Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
for constructive & vibrant Muslim-Western relations
17 - 23 October 2006

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about Muslim–Western relations. CGNews-PiH is available in Arabic, English, French and Indonesian.
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Inside this edition

1) by Faiz Khan
In this sixth and last article in a series on religious revivalism and Muslim—Western relations, Faiz Khan, a Muslim scholar and educator as well as an M.D., outlines some of the underlying relationships and similarities between the “Muslim world” and the West: “…there are underlying relationships between these supposed separate worlds that exist in the basic foundations of their cultures”. He further concludes that, “All humans – be they theocentric or theophobic — desire to spend their time on this earth with their rights secured, free to enjoy their pursuits within a peaceful and ordered society.”
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006)

2) by Asma Afsaruddin
Asma Afsaruddin, author and associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Notre Dame, looks at the relationship between faith and reason in Islam in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg call for dialogue. While clarifying the historical as well as predominant views in Islam on the issue, she warns that “There is a danger, however, when anyone argues that their own religion and civilisation had/has a monopoly on reason and had/has effected the best synthesis between faith and reason.” She concludes, “The key to getting along with one another is, therefore, to learn the truth about one another and avoid trading in pernicious stereotypes.”
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006)

3) by Rehan Rafay Jamil
Identifying opportunities for diplomatic manoeuvring between the United States and Iran, Rehan Rafay Jamil, a senior at Oberlin College, gives us a quick glimpse into another side of Iran than the “scowling mullah” and women in chador seen on American media, and talks about a time when Iranian-U.S. relations were less strained. “Fostering relations between American and Iranian civil society through renewed educational and cultural exchanges is one important step in the right direction…the time for Americans and Iranians to talk is now.”
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006)

4) by Julia Suryakusuma
Julia Suryakusuma, an Indonesian author, writes from a personal perspective about how the diversity of Indonesia’s Muslim community is not reflected in attempts by some in government to impose the head-scarf on women. “The tragedy of these repeated attempts to create one-size-fits-all Indonesians is that it just doesn't jibe with the social reality of Indonesia, which is way too complex to be contained in small rigid boxes.”
(Source: Jakarta Post, 11 October 2006)

5) by John Ferguson
John Ferguson, executive director of American Voices, finds an innovative way to engage in Muslim-Western dialogue through music. “Through artistic dialogue, we can lead one another out of the gathering darkness of mutual distrust. The possibilities for this type of exchange are endless, and Americans, more than any others, have the means and the imperative to continue the communication.”
(Source: Christian Science Monitor, 10 October 2006)
   

1) Religion as a common denominator
Faiz Khan

Hershey, Pennsylvania — The West and the Muslim world are multi—faceted, multi—cultural, and multi—religious realms despite the narrow way they are often viewed and defined. There are millions of Muslims in the West, and there are millions of individuals of other faith traditions in the “Muslim world”; there are underlying relationships between these supposed separate worlds that exist in the basic foundations of their cultures; and the continual resurgence of religiosity is at the heart of both of our cultures and is seen throughout our histories.

The goal of religiosity is piety, and a temporal consequence of piety is the insistent turning of the individual and collectivity toward those values and ethics that are universally cherished by all human beings. Given this relationship between piety and time—honoured ethics and values, anyone of goodwill, Western or not, should feel encouraged by that facet of Islamic doctrine that supports the cultivation of piety through religious practice, which elicits from its practitioner an inter—human ethic also shared by the Judeo—Christian, Hindu, Parsi and Buddhist traditions.

Therefore, similarities between cultures can be found in the religious and theocentric realm. Even seemingly clashing cultures can find common ground here. American heritage has a strong theocentric basis. I recall, as a school—child, reciting daily “one nation, under God indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”, as taught by the American Pledge of Allegiance. This idea is precisely Qur’anic. Moreover, the sense that executive, legislative and judiciary institutions must be parochially neutral while at the same time acknowledging divinity and cultivating piety and sanctity, no matter what the outward form (be it Christian or Buddhist or Islamic, etc), is in keeping with the operational understanding of governance as derived from Qur’anic principles. These principles were elaborated on and lived by Muhammad and his apostles.

