WhirledView

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think: Book Review Essay

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Earlier this month, a friend recommended one “must read” book for inclusion in a short list of books and other materials on the Muslim world for a hand out at a recent symposium the World Affairs Forum held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The symposium was entitled “Meeting Minds with the Muslim World” and was conducted on a “non-attribution” basis.

The “must-read” book was Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think by John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. It was published in 2007 by Gallup Publishers and it should be at the top of the reading lists for all three U.S. presidential candidates, their advisors as well as American voters, the vast majority of who desperately need far more accurate information about Muslims and the Islamic world than the US media normally provides.

Short, well organized, timely and an easy read

Who Speaks for Islam? is mercifully short (184 pages). It is well organized and easy to read. Its findings are a distillation of reams of first rate data collected by the Gallup organization between 2001 and 2007 in hour long, face-to-face interviews using open-ended questions with tens of thousands of “residents of more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have substantial Muslim populations.” As I understand it, the book confirms the results of numerous – but far less comprehensive - opinion surveys conducted by other western survey research organizations over the same period.

These results presented in Who Speaks for Islam? explode virtually every assertion about the Islamic world and Muslim views of the West that the Bush administration has promulgated since 9/11 to justify its controversial policies in the Middle East.

Islam’s Silenced Majority: the “clash of civilizations” is a canard

First, according to Who Speaks for Islam?, there is no “inevitable clash of civilizations.”

Sorry Professor Huntington, I’ve also never agreed with your overly simplistic and often inaccurate divisions of the post Cold War world on questionably-drawn religious/ethnic grounds. This includes your monolithic characterization of the Islamic world. In Who Speaks for Islam?, Esposito and Mogahed demonstrate that a majority of the world’s approximately 1.3 billion Muslims do, in fact, value democracy and human rights. So, Mr. Bush, pray tell, where is the “inevitable clash of civilizations” based on irreconcilable differences of values upon which you have based our foreign policy for the past seven years?

Most Muslims do not hate the West, or the US, because of our values – despite what Mr. Bush and his neoconservative supporters at the American Enterprise Institute and other rightwing think tanks continue to attempt to shove down our throats through various media outlets – the problem is most Muslims object to America’s not living up to those values. This begins with human rights abuses at Abu Graib and Guantanamo, the administration’s covert rendition and discriminatory visa policies and moves on to its ill-considered invasion of Iraq coupled with unconditional support for a greater Israel.

The Gallup data also tell us that there are major differences between how Muslims view the West. Just as we should - but too often do not - recognize that the Islamic “world” is far from monolithic, the majority of Muslims realize that there are major differences between France and Germany, for instance, and the US. France and Germany come out far ahead because of American unilateralism based on the Bush administration’s militaristic approach to the world, in particular the invasion of Iraq and the administration’s one-sided support for a greater Israel’s domination of the Middle East.

War against whom? Against what?

The Almost Forgotten Colombia and Why It Shouldn’t be That Way – Speech by John Heard at the World Affairs Forum, Santa Fe, New Mexico

By PHK

In 2000, Colombia competed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for domination of the US headlines. Colombian drug lords, leftist guerrillas, and rightist paramilitaries were portrayed as running rampant. The US initiated “Plan Colombia” a multi-pronged five year approach to help stabilize the war-torn country. The five year follow-on, “Plan Colombia II” is now in progress. What does this mean? What has worked and what hasn’t? And is what happens in Colombia as crucial to the US as in 2000? These questions still demand our attention.

John Heard is a former senior Foreign Service Officer with USAID, who spent most of his career in Latin America and recently returned to the US after four and one half years in Bogota as head of the Pan American Development Foundation Office (PADF), which administers major USAID projects there. Heard described the situation and discussed these issues at the September 17, 2007 World Affairs Forum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The text for John Heard’s presentation follows. It is entitled “Why we should pay attention to Colombia and support rational policies for our most important ally in Latin America."

(begin text)
The Major Points in a Nutshell:

• Afghanistan may be the world’s poppy capital, but Colombia is its coca capital and the US is the largest recipient: Over 70 percent of the cocaine in the US comes from Colombia. The US has spent over $5.4 billion trying to solve the problem since 2000 without success. This scourge poisons both the US and Colombia but for different reasons. Opium poppies are cultivated in Colombia too, but the crop is nowhere near as large or as important as coca.

• Terrorism: The continuing conflict in Colombia threatens US interests in the country and the region. Leftist guerillas hold hundreds of hostages including three US citizens. Both the guerillas and the partially demobilized United Self Defense Forces (paramilitaries) use terror as a weapon and they both thrive on the drug trade. Meanwhile, the conflict that began as an ideological one has morphed into one that is all about business - political and economic power. It is now 95% business and 5% ideological.

