State’s Plan to Reach Out

In a press briefing, Farah Pandith, the State Department’s new Special Representative to Muslim Communities, discussed her recently created position, and explained her role in helping the U.S. Government to “think about the grassroots level, to think about what mainstream Muslims are thinking and doing and figure out ways to create dialogue.” In attaining these goals, Pandith said that the State Department seeks to be “out of the box” and “innovative” in its approaches to Muslim engagement, particularly following President Obama‘s recent Cairo speech.

When asked how she planned to engage non-mainstream Muslims as well, Pandith acknowledged that “there is no one bullet that will fix anything; there is no program that will be the magic program.” A substantial part of her agenda will be engaging the Muslim youth.

Akbar Ahmed, of American University in Washington DC, assesses Pandith’s task and argues that listening to Muslims “is only half the story. The second half is to in fact to do something about it.”