Though similarities can be drawn, the East has kept theocentric principals closer to the surface of its cultures, while the West continually supports a more secular culture. There is very little the “Muslim World” needs to learn ideologically from the modern West. The making of ideologically—sound governance and society lies in the application of it’s the East’s own shari‘a, a code of law defined by the Qur’an that embraces pluralism. Whether this element of the shari‘a is represented, fostered and supported by the dominant domestic or transnational geopolitical power—brokers is an entirely different issue.

The brand of Western—based secular humanism which views public expressions of faith or mention of God as a malignant imposition of religion is repugnant to the Islamic paradigm. Regardless, a Muslim in the West is still expected to abide by the mores and legal precedents of their locale. Taking a hyperbolic example, if, through due process, it is decided that religion or mention of God is to be a purely private matter, the Muslim, by the mandate of the ethic dictated by shari‘a, needs to comply, or find somewhere else to live.

In the Muslim world, like in the rest of the third world, there exists an imposition of Western, corporate client regimes and aristocracy through the use of covert and overt war operations. With self—determination undermined, the ensuing harmful socio—political and economic consequences cause many segments of the population to naturally feel deeply violated. When these “Muslim world” populations express themselves intellectually and verbally against very real injustices, they do so in the phraseology and intellectual paradigm of a shari‘a—ethic that promises them their rights to life, liberty, property, security and fair distribution of wealth and opportunity. The shari‘a has its basis in religion, hence, religious revivalism in this context is analogous to an American demanding their “Constitutional Rights” in the face of socio—political and financial victimisation. The various reactionary movements have their basis in this dynamic. The relationships between the actual operations and crimes attributed to these various movements on the one hand, and the transnational corporate or Western agendas on the other, needs further scrutiny.

Religion, when practiced authentically, by definition builds bridges amongst its practitioners, no matter what the brand of their respective religions. The Qur’an explicitly addresses this phenomenon in many instances. One of the most dangerously flawed theses (which even well meaning religionists fall prey to) is the thesis that there is something within authentic religion (no matter what form) that is central in causing conflict along religiously parochial lines. This is like claiming that there is something inherent in the existence of a plurality of races/ethnicities that causes sectarian conflict in that arena.

Religious bigotry, racial bigotry, ethnic bigotry or any other bigotry is by definition a psychological perversion. Although religion, race and ethnicity are semantically linked to their respective bigotries in an existential manner, they are not causative. A pious Jew, Christian or Muslim will ideologically behave in the same manner when it comes to inter—personal ethics. The modalities of worship may differ – but the treatment by a pious Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Parsi or Buddhist person toward their fellow man will be the same.

All humans – be they theocentric or theophobic — desire to spend their time on this earth with their rights secured, free to enjoy their pursuits within a peaceful and ordered society. This is the common bridge between religionists and non—religionists. There is an underlying commonality that exists in the humanity of the peoples, the cultures and the religions of this world. A massive public campaign must be waged which supports tearing down the barriers between our “two worlds”. Honest journalism must be encouraged and cultural education and understanding must be promoted. It’s time that we stop looking for differences and start paying attention to the similarities.

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* Faiz Khan is a Muslim scholar and educator as well as an M.D. with a dual specialty in emergency and internal medicine. He is also a co—founder of MUJCA—NET, the Muslim—Jewish—Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. This is the sixth of six articles in a series on religious revivalism and Muslim—Western relations commissioned by the Common Ground News Service (www.commongroundnews.org).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

2) Faith & reason in Islam
Asma Afsaruddin

Notre Dame, Indiana - In the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address, it is useful to recapitulate the views of a tenth century Muslim historian by the name of al-Mas‘udi (d. 956) on the relationship between faith and reason, which are particularly pertinent today.

In a famous historical work, al-Mas‘udi maintained that the Byzantine Christians of his time had gone into a civilisational decline because they had rejected the pagan Greek sciences as basically incompatible with Christianity, whereas Muslim civilisation was prospering because it had successfully assimilated the learning of the ancients and continued to build on it. In other words, it was the Muslims who had successfully blended faith with reason and had thus left the Christians behind. As such, it is highly ironic that Pope Benedict would use the words of a fourteenth century Byzantine emperor to redirect the same accusation at Muslims in the twenty-first century.

