Transitions in Modern Muslim Societies, Iowa City, Iowa, April 3, 2008

- [Rex Honey] Well, this is a great pleasure. Two of the really, important institutions in this community to me, are the Foreign Relations Council and the Crossing Borders program. So today, I'm able to bring these things together. I'm actually not used to lecturing under this kind of format. Those few people who have had classes with me know that I tend to wander around the room with my coffee cup. And I like to have a portable mic and be able to talk to people as I go around the room. If it's a smaller class, we'll just sit in a circle. But I'll have to be tethered for a change. I couldn't get too far away from my professorial habits, though, of preparing a PowerPoint presentation even though I'm not gonna give it. So what I did was I printed off the slides so that you can have some sense of where I'm going and what I'm doing. Yesterday, the program committee met at Dee Norton's house. And one of the many delightful things in addition to Dee's company, he has two owls. One of them just sat right outside the window, I don't know how he does that, it actually makes me wonder if there's a Harry Potter part of Dee we don't know about. The other was sitting on a tree farther away. I've reached a point with the kinds of things that I've handed out to you that I bring my own owl. It's a little device that my wife gave me. It's literally called an owl. It's got a light on it and a magnifying glass so that I can read things like that when I hand them out. So if any of you need my owl, I don't know where Dee's is, but you can borrow mine for what we're gonna be looking at here today. In 2001, international programs sponsored a conference that I ran called Interrogating The Globalization Project. And in that conference, we addressed a number of globalization trends, investigated them very thoroughly, and looked at the consequences of them. Among those trends was the emergence of the liberal democratic state as a global norm and the emergence of market economies as a global norm. Well, the conference today is looking largely at how those globalization forces are unfolding in Muslim societies. So we're looking at transitions in Muslim societies, and that gives us a chance to do a lot of different things. I think it would be easy to make a case that among the various parts of the world, the one that has changed most rapidly over the lifetimes of most of us here in this room. Those of us whose hair no longer has any color, if you left it alone, anyway. My wife and I used to both have very dark brown hair, but now she's gold and I'm silver. Hers looks fine that way, I'm not complaining, but the changes are enormous. We've gone, in a couple of generations, from people living the ways their families lived for 1000 years, to living very modern, ultra modern lives. The changes have been traumatic in a number of ways. Liberating in a number of ways as well. We're acutely aware of some of the changes. Certainly, the incredible concentration of wealth that we see in a number of Muslim societies. We also see the notable challenges to peace in the world. The Arab-Israeli conflict that is so central when one looks at this part of the world. The ongoing war that now is longer than US involvement in World War II that we have going on in Iraq. The continuing situation in Afghanistan, and other issues in a number of other places. So we know those changes. We're less familiar with some of the other changes. One of them is the rapid urban growth that that part of the world has had. Now, we may know about Cairo, or Tehran, but there are many other places that have had phenomenal growth. Including the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And one of the papers within the conference that we'll have, Akhmed Dakana will be looking at the changes, those urban changes in those places. Another set of transitions has to do with challenges to the powerful. And those challenges are important, sometimes important because of the way they're quashed. Whether they're challenges by workers, by women, or by those otherwise in subordinate positions. In addition, we see changes in cultural and communication areas. As technologies change, and the abilities of people to communicate with each other change. Now, this convocation that starts at three o' clock today is the third of three Crossing Borders events addressing transitions in Muslim societies. The first was a travel seminar that five of our faculty members and a few of our grad students were able to take together in the summer of 2006, going to Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Bangladesh. Now, you can't get much more evidence of how different Muslim societies are than taking those three places. They're different in terms of what their history is, in terms of what their natural, physical environments are, and in terms of the changes that have occurred recently. Certainly, the reactions to our people were different. In Morocco, the reaction on the street generally was buy something, and if you don't buy something, I'm gonna be unhappy. Because Morocco has a kind of in your face tourism industry. The reaction in the Emirates was please get out of the way, we've got work to do. And they really do have work to do the way that things are going. The reaction in Bangladesh was why in the world are you here to see us. And they were delighted. Because nobody goes there. Bangladesh is the world's biggest unknown country, and it really is. It's one of 11 countries with more than 100 Million people, well more, 150 million people. It only has the physical