congress and other buildings and showing them the dedication to Islamic civilization on the Dome of the Library of Congress that was directly being beamed into Muslim homes in Saudi Arabia you know so if you want a public intellectual and if you want a Muslim voice in the US that's having an impact on the ground and changing an entire generation of Muslims in Europe you have him here so over to sh Hamza I didn't pay him to say so yeah I you know I appreciate that uh testimony that period of time was an incredibly difficult time for me and my family you know I had the uh FBI coming telling me to put like alarm systems in my house and uh because they were getting all this chatter about people uh wanting to kill me which was very strange but um you know Martin Luther King at the height of his um and I'm not comparing myself in any way but I'm just talking about death threats in general he was getting about 300 a day uh so it's not surprising he was a chain smoker and uh other vices um that tend to uh afflict a lot of people under an intense amount of pressure um but uh you know I I want to First say just on a personal note and I appreciated Mr Shaw's remark about that um in some ways I'm here because of Rel religious persecution because one of my great-grandfathers fled Scotland because of the Catholic persecution uh and so he ended up over here on this Shore so um and then my my great great-grandfather uh came to Philadelphia from Scotland as an from Ireland as an Irish Catholic and in 1838 and in within a few years they were burning down the churches in in uh in Philadelphia and although somebody mentioned that it was mob doing that the fact is a lot of the the authorities were turning the other eye when these things happen I mean we tend to forget the complicity often of governments in mob violence and that was something very evident recently in Egypt uh where they allowed these mobs who are actually government thugs under the guys of being uh mobbed so that often occurs also but uh you know my my own Irish Catholic uh Roots my name is Hansen but it's actually oh Hansen uh so they dropped the O and pretended not to be Irish because there was an uh ethnic backlash against Irish Catholics not olster uh Irish right not Protestant Irish it was very different being a Protestant Irish in this country but we're here uh next to uh Maryland where Lord Baltimore I mean we have uh the first uh really religious Edict of Toleration in the United States even though it was very limited in its scope uh recognizing trinitarian uh differences within the community but it was here and then Thomas Jefferson right next door in Virginia Virginia uh with the Toleration in the state of Virginia and arguing in in a letter that he wanted to see an America that was safe for uh the Christian the Jew the muhammadan the Hindu I mean I was quite stunned to find him mentioning the Hindu when I first read that many years ago and the atheist also so um it's very interesting because the atheists I mean in the previous panel somebody mention about uh you know there's no religion of one and I I think that's arguable I mean every religion begins with one person so Jesus at one point was the only Christian around and the prophet Muhammad was the only Muslim at one point so religion begins with one and uh Jefferson to quote him again I'm staying in the Montello Hotel over there so it must be affecting me but Jefferson also said I am a sect of one so I think he relished that idea and in in the West I think individualism has been so prominent in in uh in in modern Western tradition whereas in the East you still have much more of a communitarian uh Society so if you go to these societies the communities very important and and I lived with um with uh bedan for and I spent seven years with uh bedan so I I got to really understand the premodern tribal mentality which is very interesting mentality because on the one hand they have have a lot of egalitarian qualities and they're they're actually quite Democratic in in many ways this was in West Africa in morania but but on the other hand it's very difficult to split off from the tribe I mean they all have Ecentric eccentric uncles uh like the you know the English tolerate The Eccentric uh Englishmen in the family um so I think eccentricity has always been tolerated at the individual level but when when one half of the group breaks off from the other half and it really creates an immense amount of trauma in a society and I think this is uh we're dealing with some really profound and problematic issues in this issue especially when you look at the Muslim countries if you want to look at the state of the Muslim countries I mean they have some of you know I have a a when I I found out that Nigeria they do these corruption indices and Nigeria was number one uh in the world for corruption and and number two was Pakistan but a Pakistani friend of mine said actually Pakistan was number one but they bribed Nigeria to take number two number one position so uh I I think the you know the Muslim the Muslim country certainly uh immense amount of dysfunctionality but I think we would it's it's really important to remember first and foremost we we sit in our smugness very often in the west and and not remember the fact that we have been through immense religious uh Wars to get to where we are I mean we forget how much blood was shed to to hear Brea bre free and be able to sit up here on this panel and talk about things much of that was done by people that were actually trying to mitigate the influence of religion in society many of them freeth thinkers people that would go under the category of the uh the uh in our in our culture of pain for instance who ends up getting kind of booted out after the revolution's over even though he started it uh him and Patrick Henry and they both get marginalized but uh you know the freeth thinkers often end up somewhere else so you know when you look at the Muslim World Wolf Gang Smith who I think is probably one of the most important uh intellectuals uh alive brilliant mathematician but also a brilliant uh religious philosopher you know argues that the Muslims have yet and the Hindus and the Buddhist have yet to really confront modernity I mean we tend to forget the the Quran is has a geocentric world view and yet geocentricity has never really been a debate in the Muslim Community after Helio centricity became the dominant it just wasn't a debate whereas as we know here this was a massive traumatic event in western civilization so in a lot of ways the ideas of religious freedom are are are on the one hand from a premodern sense that they're very much part of the Islamic ethos and culture because Muslims one of the things they Pride themselves on is that when the Christian sex and things were being persecuted in Europe they had the mlet system uh the you know the Jews were being uh welcomed into uh Morocco we're being welcomed into Istanbul Constantinople if you go to the incredible Jewish uh synagogues that were actually built by the Ottomans in ottoman style that we find in in in the ottoman uh areas where the Jews uh