In al-Mas‘udi’s day, the great translation movement which had started in Baghdad in the ninth century was bearing rich fruit, making Greek philosophical texts accessible to Arabic-speaking Muslims and effecting a genuine intellectual revolution in the Islamic world. In this period, Muslims displayed a remarkable receptivity towards knowledge and learning, regardless of its source. Persian works of literature and philosophy and Indian treatises on mathematics were also translated and studied alongside Greek works. Some of the best-known philosophers of the medieval period – Avicenna, Averroes, al-Farabi – were Muslims, and their thought was influential in medieval Europe as well. Without this intellectual and cultural legacy that was transmitted to Europe from the Islamic world, there may well have been no European Renaissance!

Pope Benedict’s statements, therefore, unfortunately point to a basic lack of knowledge about this organic continuity between the learning of the pre-modern Islamic world and that of the post-Renaissance West. He is not alone in this. Many otherwise highly-educated Westerners (and Muslims as well) are often quite ignorant of these historical connections. There are rejectionist Muslims today who would deny that Islamic thought and learning has in any way been influenced by non-Islamic sources. They too need to acquire a more accurate knowledge of the historical inter-connectedness between the West and the Muslim world. This is why so many find the “clash of civilisations” thesis credible today.

There is a danger, however, when anyone argues that their own religion and civilisation had/has a monopoly on reason and had/has effected the best synthesis between faith and reason. Such triumphalism is a serious impediment to dialogue and for any kind of sustained civil discourse. If dialogue is what the Pope is after, setting up a reified Islam as a straw man in order to posit the superiority of Western civilisation and its supposedly unique values is a non-starter. Dialogue is better-served through the humble acknowledgment of commonalities, of one’s own sins and of one’s connectedness to the other.

To set the record straight on a number of points raised by the pontiff in relation to Islam, it is important to point out that Muslims through time have subscribed to a spectrum of views on the dialectical relationship between faith and reason. Two main trends remain influential within Sunni Muslim thought today. One is represented by the Ash‘ari school of thought and is fideistic so that faith or revelation always trumps reason. The other is represented by the Maturidi school of thought which holds that reason independently of revelation can arrive at the same truths. Both schools of thought are considered equally “orthodox” within Sunni Islam, with Maturidi thought gaining ground. The Mu‘tazila (known as the Rationalists) in an earlier period claimed that there was no incompatibility between faith and reason and the Shi‘a have also historically emphasised the rational basis of their school of thought. One cannot, therefore, simplistically and reductively portray Islam as preferring one over the other i.e faith over reason or vice versa, nor can one portray Christianity, or perhaps any other faith tradition, in this manner either.

The key to getting along with one another is, therefore, to learn the truth about one another and avoid trading in pernicious stereotypes. In fact, Professor Richard Bulliet of Columbia University has recently coined the term “Islamo-Christian civilisation” to describe our shared heritage. This is a term and concept that deserves to gain broader currency.

To address the deteriorating world situation today and the problem of ostensibly religious extremism, we have to make the eradication of global poverty and promotion of the dignity of ordinary human beings a top priority. We have to reinsert moral and ethical values in the public sphere and in international diplomacy, and hold our leaders accountable to such values. This would be the best way to undermine extremist platforms which feed off the grievances of the poor and the powerless. It is on such common ground, constructed on universal ethical principles, that diverse groups of people, faith-based and secular, can come together.

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* Asma Afsaruddin is associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Notre Dame and author of the forthcoming The First Muslims: History and Memory (Oxford: OneWorld, 2007). This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

3) ~YOUTH VIEWS~ Understanding Iran
Rehan Rafay Jamil

Oberlin, Ohio - The latest standoff between the United States and Iran over the country’s nuclear program highlights how estranged the two countries have become in recent decades. From an American point of view, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iranian state could dramatically change the balance of power in the Middle East and lead to a decline in its own influence in the region. On the other hand, for most Iranians the pursuit of nuclear technology for both civilian and military applications represents a national right directly linked to the country’s growing economic needs as well as the desire to protect itself in an increasingly hostile international climate.

The current standoff leaves very little room for diplomatic manoeuvring as both governments seem equally adamant not to compromise. The stakes are high as a conflict with Iran could potentially have serious implications not just for global oil prices but also for the stability of the wider Middle East region. In this respect, understanding the complexities and internal dynamics of Iranian society -- a country routinely vilified in the American media, which never shows more of it than scowling mullahs and women covered in the amorphous chador chanting anti-American slogans -- is essential to formulating any effective U.S. policy in the Middle East. .

