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US Support for Democracy Key to Improving Muslim Relations Numerous undemocratic regimes still enjoy solid American backing
By Mohamed Elshinnawi | Voice of America
Farah Pandith Speaking at the CSID 11th Annual Conference  | In his Cairo address, President Obama pledged to support governments that protect the rights of people to speak their minds and have a say in how they are governed, that respect the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, that are transparent and don't steal from the people.
"America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them," said Obama. "And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people."
The biggest challenge the Obama Administration faces in keeping that promise is finding a way to involve all Islamist movements in the process, according to Reza Aslan, a University of California associate professor of religion. He spoke at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy.
Reza Aslan speaking at CSID 11th Annual Conference  | Aslan said President Obama must recognize that many of the Islamist groups whose policies and tactics the U.S. opposes are often the most dynamic political groups in the region. And, he notes, political participation has the power to moderate radical tendencies and take away the appeal of extremist ideologies.
Tarik Ramadan, professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University agrees. He said the only criterion for engaging the Islamists should be that they denounce violence as a political weapon and adhere to democratic rules.
"You may agree or not with Islamists trends, as long as they are against violence and are playing the political game, we have to talk to them," said Ramadan. "There is no way to say you are good Muslim because you are supporting me and you are a bad Muslim because you are resisting me."
Case in point: Egypt
Ramadan says the real test for President Obama's support for democracy will be in Egypt. There, Ramadan says, the president has to pressure the Mubarak regime to open the political arena and stop using constitutional amendments to stifle real political competition.
Steven Kull speaking at CSID Conference  | Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, said that creates the sense that the U.S. does not trust Muslims with democracy.
"There is a perception that the U.S. does not really want democracy in the Muslim world because of the fear of what might come out of that and, in particular, that Islamist parties might prevail," said Kull. "So that it is a key choice that the U.S. has to make; is the U.S. going to show more trust towards the Muslim people in terms of the choices that they may make in a democratic process?"
Read Full ArticleHear the VOA audio segment |
A Year Later, Muslims Hail Obama's Cairo Pledge of Cooperation
But many say more attention needed on critical policy areas
By Ralph Dannheisser | America.gov
Part of the Audience in the CSID 11th Annual Conference  | Speakers at a daylong Washington conference on Islam and democracy broadly agreed with Obama administration representatives that the president's June 2009 speech in Cairo offered a historic opening to Muslim communities, but virtually all of them said that action is still needed in policy areas they consider critical.
Most cited foreign policy matters as the key divisive issues, calling for swift U.S. disengagement in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most consistently of all, for increased pressure leading to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will relieve what several called the suffering of the Palestinians.
They made their points April 28 at the 11th annual conference of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), a Washington-based group that describes itself as "dedicated to the study and promotion of Islamic and democratic reforms in the Muslim world."
CSID President Radwan Masmoudi foreshadowed the tone taken by many speakers in his opening remarks at the conference, titled U.S. Relations with the Muslim World: One Year After Cairo. The "hope and excitement in the Islamic world" that greeted Obama's speech "began to turn into disappointment as people realized that turning promises into reality is not always easy or possible," Masmoudi said.
Chloe Berwind-Dart Speaking at CSID Conference  | While Masmoudi did not offer specifics, political pollster Steven Kull reported that while Muslims have a better opinion of the United States since Obama became president, "there still is quite a lot of anger" toward the country and its policies, notably on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The United States needs to diffuse [soften] the image that it is coercively dominating the Muslim world" and must "trust the Muslim people with democracy," Kull said.
Speakers based in Muslim-majority countries both in and outside the Middle East repeatedly voiced the same points. Chloe Berwind-Dart, director-general of the Nigerian development group the Cherish Foundation, said Nigerians she interviewed found the Cairo speech to be "aspirational, in no way an action plan," and saw "a perceived gap between the ideals of the United States and the way it actually acts in the world." Israel-Palestine will "continue to be a huge point of tension until a two-state solution with self-determination for everyone involved" is achieved, she said.
Read Full Article Back to top |
Islam, Obama and the Empty Quarter
Why democracy activists miss George W. Bush.
By SAAD EDDIN IBRAHIM | The Wall Street Journal
Saadeddine Ibrahim  | The pathological fear of Islamists coming to power if there were free and fair elections seems to have served Arab dictators well. Although Mr. Obama himself made it clear in Cairo that he does not believe the proposition of incompatibility between Islam and democracy, his administration has clearly opted for a policy favoring regional stability over democratic governance.
