Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Permanent Committee for Organizing Conferences
the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution
PRESS RELEASE:
Closing Lunch
Remarks
2006 U.S.-Islamic World
Forum
Peter W. Singer
Senior Fellow of
Foreign Policy Studies, and Director of the Project on U.S. Policy
towards the Islamic World in the Saban Center at the Brookings
Institution.
As we bring this forum to a close, I
think it is useful to reflect back to the themes that brought us
here. Change and leadership. There are always two sides to change.
Change can be positive and welcome, change can be dangerous and
stressful. Change can solve problems and improve conditions. There
is a popular saying in South Asia "Barkat Hey Harkat Mey"—"There is
blessing in change."Change can result in more fulfillment and
happiness. Growth is change. All forms of life move towards growth.
Growth is natural. Change is natural. But change be feared. Just as
life is change, death is change as well. Just as change can improve,
change can be disruptive and destructive.
There was great debate at this forum
about whether the changes we are witnessing are positive or
negative. For example, what is interesting is that both American and
Muslim leaders here are divided over whether the changes we are
seeing in the Palestinian Territories and Iraq are of the positive
or the negative. I think part of this is that change in and of
itself can be overwhelming. Any kind of transition increases
anxiety, fear of change, a worry about result. I spend much time on
planes and a magazine article I read compared change diving off a
swimming board –Standing on the board isn’t scary, being in the
water is fine. It’s the period in between. It is the falling part
that is scary. Change is like that.
Sometimes change
happens from specific plans for change, from what we call "agents of
change." It can come from the outside, such as through a new
American interest in democratization, or from within, which is
essentially what the entire agenda of reform in the Middle East is
about, be it from governments or civil society. Sometimes, change is
led by forces outside any one agent's controls. The discussion of
how technology are changing security, markets shaping development
and the arts, and the massive demographic changes—100 million new
jobseekers!—altering politics and the economy, all reflect that.
Sometimes change can be easily
predicted. There are so many issues that we discussed that we can
see will harken great changes. For example, at the phenomenal
session yesterday at lunch we heard about a new generation of women
leaders, moving into business and politics. It is clear that this
will create change. Sometimes, changes should be predictable and yet
we act surprised at this. The victory by Hamas has seemed so
shocking, not merely to American leaders, but also to Arab and
Muslim leaders, but indeed to Hamas itself, that no one seemed
prepared for something that now seems so blindingly obvious.
Sometimes change is truly
unpredictable. Who gathered here last year would have predicted that
a central issue that we would have to deal with in U.S. Muslim
relations would be an insulting and tasteless cartoon in a Danish
newspaper? And yet we must. Perhaps the only thing we can say is
that change is inevitable and change inevitably changes the way we
view each other and ourselves.
As we gather here, I think back to
the forces that bring us together almost 5 years since 9-11. For me
personally and for my generation 9-11 was a force that changed my
generation. It reshaped global politics, creating as our colleague
Shibley Telhami puts it, a new prism through which we both view the
world and act within it.
For myself, I lost two friends on
9-11, Rama and Mickey, who were a couple on board the flight from
Los Angeles that was crashed into the World Trade Center. Rama and
Mickey were both Muslim. They were all that was noble about both
Islam and change.
They were Muslims who had founded
their own computer software company, based in the U.S. and South
Asia, they were models of how Muslim could thrive in the 21st
century economy. At the same time, Rama was pregnant, timeless
change. So for me 9-11 was about change, about those that could not
accept change trying to fight change, to bring back the dark ages
rather than accept the 21st century. But you cannot defeat change.
And that to me is what this Forum is about.
It is about American and Muslim
world leaders gathering and saying that we accept that change is
happening and want to understand it better.
We are creatures of habit. But
change requires new ways of thinking, breaking old habits. We wrap
ourselves in the garments of status quo concepts as if we could not
live without them. And yet, now we must change—change our way of
thinking and interacting.
The Forum is also about American and
Muslim world leaders from all sectors gathering and saying that they
want to do something about change to ensure that it is positive not
negative. As our arts panel would have it, it is appropriate that I
reference the true agent of change of America—Hollywood. The most
popular TV show right now among American youth is the show "The OC."
In it, a character had this saying: "You can either ride change, or
change can ride you."
And that is what the leaders
gathered here the last 3 days have done. They have focused on how
they can develop strategies for managing change in a positive
direction, in areas ranging from youth and development to reform and
security.
They have also sparked a series of
actions that are exciting and inspiring. One of the most fun aspects
of this meeting for me is visiting each of the sessions and hearing
about the developments and linkages that are taking place.
Ones that I have listened to range
from large-scale agendas like:
·
the science
and technology partnership session's 10 point action plan that will
begin in May,
·
a new
initiative on public and private partnerships in youth development,
·
an American
media organization developing a partnership with TV channels in the
Arab world and Pakistan,
·
the linkages
made between American and Muslim arts and culture leaders which have
raised discussions of follow-up arts festivals, seminars for
catalytic funding, and similar gatherings in Hollywood and
Washington to widen the discussion,
·
to contacts
made on a personal basis, from the discussion in the hallways and
over meals,
Peter
W. Singer
Peter W. Singer is a Senior Fellow
of Foreign Policy Studies, and Director of the Project on U.S.
Policy towards the Islamic World in the Saban Center at the
Brookings Institution. He previously served as an Action Officer on
the Balkans Task Force, Office of the Secretary of Defense. His
book, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military
Industry, won an American Political Science Association award for
the best political science publication in the field of U.S. national
policy. His second book, Children at War, is presently being made
into an A&E/History Channel documentary.
He is presently working on a third
book, Digital Warriors: Science Fiction, Science Reality and the
21st Century Battlefield. He received an A.B. from Princeton
University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In 2005, CNN named
him to their “New Guard” list of next generation newsmakers.
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