size of Iowa, 150 million people, the physical size of Iowa, and half of it floods every year. So it's very different, it's poor. So we had that experience. We followed that up this semester with a seminar that John Wrights from the law school and I have done on the same topic. And then of course, the convocation. We're certainly aware of what these experiences, of the differences that there are in these Muslim societies, and this is what we're focusing on continuing from our experience two years ago through the seminar this semester, and through the convocation that we're having, international programs, today through Saturday. And one of the things you have, actually on your handout, is a schedule of the events. Who are we talking about? Well, Muslim societies, of course, range from Morocco in the west to Bangladesh in the east. Sudan, or some other sub-Saharan African places, depending on exactly how we define what a Muslim society is. To the central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, the different stans, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, all of those, of those places. There's a lot. We actually started out with a little different title. The title was not modern, it actually was moderate. Examining moderate Muslim societies. And when I spoke about this with some of my colleagues in the Muslim community in Cedar Rapids, some dear friends in that community, they were very offended. It is problematic, and we might not wanna come back to why that would've been the case later. I finessed it by turning moderate into modern and then we could look at it that way. Certainly, these societies are part of the political economy that is part of globalization today, and are undergoing rapid change. And undergoing that rapid change, then we can see a number of different things happening, but let's back up a little bit and take a look at them. Four countries have more than 100 million Muslims. Three of them are Muslim countries, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Now, if Pakistan and Bangladesh were still together as a single country, they would be the country with the most Muslims. Because they're split, Indonesia is. But India also has well beyond 100 million Muslims. Even though we wouldn't regard India as a Muslim country because they're a minority. Then we get another cluster of places that we're more familiar with. Iran, Turkey, Egypt. Now, they have less than 100 million, but you know, a lot of folks, a lot of Muslims that are there. And then we get down to some smaller numbers, as we see the way that the countries have developed, and there's a list of those countries that you have. We'll keep this in mind. But why are we studying them? What's the big deal? Well, one of the reason simply is to avert Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations. We don't think it's a foregone conclusion. We don't think that clash must be there, although we would recognize that it certainly could happen if people on both sides make certain mistakes. Rather, we wanna understand the relationships between Islam and modernization as it unfolds in the highly varied societies that are dominated by Islam. Many of these societies have traditions that actually predate Islam that have come to be regarded by people in the societies as Islamic. But in truth, they're there before that. And I would argue the tight family structures, patriarchal family structures actually predate Islam in most of these societies and are not really as a consequence of Islam, Islam has had some effect on it. There would be other ways in which that would be the case too. But we can see that in part by looking at how differently these countries are from each other when all they have in common is that they're predominately Muslim. We're also curious about the future. How are these transitions going to unfold, what is going to be happening. What kinds of changes are occurring, what transitions are we actually talking about? Well, one is technological. If I think back to what these parts of the world were like when I was a child, and I was paying attention to that when I was a child. I really am a geographer. When I was a 12-year-old, my request for a birthday present was a globe. I paid attention, I pored over maps my entire life, and have followed things that are going on. But many of the people that are in some of the richest parts of the world right now were simply traditional nomads back in the early 1950s, late 1940s when I was a kid and would be the case of the few others here too. They've gone from people with no electricity and no indoor plumbing to some of the richest people in the world. With a great deal of sophistication. They have gone from being Bedouins to chic sheik. So that the styles that become important are there. In a political sense, they've gone from tribal structures that were basically monarchies, but generally very decentralized monarchies, small groups, to fledgling democracies and everything in between. When I teach a course on the middle east, I have two films that I make sure the students see. One is called The Message, and it is about Islam, the message of Islam. And the other is Lawrence of Arabia. And one of the scenes in Lawrence of Arabia is one of the tribal leaders asking who these Arabs are as Lawrence and Prince Faisal were trying to get an Arab army involved. They didn't recognize connections to these other people, that only came later. They didn't recognize the kinds of national connections that came up. Because their connections were tribal. And one of the scenes early in the movie if you may recall, is