Bush Still Doesn't Get It
By Akbar Ahmed
Washington Post
Here's a bit of modern-day heresy: President Bush actually has some rather sound instincts about the Muslim world. He has visited mosques more often than any of his predecessors, and he frequently talks of winning Muslim hearts and minds. So why are those hearts and minds so estranged today? What went wrong?
The problem is that Bush has relied on ill-informed advisers and out-of-touch experts. By substituting their false expertise for his own sensible intuitions, he has failed to understand the Muslim world -- which means he has failed to understand the arena in which the first post-9/11 presidency will be judged. Instead of seriously explaining Muslim societies that are profoundly split in complex ways, Bush's aides have offered a fatally flawed stereotype of Islam as monolithic and violent.
These missteps have helped squander the potential goodwill of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- countries that pose major threats to U.S. security, and countries that once saw themselves as U.S. friends. (When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, I was the administrator in charge of south Waziristan, the lawless border region of Pakistan where Osama bin Laden is now said to be hiding, and I saw how appreciative Muslims were of U.S. support.) Today, rather than extending his hand to the people of Pakistan, Bush is marching in lockstep with the country's fading dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is mockingly referred to as "Busharraf."
Errors like this are tragic -- and avoidable. Galvanized by the need to help Americans better comprehend the Muslim world, I traveled last year to the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, accompanied by a group of American researchers. We conducted interviews; we met with presidents, prime ministers, sheiks and students; we visited mosques, madrassas and universities. During our travels, we found something far more subtle than the Bush administration's caricature. Americans often hear of a faith neatly split between "moderates" and "extremists." In fact, we discovered three broad categories of Muslim responses to the modern world: the mystics, the modernists and the literalists.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
Here's a bit of modern-day heresy: President Bush actually has some rather sound instincts about the Muslim world. He has visited mosques more often than any of his predecessors, and he frequently talks of winning Muslim hearts and minds. So why are those hearts and minds so estranged today? What went wrong?
The problem is that Bush has relied on ill-informed advisers and out-of-touch experts. By substituting their false expertise for his own sensible intuitions, he has failed to understand the Muslim world -- which means he has failed to understand the arena in which the first post-9/11 presidency will be judged. Instead of seriously explaining Muslim societies that are profoundly split in complex ways, Bush's aides have offered a fatally flawed stereotype of Islam as monolithic and violent.
These missteps have helped squander the potential goodwill of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- countries that pose major threats to U.S. security, and countries that once saw themselves as U.S. friends. (When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, I was the administrator in charge of south Waziristan, the lawless border region of Pakistan where Osama bin Laden is now said to be hiding, and I saw how appreciative Muslims were of U.S. support.) Today, rather than extending his hand to the people of Pakistan, Bush is marching in lockstep with the country's fading dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is mockingly referred to as "Busharraf."
Errors like this are tragic -- and avoidable. Galvanized by the need to help Americans better comprehend the Muslim world, I traveled last year to the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, accompanied by a group of American researchers. We conducted interviews; we met with presidents, prime ministers, sheiks and students; we visited mosques, madrassas and universities. During our travels, we found something far more subtle than the Bush administration's caricature. Americans often hear of a faith neatly split between "moderates" and "extremists." In fact, we discovered three broad categories of Muslim responses to the modern world: the mystics, the modernists and the literalists.
(Continued here.)
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