lived in in which is now Eastern Europe so I think we tend to forget you know how much religious freedom was very very important to the Muslim Community it's also ironic that a religion that was founded uh in its first 10 years because it has a 23-year history I mean this is this is the you know every Muslim knows these 23 years if they have any devotional status in their religion they know these 23 years intimately the first 13 years were years of religious persecution the prophet Muhammad and his followers were persecuted terribly with uh with uh women a famous woman sua was her V was pierced with a spear and this is part of the foundational story of the Muslims uh so the fact that a religion that could could begin uh understanding the pain of of religious persecution and then end up unfortunately having adherents that become uh uh persecutors themselves I mean is is deeply troubling in in the Muslim world I would argue that a a lot of what what Muslims um see today what's going on this does not represent the majority of Muslims I think the Muslims are deeply troubled by Christian churches being attacked or bombed uh all the ones that I know certainly do and I've spent a good deal of time in the Muslim World um uh the Iraqi Community these are ancient communities how did they survive for centuries if this was the norm in the Muslim world how did the Jewish community in Morocco survive for centuries if this was the norm Yemen the the Jews only recently had to leave Yemen because the government it was getting so difficult to protect them anymore from this kind of religious extremism I think uh in the opening remarks that were made uh not not uh uh Robert George's but in the opening remarks that were made about how we're seeing with the religious persecution a rise of religious extremism I think that's putting the the the carriage before the horse it's the religious extremism that is causing this type of persecution and I think one of the one of the things that a lot of people in the West have no idea about is the fact that uh Muslim scholars in many Muslim countries can't open their mouths unless they go along the party line of the the the official line I mean in the west we have Marx's famous statement that religion is the opiate of the masses in a lot of the Muslim majority countries religion has been the sledgehammer of the governments I mean they have literally imposed upon uh people a certain view uh of religion which is basically you do what we say and if you go against us uh you will suffer the consequences so I think a lot of Muslims are waiting to breathe free I think in terms of um US foreign policy first of all we've lost so much moral Capital uh in in in of recent uh you know uh problems in in the region an immense amount of moral Capital has been lost and so it's very difficult for us to speak especially at the state department level uh it sounds very Hollow and I'm just telling you what you will hear on the ground in in Muslims and I do my own anecdotal surveys whenever I get into taxis I always ask them you know what do you think of this that or the other and I get amazing answers taxi drivers are some of the most UN underestimated analysts in the world but uh and just go to New York and you know you'll find out so a lot of them have phds now because they're unemployed uh in that in that field so they end up driving a cab but uh you know I'm I'm always struck by um you know the critical awareness and the sophist political sophistication of a lot of these people and and then also at the same time you see a kind of absolute Madness in their analyses so I would say that in terms of the United States uh you know supporting religious freedom I think it's important but I think it needs to be divorced from the idea of creating them in our own image uh you have to realize that we have centuries ofl of relig religious wars uh most Muslims view this uh as a type of Crusader mentality that we're going to uh recreate you in our own image they also many of the Muslims and I I want to speak completely Frank you know many of the Muslims see this as a trojan horse um for religious prz that if we can get religious freedom then it'll bring in the missionaries and then uh we can convert them to Christianity I mean this is uh this is the thinking along the lines of this and why I think uh to answer the third question the importance of the American Muslim Community Again full disclosure as somebody who was raised I mean my father uh came out of Colombia he taught the great books he was a philosophy and Humanities Professor so I grew up in this uh you know culture of more training your mind to think and be open-minded my mother was even though she was uh half Greek and and then she had Irish roots on the other half but she was baptized in the Greek Orthodox tradition I was baptized Greek Orthodox but raised uh in Catholic schools so she raised us this typical Northern california' 60s 70s uh upbringing to be very open-minded she used to tell us you know look the only reason we this religion is because I was born in this family and so the the arbitrariness of religious faith is something very weird that we all have to acknowledge as human beings that if we were in Sri Lanka we might be Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims you know and so the family that you grow up in often determines the religion and so I'm very aware of that aspect of indoctrination just in my own children like I'm indoctrinating them and they believe everything I say and it's deeply troubling for me as somebody very committed to free thinking and yet at the same time deeply committed to my faith you know so I I struggle with these issues in my own house because uh young children are just you know they'll believe in Santa Claus if you tell them Santa Claus exists they'll believe and and Dawkins would argue exactly and this is how religion uh uh regenerates in each generation because the big Santa Claus it's going to give us all the gifts when we die is part of that indoctrination I mean obviously as somebody who who is is is committed to the Islamic faith I'm very aware of the problems inherent In This Very issue um somebody said about Jordan not giving having uh you know dishing out the uh theas trust me theas used to be uh actually uh left to the scholars to give when I first went to the Muslim world the scholars were giving their own kutas and then when as the radicalization began to emerge and you got these complete insane people giving uhas and and creating this total uh subversive element Within These societies and I think one of the uh the panelist in the last session talked about this you know the the goods of religious freedom is a good but it's not the only good and that social stability is another good these are really profound problems in these societies um it in in in the United Arab Emirates which is a very open-minded Society we look at the United Arab Emirates as being like uh a completely controlled society and yet in terms of the Gulf States there's no state that that allows Western people to be Western to go to their churches I was actually