with Lawrence going with a guide trying to find Prince Faisal, and they stop and use a well. Well, Dr. Zhivago rides out of the desert, get my David Lee movies mixed up here, but Omar Sharif comes in and he blows the guy away. He stole my water. He didn't care that they were Arabs, he cared that somebody who wasn't part of his clan took his water. Well, they moved away from that, at least, in some ways, although one of the things we're gonna come back to is I would be arguing that you've gotta build up from that level if we're really ever gonna solve the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq. So communities with pre-Islamic government structures have survived. And sometimes, those still show. The transitions are economic, as the societies have moved from subsistence, which basically is what the Bedouin societies had been, largely subsistence. Where most of what they consumed, they produced, most of what they produced, they consumed. They traded a little bit, and that's been the case until very, very recently for many of these people. They've traded their donkey carts for air buses. And we see that these economic changes are great. There have been changes socially as well. The changes socially have been from strong patriarchies to strong patriarchies. This is a place maybe the transitions haven't quite happened as much. So what have we found? A lot of variation. Certainly, Morocco, the Emirates, Bangladesh, very different from each other. There's variation first, in quality of life. There still are subsistence farmers. I think back to when I first went to Jordan to set up the project that I worked on for a year there in 1984, 85. And I was being taken on a little field trip by One of the people that worked in the Ministry of Planning, where I was working. And I was asking him very ignorant questions. Like where are the camels. He scoffed at me. Until we turn the corner around the hill and there were some camels. They were having a drought. The camels weren't where they usually were in June. He liked my questions enough, this colleague actually came to the University of Iowa and did a PhD with me, and he's a dean now in one of the universities in Jordan. But we still laugh about that initial field trip that we took. They've gone from this subsistence origin to a tremendous emphasis on consumption. At least for those who held the wealth to be able to do so. We've also seen changes in some ways in terms of some of the traditions that occur. And one of the things that I witnessed when I was working in Jordan, and I was last back in Jordan just two years ago, staying with this friend and a couple of other friends, is some of the traditional ways of doing things are hard to give up. One of the friends that I had, American friends that I had when I was living in Jordan was an about to retire public health professor from Berkeley who wanted to stick around long enough to retire and not have to go back to the classroom. I don't have that attitude towards students, teaching is a lot of fun for me. But anyway, he didn't wanna go back. What he was doing was trying to sell people on oral rehydration policies as a way of getting babies safe. So you give them the saline sugar solution instead of, you know, when they have diarrhea and they're having trouble. The traditional method had been take a sick baby into the desert, leave the baby overnight. If god wants the baby, the baby will die. If god doesn't want the baby, the baby will survive. God didn't want my student because this happened to him when he was a baby, and he survived. But the kind of fatalism there, you only are born if god wanted you to be born, you only die if god wanted you to die, runs hard against some of the rationalism of our culture and the ways that things go on in the west. So what affects life can be very different. And the extent to which this is challenged varies broadly across these societies. Interpretations of Islam vary. We go from very liberal, and in fact, we heard over and over again, Bangladesh is a liberal Muslim society. Them telling us. They wanted us to know we're not like those other guys that bomb you. Well, the keynote address for our convocation this afternoon by my colleague Bimal Paul, who is from Bangladesh, a geography professor at Kansas State and was with me in Bangladesh last summer is on who was doing the bombings in Bangladesh. So even in Bangladesh, this is being challenged now. We have of course, Much more fundamentalist, and I'll put that in quotations, strict interpretations of Islam, the way that there are fundamentalists among Christians and I would argue even among Hindus and among Jews. And the Wahhabi form of Islam would certainly be one of the starker forms of Islam. And one of the problems that we have is this Saudi stringent form of Islam is one of the ones that's being spread around the world because of Saudi money. Those are where the madrassas are, and we'll come back to that. We also found connections to global forces. And those connections to global forces are sometimes to the advantage of the people in Muslim societies. And sometimes they are not. There are sweat shops in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has a lot of companies that make clothing. And they make clothing pretty much under sweat shop conditions. Peggy Smith from the law college and Mickey McCue from the college of public health were both looking at some of those impacts. In terms of the legal structure for Peggy and in terms of the health consequences for the workers for Mickey. But we really do see this. So what we see is everything from sweat