Shiite Muslims gather for Friday prayers VOA Photo - L. Kassman

Host: Leaders of a dozen groups representing Muslim Americans and Arab Americans of other faiths met in Washington to speak out against terrorism and in favor of democratic freedoms. Zainab Al-Suwaij is the executive director of the American Islamic Congress. She said the conference was an effort to confront the fact that “Many people use Islam as a reason to kill innocent people.” One of the speakers at the conference was Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a physician in Phoenix, Arizona.

Jasser: I as a Muslim feel that this religion that I cherish, has been in recent times hijacked and has become one of the worst offenders in adding misery and oppression to the people of the Middle East. It is not necessary for me to catalogue all of the sad records of brutal killings, endless hatreds of other faiths and the continuing second-class status of women, that defames Islam. You all know it. The truth is that the tribal culture and despotic regimes have hijacked our peaceful religion.

Host: One of the conference organizers was Kamal Nawash. He says that the most effective voices against Islamic extremism are those of moderate Muslims.

Nawash: Now of course, I'm a Muslim and I consider myself a devout Muslim. I run an organization called the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism. And this organization was created to eliminate broad-based support for extremism and terrorism within the Muslim community. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we admit that we have a problem with extremism and support for terrorism in the Muslim community. Rather than deny that we have this problem, rather than go on the defensive and accuse everyone else in the world of recognizing this problem as being anti-Islam, we’re saying: "No. We have a huge problem." Most of the terrorism in the world today is being conducted by Muslims. I say this, I say this because we are the only ones who can defeat this. We are the only ones who can defeat this. If John, or Schlomo or Jose, if they told bin Laden or Hamas that, "You know what, we reject you. You're a criminal organization, or you're a terrorist organization." It won't work. Unfortunately it won't work. You still should say it. Don't not say it. But it won't work. It has to be Muslims that do it. It has to be Muslims that come out …" [Applause]

Host: Joining me to talk about Arab and Muslim American efforts to promote tolerance and moderation in the Middle East are Ammar Abdulhamid, a visiting fellow with the Project on U.S. Policy toward the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution. Walid Phares, a professor at Florida Atlantic University and senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. And joining us by phone from Phoenix, Arizona, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Welcome. Thanks for joining us today. Walid Phares, who was at the conference and what was the thrust of what people had to say?

Phares: There were about seven-hundred and fifty delegates from all over the United States. The conference title was Middle Eastern American Convention for Freedom and Democracy. It really started from two ends. One end were the representatives of Middle Eastern American communities, mostly minority ethnic groups and religious groups in the Middle East, but from the other end came also, Muslim organizations, I may say, new Muslim organizations who were here to say that they are against terrorism and for democracy and human rights and they joined efforts and created that huge event in Washington, D.C.

Host: Dr. Jasser are you there by phone from Phoenix, Arizona?

Jasser: Yes I am Eric, thank you for having me.

Host: Thanks for being on the show. You spoke at the conference and what was your sense of what the thrust of what people had to say was?

Jasser: I think the conference was historic. The Middle Eastern American immigrants that are now in our third generation, many of us, really have not had an opportunity to voice our appreciation to this country for the freedoms that they’ve given us compared to the nations that most of our families escaped. And our nations still sorrowfully, are still under dictatorships almost across the board. And we finally have been able to have the strength, really after the change in American foreign policy after nine-eleven, in which the coddling of dictatorships is no-longer happening, and we’ve really been empowered as Middle Eastern Americans to come forth and say: “We stand for freedom. We stand for liberty and for secular democracies.” And really it’s, I’ve found it to be very educational in that you have a group of Americans who know as Middle Easterners that the source of terrorism is dictatorship, that these dictatorships have in fact created parasitically the terrorist organizations to hijack Islam as a religion and create a milieu in which it props them up. And we came together in America, really the only place that we could have done this, to say: “This is not Islam. This is not Christianity or Judaism.” This is not what we stand for as people of freedom. And we want to see those governments change and we want to see terrorism go away.

Host: Ammar Abdulhamid, what kind of voice do Americans, Muslim-Americans, Americans of Middle Eastern descent, do they have an impact on attitudes in the Middle East?