brought in as an advisor uh because some of the scholars I'm I'm finishing up right now so yeah I'm I'm very aware of that they say don't give an Imam a microphone and don't give a woman a telephone in the Arab countries right so um that's an Arab joke people aren't laughing it's like sexism that's another issue we have to deal with which is a major issue in the Muslim countries so these are you know we're not going to solve The World's problems in 10 minutes it usually takes me 20 but I'll I'll uh I'll accept uh the time limit so I would say the American Muslim Community I think is one of the best assets that we have I've been asked by the state department to go around the Muslim world and I'm telling them look you know leave me alone I mean if you want to kill any credibility that I have it's to go as a state department representative overseas you know because now I mean when I when I first spoke out against 911 for Al jazer I was on Al jazer one of the things came in when did the CIA start producing imams right so this is what we're dealing with anyway sorry for any overtime but I did have some of my time given to me uh shik Hamza I'm sorry to cut you short uh I just know I've been to many many lectures by by the Sheikh and I know that he always goes over time um thank you and on that end actually I wanted to Echo Ed as well um growing up Muslim American I had quite a few conflicts um internal conflicts that I dealt with and shik homs actually played a huge role um in helping you come to terms with that um so I just want to give you the shik did make a couple of points uh to contest the stuff that Tom said so I want to give him a couple minutes to to rebut well I didn't take them as rebutting what I said at all I took them as confirming what I said and that is that the United States shouldn't be wagging its finger at the Muslim world but should be making arguments to the self-interests of of Muslims I I completely agree and have written at some link that uh we are perceived precisely have used the the phrase trojan horse as a uh a religious freedom policy in particular is often perceived as trojan horse for Western missionaries Christian missionaries and also for sort of moving Islam out of the way um and I think you know I sometimes I I say I almost wish this were true uh I I I think it is giving as foreigners often do far too much credit uh to the state department um and uh and to American administrations to think that they could cook up such a scheme or or the CIA um the fact is I think I come back to Tim Shaw's Point earlier it's often a matter of cluelessness and and and and a lack of intent on the issue of religious freedom so my response to to what the shik has said I I'd really like to pick up on he he was making it in a different context he was saying Social stability is a good as well and I would add Economic Opportunity security the things that human beings want the one of the points I was trying to make in my earlier comments is that I really believe that there's plenty of evidence the work of Brian grim and many others as well as history to suggest that that if you are a highly religious society and if you want democracy that includes social stability Economic Opportunity security Harmony Etc peace with the neighbors you've got to have religious freedom and and so U my criticism of American foreign policy is that we haven't seen it that way we've seen it as just this this finger wagging that we do and so we don't we aren't on top of being being perceived as uh you know I mean we talk about this all the time by the way I mean if you walked into the state department in my opinion and we can hear maybe from Victoria and Ambassador Johnson cook but if you walk into the state department and say that our religious freedom policy is pred as a as a trojan horse for Christian missionaries you will receive a great deal of aent people will say that's right they wouldn't fight you about it and they but secretly some of them are saying which is precisely why we shouldn't be doing this we should be staying away from this it's none of our business we should leave these countries alone uh if there's a reason for us to get into the religious freedom business it's humanitarian people are being hurt okay the problem with that which with I agree with that I mean you know we I think there's a case to be made the United States should be standing with persecuted whether it's religious or other um but there no policy tentacles to that argument I've heard presidents make magnificent speeches in fact every president that I've served under has made magnificent speeches Clinton Bush and Obama um actually I haven't served under President Obama but he's made magnificent speeches too point is their words the policy tentacles of that empathy with people that are suffering has to be changed into strategies and programs and to me the answer is either stay out of it it's too hard or if you're going to advance relig Freedom you have to do it in a way that hooks into the desire of Muslims like every other people and by the way every Muslim country is different talking about Egypt and the Arab Spring as if all these countries were the same of course nobody here is doing that it is a mistake we have to have a strategy in every country if we want to succeed in to understand the religious demography the religious landscape the arguments that would be successful the people that shik Hamza talked about the the Muslim scholars in these countries who can't speak out if they do they'll they'll get in trouble they'll be accused of blasphemy I like to tell the story you perhaps have heard of the journalism student in Afghanistan who wrote a paper uh in a graduate journalism program in which in in effect he was arguing for women's equality with men from the Quran he was charged with blasphemy sentenced to death I I like to tell my students about this because it's an example of how you can really get trouble if you write a bad paper uh but uh uh that wasn't an Arab joke that was a Tom far joke so the point is I think we're I I hope we're in agreement here what we may disagree on and I and I'll leave it with this is whether it is really in the interest of the United States to do this I mean this is what I like to focus on should we be doing this I think we don't do it terribly well but I think we should be doing it because it is in our interest now this makes some people flee into the forest he's talking about interests he's talking about American Security that means military force will Ed mod and I see him out there we we got into a big fight in the in the imminent frame over this very is the issue of the securitization of American International religious freedom policy I'm sorry countries have interests my argument is that it's in our interest for Egypt to succeed and it won't do it without religious freedom I don't know if you agree with that statement of American interest or I'm very committed to the I mean I think the essay in the uh in in the book on that the Muslim author wrote is very consistent with my own ABD yeah my own views and understandings I mean I think they're