Opportunity and Crisis

Now, part of the problem, and this is a good example of it, is the globalisation of our world. We are no longer isolated communities. The Turk is no longer the barbarian at the gates of Vienna, frightening us. The Turk is your doctor. Seriously — we are dealing in a world where these barriers have been broken down. There is a great opportunity here. There is a great opportunity. There is also, just as the Chinese know, because their ideogram for opportunity is their ideogram for crisis, a crisis state as well.

We do have white supremacists in this country. We have a very strong anti-Semitic element in this country. We have an anti-Arab element. We have "sand niggers". We have people who do look at the world in these terms. We are trying to break this down. We are trying to create some civilisation here, some humanity. It is a daunting task, but hopefully we can rise to the occasion. One can stereotypically say: well, what do you expect from Dallas? One can do that. One can say: well, that is just a southern redneck — though the writer sounds like a liberal; and the writer is a she, not a he. So there: stereotype. Something like that must have come from a man. So the idea is that it is very easy to stereotype, to pigeonhole people, to do these things, but unfortunately it creates a lot of animosity, a lot of turbulence and trouble.

Another example of that is the word jihād, which is a very, very high word in Islam. It is not a low one. It is seen in the same way as we use "crusade" in our culture: a crusade is a good thing — he led a crusade against drugs. In the Muslim culture, "crusade" has a very negative connotation. It does. For English-speaking Muslims who know the word "crusade", it really conjures up people coming in and slaughtering and attacking and pillaging the Muslim heartland. So language is very, very problematic, and this is something we live with.