It’s a great honor for me to be here.  I’d like to just make a couple of introductory comments and then address some very specific thoughts that I have on the topic and a few anecdotes and try to preserve time for the question and answer session.  First, as it relates to the title of the forum today, I actually don’t think that the Western media covers Islam - ever.  Western media covers Muslims, the experiences that Muslims go through; such as the less than one percent that decide to get excited after the publishing of cartoons or after the Pope’s comments - these kinds of experiences.  But I do not believe, as someone who is very much a participant in the conversation in Western media, either on television or in print, that there is an analysis or a view of Islam per se, that happens in the discourse within the Western media.  And I would have to say that for me personally as a Muslim, I’m not really concerned with whether it is a negative perception or a positive perception.  I’m not interested in selling Islam.  I’m interested in whether we have an accurate perception of Islam because then folks in the West will be able to fashion a counter-extremism strategy that addresses the conversation from a legitimate perspective. And number two, we’ll be able to bridge this gap of engagement, this gap of conversation and dialogue with the Muslim world because we will understand what Islam is and what Islam is not, and who in fact speaks on behalf of Islam and Muslims and who does not.

So it’s very important to say it’s not about selling Islam.  It’s not about Islam having a positive image.  It’s about being able to accurately understand what it is that we are dealing with as a phenomenon, globally.

And some anecdotes: I grew up in southern California.  Most of my life was spent driving on the freeways.  I think much of the coverage of Islam and Muslims in Western media is similar to when you drive by a crash, or the evidence of a crash on the freeway.  When you drive by, you see a mangled car.  You might see some blood on the freeway.  You might see some sort of a remnant of a catastrophe.  You see the big things because you’re driving by real fast and you don’t get into how did this crash happen?  Who was driving?  Who’s been affected?  What are their lives like?  What are the factors that affect or that are affected by what had just happened in this accident, etc. 

So when we approach the discourse on Islam and Muslims as we are driving past a catastrophe on the freeway, we only get to see the most exaggerated, the most extreme, the most outrageous, and the most different from what we perceive to be the norm.  We don’t in fact engage in analysis that is sourced in a reasonable understanding.

And I will say finally as an introductory comment, I think it’s disingenuous for us to divorce the proposition that the media is a for-profit business from this conversation.  I don’t think that we should assume that the media has these altruistic standards and intentions, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, forever.  Rather, I think we should have this conversation within the context of understanding that this is a business, and businesses have to move along, and their advertisers have to give them money, and they have to have people that read their newspapers or people that watch their television shows.  And the reality of the matter is, 1.6 million people watch me when I’m on “The O’Reilly Factor.”  But when I’m on a show that has a different kind of a tone, fewer people watch.  And that’s the reality of what we have to think about on a day-to-day basis when we address this issue.

I would humbly suggest that much of the conversation in Western media about Muslims and Islam is very much sourced in a reductionist approach.  I think they are sourced in an ideology that is based in a ‘clash of civilizations understanding of the world’ and how it exists - an understanding that is determined by “us” and “them.”  Exactly what Mr. Huntington said.  And I would love another time to talk about Mr. Huntington’s newest book, entitled, “Who Are We?”  Are we Anglo-Protestants, or are we folks that are engaging in a deconstructionist movement in what America is?  But, that is a different conversation.

But what I think in terms of the discourse is much of what we hear in the media is “us and them,” the “West and the Muslim world.”  Islam and democracy or freedom as a uni-modal, uni-polar with a very polarized perspective.  And of course Mohammad Khatami of Iran responds to that by saying, “No, it’s not a clash.  We have a dialogue of civilizations.”  And then Amartya Sen said, “No, don’t say you want to have a ‘dialogue of civilizations’ because if you say dialogue of civilizations, you are allowing them to define us by uni-modal civilizations.  You are saying, yes, we are two different civilizations.  We should have a conversation between these two different civilizations.” 

I will give you an anecdote.  During the Lebanon war we did a lot of television, and one day a major cable network had a one-hour show and they were limiting the conversation to seven commentators.  The top of the hour comes in the middle of the war with Lebanon, and the first person on TV is Binjamin Netanyahu and Binjamin Netanyahu’s perspective is, this is too late.  There are not enough troops and we need to amplify, we need to amplify the activities in Lebanese territory.

