US envoy sees new moderate leadership in Muslim world

* Pakistani-American envoy to tour 17 Muslim states to highlight shared Muslim-US values

DAKAR: Sada Cumber, the Pakistani-American tasked with improving the image of the United States to Muslims, says he sees a new more moderate leadership in the Islamic world that will make his tough mission easier.

The technology tycoon, who swapped Karachi for Texas 31 years ago, also told AFP in an interview that many major religions face the same kind of ‘bigotry’ as Muslims who have launched a campaign against ‘Islamophobia’.

The widely debated “clash of civilizations” is really a “clash of ignorance”, said Cumber, who this month became the first US special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and launched his campaign at the 57-nation group’s summit in Dakar on Thursday and Friday.

The United States is widely criticised in Muslim states for the Iraq war, the Guantanamo “war on terror” prison camp and its policy in the Middle East.

OIC declarations frequently “condemn” US policy and Cumber’s nomination has been criticised by US foes such as Iran and treated with suspicion by others. Polls in the United States indicate however that many Americans are equally suspicious of Muslims, particularly after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Cumber said he would inform President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the OIC is changing.

“I think we need to learn more about each other, and the way things are going on in this conference I can almost see the new leadership moving into moderation and that alone is very encouraging news.”

Leaders complained widely during the summit about ‘Islamophobia’ in the West — Muslims portrayed as terrorists, Danish blasphemous cartoons, and an anti-Islam film to be released by a far-right Dutch MP..

Cumber said everyone at the summit understood that only a “minute minority” was involved.

“Very few people do [engage in] this anti-religion, and they don’t leave Jews alone, they don’t leave Christians alone and they don’t leave Muslims alone.”

He added, “They are bigots and bigotry will always be there. So how much time, effort, assets, whatever, do you want to invest in that?” He called for more attention to “build a very strong civil society” in the Muslim world.

“We should build a society where our children are educated and they are healthy and they are prosperous and there is stability in the regions. Once this comes in then the bigotry gets mitigated automatically.” Cumber said the West and the Muslim world must both get ‘engaged’ to end tensions.

Same values: The envoy said he would tour 17 Muslim nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa next month and was ready to “knock on doors” to repeatedly put across the US message to doubters that Muslim and American values are the same.

Cumber, who is an Ismaili Muslim, would be a special envoy for the remaining nine months of Bush’s term and insisted he had no regrets accepting the tough post from his fellow Texan. Cumber said that when researching the OIC’s 10-year-plan — which calls for building up education, science and technology, the status of women and human rights — “I thought oh my goodness, I think the Muslim values that they are aspiring here are exactly in sync with American values.”.”

Muslim suspicion of America is a ‘misperception’, he added.

“If you look at the core values, the pure ethics of America, respect for religion, deep respect for religion is a part of our core values, so I don’t know where this has come from, because there are 12,000 mosques in America, there are five million Muslims practising,” he added. afp

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