Event transcript from the the April 4, 2003 conference with  Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress, Zainab Al-Suwaij.

Hillel Fradkin: Let me give a very brief introduction, rendered brief by the fact that our speaker must leave to meet with President Bush later this afternoon. Zainab was born in Basra, into a distinguished intellectual Shiite family. She was a witness to the first Gulf War and participated in the failed 1991 uprising against Saddam. After that painful experience, she fled to the United States to complete her studies. Since then she has worked with other refugees and has been a teaching fellow in Arabic at Yale University. She is today the Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress, an organization which she founded after September 11, 2001, in the belief that American Muslims should play a leading role in rejecting Islamist radicalism and in promoting a democratic future for the Muslim world. Her writings on Iraq, Muslim women and Islam have appeared in The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and a number of other publications. Please welcome Zainab Al-Suwaij.

Zainab Al-Suwaij: Thank you so much for having me here today. It is amazing for me to be here before you. Before I immigrated to the United States from Iraq eleven years ago, I would never have imagined myself speaking to this group. Living under Saddam Hussein, it was unthinkable to gather and openly discuss issues that you and I care so deeply about. Democracy, freedom and civil society -- they were off-limits in Iraq; you could not talk about them. So I consider it a blessing to stand before you today to talk about my life and the work of the American Islamic Congress. We need forums like this one to help achieve peace and justice, and build dialogue and understanding.

There are two key themes for my talk. The first is my own story, my own experience, coming out of the Muslim world, growing up without real freedom. And the second is the role the American Muslim should play in fostering democracy and civil society throughout the Muslim world. In doing so, I will also explain why our organization was founded, and its mission.

At the Ethics and Public Policy Center you believe that standing up for freedom, democracy and civil society makes America and the world a better and safer place. The same is true for the Muslim community. Standing up for freedom, tolerance and a better future is good for all people -- especially American Muslims. American Muslims are a diverse community with many internal problems and divisions, but by standing up for tolerance and understanding, we build peace within our community and we build peace with our brothers and sisters, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'is, and others.

Many of the Muslims who live in American today were not born in America, or their parents were not born here. The experience of growing up in the Muslim world under dictators and oppressive societies has molded our community. Living without freedom -- without free speech, without a free press, without free education and with some leaders who preach hate -- shapes us in ways we cannot control. I know because I grew up within Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and I am still emerging from the deep pain of that experience even though I left Iraq over ten years ago.

So I will tell you a little bit about my own experience. I grew up religious in a secular society in the city of Basra. My grandfather is a leading Shiite cleric in Basra and as his granddaughter, I was the only girl in my third grade class who started wearing the hijab, the traditional headscarf. From the age of nine, I got used to standing out and being comfortable with who I was and what I believed. It was not easy but I managed. But I had to be careful because under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraqis have no real freedom.

I was in the fourth grade during the Iran-Iraq war. One girl in my class mentioned that Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran were not that bad. She must have heard it from her parents. She disappeared the next day, with her whole family, from the neighborhood. So at an early age you learned not to say things and not to challenge the government.

Many families of Iranian origin were expelled from Iraq, like the Iraqi Jews before them. Their houses were taken over by the government officials. Good friends of my family were kicked out of their house and the family of one of my classmates moved into their house. Her father worked for the secret police. At the schools, teachers would force us to participate in political demonstrations. They basically shut the school and had us go to the street and demonstrate for Saddam, or against Iran or Israel or America. They would hand out signs and lead our class out to participate. The police beat students who refused to participate or who tried to run away from the demonstrations.

In 1990, after I finished high school, I went to visit my relatives in Kuwait. But Saddam could not bear to live in Iraq without me, so he invaded Kuwait. There I witnessed the killing and destruction caused by Saddam Hussein and his forces. I saw soldiers beating men and women. I saw animals from the zoo running in the street. And I saw how that country was ripped apart. I then returned to Iraq, where I experienced the allied bombing. When the war ended, a popular uprising took place. Saddam was withdrawing from Kuwait and President Bush went on Voice of America encouraging the Iraqi people to rise up -- and saying that America would support them. So the Iraqi people listened to what he said and within one week we liberated fifteen of the eighteen provinces of Iraq.