After him comes Pat Robertson from the Holy Land, and he is asked the question, “Do you, Mr. Robertson, see this as a holy war?  Is this a spiritual matter for you?”  And he says, “Absolutely.  This is a war of good and evil and I am here with my Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel to stand on the side of good.”  To stand on the side of good.  And he said later that Islam itself is a violent religion and the majority of Muslims around the world are not violent because they don’t understand their religion and they don’t understand how to apply their religion in a way that is consistent with the tradition of the Prophet and the Qur’an itself.  And after that comes a neo-conservative commentator that says very clearly that what is happening, what we need, are strikes against Iran and Syria.  This is not a war with Lebanon.  This is a war with Hezbollah and therefore a war with Iran and we need to start to strike Iran and Syria. 

This is the tone of a prime time conversation, not hosted by an exaggerated or outrageous host that wants to shock people.  No, by a very reasonable, very moderate person that is attempting to engage in a very intelligent conversation.  And then Ahmed Younis comes on the screen and Ahmed Younis says, “Netanyahu’s wrong, Falwell’s wrong, Robertson’s wrong, this is not a clash of civilizations.  The American Muslim community at the apex of the war on terrorism, we’re doing the National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism in our mosques, we’re protecting our financial institutions this way from being used by saboteurs to finance terrorism, blah, blah, blah.” 

Now 20 years ago there would not have been that Ahmed Younis voice.  I mean, when I was in college, the institution that I work for now had probably one-tenth of the media exposure that it has today, and this is one of the most exposed Muslim institutions in the country.  So I am not here to say there is a Zionist conspiracy in the media and we’re blocked out and we don’t get to speak and we don’t get to engage in the conversation.  No.  I’m saying it’s a slowly changing reality that I would posit to you is fundamentally intertwined with the ability of Muslims in America to integrate into the larger pluralism of America, into the larger fabric of the society around them.  And we have a very basic, anecdotal proposition that we try to make that might or might not be true, but for the most part we say that Muslims in America are socially and economically integrated into the mainstream of society.  Their families make more money than the average American families; and their families have more education than the average American family.  They are not necessarily going to work and interacting with people of the same demographic and then going home.  They are integrated into the larger pluralism of society.

Whereas we always say Muslims in America are politically excluded from the mainstream.  Again, not because there is a conspiracy, but because the trajectory of integration necessitates that you have one experience before you have the other.  You have the socioeconomic experience before you have the political experience. Whereas, Muslims in Europe, for the most part, are socially and economically excluded from the mainstream of their societies.  The litmus tests to determine that are many.  The institutions and others who have an organic representation of their communities throughout Europe and the US get some airtime.  I would posit to you that the more you see Muslims on TV, not necessarily the Muslims that are freaking out, they are consistently asked “were the protests on the street against terrorism?” …  and now we have Mr. Ahmed Younis representing the Muslims and the host asking, “What the hell is going on with you guys?” Not that kind of a representation which is only focused on explaining or commenting on violence done by Muslims.  That kind of representation is very important and we’re glad to do it because we’ve been fighting to be able to participate in that way for so long.

But when Anderson Cooper is an American Muslim, then we’re talking about integration.  Right?  And when the people that are driving the ideas, when the young producers are American Muslims having an organic experience in the Muslim community, not pushing Muslim issues, not pushing an American Muslim perspective, but by being an organic part of the system, you are bringing something new.

We don’t have a black woman as a secretary of state because she is representing black women.  We have a black woman as secretary of state because we recognize the importance of that type of diversity in the groups of people that we present as representing America and in the people that are around the table.  Around the decision-making table, where you come from will necessarily affect what you say and how you contribute to the conversation as a whole.

I’ll give you another example.  President Bush made the unfortunate mistake, in my humble judgment, of using the term “Islamic fascists.” It is the same problem as when you call them jihadists.  You are amplifying their Muslim identity, amplifying their Islamic legitimacy, the only legitimizer in that part of the world, and you are de-legitimizing or playing down the Muslim identity of moderates.

There is nothing Islamic about their fascism.  And really they can’t even get it together to the point where they could be called fascists, but even if you call them fascists, there is nothing Islamic about their fascism.  There is nothing jihad-oriented about their terrorism and their criminal activity.

When President Bush used that phrase, it was at the American Legion conference.  I had an opportunity to be at an earlier conference, trans-partisan with 25 people in the middle of the mountains of Colorado that come from different places on the political spectrum.  One those was a top person at the American Legion magazine and he said to me, at the end of the weekend, “You guys have this national grassroots campaign to fight terrorism, you’re doing all this stuff to protect the nation, you’re doing all this stuff to counter the ideological arguments of the extremists and have books in Arabic and in English and in Russian for much of Central Asia and its Muslim population, and so on.  What I want you to do is to write an article for the American Legion magazine. 1.8 million veterans will read this article, and I want you to put pictures of Muslims marching against terrorism and I want you to explain to everyone what Muslims are doing to fight for the security of America.”