shops making T-shirts to indoor ski facilities. The emirates literally have an indoor place to go downhill skiing. Now, that's rich. That's rich. I'm not about to propose that we try that here at the University of Iowa, I think we have some other priorities. We see different problems and responses to problems. Physical problems, whether they're droughts or floods, bigger problem in Bangladesh than a drought, is the flood. And the responses that they have to human rights. Sometimes, with a lot of attention to human rights and sometimes saying that's not what we're interested in. The level of life in these Muslim societies is quite different. And there a lot of different ways that we could measure that, but I've provided you with a table with scores that different countries have on the human development index. And in terms of the human development index, we've put together a few different things. One actually, is a measure of economic purchasing power, purchasing power parity. Another is life expectancy, and yet another is literacy rates. So trying to get at some things that we can say yeah, these are good things to be able to have. And it's scored in a way where the people at the top get one and everybody else is less than one. And in the current human development indicators from the United Nations development fund, Iceland is on top. None of the Muslim countries make the top group because none of them score at .9 or above. But you can see Kuwait is the top, ranking 33rd, and it's almost up at nine. And then we can come down and see some other places, the Emirates, Libya, yes, Libya, up there high. Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan. Only then do we get to Turkey. Which we think of as a European kind of a place that maybe is better off than that, and we come down. I think it's instructive that none of these Muslim places, and I'm not including any others in sub-Saharan Africa than the Sudan, none of these Muslim places are below the .5 level. So none of them are in the worst group. But I think it would be useful to look at it this way and say none of them are as well off as Europe, we're part of Europe when we look at things that way. And none of them are as badly off as Africa, sub-Saharan Africa. So they've been able to make some progress, and you can see there's some considerable differences in terms of what those scores are. Well, what's fueling the change? Actually, fuel is fueling the change. Petroleum is fueling the change. Muslim countries in general, and middle eastern countries, in particular, have a stranglehold on the world's petroleum supply. They have over half the proven reserves of the world. And everybody else is using up their oil faster than they are. Which means every day, their share of the remaining reserves is higher. As long as petroleum is going to be an important commodity, they're going to have access to a lot of money. Now, I try to put it in a little bit of perspective here. I can remember back to the early 1970s when OLPEC first bumped up the price of oil. I was actually living in Britain and I went from less than a pound of a gallon, and they still had gallons in Britain in those days. It was a British gallon, so it was bigger. Less than a pound a gallon to four pounds a gallon very quickly. Very quickly. Now, the Saudis, my colleague Jim Limburg, who was my major consultant on energy issues, the Saudis can make a profit on oil if it's as cheap as $2.00 a barrel. If it's $104 a barrel, they're making $102 profit. That's a nice gig if you can get it. And they've got it and they're gonna keep getting it. So fueling the change goes right there. So if you join together, having over half the world's reserves and the fact that everybody else is using up oil, to reiterate, we get this situation where they're gonna have continuing influence as long as we need oil. And I suspect oil is gonna be needed as long as anybody in this room is alive, including kids as young as Sharon and the others that are here, let alone some of the rest of us in this building. Now, those who have oil, we have found, are investing the money. And if you know you're gonna run out of oil soon, as Dubai does, you'd better take advantage of it now. And Dubai has done some of the more peculiar things in the world, like create a series of islands that they then market to Europeans to have as vacation homes, timeshares, or just own the whole thing to get away from a dreary European winter. And European winters can be dreary. One, they're so far north, they don't get any sun. Second, the sun is obscured by clouds most of the time, and they wanna get out of there. Well, they can fly down to the Emirates, and use Emirates Airways to do it, one of the biggest new airlines in the world. So they are important in terms of global investments as well, they own a lot of stuff here. They own a lot of Iowa farmland. The good thing about them owning Iowa farmland is they can't take it away. So I think that's a safe investment for us to have. Of course, a lot of the money gets spent on militaries. It gets spent on conventional militaries, including police forces as well as armies. And less conventional ones, of course, in terms of terrorism. It gets spent too, on spreading Islam. And this is one of the dangers to me, that our friends, the Saudis are spreading their particular brand of Islam. For those without oil, the current unprecedented fuel prices are causing problems. They're having a difficult time paying the bills. It's impeding economic growth and it has made them dependent on a global economy that is not likely working in their favor. There are