• Displaced persons: As a result of the conflict, between two and three million Colombians are internally displaced. This places Colombia second only to Sudan – despite a major US financed program to assist these people reintegrate into their communities.

• US investment and trade interests: Colombia is the eighth largest supplier of oil to the US. The largest operations are run by Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, Texaco, BP and Exxon. Colombia is a major supplier of coffee, oil, fresh flowers and garments. In fact, Colombian flower exports result in 200,000 jobs in the US and 90,000 in Colombia. Colombia is also an important market for US goods and services.

• US foreign assistance: Today US military and economic support for the Colombian government runs between $400 and $500 million per year. Of this, two-thirds to three-quarters are devoted to the military. The US Embassy in Bogota is one of the largest in the world with over 400 direct hire employees, 40 government agencies and hundreds of military and contract personnel – in uniform and out. Well over a hundred million dollars a year are awarded to business contractors and grantees (NGOs) for program implementation. We need to make sure the money is well spent.

• Current US policy: The goal is promotion of peace and reduction of the flow of drugs to the US through Plan Colombia II. So far – with the exception of a shaky ongoing paramilitary demobilization - it has not produced the results the US and Colombian Government seek.

• US-Colombian relations: the country under President Alvaro Uribe is a friend. Uribe, first elected in 2002, is extraordinarily popular. Over the years, the Colombian government has had warm relations with both Clinton and Bush administrations. The US needs all the friends it can have in Latin America: as it stands now, Colombia is flanked by anti-American leftist governments in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

THE THREE MAKE OR BREAK ISSUES: Continuing Conflict, War on Drugs, Grinding Poverty

1. The Continuing Conflict

Although Colombia’s level of violence – ordinary murder and crime rates have fallen - has been significantly reduced under President Uribe, internal conflict continues. Kidnapping and extortion remain high and thousands of families are driven, homeless, from their communities every month. This is a byproduct of a continuing war fueled by the proceeds of the drug trade. The situation in Colombia, however, is not like Central America after the fall of the Soviet Union where state-sponsored funding for insurgents dried up within a year or two.

The vicious circle: Hundreds of millions of dollars from the international drug trade feed the leftist guerillas and rightist paramilitaries – a seemingly unending revenue stream. The guerillas pay salaries, purchase modern weapons, and use modern communications technology, not only for internal communications but also to finance strong public relations campaigns in Europe and Colombia. They have professional websites and also strong recruitment programs.

The answer: In addition to military pressure, e.g. pursuing them where they live under Uribe’s Democratic Security program with better trained and strengthened military forces, the existing unending income stream needs to be cut.

Warning: Congress Likes Old-Fashioned Squiggles of Authenticity

By PLS

Nearly 75% of Americans have internet access, according to the latest surveys, and demand for rapid broadband service is increasing faster than demand for dial up access. Americans use thier computer-based connection to the world wide web for entertainment, information, communications and commercial transactions. Yet Congress prefers constituent snail mail to email.

But wait! The retrograde factor gets worse.

Are you planning to get in touch with your Congressperson or Senator? Read on, after taking a look at the scribble to the left. How long did the deciphering take? I’m the one who dashed it off and I can hardly read it. But ghastly calligraphy isn’t the only problem. I wrote this “letter” as quickly as I could, without thinking—or trying not to, since not thinking isn’t my default mode. I was trying to write from the gut or the heart or whatever the inner organ of authenticity is. You see, I've discovered that our representatives in Washington take notice mostly when you give them guts gushing out on paper. The cruder the letter the more it's presumed to come from the heart—and the heartland. And should you take your education seriously, get a job, buy a computer, hook up to the net and try to think straight as you present your concerns, don't bother to write. Your thoughts won't impress the Congressional mind.

I learned alll this at a seminar held last month by the World Affairs Forum in Santa Fe. The guest speakers were a veteran lobbyist and a veteran Congressional staffer, whose identities I think I'd better protect. These two informants know how Washington works and how our representatives like their offices run. Our reps have their idiosyncracies, naturally, but both speakers reported a convergence in some areas, like how to treat mail flowing in from constituents.

So here’s the word from the experts: if you want staffers to read what you have to say and pass your message on to the boss, write in longhand and forget logic or reason. Be passionate. Spill your guts. Be warned that emailed messages won’t get much attention, even when you’ve composed every word yourself. And if you’re signing on to a mass lobbying effort from a favorite organization, however it’s sent, you might as well not bother.