they're I mean there's these are really debated issues now and I think a lot of uh uh people in the west don't understand that within the Muslim Community most of these great teaching institutions have been destroyed and so really solid intellectual uh rigor now in the Islamic Scholastic tradition is limited to a very few places I mean turkey fortunately still has very real uh Scholastic tradition and turkey I think they're really grappling with a lot of these issues and uh but you know I I think these have to be solved within the Islamic framework if they're not it's it's it's going to be um it's going to cause I think much more harm than than good and and that's why I think it's very important in terms of empowering the Muslims themselves uh and and this has to be done this what I'm committed to certainly because uh the I I just read there's an article on Islam and apostasy on Wikipedia where they actually quote a book saying that it's agreed upon that anybody that leaves Islam is to be sentenced to death and then it's preferable that the Imam carries out the uh the uh which is absurd and then and if they can't do it any Muslim could do it with no legal ramifications and this is with a citation and a quote on on Wikipedia there's no Foundation whatsoever for that this issue is a a a a uh it's it's there's disagreement on the issue there's early Scholars that were opposed to it rarely were apost laws ever implemented uh historically this is well-known uh one of the great Poets of Islam complete uh atheist naturalist in the in the line of lucretius who uh was very opposed to religion um and wrote poems about his uh being opposed to religion lived to the ripe old age of I think 89 in halb in Syria I think they left him alone because he was such a great poet and the Arabs really appreciate great poetry but you shouldn't have to be a great poet to be free from religious persecution do you think if I could um do you think there's any you mentioned and I I think anybody who's worked in the state department would appreciate your comment leave me alone don't send me over there as a state department uh functionary because it will ruin my message but is there anything the state department can do perhaps more obliquely and here I'm not speaking of covert operations but are there ways to empower existing actors in your view that I think one of the ways is to um free up a lot like for instance now uh people that tradition Ally donated money to support institutions and things all of that has dried up because they're so afraid now of having their assets Frozen by the state department uh you know so this big problem especially in the Gulf States I mean they're really paranoid about uh helping anybody that's doing these things I mean Dr Ramadan uh recently um opened up a center uh in in Qatar so qatar's you know they they've been doing quite a bit but I I think in you know I think the state department this Administration has a lot of Muslims now uh working I mean not to scare anybody you know because there's you know there's certain people that think yeah exactly that's what we've been saying all along you know but I mean this this Administration has uh empowered a lot of young Muslims and there's an incredible amount of talent in this young Muslim Community uh so I think it's very important and I think these are going to be the best spokespeople uh uh for this idea of pluralistic society which we have to we have to move towards I mean we should all be committed to this on the other hand you know a lot of what the Muslim World sees as pluralism is pornography becoming a norm you know all these things and and we know now with the internet which has changed everything in the Muslim World obviously but a lot of people are unaware of the fact that a lot of these terrorists were actually addicted to pornography and this has been proven now uh again and again and and some of them came to the West uh had uh you know sexual relations out of wedlock with Western women and then they have their Born Again experience and suddenly felt defiled by the West like the West has defiled me and then somehow I have to self imilate to to restore my Purity so we're dealing with some really deep uh uh problems in terms of of of what's going on this cognitive dissonance that is is very profound in a lot of these young people um in the Gulf States I know for a fact from friends who grow up uh you know pornography is a very common thing amongst the young men which is deeply problematic for the women and I know the Witherspoon Institute has been at the Forefront and I participated in that extraordinary conference in Princeton you know at the Forefront this is another issue the social cost the social cost of pornography you know so this is they see that's one of the exports of this quote unquote you know religious freedom means freedom to fornicate right you know so that that's the other thing is the the the undermining of the the local values I I would just respond to that that to me this is a uh yeah I'm sorry well this to me is the French model I mean it's not I'm not blaming the French for pornography although there's probably something there but but but it's the notion that religion has got to get out of the public conversation the Witherspoon conversation social cost of pornography was not a religious book but it was uh you know there there are religious voices so that can talk against pornography and so forth so the notion of pushing Islam out of the public conversation is I'm sure part of the perception as well that we need to overcome great I just wanted to make sure the audience had some time to ask questions I'll start with Daniel great thanks everyone um Ed I actually wanted to engage you um recently uh this guy Samuel rasof wrote a wonderful thing for Stanford law review uh and then it became a New York Times uped called Uncle Sam is no Imam you may have seen that recently and it was very interesting his argument was that counter radicalization under Obama is posing religious freedom threats to American Muslims because it's seeking to establish what he refers to as an official Islam overseas and here and so I want you to comment a bit about the NYPD spy scandals and you're thinking about and his argument really was that we we uh borrowed this from Britain and it failed under their prevent program because it took this kind of big tent approach where the state was trying to sort of say normative things about a particular religion so now we have people in home land security talking about Jihad to police officers and this is sort of them defining it um and so wonder if you see that as a threat to Religious Freedom this this approach of counter radicalization and anyone else can comment too um I think it's too early to tell that the British experience has failed uh I think it's fair to say that because of British State funding being available some of the most luminous Muslim Scholars from countries such as brania Yemen Pakistan and elsewhere have been able to tour parts of the UK and meet ordinary Muslims that would ordinarily not have access to those Minds you know that's a huge