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June 22, 2006 HOW TO TACKLE ANTISEMITISM AND ANTI-AMERICANISM IN THE MUSLIM WORLD A Conversation with Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University. Akbar Ahmed, whom the BBC has described as the leading authority on contemporary Islam, reports on his recent trip through the Muslim world, where he spoke at universities, mosques, and madrassahs and interviewed President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, as well as a number of clerics, scholars, and others. Ambassador Ahmed undertook the trip on behalf of the Brookings Institution, the Pew Center, and American University. At the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dr. Ahmed discussed his findings publicly for the first time. |
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Transcript: DR. AHMED: The Holocaust – for me – was an unprecedented tragedy on several levels: the human level, the moral level, and then the failure of the modern state in protecting its own minorities. And this failure has direct lessons for us today where so many minorities are suffering in states which have majorities determined to use repressive measures which create terrible conditions for minorities. Each and every one of us needs to be aware that minorities in one part of the world can be majorities in another part of the world. And therefore we need to be conscious of the rights that each one of us must be given, not as a favor but as part of the charter of living in a civilized world. And if we do not – if we do not find such a way – we will face a dangerous and uncertain and violent time into the 21st Century. |