Reducing the funding requested for democracy assistance in next year's U.S. aid to Egypt was a clear message. So was the mild State Department response when Egypt recently extended 29 years of "emergency" law for another two years. That, conveniently, is just long enough to get through a presidential election in Egypt next year. Arab autocrats could not be more heartened.
George W. Bush is missed by activists in Cairo and elsewhere who-despite possible misgivings about his policies in Iraq and Afghanistan-benefited from his firm stance on democratic progress. During the time he kept up pressure on dictators, there were openings for a democratic opposition to flourish. The current Obama policy seems weak and inconsistent by contrast.
Egyptians are poised for two crucial elections of their own-a parliamentary one this November and a presidential one a year later. Egyptians have a deep yearning to restore the Liberal Age they once had (1860s to 1950s). What's needed from the Obama administration and other Western democracies is a demand for free and fair contested elections under the watchful eyes of international observers.
Read Full Article Back to top |
State Department considers $4 billion endowment as Egypt extends emergency law
By Josh Rogin | Foreign Policy
Sec. Clinton Speaking to President Mubarak  | Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a mildly worded statement Tuesday criticizing the Egyptian government's decision to extend its "state of emergency" another two years and urged Egypt to adhere to "legal principles that protect the rights of all citizens."
Meanwhile, her department was preparing to enter into negotiations with Egypt over Cairo's proposal for a new $4 billion aid endowment that critics say would unfairly reward an authoritarian regime that has jailed or marginalized its opponents, rigged elections, and censored or manipulated the press for the nearly three decades that President Hosni Mubarak has been in power.
J. Scott Carpenter, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs from 2004-2007, was a key player on this issue toward the end of the Bush administration. "The Bush administration was working very hard with the Egyptians to come up with a new 10-year proposal," he said. "The challenge was trying to figure out what to do with the money."
"When no one was looking, the State Department managed to move the process forward to the extent that when the Obama administration came in, they were predisposed to reduce the friction between the U.S. and Egypt by going along with this," Carpenter said.
Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, argued that shifting the bulk of U.S. economic assistance to an endowment will inevitably be seen in Egypt as empowering Mubarak.
"I don't think there's a way to do it that avoids that perception in the mind of Egyptians," he said, "Everything the U.S. does in its relationship with Egypt should be to promote political and economic reform ... and to convince the Egyptian people we are in line with their aspirations."
The Egyptian proposal comes as the gap between the Egyptian government and its people is getting wider, warned the Carnegie Endowment's Michele Dunne, who worked on Egypt both at State and on the National Security Council. "This would remove congressional oversight and place the aid into the hands of the Egyptian government, which of course is why they are so keen on it."
Read full article Back to Top
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'Turkey is the only Middle Eastern country pointing toward the future'
Interview with Paul Salem | TODAY'S ZAMAN
"Turkey has figured out how to be a functioning democracy in the Middle East, has figured out how to moderate political Islam and enable it to be a regular party, has figured out how to do economics in the 21st century and has figured out how to have Islam and secularism and science and individuality and community all in the same society in the Middle East," Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Lebanon said during an interview Today's Zaman when he was in İstanbul for a discussion on Arab perspectives of Turkey.
Paul Salem  | TESEV's results showed that Arab views of Turkey have become quite positive in recent years. This poll was conducted after the Gaza incursion and the Davos incident, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's popularity peaked. TESEV is planning to repeat the poll, but I'd like to ask you if you expect a big shift in Arab public opinion toward Turkey?
I don't think they will be dramatically different; they might be a little different in the Palestinian territories. Much of the attitude toward Turkey in other Arab countries was not directly related to the Davos incident or the Gaza war itself. Turkey has had a dramatically different image since the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] came to power, since saying no to the Iraq war, since Turkey set up economic, political and security relations with many Arab countries and since Turkey has taken a tougher line with Israel on the peace process. The Davos incident was simply the visible part in the transformation of Turkish foreign policy toward Israel.
Do you think Turkey's achievements have been appreciated in the Arab world?
The general public is excited and interested in Turkey's foreign policy in Israel and Gaza. The governments mostly welcome the Turkish role in counterbalancing the Iranian presence; others welcome Turkey because of economic cooperation. What's lost is that there is no major part of the Arab community which really appreciates Turkey's achievements in politics, economics and culture. In politics it has a functioning democratic system with accountable governments, with reasonable levels of transparency, free citizenry and so on. These factors are not paid very much attention to in the Arab world. Secondly, its economic achievements, this dramatic economic growth comparable to China, Malaysia and Taiwan that Turkey has achieved without oil, has not been felt in the Arab world in general.