plus but that's not to say that the British model is therefore applicable here in the US and the question that the government uh arbitrates which form of Islam is acceptable or not acceptable is without any doubt a violation of ordinary Muslims understanding of what their faith ought to be but all of that said I'm not an American [Music] [Music] were were were put there to protect you know citizens from having uh uh these these foundational rights protected the only other footnote I'd add to this is you know there are two aspects to a terrorist act one is the intent and two is the ability to you know materialize that intent now many of these guys on Facebook pages and um web chat rooms are committed to XY and Z you know terrorist act that that doesn't amount to more than a New Year's wish list but who's materializing and saying well you know here's the bomb go ahead brother and you know blow up a or c military base often that tends to be the FBI and other law enforcement agencies so the you know the the materialization of that intent comes back to um the law enforcement agencies and I think that's questionable and again here I think there's worth something uh taking something from the British model and that is when people have appeared on the British model to prevent radar that there is an individual in a mosque who is trying to recruit people to commit a terrorist Act or to glorify Usama Bin Laden as a Marty or a great shikh of Islam once that's happened in British mosques to the credit of the British government they've set up a program where other Muslims imams and others can take this individual aside and um subject them to what you might call counseling and therefore injecting doubt in that mindset uh so you know using religion to counter religious extremism has been a more successful model rather than uh you know egging on this individual to then say well here's the gun here's the trigger here's the bomb go ahead do your deed the bomb doesn't go off now you're a you know you're in in in in a courtroom in the dock because that then sort of uh undermines trust between Muslim communities and law enforcement agencies that prevents further tip offs that should be coming from Muslim communities because they are you know American citizens and they committed to the safety of the Homeland and Muslims have consistently reported in mosques when they've heard things that have troubled them the FBI has ample evidence for this that citizens just acting out of their own valtion you know have come forward when when when they seen something that troubled them or they thought it was suspicious I would just like to offer that as a as a policy idea that the way in a sense to remove American government hand from these kinds of activities is just I mean this is an amazing thing to me that we're so clueless we could dramatically expand with a little bit of money student exchanges scholar exchanges professional exchanges from Americans to Islamic societies around the world from Islamic societies to American universities I see in my own University the richness and the and the the the just the learning that takes place when American students interact with Muslim Students from around the world and vice versa and why aren't we doing more of this I me It just strikes me it's it's amazing that it's such a cheap thing to do I think I mean just really to dtail on that the Saudi Arabia I know personally that s most Saudi Arabians had a love affair with this country and they felt after 911 like that it was unrequited they were jilted lovers I mean they really did because many of them studied in this country and suddenly they're being all of them are being accused of terrorism because 15 out of the 19 hijackers were from and they would say yeah and they're from a region that I'm not from they were from the south I'm from I'm from the hij we would never do that I mean this is the mentality you know really the tribe they were tribal people not but Jennifer Bryson from Witherspoon tells a very interesting story of you know young Saudi sufis coming to the US and then going and meeting the armish in Pennsylvania thinking we're very similar you know what do we essentially have against the us if the US is home to the armish that have long beards and uh everything else that comes with religious literalism so you know there are commonalities there that can play on we did one program I took them to uh Michael Ratner uh and barbar O shansky who are these two people that do uh civil rights and they were the lawyers representing the Guantanamo people they're both Jewish she's she's actually half Palestinian half Jewish you know interesting combination but uh Michael Ratner is a Jewish scholar from Colombia and we interviewed them and and this Saudi young Saudi man asked him why are you doing this and he said well I come from a Jewish tradition and we have this idea of the zadic who's this truthful person that has to stand up for justice we came out of there and they were the these Saudi you know there's three of them with me four and and they were just like it was he told me this is a paradigm shift for me the idea that you could have a Jewish person committed to Justice I mean we we this is laughable for us but this is the reality on the ground for a lot of these young people and and that is the way to reach a lot of these people is just uh getting to know people you know the Quran says that we made you peoples and and communities to get to know one another not to hate one another and so that is is you know that is the best way I think to do that I wholeheartedly agree with that and to V one with another in virtue in virtue by in virtue yeah um so I have a couple of questions here and one of them says please elaborate on the need for a clear lexicon um he's he's referring to a language that's um used today that would not add feel to the fire of terrorism lack of religious freedom Etc uh the person clarified instead of using words like islamist or jihadist are there other words that we can use such as militants or criminal acts of violence you know I mean this is one of the great there's a scholar in Morocco that wrote a book called the crisis of terminology uh which is is is endemic uh everywhere and then the fact that we don't Define our terms anymore traditionally in the in the Scholastic tradition both in the Islamic and Christian world you have to be able to Define any term you used to make sure the interlocutor know exactly what you were saying so if we say religious freedom Define your distingo you know Define your term and and so I think just defining terms is just really important but for instance the word in Arabic that they use for fundamentalists isun which is one of the highest words in the Islamic tradition and they've reduced it to they took fundamentalism and and they used it so the Uli scholar is the is the Constitutional theorist in Islamic tradition so now the word Uli means extremist and and this is a problem we see this uh again and again jihadist another Jihad is a very high term for Muslims it's not a negative term but it's it's been completely put in a negative