One year ago in Cairo, President Obama promised America and the world's Muslims a new beginning "based on mutual interest and mutual respect." Translating this message into better relationships will take action from all of us.
In the coming weeks, I will introduce a bill in Congress to create a new professional exchange program between the United States and Muslim-majority countries. This pilot program would allow young American professionals to spend six months overseas experiencing a new culture in Muslim countries while gaining new work experiences. And it would allow citizens of those countries to spend six months in the United States, where they will gain valuable work skills and see what life in America is all about. In a small but significant way, both journeys will help to lay the groundwork for improved relations going forward.
We've done this before. After World War II, our leaders -- and particularly a young senator from Arkansas named J. William Fulbright -- recognized the value of building bridges through exchanges. While the Fulbright program began modestly in 1946, today, 300,000 men and women have been proudly called "Fulbrighters." The alumni list includes 40 Nobel Prize winners from 11 countries, and 7,500 new scholars every year. If you doubt that people-to-people exchanges are a good diplomatic investment, consider this: 20 of those young international Fulbright scholars who came to study in America went on to become heads of state.
Exchange programs like the Fulbright and others already build bridges among academics. This program will emphasize the next step: career development for young professionals.
Today, we stand at the crest of a demographic wave that will transform the early 21st century, particularly in the Arab world with the so-called "youth bulge." Societies will feel enormous strain as they struggle to keep up with a growing population's demands for more economic opportunities. We will need to meet these challenges head-on. By targeting professionals like teachers, city planners, public health workers and other professions, this program can be a valuable step in building professional capacity for societies to keep up. And by encouraging public-private partnerships, this program can help link our institutions, governments, charities, and businesses in common cause.
Of course, exchange programs alone cannot address the political issues that divide us. A year after Cairo, there is widespread frustration throughout many Muslim communities that not enough has been done to change the status quo -- to address poverty, to champion democratic values and human rights, and to bring peace to Afghanistan and especially the Middle East.
The truth is, we are addressing some monumental challenges. The road ahead is long, but we must travel it together.
For most of the past decade, our relationship was framed by trauma and terrorism, by two wars and political conflict -- and the fallout only polarized us further. Many Muslims perceived the United States as an aggressor -- projecting its power solely to protect its own security and economic interests, usually at the expense of Muslims. Too many in western societies implicitly, and at times explicitly, blamed an entire religion for the unholy violence of a few. At the same time, suicide bombers and extremists dominated the daily news. Too often, the extremists defined an "us versus them" discourse, and all of us suffered for it.
Since President Obama took office, we have witnessed a dramatic shift. Today, we are in a fundamentally better place than we were a year ago. The President's new National Security Strategy recognizes that countering violent extremism is only one element of our strategy and "cannot define America's engagement with the world."
America is now striving to think and talk differently about Islam. We recognize that a serious debate is underway within Muslim communities over how best to address extremism and combat prejudice. And we are now reaching out to the next generation and cultivating people-to-people relationships through science envoys, exchange programs, President Obama's Entrepreneurship Summit, and other initiatives hosted by U.S. embassies.
We still have to address the issue at the emotional core for many Muslims: the need for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. A two-state solution is not a panacea for the problems of the Middle East -- it will not solve the region's demographic challenges or address the Iranian nuclear program. But it can help to transform America's relations with the world's Muslims while dramatically improving the prospects of Arabs and Israelis alike.
Ultimately, our relationships should not be framed in terms of religion. They should be defined by our success in tackling the traditional issues we all face -- how to put people to work, how to provide healthcare, and how to educate your youth. These are the collective challenges we all face in the 21st century.
We have come a long way in the past year in helping turn a page in America's relations with the world's Muslims, and President Obama deserves enormous credit. I hope new initiatives like the professional exchange program can build on these successes.
Follow John Kerry on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnKerry
As a young man, you participated in international exchange through AIESEC United States. We're still around, and we're doing exactly what you propose: professional exchange with the Middle East. Since September 11, 2001, we have managed three State Department grants that have supported reciprocal professional exchange with Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, and more.