Washington and Tehran have always had a complex and tumultuous relationship, but there was a time when their relations were not so strained. It is worth remembering that less than three decades ago, Iran was the United States’s leading ally in the Middle East and was viewed as a force for stability and economic modernisation in the region. All that dramatically changed in 1979, when the populist Islamic revolution overthrew the government of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, ending three thousand years of Persian monarchy and ushering in the first Islamist theological government of modern times, headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The U.S. government’s longstanding support of the Shah in spite of his appalling human rights record and anti-democratic style of government had led to widespread resentment of U.S. policies by many Iranians.

After the Iranian revolution of 1979, the United States imposed three decades of economic and political isolation on Iran. The unwillingness of successive American governments to engage with the Iranian regime has come at a substantial price, which includes the election of the hard-line candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as President.

The failure of the reformist government of former president Khatami to deliver on its political and economic pledges undoubtedly played a major role in swinging popular support in favour of Ahmadinejad. His rise to power on an explicitly populist and nationalist campaign coincided with renewed U.S. pressures for Iran to curb its nuclear program and open it up to international inspections. Moreover, over time the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq has led many in the Iranian establishment to suspect the United States of pursuing a policy of military encirclement, and mounting international pressure against Iran’s nuclear program has helped bolster Ahmadinejad’s political support at home. The President has used every opportunity to portray himself as an Iranian and Muslim nationalist fending off American aggression, a stance that has won him popular support not just among Iranians but also in the wider Muslim world.

Iran’s growing regional strength was most vividly demonstrated this summer when its long time proxy, the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah, managed to secure a major political victory in the face of a sustained Israeli military campaign aimed at wiping out the group. Israel’s military offensive resulted in scores of Lebanese civilian deaths and immense damage to the country’s infrastructure, but Hezbollah itself has remained intact. The Iranian regime also has close ties to the Shi‘a-dominated government in Iraq -- many of whose members were in exile in Iran during the worst days of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule -- as well as the recently elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories. For many analysts, Iran’s most potent weapon of mass destruction is its ability to use terror to undermine the region’s stability and increase tensions between Israel and its neighbours.

Yet modern Iran is a society of many fascinating contradictions. It is the first country in the region to have an Islamic revolution but is also the country with the oldest home-grown struggle for a constitutionally-based government, with roots that extend back to 1911. The Islamic revolution of 1979 mandated that women wear veils in public, yet Iranian women are among the most highly educated in the Middle East. It is estimated that well over half of university students in Iran are female. And, despite certain institutional restrictions, they take part in almost every aspect of public life, and can even be elected to Iran’s parliament.

To be sure, the present Iranian regime continues to violate human rights, such as freedom of expression and association. Independent newspapers are routinely closed down, and political dissidents are frequently jailed for voicing criticisms of the government. U.S. policy towards Iran must precariously balance the need for creating incentives for the Iranian regime to enter into a serious dialogue over its nuclear program while at the same time not appearing to be appeasing the Iranian regime.

Fostering relations between American and Iranian civil society through renewed educational and cultural exchanges is one important step in the right direction. In the long run, U.S. interests are best served by those Iranians who are genuinely struggling for political reform in their own country and for better relations with the West. Taking a confrontational position against Iran with the implicit threat of possible military action will only further exacerbate already inflamed Muslim sentiment against the United States and embolden the hard-line elements with the Iranian polity. The time for Americans and Iranians to talk is now.

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* Rehan Rafay Jamil is a senior at Oberlin College where he is majoring in History and Politics. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

4) Sexypants and headscarf: when minds and spirits meet
Julia Suryakusuma

Jakarta - "The more things change, the more they remain the same." It was a Frenchman who first said that, but it could have been an Indonesian. Reformasi was a reaction to the New Order but in many ways it has become just a continuation of it -- sometimes in reverse.

The New Order, for example, was infamous for its efforts to impose uniformity. Today, eight years after Soeharto resigned, the new elites in our local governments are at it again, this time using Islam-inspired by-laws to impose conformity. Now it's not quasi-military uniforms but the jilbab (head-scarf) and "Muslim attire" that women are being forced to wear. And just like the New Order, even when it's not forced, there is pressure to comply. So-called "Muslim fashion" has become a new "uniform" imposed by a new bunch of authoritarians.