Even though I was a woman, only twenty years old, I joined the uprising. I helped treat wounded people in the hospital and I walked through one of the prisons that we liberated at that time. When we opened the doors we saw thousands of prisoners -- not only Iraqis, but Kuwaitis and people from many other Arab countries, and some Europeans. One of the prisoners took me to a torture chamber inside the prison. He said, "I want to show you what they used to do to us." We walked to the torture chamber -- a huge room with an awful smell, blood spots everywhere, pieces of meat -- and stood in front of a huge machine. He said it was a human meat grinder: "They lined us up, prisoners and the people who refused to confess what they did against the government. They brought a person alive and they put him in the machine." They showed me chemical baths they dissolved people in. Ovens. Rooms for sexual torture. And many other kinds of tools -- to pluck nails, hooks to hang people on, electrical wires to use for electrical shock. That experience changed my image of the world.

Everyone talks about the war on Iraq, but for three decades there has been war inside Iraq -- war waged by its own government against the Iraqi people.

But after we liberated all of these provinces inside Iraq, the American army never came. Saddam regrouped and crushed us. The uprising failed. I cannot stress enough that we should be very careful about promising freedom in the Arab world and not making good on our word. I believe that America’s failure to support the people of Iraq sent a negative message throughout the Arab world creating bitterness and mistrust of America and its values. These scars still haven’t healed, but I also believe that the United States can heal the wound by demonstrating a genuine commitment to freedom in the Muslim world and to the Iraqis.

After the uprising I went into hiding for two months, then eventually I escaped Iraq and I ended up in the United States. Through the past many years, I haven’t talked about my experience in Iraq and what I saw. It was very difficult for me, emotionally, to deal with it.

My time in America has been one of growing. For the first time in my life, I felt I was exposed to diversity in a free society. And I loved it. It was new for me. The best example of that I can give you is my son’s friends and their parents -- a group of parents who were Muslim, Christian, Jews, Buddhists -- who get together and talk about many topics, many subjects beyond religious or racial differences. And we look beyond our religions and enjoy our common values as human beings.

If you are born in America, it is hard to appreciate how valuable your freedom is. But as an immigrant, let me remind you: our freedom is the most beautiful thing in the world and the most important.

For me September 11th was a terrible nightmare. As I watched the towers burn on TV, one thing went through my mind: the terror that I thought I had left behind me in Iraq followed me here. Now it is threatening my friends, my son and daughter, and all what I wanted for them was to grow up in freedom, safety and peace. But now the forces of hatred were gathering and threatening me even here in America.

There was a recent poll of people in the Muslim world that revealed overwhelming disapproval of the United States. Many Muslims said they doubted Arabs were behind the attacks of 9/11. But this is just one expression of contradiction within the Muslim world. People say that the World Trade Center bombing was caused by the Mossad or the Jews -- but Osama bin Laden is a hero for attacking the Great Satan. Also people say America hates Muslims, and America is a terrible country -- but at the same time, can you get us a visa to come to the United States? So this kind of contradiction unfortunately is almost everywhere in the Middle East and the Muslim countries. You see, accepting contradiction is a simple survival mechanism when you are not free; contradictions become the only way to keep your options open when you do not know what you are supposed to say or believe. Because the mood of the government can change at any time, you see the people who are not willing to be flexible in their beliefs disappear. You learn quickly.

This reality makes the job of fostering civil society in the Muslim world very difficult. You may have read a story a few months ago in the New York Times about a Muslim women's rights activist in Holland. Her name is Ayaan Ali. She was originally from Somalia and she became a translator for the Dutch social service. She started assisting Muslim women immigrants and listening to their stories. She began to speak out and began to receive many death threats. Some Muslims fear that Ali is trying to impose Western values on Muslim society. This, too, is a contradiction because Muslims strongly believe in the worth and dignity of every person, especially women. Yet we also see how difficult it is for Muslim women to speak about problems they face within our community.

I gathered a group of Muslims in November 2001 to form the American Islamic Congress, a non-profit organization dedicated to building tolerance and interfaith understanding. We lead tolerance programs, educate for freedom in the Muslim world and encourage American Muslims to speak out and take action. In the work that I do I try to bring a traditional Muslim perspective to a moderate progressive agenda. As you can imagine, this is not easy.

The American Muslim community is now beginning to overcome the barriers that come with not growing up in a free society. American Muslims are not only capable of standing up for their rights here in the United States; they have an obligation to do so. This means that they should not only stand up for freedom and dignity here in the United States but they should do more to defend these rights abroad by standing up for human rights, tolerance and civil society. By doing so, American Muslims will send a powerful message throughout the Muslim world.

