Remarks Before the American Muslim Council

Samuel R. Berger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

I'm delighted to speak before the American Muslim Council, and to discuss with you our vital relationship with the Muslim world -- a relationship that has received too little attention among foreign policy elites.

I'm proud to speak with you today for a few reasons. First, as a general rule, I think it's important for the President's foreign policy advisers to meet representatives of ethnic and religious groups in the United States.

You understand the immediate impact of our policy abroad. Your support for what we do -- or at least, your clear understanding of our thinking -- strengthens our policy and increases its likelihood of success. One of the most positive forces for a principled, purposeful American foreign policy is the engagement of Americans with roots overseas.

I am also proud to speak to you because American Muslims have a critically important role to play as a bridge between the United States and the Muslim world.

Our relationship with the Islamic community is vital to almost everything we are trying to do, from Kosovo to the Middle East to Asia. We have come a long way toward deepening the relationship but we have a long way still ahead.

From the time President Clinton took the oath of office, this Administration has reached out to the Muslim community worldwide. The President's respect for Islam proceeds from a basic grasp of two facts.

One, Muslims constitute a quarter of the world's population; it is self-evident you will play an important role in shaping the world of the next century. Two, Muslims are rapidly redefining our own nation. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, practiced by some six million Americans, in over 1200 mosques and Islamic centers.

The President and First Lady have sought to learn more about Islam and the Muslim world in a variety of ways. They have traveled extensively to Muslim nations, from Indonesia to Central Asia to Africa, seeking to strengthen our bonds and work as partners. Last October's Wye agreement came about in no small measure because of the President's insistence that Palestinians, whether Muslim or Christian, be treated as full and equal partners. In November, he proposed sending $400 million over three years to the Palestinian people as part of the Wye Supplemental.

In December, he delivered a historic address in Gaza to members of the Palestinian National Council. And just last week, he wrote to Chairman Arafat to reaffirm our support for the aspirations of the Palestinian people to determine their own future on their own land.

We have also committed to bolster Jordan's economy as it undergoes a transition to a new leader and bolstered our relations with countries like Egypt, or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.

Here at home, the President and First Lady have met with and reached out to members of the American Muslim community. The First Lady inaugurated what I hope will become a long tradition at the White House by celebrating the end of Ramadan with Muslims. And just this week, the President appointed Laila Al-Marayati, a Muslim, as a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Importantly, the President has made a conscious effort to dispel the old stereotypes of Islam, both in his aggressive search for peace in the Middle East, and in his public statements.

Last September, he gave the keynote speech at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. The thrust of the speech concerned terrorism -- a problem many Americans mistakenly link to Islam. The President stated what has always been our position that we abhor terrorism and its pursuit of innocent victims. But he went to great lengths to say that "there is no contradiction between Islam and America."

Perhaps most clearly, Bosnia and Kosovo have refuted the claim that Islam and the West are locked in a clash of civilizations. What Kosovo proves, beyond a doubt is that Western and Islamic nations can unite to fight evil and protect innocent people -- no matter what their background. There is no clash of civilizations -- just a clash of values between those who seek a future of peace and prosperity and those who maintain power by resorting to violence and hatred.

We are not fighting for Muslims against Orthodox Christians in Kosovo -- we are fighting against the notion that at the end of the 20th century, people can be singled out for destruction and expulsion because of their faith or heritage. Two days ago, at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, the President said that kind of policy makes life unbearable and civilization impossible." That is why we have opposed violence against the Kurds and Marsh Arabs in Iraq, against Muslims in Bosnia, against Serbs in Krajina, and now against Albanians in Kosovo.

I heard some heart-rending stories yesterday at a Kosovar refugee center in Germany. Women raped. Men rounded up to be killed and burned. Perhaps the most eloquent statement came from a young man who took the microphone, paused for a long time to compose himself, and then sat back down in tears. "I cannot talk about Kosovo," he said sadly.

These emotionally battered survivors reaffirm our determination to restore decent lives to a people whose only crime is that they want to enjoy their culture and their faith.

We will not rest until the Serb forces have withdrawn from Kosovo, the refugees have returned home, and an international security force is in place to protect ethnic Serbs and Albanians alike. Nineteen allies, from across Europe and North America, with different political cultures and different relationships to the Balkans, are in complete agreement. We must do right by the people of Kosovo if we are to do right by the generation before us who fought fascism and the generation of our children who deserve a different future.

The Kosovo conflict has been agonizing for all parties involved though we should remember it took four years to build an allied consensus in Bosnia, and only after 250,000 people had died. And in confronting this issue, the United States has worked closely with Islamic nations to address the urgent needs of the Kosovar refugees. The contributions have come from all over -- including generous shipments of food, medicine and supplies from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey -- which has taken in more refugees than any non-front-line state. That generosity has stirred the world.