I would have never guessed that the issue that comes out with that article in it is at the conference where my president uses the term Islamic fascist.  That is an example.  It’s just an anecdote of how there can be an advancement for a perspective that is more inclusive, if there are partnerships and communications and coordination and interactions between different groups of the American pluralism.

I want to talk about Arab media very, very briefly.  I am someone that consumes a lot of Arabic language media.  I’ve lived in the Arab and Muslim world for a number of years in my development.  On the streets of Cairo, I’m more Egyptian than the average Egyptian guy, and in the water of Long Beach, California, I’m more Long Beach than the Long Beach guy.  The majority of the conversation in Arab media is mainstream or moderate – and I will define moderate in a second.  It avoids extremism.  It is focused on getting young people away from the influence of drugs and alcohol.  It is focused on ensuring that there are avenues and opportunities for engagement by young people into the society that exists around them.

I have my disagreements with al-Jazeerah and I have my disagreements with al-Arabiya and I tell the folks that work there all the time about those disagreements.  But what I think is fascinating about their treatment in Western media is that we bash al-Jazeerah and al-Arabiyah and these institutions left and right, we vilify them and then we use their pictures from the ground.  And they are excluded from the conversation as representatives of the average perspective on the ground, but we use their pictures and we use their information.  I find that to be absolutely fascinating, that the satellite channels that come from the Arab world, in my humble judgment, do better in live coverage, do better in coverage on the ground of what is happening, do better in discussion programs.  I find folks that bring a real analysis to the conversation.  They do better in the diversity of the substance that is presented on their airwaves than we are able to produce.  And that is coming from someone like myself who is on CNN and Fox News and MSNBC on a weekly basis very, very consistently and very frequently.

The American Muslim community in a post 9/11 context has two primary contributions to make to the rest of the world.  Number one, I believe that American Muslims can contribute to the integration, to be a catalyst in the integration of Muslim communities throughout the West.  There are fundamental distinctions between the American experience for Muslims and the European experience for Muslims.  The Muslims of America are the children of the Cold War.  The Muslims of Europe are the children of a colonial experience.  And much of the integration difference that arises between them has to do with that history.  It has to do with differences in the constitutional structures of these societies… 

There have been young people that I have met in places like Malaysia that have disavowed their support of Osama bin Laden after understanding the concept called “the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.”  It happened - in my own lifetime I’ve seen it happen - those people just beginning to understand grand concepts which mean something to them.

Number two, the American Muslim community through its scholars can contribute to ijtihad, to the application and analysis of the founding principles of Islam, and they are found in the Koran and in the authenticated traditions of the prophet to a modern-day context.  And I agree fully with what was said.  In the Muslim world, the extremist says, “AL-Sharia (THE law)  Because, if you disagree with me, you are not following the law.”  The perception of the Arab and Muslim world of the United States is exactly the same, as Al-democracy.  If you do not apply the democracy that you see here in the U.S., as it is realized today, then you are not in fact engaged in a real democracy.  And I think that’s something we really have to understand and be more sensitive to.

The majority of the populations of the world want freedom, they want democracy.  But do they want American-style or do they want any democracy?  Probably not.  Maybe it’s because they don’t understand it, they don’t like what they see that’s coming from American-style democracy.  We have to reassess what is the nature of the conversation.  Are we contributing to this conversation in a way that edifies what’s happening on the ground?

A moderate is not someone that comes to tell any political administration what it wants to hear.  A moderate is not someone that goes on television here and says what the average viewer wants to hear.  A Muslim moderate is defined by the Koran.  It has to do with how you read the text of the Qur’ an, how you apply the traditions of the prophet, whether you are universalizing experiences or verses that were specific to historical context, etc.  There is a clear set of definitions for what a Muslim moderate is.  It has to do with perspectives on the role of women in the public square, the protection of religious minorities in Muslim societies, the recognition of Shi’a communities as orthodox to the global Muslim Ummah and the permissibility of the use of violence as a means for political change, among many others.  Moderates can be religiously conservative or liberal.

And the attempt to secularize Muslims as a prerequisite for freedom or democracy is a fundamental mistake.  I am trying to prove that the ‘American Muslim’ identity is true, and it is based on the proposition that there is neither dissonance nor friction between the founding principles of Islam and the founding principles of the United States.  That means you can be 100 percent of both.  One hundred percent American and 100 percent Muslim.  Only that experience can edify the attempt in Central Asia or in Malaysia or in Indonesia or wherever, at building a Muslim identity that is organic to where these people live and is consistent with their culture and fits within the broader global pluralism which is called  the Muslim Ummah.

Thank you very much.