America still has a great capacity for self-correction

25/8/2010

My column from today's edition of Gulf News looks, again, at the debate surrounding the Muslim Cultural Center in New York and at the broader debate about Islam in the United States.

On one level, the bigotry on display has been appalling. There are, however, reasons to have hope.

Lars Nielsen link

28/8/2010 06:12:44 am

Gordon-Terrific piece, sobering, yet offering hope.

As Frank Rich pointed out in a recent column, the same people who insistthat we persist to "win" the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with overwhelmingly Islamic populations are most anti-Islamic. How do we "win" those conflicts, or more importantly help those socieites in significantn ways while despisiing the majority religion? In addition, what beter recruiting tool to we give a floundering Al-Qaeda than our lack of tolerance? In fact, even the word "tolerance", as Derrida pointed out, after 9/11, is not strong enough. We must offer "hospitality" as he said, not the mere, minimal, grudging quality of tolerance.

Keep up the good work!

Lars Nielsen
Admunct Professor, Political Science,
Norwich University

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America still has a great capacity for self-correction

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