governmental transitions. The global trend towards liberal democracies that I mentioned is less the case in this part of the world than anywhere else. Everybody else is pushing more towards elections. And we'll find out what happens in Zimbabwe soon. At least a new parliament has been elected, and Mugabe, it appears, is gonna have a run-off, now, that he'll try to fix, but at least, you know, something is going on. Well, there are nascent democracies in the Muslim world. Turkey, which has a very interesting democracy. A very interesting democracy. The supreme court of Turkey, this week, has challenged the legality of the ruling party. The supreme court. By a constitution in Turkey, you're not supposed to be religious in your politics. And they clearly are. And the court is challenging this. So the court may dissolve the government. I'm not sure what will happen. The military would certainly be happy with that. It's very peculiar. Very peculiar. But now, they get their elections. Indonesia has elections, and their elections are questionable sometimes too. Egypt's elections, no, there's no question, Egypt's elections are fixed, there's no question in that case. Pakistan, I mean, we certainly can look at the elections that Pakistan just had and see that Musharraf did not get his way. You know, that's an election. Bangladesh is facing an election because the two political parties were so corrupt, the military stepped in and said okay, we gotta clean this up. So right now, they're not a democracy. We have constitutional monarchies in Morocco and Jordan, except they have constitutions and all the power, really, is the king. When I lived in Jordan, every night the news started off, well, what dd his majesty, the king, do today. We have traditional rule, real kings in Saudi, Oman, the Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar. And we have innovative rule, and I would put that innovative in italics. Iran, with its form of theocratic government. Libya with it's very peculiar Kind of government based on Gaddafi. Syria, with the Ba'ath party there, and Algeria, that is a very peculiar case as two sides keep fighting each other. There's a governance dilemma. And it's an important dilemma, and it's part of what they have to work with in these Muslim countries to work things through. Because we have a tradition in Judeo-Christian societies of a separation of church and state. Render unto god what is god's, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's kind of thing, separate those, it's our tradition. Islam is supposed to be all-encompassing. And in a society that is truly Islam, Islam should be imbued in everything. Not a separation of church and state. So that's a problem. The question, then, becomes how do you put all of that together. And I think we could look with Turkey and Indonesia on one extreme, and Saudi and Iran with their religious influences on the other extreme. There are economic transitions that are important. And those are going to continue to be important with rich countries and poor countries that are there. There are human rights transitions, with Syria's questions of power sharing. Do people actually have a right to chose their government? Do people have freedom of expression the way that we would want. Ahmed Suwaya studies freedom of the press, or the lack thereof in Morocco. Certainly, patriarchy, under its many guises, reduces women's rights. Second generation rights, they're real problems for migrant workers. Whether they're migrant workers from these countries and other countries, or they're migrant workers externally. And there are some real problems in how people's rights are taken away. We had a case just this past year with a couple from Indonesia and India being convicted of slavery in New York. And this is all too common that they would bring people to be domestic servants and basically keep them as slaves. So there are problems with second generation human rights, of rights to be able to make a living there as well. And in terms of rights for survival, the third generation human rights. A lot of Muslim thinkers are saying Islam is green, I wore green on purpose, actually. It's their color, it's the color because Islam came up in the desert, where they want everything to be green. Well, Islam is green in the sense that if you really follow Islam, you take care of the environment. And let me add that part of what's interesting about these places is the gulfs that are there. The gulfs between rich and poor. The gulfs between critical thinking and memorization in education. The gulfs in economic approaches, whether we're talking about the state being involved or just capital being involved. And certainly, approaches to gender and to youth culture. Where will the transitions lead? We know for sure, certainties, increasing financial power for the oil sheiks, and long term continuing differences. What are the uncertainties? Resolution of these extant conflicts. They must be addressed, they must be resolved, how is the issue. Continued struggle over visions of what a just society is, they're going to differ. Translation of economic development into broader development. So it's not just that you have more money, but you develop in some of the other ways that tend to go along with this in other societies. These transitions will be influenced by Islam, but they're also gonna be influenced by other things, old and new. The transitions are interesting ones. The transitions will be painful ones. They will be profitable ones. As the director of Crossing Borders, I'm pleased to invite you, all of you, to come to the events that we have in our convocation, beginning this afternoon and continuing past noon on Saturday. I particularly would invite you to see Inez Hoffman-Kana's film tonight, Unveiled. It will be at seven o' clock in Phillips 100. All the other events of the convocation will be at the Yonkers men's store. 