Abdulhamid: Unfortunately, no. I mean, let’s be blunt about it. I think they are an important voice and I think if we’re going to have any kind of reformation or new interpretation of Islam emerging, probably the American Muslims, European Muslims will be able to, because of the freedom that they have, will be able to bring the new ideas. But how will these ideas travel to the Muslim world? This is a different part of the question. There is this cut off, so far, between immigrant communities or indigenous American Muslim communities and the “home base” as you could say, or the Middle East in general. And so far, we have not seen really a lot of cooperation between civil societies, in particular in the Muslim world and in the United States. So the bridges are still non-existent. And in order for the Muslim community in the United States, in order for the Middle Eastern communities in the United States to have a say in what goes on back home, they really need to develop these bridges. They really need to identify suitable partners within the various Middle Eastern countries with whom they can carry on a dialogue, they can remain in touch with the realities on the ground in these countries. And see how they can influence policies and how they can support their group in their struggle for democracy in the Middle East.

Host: Well let’s hear one of the conference participants on this question. This is John Nimrod, who is Secretary General of the Assyrian Universal Alliance.

[SOT] Nimrod: This meeting tonight shows that the Americans of Middle Eastern descent are all involved and concerned about bringing unity, appreciation for what they’ve found in America and the kind of life that they’ve grown up with here. Now, they have then taken this and equated this back to their people back in their countries. And it gives them hope in the future.

Host: Walid Phares, we have by any measure of polls in the Middle East, you see tremendous antagonism toward the U.S. in Arab countries, other Middle Eastern countries at this point. How successful are efforts by Middle Eastern Americans going to be to have this conversation with people in the Middle East?

Phares: Well, at first symbolically very important to have a poll in the west, in the United States in particular. And the country which is vilified and attacked by Middle Eastern regimes or organizations or ideologies, voices like the ones you’ve heard right now saying that we are Americans and at the same time we do not abandon our roots in the Middle East and we want to establish bridges as Ammar said earlier. Bridges are extremely important, but we have to look at it from a historical perspective. This is only a beginning. It’s so diverse. You have people who, in the Middle East can barely coexist, who in the United States under this freedom and democracy are trying to send that message. But the problem in the Middle East is that democracy and human rights and freedom are not that much available. You’ve got to navigate between the freedom we have here, the freedom that we have not as much as we want there, and then establish those bridges. It is going to be difficult. That was the beginning of at least the American end of this equation. I must say that in the Middle East there are very courageous people who are struggling for human rights and democracy. They are now beginning to find partners in these communities.

Host: Zuhdi Jasser, what’s your sense of how to build those bridges so that your voices can be heard not just here in Washington, but back in the Middle East.

Jasser: Yes. I believe those bridges are going to begin with liberty-minded organizations like that met in Washington last Friday. And many of our organizations that met. We’ve already begun to develop a network and that network will have to be through, not only people here, but our contacts in the Middle East and through media also. I think that penetration of some of the media that we’re beginning to have that’s new -- hear that since Iraq has gotten rid of its despots, Saddam Hussein, there’s now fifty newspapers, there’s a media that has been flourishing and I think just as you saw Eastern Europe a decade ago, or two decades ago begin to fall country by country without war, you can see in the Middle East, as we begin to penetrate media and we begin to have bridges to organizations just as Dr. Phares and Dr. Abdulhamid mentioned, we will begin to connect. And I think people need to remember there are still thousands of Arabs and Muslims all over the world waiting in line to come to America. So you have to remember that you need to take some of the opinion polls that are supposedly coming out of those countries with a grain of salt, because it’s a lot easier for them to cast disparaging tones on foreign countries than it is for them to be introspective in their own nations.

Host: Ammar Abdulhamid?

Abdulhamid: There is a lot of truth in what you said, but I have to point out something. It’s important in trying to build these partnerships between organizations here in the United States and organizations back home. So that this partnership doesn’t turn into the kiss of death for these organizations back home, is that the U-S organizations should be moderate also in their views vis-à-vis the possibilities of change and the regimes in the Middle East. If you are going to be completely dismissive of the regimes, and we are not seeking to create a dialogue with them, then we are only on the path of confrontation. This is going to be very difficult for indigenous organizations, this kind of line. It’s very difficult to adopt now, indigenous organizations because in the final analysis they realize how weak they are and they realize that they are, in the final analysis simply trying to carve out a space for greater participation. At this stage, there is no way we can indigenously agree or pave the way for a regime change. It’s going to take decades, basically, and we have to change mentalities and so on. So, some of these organizations and some of them in fact did take part in the conference, usually have an uncompromising language and discourse vis-à-vis the regimes in the Middle East.

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