It's undeniable that stereotypes still endure. Images of America as anti-Muslim and anti-Arab still pervade the Muslim world; images of Islam as a hotbed of fanaticism and terrorism remain here. There has been plenty of misunderstanding and miscommunication on both sides.

Now we must make an effort to overcome such prejudices and forge common cause for the things we all care about in the future: peace, self-respect, and cooperation.

That is the wave of the future. It must include people from the entire world, irrespective of religion, nationality or ethnic origin.

Many Islamic nations continue to doubt our intentions. But the old labels of hegemony and Great Satan will not stick. The United States believes that governments and economies work better when individuals are allowed to make political and economic decisions for themselves -- but this is not an ideological straitjacket we are seeking to impose on others. Rather, we are eager to help Muslim nations test that belief for themselves, and on their own terms.

As you know all too well, many Americans are naive about Islam. They think it is monolithic and uniform, or confined to the Middle East, or absent from the United States of course, none of these are true. The same woman who might be arrested for wearing a head scarf in Turkey might be arrested for refusing to wear a veil in Afghanistan. Malaysia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, and Senegal are worlds apart from each other. Even neighbors are very different ... Jordan and Syria ... Syria and Iraq ... Iraq and Iran. Simplistic images lead to simplistic policies we need to deal with the world as it is.

To consider the nations of Islam, in all their diversity, is to contemplate the future of the world. It is a future that could go in several directions. We can see enormous potential for Muslim nations across the world. Despite huge challenges, and ongoing violence, Indonesia has a chance to embrace democracy and economic reform this summer.

Nigeria, a nation roughly half Muslim (48%), is also preparing for a historic transition. Morocco is making remarkable progress toward pluralism and democracy. In Iran, we see and hear the rising voices of reform. In Jordan, King Abdullah, who will fill his father's large shoes well, has acted quickly to strengthen his nation's economy and improve its ties to the rest of the world. I look forward to his visit here on May 18.

But there are also reasons to be worried. The nuclear tension between Pakistan and India began with religious rivalry. Central Asia is a volatile realm of competing political and economic interests. In Algeria, violence continues to take its deadly toll. There are unspeakable penalties imposed upon women in Afghanistan. And there are still too many countries in the Muslim world -- stretching from Mauritania to Malaysia -- with pockets of desperate poverty. Let's face it: another century of poverty will breed another century of hatred.

A key source of tension between the United States and the Muslim world is the ongoing situation with Iraqi sanctions. Everyone believes that the Iraqi people deserve a chance to lead better lives. But those sanctions remain in place for a specific reason -- they have deprived Saddam Hussein of $120 billion of oil revenue he would use to rebuild his arsenal and attack his neighbors. He certainly would not use it to help the people he has gassed, terrorized and suppressed since coming to power. We were prepared to move forward with oil-for-food as early as 1991, but Saddam would not countenance the idea until forced to do so in 1996. We want to do whatever is necessary to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, and we are willing to increase oil-for-food accordingly.

We have never sought to hurt innocent people -- we have only tried to stop Saddam from inflicting more unnecessary pain on them.

The way these troubled places define their future, for better or worse, will determine much of the character of the next century. If we work hard to nurture the positive developments, hand-in-hand with our Muslim partners, and if we give problems the consideration they deserve, we can crush the clash of civilizations theory once and for all.

In the process, we will help ourselves, and we will relearn a crucial lesson of our own history; people of different faiths have to coexist, even if they do not like everything about each other.

That is one of the reasons Kosovo is so important. Because there are so many other people in other places struggling to learn its lesson. That depriving a people of their humanity based on their religion or ethnicity cannot be permitted to succeed if we are to enter a new century less bloody than the one we are leaving.

Islam, like all great religions, places a high value on the sense that each person is part of a larger community. That we are uplifted by our kindness to people we do not know. That we are ennobled by our respect for each other, no matter how dissimilar we appear on the surface.

One of the most unforgettable moments of an unforgettable year was the funeral of King Hussein last winter. People of all nations came to pay respect, from East and West, Muslim and non-Muslim, royalty and commoners.

It was a remarkable spectacle ... a mass of humanity, joined in bereavement for an extraordinary life that stood for our ability to overcome the boundaries that divide us.

That day marked the end of an era stretching back across nine presidencies -- an era of great progress, but also of too much tension between the world's Muslims and the United States.

A new era is beginning, marked not only by a change in a calendar -- not only by new ways to communicate -- but by a confluence of events that has brought Muslim nations and the United States together for the same good reasons in Kosovo. Together, we are protecting the right of a people to inhabit not only their homes, but their interpretation of the house of God as well.

We must seize this opportunity to build upon our history. The President has often noted the paradox that our supremely modern global civilization is still bedeviled by ancient animosities. Nothing mankind has conceived of is more profound than our soaring capacity to imagine a divine being -- and nothing has done more to divide us than religion.

Millennium or no millennium, the time has come to face up to our oldest problem.