I sympathize with a staffer’s impulse to delete thousands of identical messages from his/her Congressperson’s email in-box. (Though noting the number of such incoming items might be worthwhile.) However, considering the effort scrawl-reading requires, how can anyone justify a preference for scribbled letters sent by an ever decreasing minority of the population? Those figures I referred to earlier, the ones indicating that nearly 3/4 of us are wired, are already three years out of date. By now an even larger percentage of Americans are using the internet to transmit and receive information.

Old Moscow Merchants and New York Modernism – speech by Dr. James L. West at the World Affairs Forum, Santa Fe, New Mexico

By PHK

As I indicated in an earlier post, the World Affairs Forum held “A Window on Russia,” a day long conference on March 20, 2006 for Forum members and guests in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The two session event featured a morning on Russian politics, economics and U.S.-Russian relations and an afternoon on Russian art and architecture. It was held in cooperation with the Santa Fe Institute. CKR, PLS, and I were among those who helped make the conference work – and it worked very well.

The presentations were so content rich, well delivered and relevant to helping Americans understand the complexities of today’s Russia that with the speakers’ permission and help, we are sharing their written remarks – or excerpts from them - with a wider audience on WhirledView.

Our special thanks to Dr. James L. West, Professor of Humanities, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont and Randall R. LeCocq for their terrific presentations. Randall LeCocq’s speech “Russia under Putin” on Russian politics, economics and U.S.-Russian relations was posted in April; Jay West’s speech follows below.

We thank both Jay and Randy once again for their willingness to answer numerous questions and respond to a raft of comments. Much appreciation also to the Santa Fe Institute for making it possible for us to hold “A Window on Russia” on its premises – and for its staff's wonderful logistical and tech support.

Dr. West has focused his lengthy teaching career – first at Connecticut’s Trinity College then at Middlebury – on the interplay of history and culture particularly that of Russia, Eastern Europe and Germany. His most recent book Merchant Moscow: Images of Russia’s Vanished Bourgeoisie was published by Princeton University Press in 1997. A Russian edition is now in preparation as he describes below in his speech.
Here follows the text of a major portion of James West’s speech in Santa Fe on March 20. It is entitled “Old Moscow Merchants and New York Modernism."

(begin text)

For most of my career, I have studied the history of the pre-revolutionary merchants and entrepreneurs of Moscow. For much of this time, the pursuit has been like researching a vanished civilization. Soviet historians did their best to erase these "enemies of the people" from the historical record, and archives were relatively closed. It has only been over the last decade or so, as Russia once again began to grope its way toward an entrepreneurial market economy that these obstacles to research have been lowered, and the relevance of this kind of study has become once again clear.

Russia under Putin - speech by Randall Le Cocq at the World Affairs Forum, Santa Fe

By PHK

March 20, 2006 the World Affairs Forum held “A Window on Russia,” a day long conference for Forum members and guests in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The two session event featured one on Russian politics, economics and U.S.-Russian relations and a second on Russian art and architecture. It was held in cooperation with the Santa Fe Institute. CKR, PLS, and I were among those who helped make the conference work – and it did very well.

The presentations were so content rich, well delivered and relevant to helping Americans understand the complexities of today’s Russia that with the speakers’ permission, we would like to share their written remarks with a wider audience. This is why we decided to post them on WhirledView.

Our special thanks to Randall R. Le Cocq, a recently retired State Department Foreign Service Officer with extensive experience working in and on the Russian Federation, the Former Soviet Union and the Soviet Union and Dr. James L. West, Professor of Humanities, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont for their terrific presentations – and willingness to answer numerous questions and respond to a raft of comments. Much appreciation also to the Santa Fe Institute for making it possible for us to hold “A Window on Russia” on its premises – and for its staff's wonderful logistical and tech support.

Here follows the text of Randall Le Cocq’s speech on Russian politics, economics and US-Russian
relations "Russia under Putin: unwrapping the ‘riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’" Randall R. LeCocq was U.S. Consul General – Vladivostok, 1991-1994; political officer, Soviet Union 1979-1981; Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires, Minsk, Belarus, 1998-2000; U.S. Department of State, Office of Legislative Affairs, handling Russia, 1996-1998.

(begin text)

Introduction

Today, I will examine U.S.-Russia Relations since 2005. Russia over the past year and one half has been changing rapidly. It is no longer the same Russia we dealt with just two years ago. There has been some economic progress but insufficient political progress.

This is why it is time to look at Russia internally as well as at its foreign policy with respect to the United States.