Launch of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Washington

As delivered:

Thank you - Ambassador Rajmah, Your Excellencies, distinguished guests and friends here today. I am honored to join you. Congratulations as you launch this new Ambassadorial Washington group of the Organization of Islamic Conference. We at the State Department have worked hard over the last year to strengthen our relations and interaction with the OIC. We share an agenda to support the positive contributions and values of Muslim countries and citizens; we too have many Muslim citizens who make an incredibly positive contribution here in our own country. We have a shared interest in making sure that the mainstream voice - which is the dominant voice - is heard from Muslim communities. And I believe you and I share a common mission -- creating a more constructive dialogue between your countries and mine-- a friendly, frank and honest dialogue that is vital if we hope to achieve a better and more peaceful world. I know His Excellency Secretary General Ihsanoglu and the OIC have made promoting East-West dialogue a top priority - and I hope this Washington working group will be an important step in furthering that goal.

The world is hungry for progress toward peace - and that is, after all, a core message of all the world's great religions -- "Salaam." The vast majority of people in our world, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or those of no faith at all -- want to live secure lives of opportunity - this is not a goal owned by any country, but a shared human goal -- despite differences of language or culture or skin color, so much more unites us as human beings than divides us. Yet we live in a world where misunderstanding and mistrust are spreading, often being fanned by extremists, their murderous acts and their rhetoric of hate. One of our great shared challenges is to isolate and marginalize these extremists, and nurture our common interests and values by finding ways to bridge differences and doing a better job of truly listening and seeking to understand each other. Together we must address the misperception fostered by extremists that there is a "clash of the civilizations," that the West is somehow in conflict with Islam, because I know -- and you know -- that simply isn't true. Islam, as a major world religion, is part of the West and an important part of America. As a government official, I represent an estimated six-to-seven million America Muslims who live and work and worship freely in this great country. One of the things I've worked to do is to empower their voices and demonstrate respect for Muslim culture and contributions both here and abroad. In today's diverse, global and multi-cultural world, people need to be more respectful of each others and of all faiths. Many important Muslim voices have made that argument for many years - even centuries -- as I was reminded last night at a celebration sponsored by the Embassy of Turkey honoring the 800^th anniversary of the birthday of the great Sufi poet, Rumi, whose message was one of love, acceptance and tolerance.

During the 18 months that I have served as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, we have dramatically increased the number of our exchange programs so we can bring more people from other countries to the United States -- and send more Americans overseas. We have increased the number of participants in our State Department educational and cultural programs to nearly 39,000 this year. We are putting a greater emphasis on those people-to-people programs because more Americans need to learn more about your different cultures and countries and learn to speak your languages. We want and welcome more people from your countries to come here so they can see for themselves that we share many of the same values - that like you, we care about our families, many of us care deeply about our faith, we want our children to be educated and have opportunities, we want to live in a secure and a just world. There's no better way to discover those common values than to meet one another and visit each other's homes and countries. Almost every participant in these exchange programs says the same thing afterward: "It changed my life."

One of my favorite new programs is called "Citizen Dialogue," which sends delegations of Muslim Americans as citizen envoys to other countries. It grew out of a conversation I had with a Turkish woman when I was in Germany. She told me how isolated the Muslim community in Germany often feels. I asked her if I could visit her community and meet with people there. She told me, quite bluntly, "no." "We're not interested in meeting with our own government," she said, "Why would we want to meet with yours?" I asked, "Could I send some Muslim American citizens?" She replied, "That would be wonderful." Based on that, we launched a "citizen dialogue" program, sending Muslim Americans from all walks of life to places as diverse as Jordan, Pakistan, India, Denmark - the group that recently went to Malaysia, including an Imam, appeared on Malaysia's top-rated morning television program - the station was so interested that it is sending a camera crew to America this spring to film American Muslims in their homes for an 8-part prime time series on Islam in America. It will air during the month of Ramadan this fall.

This is progress. These kinds of people-to-people programs are invaluable in challenging stereotypes and countering the misinformation that radical extremists put out to drive a wedge between our countries.

Last week I was pleased to see that Secretary General Ihsanoglu condemned the recent violence by terrorists who targeted innocent civilians in Algeria. He restated the clear position of Islam again killing innocent people. And he expressed solidarity with the Algerian authorities for all measures taken "to contain the violence and isolate the terrorists." He is exactly right and I applaud him and the OIC for taking that strong stand. The time has come for more people of every country to speak out and make clear that violent extremists only pervert religion when they bomb hospitals, universities, wedding parties, mosques, employment centers, even groups of children. And tragically, the vast majority of those being killed are Muslims.

Just yesterday The New York Times had a story about the recent killing of 35 people in six suicide bombings in Pakistan. The story said: "The indiscriminate terror, sown by lone bombers, with explosives strapped to their chests wandering into a crowd, is a new experience for Pakistan, and it has shocked and angered many here."