In 9 years of experience, we've learned a lot about the roadblocks that such programs can encounter. Students in these countries often prefer shorter-term exchange experiences, which fit in their school breaks and ease their parents' concerns. Citizenship is more complicated, since many third-generation residents -- especially in the Gulf -- still hold citizenship elsewhere. But we're also seen incredible impact through our program, as young men and women from Oman changed the lives of workers in Colorado, Illinois, and New York, as a young man from Qatar was an ambassador to a workplace in Portland, Oregon, and as 34 young Americans over the past two years were matched to professional internships at organizations such as AMIDEAST in Oman and Berlitz in Bahrain.
Senator Kerry, please make AIESEC a part of your push for reciprocal professional exchange with the Middle East. Our experience can only help this incredible proposal.
Best,
Michele Trickey
President
AIESEC United States, Inc.
All the problems he refers to are problems created by other politicians..Not real peoples
When he talks about "terrorism" he assumes that we all understand Muslims , that is a technic which works with most people because the medias have been doing the groung work to establish the deception through time.
If I say that most terrorism has been for decades the work of the Mi6, Mossad, CIA and other Gov.organisations many readers may disbelieve it , until they read the info themselve.
For instance during the cold war ,the"red brigade "operating in Europe killed a member of the Italian governmentand regularly bombed different right wing org, It has been found years after that CIA was behind it to interfer with democratic election in Italy. Right after the war Mossad bombed synagogs in Arab countries to get the local Jews IN the unpeopled new Israel. And bombed the Palestinians OUT of their villages and borders.
We the people are always deceived by the powerful Big Globalists looking to expand, the center being LONDON. Kerry and Bush are cousins and( both Skull & Bones)are related by blood to the Real name "Gotta Coburg Saxa"(German jewish ) English Crown.
They are puppets
Bzrezinsky, Obama's advisor is responsible for arming the "moudjehadins"in Afghanistan in the 80's against USSR now it's called Aqaida still controlled by Mi6/CIA .
Love
Bette S Baysinger
Love
Bette
God, in my honest opinion, is neither the issue nor the problem and I personally (and with all due respect) disagree with the assumptions that belief in God is childish. Faith and belief in God, I think, has been the cause for the morals and standards that we set and the vast majority of the world's population I think both agree with that sentiment and the belief in God.
The problems always comes down to the very-base human desire for power and the willingness to embrace radicalism to achieve it. My own blog Blootstellen being devoted to that subject. God and faith is by far the cure and goal to bring us away from this baseness and it is also the very thing that has been used, abused and made an excuse. I am a strong believer that it is not religion that is the curse on this world but man's using its name for his own purposes.
Cheers
Donny vdH
Rotterdam
I appreciate you civility, and will try to mirror it in my reply. I have looked at your blog. In your blog, you wrote of Kerry’s “social agenda”, saying your’s and his were different. How would you describe your social agenda?
You think belief and faith in “God” will save the day; that it is a mature way of living one’s life. You try to put causation for morals and standards that you say aloud “we” set ourselves, and we do as social norms, on the belief in “God.” That is a contradiction, which is it to you?
Beliefs limit us seeking more knowledge as we think we know, but we only believe. I have academically traced the god concept to an era that people who “believe in God” are forced to ignore, and that is anything older than 10,000 years.
Historical geological events came to be associated with stories made-up by people, interpreting their reality as best they could, these became the books associated with the three main organized religions. This fictional text was to be used to control people through fear of death.
We don't die we continue as nonphysical Consciousness as part of a bigger Consciousness System. Evolution is true, and Consciousness exists, we are here to evolve our bit of consciousness towards love by learning from the feedback of our choices to be more loving toward other. Everyone is god, or there is no god. Period.
Love
Bette S Baysinger
www.mbtevents.com
he did it quickly, I think the first night. See at charlierose.com or pbs.org
I have seen him and other moderators shy away from tough
questions, at least the really difficult ones, which are so
critical in solving the Mideast Mess. But as he often
does he had a balanced panel and they were free
to ask tougher questions.