light in the same way that Crusade is a very positive term on our side of the pond and and yet in the Arab world if you translate Crusade because we don't see the cross in Crusade anymore if you go into a dictionary and see the atmology you'll see cross we don't see that but in Arabic it's which is a war of the cross and so when they when Bush said this is a crusade when it was translated into Arabic it said you know and so he's using a relatively neutral term in our culture but when it was translated into Arabic it's it became a religious uh term of War he's declaring religious war on the Muslims and and these are real problems that we have in in interpretation translation I mean so much is lost in in Translation I I told one of the state department people we were talking about tribes in in in the Arabian Peninsula he didn't even know that Ben tamim which rules qar is a traditional rival tribe of RAB which rules Saudi Arabia like they've had a a 2,000-year rivalry I mean there there's poetry about this rivalry you know and so even though they you know they work together they're part of the gulf's things they're they're M and these are uh you know of another ilk from R so and and these are still important in those parts of the world so was religious freedom of strategy of the Amir of Qatar to you know well there's definitely digs it's see we're doing better than you are um so I have a question on my own uh maybe Tom and Allen can can answer this um Tom has spoken about when we speak about religious freedom um to people to Muslims in the Muslim majority countries to not phrase it and to make sure that they understand it's not about a separation of church and state in a way that religion is not allowed to have a vibrant space in the Public Square but instead to show this using the American model there is this space for religion um and to that end I know I was I was reading some work by by Monica Duffy Toof one of the scholars of the religious freedom project and she has said there's three potential models of religious freedom and the one that she recommended for Arab Spring countries for instance was U one that understood that Islam is going to play some sort of special role maybe we can call it dominant role um so can you maybe elaborate a little a little bit on how Islam can play that role while while we still have um a robust religious freedom in these countries well uh I guess I would respond to that by pointing out that we and by we I mean the American diplomatic establishment are confused about what it is we mean when we say promoting religious freedom and uh some many perhaps are separationist I approach an article once I think for the public discourse why our American diplomats are French Here I Go Again by which I meant that in promoting religious freedom they think they are moving religion out of the Public Square I don't think this any longer among our Elites is the model of American religious freedom religion in the Public Square I believe that uh lots of American Elites are are are rians they're simply trying to move it out they make the argument that democracy cannot work with religion in the Public Square you can't have religious people making uh religious arguments in the Public Square you have problematic things like Catholic Bishops getting in the way of contraception availability so get them out of the way that is the American Elite proposal to the Muslim world but in fact we have a far richer story to tell but we don't tell it so uh I think there's massive confusion here and if we got our ducks in order we might be a little bit more effective Allan well yeah I mean we we need to understand in a sense our own tradition our own legacy our own our own story which was in fact not a story of dramatic separation of Faith from political values but throughout American history in fact this may be the wait to do it that throughout American history the great reform movements movements that expanded rights and and and reformed society and so forth were infused by religious people driven by their religious motivations uh and um uh and so to the extent that we can you know you might say tell that story um we convey something very different and I think the prime example is the Civil Rights Movement I mean if you want a story that has salience in a sense right now on the Arab Spring it would be uh the church-based religiously infused and inspired movement of the Southern Christian leadership conference to confront naked segregation and oppression and do so from the standpoint of of holding up human dignity and the rights of of all people as as Robbie George today spoke about Dr King's work and and in fact you know it's very interesting zabel suaj the American Islamic Congress actually translated into Arabic the comic book on the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the model of Civil Disobedience to confront oppression and this was several years ago and distributed that widely in Cairo and throughout the the Arab world and I have often wondered you know did that plant some seeds because that was a that was a model of religiously informed infused inspired activism by Americans who did not leave their religion at the public at the Civic uh you know when they entered the Civic space so we have we have that kind of a story to tell and and we don't have to tell it I wanted to make one I forgot this I want to make one point about congruence Theory which I think is to me is is a really it's like an E equals MC squared in terms of government in uh in the Arab world uh the fundamental premise is that governments work to the degree with which the the the the uh the approach of government is replicated in the other social systems right and one of the things that because the Muslim world has been very autocratic for quite some time you have autocratic families very often you have autocratic schools you have autocratic um even hospitals like you you know here people they drive doctors crazy because they've read everything on Google about what they have and they're go in and they say well maybe you should use this drug and you know whereas in the Arab world you don't you know or the Muslim World in general you don't question authority in that way and uh teachers I have a a friend from one of the Arab countries I won't say which one one said asked why my um Pig was uh considered unclean which is one opinion it's not all the opinions but he asked that question and he said the teacher went up to him and just whacked him so hard uh that he never asked another question for the rest of the time that he was in school and so I think if we're going to if we really want to see uh a real transformation we have to acknowledge that there has to be transformation in terms of the child rearing uh I mean there needs to be a lot of of deep-seated changes it's not simply going to be come from one area but it needs to be a more holistic approach uh to to the whole problem and religious freedom is is part of that because the idea of allowing the other to have an opinion is part of of a democratic idea you know that that you're entitled to your opinion I