CSID News - Fuor New Directors for CSID

Geneive Abdo is a foreign policy analyst at The Century Foundation, a Washington and New York-based think tank. Her current research focuses on contemporary Iran and political Islam. She was formerly the Liaison Officer for the Alliance of Civilizations, a U.N. initiative under Secretary-General Kofi Annan. She has recently completed a book on Muslims in America, Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11, which was published in September 2006 by Oxford University Press. Ms. Abdo is the author of No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2000), a work that documents the social and political transformation of Egypt into an Islamic society. Abdo is the coauthor of Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First Century Iran (Henry Holt, 2003), a work that explains the theological struggle in Iran among the Shiite clerics and how this struggle has caused political stagnation.

Before joining the United Nations, Abdo was a foreign correspondent. Her 20-year career focused on coverage of the Middle East and the Muslim world. From 1998-2001, Ms. Abdo was the Iran correspondent for the British newspaper the Guardian and a regular contributor to The Economist and the International Herald Tribune. From 2001-2002, Abdo was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. That year, she also received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim fellowship. Ms. Abdo has also received research grants from the Ford Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Earhart Foundation and other institutions.

"My interest in joining the board is primarily due to the important work CSID has conducted over the last decade that has expanded and enlightened the foreign policy debate in the United States, and also educated Muslim populations abroad. In Washington, CSID has brought to its annual conferences important political figures from a variety of countries in the Middle East and broader Islamic world whose views are generally not heard or understood in the United States. These conferences are distinguished for introducing ideas from the region to the Washington establishment that are critical to informing the U.S. policy debate. Unlike other think tanks, CSID has been provocative in its efforts to challenge conventional wisdom. This is particularly true in CSID's commitment to reform of electoral politics in the region - a transformation that would include Islamist political parties.

I am also committed to this goal. Islamist parties and leaders represent the broadest constituencies in the Arab world and any electoral democratic process must include them, no matter the outcome. For too long the United States has remained committed to support autocratic Arab states, believing that an Islamist alternative would produce theocracies in the region. CSID's work clearly shows that the region has progressed far beyond these two stark alternatives. Not only have Islamist groups moderated their positions, but new opposition groups have emerged.

With the election of President Barack Obama, new opportunities exist for CSID's work to make the significant difference that was more difficult under the Bush administration. Now is the time for advancing the idea of democracy in the Middle East - the kind of democracy that originates in the region, not concocted through strategies of regime change in Washington.

I would like to be part of this effort, and I believe CSID is the institution that could be at the forefront of these new approaches. Through your leadership and great personal commitment, CSID has survived several difficult years, when democracy promotion in the Middle East was motivated primarily by hopes for popular rebellion and regime change. CSID has also led intellectually when other Arab and Muslims organizations have chosen a more superficial and less controversial path, ignoring the great challenges that exist between Muslim and Western societies.

I believe CSID's influence and exposure can significantly expand in this new political environment in the United States. To this end, should I be elected to the board, I would engage in fundraising efforts to expanded CSID programming. I have already demonstrated my ability to fundraise through an Iran program, which I launched at the beginning of this year at The Century Foundation. I would also do my best to build upon CSID's good reputation in Washington by doing whatever is needed, from organizing meetings to more frequent conferences. I could use my experience in my previous career as a foreign correspondent to help in writing and placing editorials in the media, if such a goal is desired by the organization. This is an effective strategy to raise an institution's profile and to introduce new ideas into the public debate."

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Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a Professor of Political Sociology and a visiting Professor at Harvard University; but better known as a Human Rights defender and democracy activist in Egypt and the Arab world. His dissident activities led to his incarceration for three years by the Mubarak regime (2000-2003) before he was exonerated of all charges by Egypt's High Court. However, he is still been legally hounded by the same regime , with some 16 lawsuits filed against him. He currently lives in exile between Doha, Istanbul, and the U.S.

"As to the CSID mission: other than continuing the same activities an added mission should be monitoring and evaluation Muslim Democrats in action - i.e. in countries where they have margins of freedom to contest and/or participate in power. This would call for a policy research arm within CSID that carries out the task, including writing proposals to donors and Foundations both in the U.S. and the Muslim World."

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Peter Mandaville is Associate Professor of Government & Islamic Studies and Director of the Center for Global Studies at George Mason University. Visiting affiliations have included the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington DC, where he is currently a Senior Visiting Fellow. He is the author of two books, Global Political Islam (2007) and Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (2001), and has co-edited several others in the field of international relations and Islamic studies. He has consulted widely for NGOs, nonprofit and government agencies, testified before congress on issues relating to the Muslim world, and his op-ed work has been featured in outlets such as the International Herald Tribune and The New Republic. His research has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Born and raised in the Middle East, he has had a lifelong interest in Islam and traveled and conducted research throughout the Muslim world. His current research focuses on Islamic cosmopolitanism and new approaches to development aid, with a particular focus on democracy and governance issues.

"In recent years the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy has played a unique and vital role within the ecology of Washington DC's discussion of Islam and the Muslim world. It has provided forums where rare and unprecedented conversations with key regional actors and stakeholders have been able to occur. CSID is positioned to play a leading role in helping to better understand the Muslim world in Washington DC in the years ahead, and it would be an honor to serve on its Board of Directors during this period. I have not only been an avid and consistent consumer of the Center's work, but have attended its events and served on the program planning committee for its conferences. As a member of the Board, I would work to raise the profile of the Center within Washington DC policy discussions and scholarly circles; seek resources to enable the Center both to expand its regional training activities and to improve its communications and public outreach strategies; and see to it that CSID realizes its potential to serve as a unique resource in disseminating a wider understanding of the relationship between contemporary Islamic thought and socio-political change in the Muslim world. At a time when there is real possibility to add nuance to the discussion of Islam and political pluralism, we need to ensure that the Center comes to be seen as a primary repository of that."

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Radwan Ziadeh is a visiting scholar at Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University and Visiting Fellow at Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London. He was a Senior Fellow at United States Institute of Peace (USIP) - Washington ,D.C , and he is the founder and director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies in Syria in 2005 and the co-founder and executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Washington D.C in 2008 . Before that, Ziadeh was chief in-editor of Tyarat magazine in 2001-2002 and secretary of the Syrian Organization for Transparency. He was a researcher with the UNDP project "Syria 2025" and was named best researcher in the Arab world in political science by Jordan's Abdulhameed Shoman Foundation in 2004.

"It is honor for me to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID). CSID has become one of the most important think tanks in DC working on Democracy and on improving the relationship between the Muslim World and the U.S. I would like CSID to focus on in the next 3 years on educating the public opinion here in the U.S. about the common values especially we are sharing the same values , in the same time it is important to keep working the in issue about there is no contradiction between Islam and Democracy."