1117 University Capital Center, where the men's department used to be at Yonkers. On the first floor. It's a very interesting part of the world, it's a challenging part of the world. I know many of you have been there, and many others of you would like to go. It will continue to be an important part of the world, and I thank you for your attention. - [Sharon Benzoni] Thank you, Rex. I'd like to remind our TV and radio audiences that you have been listening to a talk before the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council. This has been professor Rex Honey speaking on transitions in modern Islamic societies. Well, those of you who must leave, do so, we will collect your questions. I'd like to remind everyone that we are very grateful for the support of Technographics, Iowa State Bank and Trust, and international programs which made today's events possible. I'd also like to remind Professor Honey that we're very grateful for him coming to speak and he will be receiving one of the coveted Iowa City Foreign Relation Council mugs. Are the disparities in wealth in the Muslim world any worse than in other countries? - [Rex Honey] Well, certainly, among the richest of countries, yes, because nobody else is that rich. One country that I didn't put on the list is Brunei. It actually has an even higher score, but how many people here know where Brunei is? A few people. It shares one of the islands with Indonesia and Malaysia, and it's simply there because it had oil. It got carved off. Somebody put up some walls around it, hired some people to protect the sultan who brings in very expensive call girls from England. Sometimes they don't know they're being brought in as call girls. He's very controversial in terms of what he does, but he is one of the richest people in the world. Forbes doesn't know how rich he is because he doesn't report this. So he doesn't make their list necessarily as high as he ought to. There are incredible gulfs between the rich and the poor. Absolutely, absolutely. And it is worse than most other places simply because the ceiling is so high. - [Sharon Benzoni] What industries have you seen that would lead you to believe that Saudi Arabia is changing from a patriarchal society? Or excuse me, not industries, indications. - [Rex Honey] I don't think that it is. I have not been to Saudi, they don't want me. I tried to get there when I was living in Jordan. I had a Saudi doctoral student working with me. He was doing his doctoral thesis on the housing programs that the Saudi government had and the ways of getting people to build houses. And they just said no, there's nothing for us to gain by you coming. And they don't want outsiders coming and telling them what to do, and I have a tendency to do that. So they don't want me to come in that way. But I have tried to pursue a lot of different ways of looking at this. And clearly, the Saudi government is able to buy people off by providing housing and some other things, and I'm not gonna argue that they don't share some of that, but you don't criticize the Saudi regime, you just don't. And certainly, we had here, and I believe it was the fall of '05, a panel of women from muslim countries from the writers' workshop. And one of them was a Saudi, and you remember, she very much defended her country and all the things that were going on. I don't buy it for a minute. I mean, I just don't buy it. I think I've always been sympathetic with my sisters and cousins, but maybe it was because my children are three daughters, I'm very much concerned that women be treated as people. And I think that's a place where that tends not to be. Now, if you're elite and rich enough, then you can have some advantages, but I see them as being so rich, they're not having to make changes the ways that some other places are. And I would see them making more effort in some other places. And the other rich place that I would see some effort being made is the Emirates. It's still peculiar. Many of you here know Ken Stark, yes? Ken was bought by one of the Saudi universities. Paid him $400,000 a year, or something like that. Bought him out of retirement, so he missed our wonderful winter that we had here. He went to the Emirates to run a women's college. And the group of people from the university who went to the Emirates met with Ken and some of the students there. And one of the peculiarities that they have is the guys are so happy with their money that they're willing to spend their time and the casino. And the young women are actually seeing themselves as having some opportunity, and they're going to school. But they have to go to separate schools, but at least they're there for them. And these Emirati women were going and Ken had a college set up for them to be able to do so. So I see a lot more progress there than in Saudi. - [Sharon Benzoni] What's next with Iran? - [Rex Honey] Iran is one of the more fascinating cases. One of the people that will speak at our convocation, Mohammad Jichin, is a neighbor of mine, he lives on Lake McBride, just a little bit past beyond where I live. I live on one side of the university's McBride field campus, McBride nature center, and he lives on the other side. We've run into each pother cross country skiing out there. He is from Iran. And he is coming to the convocation and among