might disagree with you but you're entitled to it and and so encouraging that which is part of the early Islamic tradition I mean the this this was you know really and they had debates with atheists and I mean these are famous things that Muslims are proud of ab hanifa debating atheists and they didn't all Kill The Atheist I mean the story is always have the religious guys winning uh but nonetheless they they had the debates great um so according to the program we're supposed to end right now but we actually have some leeway so we'll take another 30 minutes um or another few minutes all right thank you uh Pat Smith um first comment as far as and and not not in depth but for the uh consideration of NYPD um there is a perspective to take in mind what First Responders have to do in in across the board and and that is an area for reflection as well um for the panel um Egypt was and I don't want to be a pessimist by any means but Egypt was mentioned as a case study um what makes you think by broadening the perspective to Inc to include discussions on greater religious freedom that you'd have any more success than what has recently occurred with the uh democracy forums the Democracy NOS that were just arrested or just released or allowed to travel the last few days when American state department or Finance projects ndi iri um International Republican Institute and and National Democratic Institute and in their probably non-religious aspects of trying to promote political democracy learning and you gentlemen are probably more informed of the the the uh immediate issues involved in Cairo but uh to the point where who is it uh the the son of Ray La Hood was was one of the charged individuals so what gives you and and could you comment on why should we think that if you broaden the discussion to include religious liberty that you're going to have a different impact than what we're trying to do in areas of of political democracy as we're already sponsoring well it's a good question um in my view you know the problem here is that we have not been engendering this conversation with an Egypt all along presumably you know we've been spending to the tune of $2 billion a year for roughly 30 30 years um we have done this with the assumption that we were building civil society that we were building uh human rights and other organizations um and in fact uh it it may turn out if an audit is done that some of this money was not uh placed but but some of it has done uh some good and in fact I think you're referring to the National Endowment for democracy uh and I think it was the iri or the ndi that lahood's son was working at who was arrested so you you say what makes me think we can succeed when this has failed this is the problem of democracy uh I have no confidence that we can succeed I'm only making the argument that it is in our interests that they succeed and if they continue to act in this fashion they won't they will fail I think there are plenty of Egyptians who understand that and I think that some of the critics of this kind of activity can come from within the Muslim Community in Egypt um I think these are authoritarian groups that are just clamping down I think this is a sign that Egyptian democracy is slowing down but it's in our interest to to do everything we can to stop it but we're not Puppet Masters the difference is between Egypt if I could just say this at Egypt and Iraq and Afghanistan is that those countries can say we've the United States has tried to impose something on uh we were you know we did not stimulate what has happened happening in Egypt unless you want to make the argument that our $60 billion had some kind of effect maybe it did but these people have opted for democracy we need to help them succeed and I think religious freedom has to play a part in that I've been going to Cairo at least on a two-monthly basis over the last 18 months and every time I've met with various factions and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood the one argument that actually works with them is the argument of religion and it works with them because many of them have spent the last 40 45 years calling for an Islamic State and now that the chance has come to create this so-called Islamic State they don't actually know what it looks like they don't know what it means they don't know how it's to be materialized and I found them to be most receptive when they look towards their religious counterparts as it were in Europe you know Christian democrats social Democrats and dare I say here in the US those who are inspired by religion-based politics um and there might be a model there for people who who've embraced a sense of faith-based politics to have open Frank discussions with them that not to preach not to be instructive but in a spirit of sharing that results in the more quote unquote moderate factions of the Muslim Brotherhood winning over the more again quote unquote extremist factions of the Muslim Brotherhood because there are various factions within and they are on an experiment and they are on a journey and the least we could do is actually help them on the journey rather than hammer them and say you're all Muslim Brotherhood people and once upon a time you're extremist and therefore you still remain extremist which seems to be a strand of thought uh here in Washington if I may say so um but the reality is they are in power and the reality is they're on a journey and it's an ideal opportunity why Now to respond to that point because they're about to write the Constitution in Egypt well I mean in the worst worst case scenario for the religion is that religious states are created I not it'll do more harm to the religious uh faith of the people than anything else Iran is a case study I mean people were very enthusiastic about the freedoms of getting rid of the Shaw and they got saak went back into operation but just with a different name and and uh I heard one of the uh I won't you know he's a islamist I heard him uh he he was put in charge of security at um uh in Iraq and he started arguing how torture was necessary you know and and it was actually uh the Pickering I think the Ambassador who made made the argument against it you know so even though these there's a very people that were tortured uh prior to that you know then when they get into power and I think this is this is a real problem for religion the best thing historically Muslim Scholars have always stayed away from the religion because they've seen religion as something that confronts uh Power and should remind power in the American sense of our historical sense you know speaking truth to power but the idea of religious people taking power power corrupts and it certainly corrupts religious people just like it corrupts everybody else sure I mean that's the American founding understanding if you say and if that could be grasped politically in any of these countries I think it would be because religion becomes part of Civil Society putting limits on exctly yeah and I think turkeyy is grappling with this very issue now they're really because they have been successful um economically