You also mentioned that in regard to Turkish culture.
The Arab world is in a very sad and critical condition in its civilization and culture. We have gone backwards. We don't produce real culture or profound thinking. We have a bit of poetry, literature and cinema, which is miniscule compared to the size of the Arab world. The public culture is completely dominated either by globalized pop culture or Arabized pop culture, which are both shallow, or by a traditionalist religious culture. None are creative or intellectually progressive. This is a regression from 50 years ago to the degree that there are no real centers of thought. In that regard, Turkey has done much better: it has a much more advanced and sophisticated understanding of the role of religion in society, secularism, faith and science, community and the individual, the individual and the state, faith and civil society, etc. All of those questions of life are treated in a much more intelligent, advanced and sophisticated way in Turkey.
Read full interview Back to Top
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West doesn't want a democratic Middle East
By KHALED HROUB | Japan Times
 The lack of democracy in the Arab world results from an unholy alliance between Western interests and local autocrats, justified by what both sides claim to be the region's "cultural specificity."
In a nutshell, it has been much easier for the West to do business in the post-colonial Middle East with undemocratic regimes, which have found Western support and recognition useful in marginalizing local liberal and democratic forces, even as it paved the way for the rise of Islamist radicalization.
Sticks as well as carrots have been used - by both sides - to maintain this alliance. For example, the Western emphasis on reform and democracy in recent years has been used more often than not as a threat, a typical message being: "Help us in Iraq or we will press for democracy and human rights in your own country." And the Arab reply is equally threatening: "Stop pressing us on the reform issue or we won't cooperate in the 'war on terror'!"
Two other major issues have sustained the tradeoff: Israel and the rise of the Islamist movements. The Arab public overwhelmingly regards Israel as an alien and illegitimate entity imposed by force on Palestinian land with Western support. If this perception was channeled democratically and allowed to shape Arab countries' policies toward Israel, any peace negotiations would be even more complicated than they are now.
The rise of Islamism has been no less obstructive when it comes to Arab democracy. Decades of unholy alliance between Arab autocrats and the West have seen Islamic movements emerge as a "salvation" force. If free and fair elections were to be held in any Arab country, Islamists would come to power. That was the case in Algeria in 1991-92, in Iraq in 2005, and in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006. Other countries, such as Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, Yemen and Bahrain, have created more limited space for democracy. There, too, Islamists have immediately filled it.
The West has wasted decades, missing countless chances to help establish regimes that could empower Arab liberal and democratic forces. The West's blind support for autocratic Arab rulers has reduced all hope of peaceful change. The democratic process has lost its aura and its thrust, not least because democratization seems to lead to the rise of political movements the West finds unacceptable. The whole notion of democracy has been eroded and discredited, with the radicalization that engulfs many Muslim societies now spilling over into their emigrant communities in the West.
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Muslim women find an ally for more rights: the Qur'an
Courageous figures like Indonesia's Siti Musdah Mulia are showing Muslim women how to break out of bondage by using the Koran.
by John Hughes | The Christian Science Monitor
 Indonesia's Siti Musdah Mulia is a name to remember. That's because she is showing Muslim women how to break out of bondage by using the words of the Koran.
Growing up, she traveled to other Muslim countries and found ways to understand Islam other than the rigid orthodoxy of her upbringing. Having earned a PhD in Islamic political thought, she has become a significant force in Indonesia and elsewhere for Muslim women's rights. In 2007 she received the International Women of Courage award from then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Mulia is one of several courageous Muslim feminists who are challenging conservative male interpretations of Islam. As Isobel Coleman, a leading American authority on Islamic feminism and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me: "Half of those men have never read the Koran in their own language."
Mulia is one of several Muslim women in Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries profiled in a new book by Dr. Coleman, "Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East."
Instead of blatantly waving the banner of democracy, certain to raise charges of being tools of Western cultural imperialism, these women are quietly working within the culture, rather than against it, citing progressive interpretations of Islam itself as justification for women's empowerment, particularly in education and the workplace.
Coleman applauds the work of a global women's movement, musawah ("equality" in Arabic), in researching how the laws of Islam elevated women's rights in Arabia upon the faith's 7th-century arrival there. Islamic laws prohibited the killing of girl babies, upheld the right of women to own property, the right to choose their own husbands and impose conditions on the marriage, and to divorce their husbands. They entitled women to an education, to dignity and respect, and the right to think for themselves.
In religious development, women in Indonesia are finding common cause with Muslim women elsewhere as they recapture the original meaning of the Qur'anic texts. Perhaps, as Coleman suggests, this quiet revolution "has the potential to be as transformative in this century as the Christian Reformation was in the 16th century."
