Forum explores ways to improve US-Islamic world relations

Forum explores ways to improve US-Islamic world relations

by Staff Writer
Associated Press
09/13/2004

MACON, Ga. - The war on terrorism cannot be won unless Americans make a better effort to understand how U.S. policies in the Middle East have contributed to resentment against the United States, speakers said at a town hall meeting Sunday.

More than 70 people attended the forum on U.S.-Islamic world relations at Wesleyan College, one of 30 colleges and universities around the country participating in a program by Americans for Informed Democracy called Hope Not Hate.

Speaker Hani Khoury, a math professor at Mercer University, said Sunday that most people do not understand how U.S. involvement in Middle East politics have contributed to increasing acts of terrorism.

"What about policies that lead people to become crazy, to commit such terrible acts," said Khoury, who grew up in Palestine and is now a U.S. citizen. "There is a moral equivalence in the taking of a life and the destroying of a life."

Politicians and the media also have misled Americans into having a generally negative attitude toward people who are Muslims, said Khoury, who said he is Christian.

"It seems like the word Islam is connected to every atrocity that is committed," he said.

Speaker Deanna West of the Atlanta-based National Center for Human Rights Education said Americans view themselves as "lovers of freedom and democracy," but make a common mistake in viewing others as "uncivilized" if their culture and politics are different.

West encouraged Americans to urge their leaders to "play fair" in world affairs by sharing their opinions with politicians and the media.

"Democracy cannot be established by the barrel of a gun," West said. "Human rights cannot be furthered through war."

The Hope Not Hate program, which culminates with a videoconference between U.S. and Islamic world colleges and universities on Oct. 12, holds its next forum at Emory University in Atlanta on Monday night.

ON THE NET

Hope Not Hate: http://www.hopenothate.org