The tragedy of these repeated attempts to create one-size-fits-all Indonesians is that it just doesn't jibe with the social reality of Indonesia, which is way too complex to be contained in small rigid boxes. It's like trying to fit an elephant into a shoebox. No matter what the authorities do, people are not what they wear, and clothes conceal as much as they reveal.

Take me and one of my best friends, for example. People are puzzled by our friendship, because on the surface we are so different. Let's start with physical appearance. I am 1.72 metres tall and at 1.53 Neng is, well, petite. I wear make-up and jewellery but Neng never does. Sometimes my husband Tim calls me "sexypants" because I like to dress up and wear figure-hugging clothes. Neng dresses in modest, loose-fitting trousers and tops, in plain colours. She has short hair that she covers with a jilbab. Mine comes down almost to my waist and is never covered. Together, we really are the odd couple!

Neng says that wearing a jilbab makes her easily accepted in Muslim communities when she does grassroots gender training, gives seminars or attends Qur’anic recitals and other religious meetings. It's also part of her cultural background, since she hails from the Islamic stronghold of Labuan, Banten, and comes from a strong pesantren (Islamic boarding school) tradition. So she's used to wearing it and feels comfortable in it. Like me in my tank tops.

Neng's father is a landowner, a farmer, who only had an elementary school education. Despite this, he was an enlightened man. A kyai (religious leader), he believed strongly in education, establishing schools and even a university in Labuan. He urged his children to pursue their education to the university level. Today, four out of five of them are graduates. Neng herself earned a degree in comparative religion from Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University and a postgraduate degree in sociology from the University of Indonesia.

Ironically, while I come from an international, diplomatic background and my parents, who are also from West Java, lived in a more secular world, they never stressed education. My father would have been happy for me to be a secretary, an interpreter or a flight attendant (what a disaster that would have been!). Luckily, my parents come from a part of West Java that has always been a source of rebellion -- including the militant Islamic group Darul Islam! - and it seems I have inherited some of those genes. My rebellion, however, took the form of getting an education despite my parents and pursuing an intellectual jihad, rather than a bombing-people-we-don't-like jihad.

So Neng and I are two very different West Javanese Muslims. We may sometimes speak to each other in Sundanese, but it is not culture and ethnicity that makes us close; it's intellectual and spiritual connections. We share an appetite for knowledge and a belief in democracy, which despite its shortcomings is better than authoritarianism, religious or otherwise. And we belong to the same mutual admiration club!

I admire Neng for many things, including her understanding of Islam, both as scripture and practice. I admire the fact that because of her village origins and her academic achievements, she can straddle two Indonesian worlds, mediating and interpreting between the theoretical and the empirical. And I admire her role as one of the heads of the Fatayat NU, the women's wing of Nahdlatul Ulama, dedicated to empowering Muslim women in the villages.

Most of all, I admire Neng because it was through her that I first felt the beauty of Islam, especially its spirituality and subtle complexity in the Indonesian context. She believes that Islamic fundamentalism is "desert Islam", and inimical to Indonesia. She dreams of an Islam that is open, even to people with differing backgrounds, views and ways. This is why she says she can be close to me. If others see me merely as intellectual and sensual person, she sees the spiritual and even ascetic in me. Most of all, she admires my attitude of surrendering everything to God, which she says is the essence of Islam.

Could anyone perceive any of this if they saw us standing together? Could anyone guess that two Indonesians so different in appearance hold the top positions in each other's fan clubs? Would they even guess we share the same religion?

One thing I know for certain is that the narrow-minded men in Islamic outfits who drafted the by-laws that force women to wear the jilbab couldn't guess and probably couldn't care less either. And that makes them no different from the narrow-minded men in military uniforms who drafted the rules banning the jilbab under the New Order.

The only difference is that this time we voted for them -- and hopefully we'll vote them out one day!