One of the best things about democracy is freedom of speech. Democratic societies encourage people to express themselves openly without fear of punishment. Indeed, this is one of the strengths of democracy because freedom of speech empowers individuals to stand up for themselves and for their ideals. Unfortunately, in some Muslim communities even here in the United States, individuals are not encouraged and are sometimes too intimidated to openly express opinions that are different from the viewpoint of their leaders. More importantly, individuals cannot speak openly about serious problems inside their communities. I believe that one of the most important ways for Muslim communities to appreciate the values of democracy is to encourage the freedom of speech within our own community. If we can talk openly, we can begin to help build civil society in the Muslim world. We need free labor unions, fair courts and schools that teach tolerance.

I am happy to report to you that I will hopefully soon be going back to Iraq to help rebuild the Iraqi education system. I feel strongly about helping the children back there and improving the education system that has been affected by thirty years of dictatorship under Saddam Hussein’s regime. I think that our work in Iraq can create change across the Muslim world and even here in America. But the Muslim community in America is young; we are still learning how to find our voice in a civil society and how to help bring civil society to the Muslim world. We need your help in establishing our voice. I am here to stand with you and I hope many of you will stand with us. As we say in Arabic, insha'allah, and thank you very much for listening to me.

Hillel Fradkin: Let me take the liberty of asking the first question, which was brought up by your remarks. It concerns 1991. I think that there is growing appreciation that that was a dreadful mistake on the part of this country -- dreadful both in its own right and that it very much complicates the aspirations of the war and its aftermath precisely because it undermined the trust that could have existed. Now we are precisely at a moment when it may be possible to build or rebuild that trust. How could trust be reestablished in such a way to produce a really productive and fruitful outcome of this war?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: I think liberating Iraq and helping the Iraqis establish a democratic government will have a big impact not only on Iraq but on the whole region. Having a democratic government inside Iraq is going to have a big impact on how democracy will be established not only in Iraq but in the whole Arab world and Muslim nations. People are eager to have free societies, civil society -- democracy and freedom are the most important.

Roya Boroumand: How influential among the Shiite community in Iraq is the Iraqi Islamic Revolutionary Council, which is supported by the Iranian government?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: Let me clarify something. Shiites in Iraq are mainly secular, even though they believe strongly in their religion. There are a lot of followers of the al-Hakim group inside Iraq, but at the same time there are other groups who do not support the al-Hakim group. Though the Shiites represent about 65 percent of the Iraqi population, not all of them are strictly observant. Most of them are really secular and not very religious -- and Iran's experience is different from Iraq's, I think.

Arthur Kennedy: Two weeks ago at Boston University there was a program called, "Paideia and Religion: Educating for Democracy." And I met with some of the leaders from different Arabic countries and their major concern was trying to rescue educational systems from fundamentalists. Is that problem in Iraq or is there something else that is of concern?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: This is not a problem in Iraq. If you look, for example, at the curriculum in Iraq, you see that the problem is Saddam Hussein's government. I just recently received some school books, as I am examining the educational system to improve it later on. Every other page has a picture of Saddam, his name, a picture of tanks. And this is for fourth and fifth grades. They are ten and eleven years old. This is the problem in Iraq. We don’t have very strong Muslim extremism. The main job I think we have is to de-Baathicize the books and the curriculum in Iraq and just have a regular, normal, peaceful education for the kids.

Radwan Masmoudi: I was especially touched by your description of the torture houses in Iraq and being from an Arab country myself I know that that problem exists in many other Arab countries, not just in Iraq. So just like you, I founded an organization four years ago to promote democracy in the Muslim world and in the Arab world. So I am happy and excited you are going back to Iraq to help rebuild, but we are going to miss you here.

I think it is very critical that Iraq succeeds in becoming a model for democracy in the region. What can we do to help, as Muslim-Americans and Americans in general, but in particular Muslim-Americans?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: You can help the Iraqis, for example, establishing a free press, helping them with technology. You can help by sending people there to teach; if you are an academic you can open a branch of your university in Iraq. You can help labor unions -- people gathering together to give workers their basic rights, which have been missed for so long. You can help, as I said, in free media, helping people talk or write about their experience, helping authors publish books about their past experience and the transition from being under dictatorship to being under a democratic government. Also, the arts have a big influence on the people; you can help establish music or arts groups. You could do all of these things to help Iraqis back there -- as Americans and as Muslims and most importantly as human beings.