other things, will be addressing what is happening in Iran. I've not been there. What I know about Iran is secondhand. It has a high level of education. And when there's a high level of education, I think there's always hope that things will move in a good direction. It also has a very stable economy and people enjoy living well rather than living poorly. One of the changes that occurred was enough that a family that I'm good friends with gives some illustration of that. And this is a family where the father has his PhD from what, at that point, was geology, back years ago, before they changed their name to geoscience. And went home to Iran, worked in the oil business, and was a professor of Geology in one of the universities there. And when the Islamic revolution took place, he took his family to Australia. And he raised his two sons in Australia. And then they came here and did their undergraduate degrees here. And one of them took my contemporary global system class very early on, I think the second time I taught the class. He was an absolutely wonderful student. Did really, really well. And subsequently, after I examined him, he examined me. I went for my annual physical at the family practice and he was the resident, and my doctor said do you mind. And his little brother took the course too. I went to both of their graduations, they're really a great family. I met the parents when they came to the graduation. They've gone home, they're back in Iran. They see as educated people themselves, that there was enough progress going that they can be there. So I think Iran, let's be patient with Iran. I think it's important that we be patient with Iran and not force, not help the extremists there by doing things that really, we shouldn't do. Let's not push them where we shouldn't and help the wrong side in Iran, that would be my advice on Iran. - [Sharon Benzoni] Two similar questions, but I think addressing different aspects, I'll read them both. Has the US made the situation worse for Muslim countries and Iraq over the last seven years? And how do Muslims understand Bush's concept of democracy? - [Rex Honey] Yes, in a word, yes. We've made things much worse. And they understand Bush's concept of democracy as if he thinks people will vote for our friends, then he wants democracy, and if he thinks they won't, then he's not pushing on it. I mean, if we really believed in democracy, we'd be telling the Saudis, you have to have democracy. We tell Cuba it has to have democracy, we don't tell the Saudis they have to have democracy. It's not just Bush, but Bush is the worst at this than any of the leaders that we've had. I would argue that we will not really get this situation resolved unless we take advantage of the self interest of countries that neighbor Iraq. They are not going to benefit from an all out regional war. And what we need to be able to do is to work with the people in Iran, in Syria, in Turkey, in Egypt, in Saudi, who can see that they can prosper if they can have a peaceful neighborhood. And most of the people there see that. And that's a way of trying to work out a way where that can be done, rather than use the Bush doctrine the way we did to justify going in because somebody someday might have done something to us. This is one of the saddest parts of American history. I think Jim Leech was right when he said the gulf War was the biggest mistake in American foreign policy history. He nevertheless, tried to raise money for Bush and Cheney's reelection, which gave me a problem with Jim, but Jim was right on that. - [Sharon Benzoni] I have a question that I think the top got cut off, so if whoever wrote it can clarify, that would help. It asks about a transition perhaps, to Judeo-Christians becoming a minority around the world and asking of that's where things are headed. - [Rex Honey] Judeo-Christians are a minority around the world, we already are. So I don't think that's an issue. Certainly, Christianity and Islam have expanded beyond their homes because these are the two religions that really give people a message that you have an obligation to share god's truth to save people's souls. A lot of other religions don't see things that way. And if you think the only way people are gonna get to heaven is if they follow your particular kind of religion, and you care for people, shouldn't you share that message with them? Well, that's the kind of mindset that's there. And I think we have to remember that that's the case. But I don't think we need to to, this isn't to me, the issue, the issue is to make sure that some other, much more, some other versions of Islam that I think are much more true to the actual teachings of Islam are the ones that people hear rather than the Wahhabi version. I do this with my students, if we were to boil down the message of Christianity to a single word, and I asked them to think about that, and then I tell them it goes back to Gethsemane. And in John's gospel, it's the 11th commandment. The major message of Christianity is love. Now, does Christianity live up to that? You know, the Spanish Inquisition, no, of course not. If we did that with Islam, the word is justice. Justice for everybody. Now, not everybody in Islam lives up to that, but certainly, many people do. And that's the kind of Islam that we need yo be supportive of, is an Islam that looks at justice. An Islam that sees jihad as internal struggle to live the right life rather than as a war in which you're gonna convert people of another view to your view. - [Sharon Benzoni] Unless anyone else has any more questions, that's all we have for today. Thank you.