Read full HRW report Back to top
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PEW FORUM EVENT TRANSCRIPT April 27, 2010
A Conversation With Tariq Ramadan
Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity
Tariq Ramadan Speaking at Pew Forum  | European campaigns to ban burqas, the Swiss vote to bar new construction of minarets and attempted terrorist acts in the United States have renewed questions and concerns about the compatibility of Islam with Western society. Swiss-born scholar and philosopher of Islam Tariq Ramadan has written and spoken on the subject, generating widespread debate and reaction.
The U.S. State Department recently overturned his six-year ban from the country, allowing him to visit and speak in the U.S. How have his experiences influenced his views on the reform of radical Islam and the bridging of cultural differences? What can Western Muslims do to balance faith and modernity? And what lies ahead for the future of Islam in Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the world? Ramadan addressed these questions and related topics at a press luncheon hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Ramadan is a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Oxford's St Antony's College. He is also the president of a Brussels-based think tank, European Muslim Network, and the author of more than 20 books, including What I Believe, published in November 2009. Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2009.
Speaker: Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Islamic Studies, St Antony's College, Oxford University
Moderator: Luis Lugo, Director, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
- Ramadan's Opening Remarks
- Sharia in the West
- Free Speech or Defamation of Religion?
- Applying Muslim Ethics
- Spiritual Crisis in Europe?
- Making the Case for Reform
- Why Muslim Scholars Don't Speak Out
- Differences Between American, European Muslims
- Ramadan on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- Why Ramadan Was Banner
Read full transcript Back to top
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Book Review:
Reinventing America's Relations With the Muslim World
By Yoginder Sikand | TwoCircles.net
 Emile A. Nakhleh has stated the obvious in 162 pages in the book titled "A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America's Relations With the Muslim World". However this too shall fall on the proverbial American tin ear. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to acknowledge the logical and sane arguments made by Nakhleh. So why is it so hard for America to organize itself and create a win win situation for itself and the world?
Nakhleh brings together years of experience, first as a scholar in residence at America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and then as director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme, as well as insights gained from visits to over 30 Muslim-majority countries to argue the case for a radical revision of America's attitude towards the 'Muslim world'.
Nakhleh clearly indicates that Islam, or even what is called 'political Islam' or Islamism, is not necessarily a factor for radicalization or terrorism. He insists that mere increased piety, or exhibitions of piety and identity assertion, among Muslim publics must not be seen as a threat or as a prelude to extremism. Yet, at the same time, he recognizes that 'an Islamized environment might be conducive to further radicalization and terrorism' (p.9), particularly if the agencies of 'Islamisation' are conservative, literalist Muslim groups, such as, for instance, Wahhabi-oriented movements. Further, radicalism using the language of Islam must not be seen simply as an ideological phenomenon. Rather, most often it is the drastic developments in the external environment that leads Islamic movements to take to the radical path, such as foreign occupation, repression by local governments, imperialist invasions or severe oppression by dominant non-Muslim communities.
With regard to American policies in the 'Muslim world' that have exacerbated radical Islamist tendencies, Nakhleh identifies America's support to dictatorial and repressive client regimes in Muslim countries, its invasion and occupation of Iraq, its continued offensives in Afghanistan, and its unstinted support to Israel as key issues. He insists-and for a retired senior official at the notorious CIA, this appears strikingly bold and honest-that all this must stop if American policies are not to continue to lead to the manufacturing of ever increasing hordes of Muslim radicals. He calls for the ending of the US-led occupation of Iraq, the scaling down of American military operations in Afghanistan, an immediate stop to the torture of Muslim prisoners, serious efforts to solve the Palestine issue and to end the plight of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, and a just resolution of regional conflicts in which Muslim groups are involved, as in Kashmir. Mere sloganeering about democracy, human rights and respect for Islam and Muslim sentiments will not do, he argues, in the absence of concrete policy initiatives.
Read full book review
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The Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy is a non-profit think tank, based in Washington DC - dedicated to promoting a better understanding of democracy in the Muslim world, and a better understanding of Islam in America. To achieve its objectives, the Center organizes meetings, conferences, and publishes several reports and periodicals. CSID engages Muslim groups, parties, and governments - both secularist and moderate Islamist - in public debates on how to reconcile Muslims' interpretation of Islam and democracy. CSID is committed to providing democracy education to ordinary citizens, civil society, religious and political leaders in the Muslim world, and has organized meetings, workshops, and conferences in over 25 countries, including Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, etc.
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