David Bernstein: It seems to me that one of the necessary but very unfortunate aspects of liberating Iraq is the deaths of many Iraqi soldiers. I have heard some really astounding figures of how many Iraqi soldiers have already been killed. And I am wondering how that's going to affect the Sunni population which after all, while a minority population, is still the key to the future of Iraq. How are those deaths are going to play into the future of any potential Iraqi democracy?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: Well, the Sunni population in Iraq also suffered a lot under Saddam Hussein’s regime. I can not differentiate -- between Sunnis and Shiites, Muslims and Christians, Kurds and Arabs -- in Iraq. We, as Iraqis, didn’t have this sense of differences between us. We always lived in one neighborhood and went to the same school. In the future of Iraq, the Sunnis are going to play a big role. They are the second biggest group after the Shiite population. So I think they are hesitant; probably they are afraid the Shiites or the Kurds will take a role, but I think having one Iraq with all groups respecting each other is the ideal thing. And I think that is what is going to happen.

Todd Deatherage: Obviously everyone in Iraq has suffered tremendously at the hands of the regime. Does the Shiite majority somehow blame the Sunni minority, since the regime was affiliated with the Sunnis? And if so, what can be done to make sure there is no effort to exact revenge on Sunnis once the regime is no longer in place?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: Saddam Hussein’s regime did not only have Sunnis in it -- it was a mix of Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Muslims. So I don’t think Shiites are going to take revenge on the Sunnis because some Shiite individuals also took part in what Saddam is doing. So in Iraq we don’t look at it as groups, we look at it as who people are loyal to: Saddam and his government and the Baath party or not. It doesn’t matter what their ethnicity is or what their religion is. In 1991 when we liberated all of these provinces inside Iraq we didn’t have this kind of backlash. In fact, when the uprising happened, I was in Karbala, which is 99 percent Shiite -- and people were angry with the Shiites who were with Saddam or were working with the secret police there.

Walter Berns: I spent an hour and half before coming here this morning talking with a member of the Prime Minister of Israel’s Office and concluded once again after talking with him how blessed the United States is because it does not have religious parties. Is there any possibility of signing a constitution -- a new constitution, a democratic constitution of some sort for Iraq -- where the basis of representation is not religion? For example, would it be possible to have an assembly the principle of which is geography?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: I cannot predict what will happen. Some people are very conservative and would like to be identified as a member of their religion, and in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with being religious. The thing that is really challenging is when some people go to extremes in practicing their religion and end up harming other people. If this does not happen, I don’t see a problem with having a religious party.

In Iraq, religious leaders always emphasize the separation of religion and the state. My grandfather always tells me that, as a religious man, he wants nothing to do with politics. He wants to practice his religion and teach his followers.

In fact, many of the Shiite leaders, and even some of the Sunni, focus on religion and not on politics. For example, the Iraqi opposition in Iran started out as solely religious. But now its leaders are combining religion and politics because they feel they are the voice of the Shiites who are being killed or tortured, so they combined political action with religious practice.

Sukkar Aslam: How long should the coalition stay in Iraq after the war, helping and rebuilding?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: I cannot tell you days or weeks or months. I think they should stay until the government is formed, and safety and stability are established in the country -- and then they can leave. If the Iraqi government were formed tomorrow, then I don’t see any necessity for them to stay there. The Iraqis want freedom, they want democracy, they want to be able to rule themselves by themselves. And I think that is their right and that is hopefully what is going to happen.

Nir Boms: What is your view of the current debate within the administration over whether to support the opposition groups that already exist?

Zainab Al-Suwaij: I think the best way to deal with it is to work with the Iraqi opposition groups, because they know their country and better understand the views of the Iraqi people. These different opposition groups do have ideas about how the country should function after Saddam. America should support any effort that the opposition is willing to undertake to establish democracy in Iraq.

Participants

Sukkar Aslam
Zainab Al-Suwaij, American Islamic Congress
Walter Berns, American Enterprise Institute
David Bernstein, American Jewish Committee
Nir Boms, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Roya Boroumand, Boroumand Foundation for Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran
Todd Deatherage, Office for International Freedom, U.S. Department of State
Hillel Fradkin, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Arthur Kennedy, Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States, Interreligious Director
Radwan Masmoudi, Center for the Study for Islam and Democracy