through a secular model and yet the religious the uh the political leadership now definitely has very strong Islamic sentiments but they're they're grappling now with this balance and uh and it's it's going to be very interesting and and now the in the Arab states the a lot of the islamists are recognizing the superiority of the non-violent uh Turkish model over the traditional uh violent model that has emerged out of uh political Islam that was really coming to an end unfortunately and 911 revived the whole thing I mean we were actually happy that it was finally coming to an end and and 9/11 just revived the whole thing because of our uh responses you know just it reinvigorated a lot of these people that had really lost any credibility and voice was a question right there uh thank you in light of the need for broader uh Interfaith and Interfaith we often talk about Interfaith now but there's a broader need for intra Faith with which I think you alluded to uh Mr Hussein uh there's a broader need for intra Faith but I was W in light of all of that can you elaborate on the speaking of a model speaking on the Medina Constitution and the religious freedom that existed during that time of prophet Muhammad are you talk yeah I mean the you know the Medina Constitution was an attempt uh at creating a and uh uh there's a recent book by Danner about this he's very exceptional Islamic scholar Christian background here uh wrote a book about this um that it really was an attempt at creating a pluralistic State and I think one of the reasons why Muslims historically have tried to accommodate other religions and there's a checkered history I mean one of my friends he's a professor of Islamic history tells his believing students take a lot of faith vitamins before you read Islamic history you know because um you know we forget that history is is the history of the ego it's not the history of the tradition itself it's the history of the tradition's ego so when you study Catholic history you have to be aware of that Catholicism is St Thomas aquinus it's it's it's Augustine it's not what what they did when they were persecuting people the these are the egos of religion I think people conflate the two they tend to forget that but historically the Muslims really did uh uh protect the these churches I mean the the Church of the seple that was uh uh destroyed in the 11th century was burnt down by a madman and everybody recognized him as mad it was immediately rebuilt by the following kff uh but you know historically the Christians uh have have uh have been a protected Community it's certainly I would agree with Tom far that the United States has achieved a level of religious freedom that I think is unparalleled uh in in human history uh and and uh and but I really think if people read Islamic history they're quite shocked to find uh in relation to other places in the world and the other we have to give the Hindus also the Hindus historically have been an extremely um uh tolerant of other communities as well as the Jewish uh tradition uh certainly for noahic peoples um Buddhism has a checkered past also I mean Buddhism now has the best PR in terms of any of the religions but if you study there's the Clause of the Buddha is an interesting study on violence in the Buddhist tradition historically and when the when the Buddhists retook Afghanistan uh after it had been conquered by the Muslims when they retook it um they slaughtered all the Buddhists that converted to Islam and this is historical fact so um the Buddhists have not always been the most peaceful practitioners I mean these are these are all the tragic history and unfortunately our history in terms of religious freedom is is far more negative than it is positive but we do have these bright spots in the Christian tradition we have Roger uh in Sicily and Frederick II we have the con conviviality that occurred in Spanish uh uh uh history of Muslims Jews and Christians living together and and we have the United States model which is it's a stunning model I mean we we're we're renting from as a Muslim College we're renting from a Baptist Seminary so it's Berkeley you know that and you know I Berkeley B that that that point once again I think underscores how valuable it is to have exchanges you know the uh I don't know if the state department is still doing this but there used to be a program where young leaders in various societies were brought to the United States traveled around they're still doing that and you know FW the clerk was one of those and and the experience of being in the United States and seeing race relations bad as they were but nonetheless convinced him that the parte was doomed I mean he just understood and and I just am struck with what happens on college campuses um and and what happens when when PE when Muslims from around the world come and actually see their mosques in America and they're devout Muslims and that actually Americans are religious which is another interesting myth right that that we are perceived around the world as fundamentalist in world as f as basically very secular hedonistic materialistic shallow and when when Muslims come and actually find out that oh Americans actually are believers some of them and churches and temples and mosques and so for that's a delightful surprise is that is that accurate you know I think it it goes both ways I think there's there there is a Tim winter recently wrote an article about the fact that a lot of Muslims view uh the United States uh government policies as kind of really fanatical religious policies certainly under the Bush Administration that was the view in a lot of places so I think I think it goes both ways there's definitely the the hedonistic idea that um you know that everybody's practicing uh kind of a West Coast hedonistic um stop coming from the West Coast I can speak with authority um you know this kind of hedonistic culture but um yeah they're quite shocked and I think they're most of the Muslims I know that have been to the US they always say they always have these accolades to talk their experience with the American people generally was very surprising but then they always say oh but the government yeah it's always the caveat you know one of the great ironies of the perception that the evil Bush sent Marines in with backpacks full of Bibles into Iraq uh is that it's it's not true the the the neocons who you can l or condemn for constructing our policy and Iraq were and are very secular thinkers they had no clue that they were moving into a very religious society which I think is somewhat ironic given the fact that I think you're quite right there is some perception out there that that it particularly under the Bush Administration that it was just this religious fanaticism fanaticism that that led the United States into IR all right well with that I've been asked to to bring this to a close um thank you thank [Applause] you

Channel: Berkley Center

Views: 20,937

Keywords: Berkley Center, Religion, Peace, World Affairs

Id: 6wqgsieBd4o

Length: 101min 1sec (6061 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2013