An Israeli said that Mossad, Israeli intell, had told their politicians Monday that,
" Israel has become a BURDEN to the US !!! "
The US military knows right wing Israel makes the world MORE DANGEROUS
for them and our civilians.
I am sorry that Israel is in a difficult situation, but they have made this all
the worse over the decades, with countless examples of
repression that are well documented. This makes this mess
dangerous for themselves and the US, even the entire West.
Americans found that right wing politics can start wars like Iraq,
it is corrupt and always full of excuses. Israel's right wing
is also a major problem.
They do not need billions from America, or appreciate it.
We need it here. Call Congress.
Yea, and you succeeded in wiping all the goodwill in a single week by supporting an attack on a humanitarian mission in international waters and killing 9 people most of them shot on the head multiple times on a ship that belongs to a NATO country, to the contrary of all world leaders who condemned the attack.
Good Job America.
Is he serious? We have stopped supporting democratic movements in the Arab world. We refused to speak our loudly and supportively for the brave Iranains pushing for democracy. Turkey continues its slide into Islamacist rule with even closer ties to the Iranian theocracy and Syria, we cannot bring ourselves to demand the Palestinians cease their incitement and violence, and we will not speak out against the mistreatment of women, gays, christians, and other minorities in the Arab world. Kerry is on a different planet. However, I will give the administration credit for their full support of the Afgan war against Al Queda---I just don't know why he can't demand NATO do the same.
The good news?
We are on track.
The sad news.
We are on track.
We are all little robots moving exactly towards what was planned by corporate CEOs
The politicians are simply trying to save their asses from the carnage, the poverty that is sure to ensue.
They are the new Jihadists.
They have infiltrated goverment that the old mafia had only dared to dream.
We need a New War On Terrorism.
And the Coporate Jihadists must be brought to account. That the politicians refuse to do is not suprising. We can do it, when we light a fire under the politicians feet.
Turkey is very secular, most do not want any sort of religious state, although like the
US they do have some favoritism for the majority beliefs. It is hard to
see Turkey leaving a fairly moderate and long held position
in general.
Are there customs and laws in most Islamic countries that most Americans
find hard to understand, yes. Like women's restrictions on simply
driving in Saudi Arabia, in the year 2010 still ?!??!
Or that they need so much approval of male
family members, at any age !?!?!
Watching some interesting comments on CNN ME report yesterday, 30 per cent of all car purchases in Saudi Arabia are by women, though they cannot drive it. They added that 40 per cent of savings in banks in Saudi are in accounts owned by women and that their purchase power is having to a degree a greater effect on changing views than any oher form.
Things are changing and perspectives as well, but often the greatest leaps are when entire movements or political swings push the momentum. Kerry is correct in praising Obama for his move and what it represnts, just like that was the reason behind the suprise Nobel Prize - what it represents.
To a degree, and unlike the views some made here, Obama's speeches in Cairo and video for Iran had a great impact that helped push the Tehran demonstrations. To put it another way, and philosphically speaking, offering normality is by its very nature the greatest enemy to radicalism and just the smell of it, shredded years of propoganda by the Revolutionary Guard.
It is, and always been, radicalism that is the enemy. Blootstellen.wordpress.com is dedicated to identifying that ugliness.
Donny vdH
Rotterdam
Blootstellen
The West are the 'moderate MusIims' who need to desperatly moderate the radicaI strains of J!hadism.
Just like we did with radicaI Leninism.
Let's see if we can't start a list of the econmomic jihadists and send them to congress and the president and demand a New War On Terror.
If Mr. Kerry were really serious about his patriotism and his desire to help not just American's and ME bridge the divide, he would certainly counter terrorism on all fronts, wouldn't he?
Mr. Kerry?
So from now on, am VERY proud of TWO things,
1 Am a vet
2 Will NOT support either R or D in any form,(nor the Tea Party which is extension of R's)
3 Try not be eating when Pol's are speaking as could cause one to loose meal in disgust