Conquering hearts and minds
Condoleezza Rice announces a new turn in US strategy in a speech to USIP: "We must also do everything that we can to support and encourage the voices of moderation and tolerance and pluralism within the Muslim world.... Americans also need to hear the stories of the people of the Muslim world. We need to understand their challenges and their cultures and their hopes; to speak their languages and read their literature; to know their cultures in the deepest sense. Our interaction must be a conversation, not a monologue. We must reach out and explain, but we must also listen."
One sceptic asks: "why is it that in the three years since 9/11 you haven't given this kind of a speech to a Muslim audience in one of the five largest Muslim countries, nor has any senior administration official?"
US consulate Mumbai press release, 20 August 2004
Ali H. Aslan isn't impressed either: "Aren't voices of moderation and tolerance in the Islamic world muted, when Rumsfeld's Pentagon and Ashcroft's FBI treat every Muslim on earth and in the U.S. as a potential enemy and terrorist?"
Bob Pitt