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* Julia Suryakusuma is the author of Sex, Power and Nation. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Jakarta Post, 11 October 2006, www.thejakartapost.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

5) To build harmony, trumpet America's melody
John Ferguson

Bangkok – On Sept. 12, 2001, American culture suddenly became a premium export product. The attack that was both a tragedy and an awakening for our nation propelled my small non-profit organisation, American Voices, into overdrive and onto the stages of Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Almaty, Kazakhstan; and Beirut, Lebanon. Our mission is to bring American musicians and culture to parts of the world emerging from isolation or conflict. Overnight, we transformed from a quaint endeavour in the cold war's aftermath to an essential tool in communicating who we are as a people and as a nation.

I moved to Europe in 1989 to pursue my career as a concert pianist. Immediately, I was drawn into an exciting cultural dialogue with the newly open societies of Eastern Europe and the former USSR.

American Voices worked closely with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to provide performances and expertise. We also donated music scores and educational materials of American genres such as musical theatre, country, ragtime, jazz, blues and opera.

The intense dialogue of the early 1990s gradually slowed to a halt as Congress put an end to the USIA in 1999 with the rationale that we had "won the cold war." The short-sightedness of this decision became glaringly apparent as we woke to new realities and responsibilities in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.

As one of the few US arts organisations with extensive experience in the Middle East and Central Asia, American Voices was able to respond nimbly to the new challenges of communicating American culture and values abroad. Within months of the disaster, we were organising jazz festivals, Broadway shows and opera performances with Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Lebanese and Omani.

The culmination of these efforts was our Jazz Bridges Afghanistan project last October - the first concert of American music for an Afghan audience in more than 25 years. It was a heart-warming week in which we brought a quartet of jazz musicians together with five traditional Afghan musicians and an Afghan pop trio. Our concerts had the Afghan audience dancing in the aisles, and these joyous images were broadcast nationwide by radio and TV. This project will start to reach a wider audience in the West through our upcoming concerts in February 2007 at the festival of Muslim cultures in London.

After an initial surge of support from Congress and the White House in 2002, funding for cultural diplomacy has again run out of steam. However, the need to communicate our vision and values as a nation has never been more urgent. Given the huge audiences American cultural programs draw, the glee local media take in broadcasting our interactive performances and the tiny fraction of the federal government's budget that these programs cost, exporting our culture is cost-effective over the long term in promoting mutual understanding and, therefore, security.

Our culture is powerful. The musical art forms that America built grew from the intermingling of our myriad ethnic and folk traditions. They are among the best ways we have to communicate the best of what we are as a nation to the rest of the world.

It might be a stretch, but try for a moment to imagine the hope and inspiration a Broadway show, blues festival, break-dancing workshop or concert can bring to an entire nation emerging from isolation or conflict.

A frequent comment from Afghans who saw the performance in Kabul was, "Your concert makes us feel normal again." If you factor in local musicians performing these genres together with a handful of American soloists or, better yet, fusing their traditional music with ours, it becomes especially powerful.

There is still a deep well of appreciation for our culture and ideals. It would be wise public policy to nurture this appreciation. Through artistic dialogue, we can lead one another out of the gathering darkness of mutual distrust. The possibilities for this type of exchange are endless, and Americans, more than any others, have the means and the imperative to continue the communication.

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* John Ferguson is executive director of American Voices, a non-profit organisation based in Houston that brings American cultural diplomacy to more than 80 countries worldwide. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Christian Science Monitor, 10 October 2006, www.csmonitor.com
Copyright (c) The Christian Science Monitor.
For reprint permission please contact lawrenced@csps.com.

Youth Views
CGNews-PiH also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write to Chris Binkley (cbinkley@sfcg.org) for more information on contributing.

About CGNews-PiH
The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) provides news, op-eds, features and analysis by local and international experts on a broad range of issues affecting Muslim-Western relations. CGNews-PiH syndicates articles that are constructive, offer hope and promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news outlets worldwide. With support from the Norwegian government and the United States Institute of Peace, this news service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international NGO working in the field of conflict transformation.
This news service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan in June 2003.
The Common Ground News Service also commissions and distributes solution-oriented articles by local and international experts to promote constructive perspectives and encourage dialogue about current Middle East issues. This service, Common Ground News Service - Middle East (CGNews-ME), is available in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. To subscribe, click here. (http://www.sfcg.org/template/lists.cfm?list=cgnews)
The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.
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Andrew Kessinger (Washington)

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Rio Rinaldo (Jakarta)
Zeina Safa (Beirut)

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Posted by Evelin at October 26, 2006 09:30 PM