Remarks Secretary of State John Kerry
Ben Franklin Room, Washington, DC
July 24, 2013
Thank you very much. Assalamu alaikum. It’s wonderful to be here with everybody. And Farah, thank you for an extraordinarily gracious introduction. And most importantly, thank you for an absolutely extraordinary job, I think you will all agree, as our Special Representative to the Muslim Community. We are really pleased with what you’re doing. Thank you. (Applause.)
She said in her introduction that when I was a senator, she never dreamed that she could call me boss, but I want you to know, since I was an elected official, there were lots of things she could call me – (laughter) – and probably did. But I’m honored to, quote, “be her boss” today. I don’t think of myself that way. We’re a great team here at the State Department, an extraordinary group of people, all of whom – I see our Under Secretary Pat Kennedy here, and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, and I haven’t looked around the whole room, but many other members of our team are here, and we all join together in welcoming you here to this break of the fast.
It is a privilege to do this. I know that Washington being sort of a little bit further north – try this in Boston or even further north, you wait till later. But I know the sun sets late, so we figured it would be a heck of a lot better to have an Iftar here at the State Department than to have a Suhoor. (Laughter.) And one thing I know as a former elected official, never keep people from their meal, and believe me, after a day of fasting, even more so. So eat. Everybody has to eat while I say a few words here if I can.
We are joined this evening by a really remarkable group of people. And I want to welcome my former colleagues from the United States Congress who are here, members of the Diplomatic Corps who are here, some of whom I saw just last night as we received many of them here. But I also especially want to recognize our Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, and Rashad Hussain, President Obama’s Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. We’re delighted to have them here. (Applause.)
Most importantly – and I say this without any artifice – every single one of you were invited here because you are all doers. You are all active. You’re all engaged. You’re all involved in trying to make the world a better place, and you’re all involved in reaching out to other people and practicing, if not your faith, certainly practicing the best tenets of how human beings can live together.
And we are celebrating the holiest month of the Muslim calendar year, Ramadan. It is a time for peaceful reflection and for prayer. It is a time for acts of compassion and charity. So to all of you tonight, and to the millions of American Muslims across our land, and to the many more around the world, Ramadan Kareem.
I want to – (applause) – thank you. You can clap for Ramadan Kareem. (Applause.)
I want you to know that the tradition of sharing respect for this particularly holy month actually reaches back to the earliest days of our Republic. This is the Benjamin Franklin Room, and it’s a fitting venue for this occasion because Ben Franklin was really our first formal diplomat. And he was also among the earliest proponents of religious freedom in our country. He wrote in his autobiography, “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”
To find a pulpit at one’s service, to profess one’s faith openly and freely, that is really a core American value. And I’m proud to say, as all of us are who are American here, that it is enshrined in our Constitution, and hard fought for. And it has been at the center of our story, our national story, since the 1600s, when a fellow by the name of John Winthrop, who happened to have been my great grandfather eight times removed, led a ship full of religious dissidents across the Atlantic to America in order to seek the freedom of worship.
Throughout its history, America didn’t always get it right. In my home state of Massachusetts, John Winthrop and Puritans overreached, and people ran away from Salem and from other places to found New Haven, Connecticut, and found Providence, Rhode Island, named Providence after wandering a year through the woods in the winter in order to escape from persecution. So we didn’t always get it right.
But throughout our history, we have struggled with the divisiveness of religious differences. I can proudly say today that no place has ever welcomed so many different communities, so many people, to worship so freely. The diversity and the patriotism of America’s religious communities today are sources of strength for all of us. And our freedom to worship is a powerful reminder of the traditions that we share. E pluribus unum: from many, one. And from many faiths, we do stand together in one shared country. Now ultimately, our sense of kinship is grounded in our shared sense of humanity, a moral truth that emerges based on the dignity of all human beings.
So tonight, I just pose a question to you: Can our great faith traditions – the Abrahamic faiths that Farah referred to – can they forge a common effort for human dignity? My faith and the faith that I have seen in the lives of so many Americans tells me that the answer to that is resoundingly yes. Our faiths and our fates – our fates are inextricably linked. It’s not enough just to talk about greater understanding. Our partnerships, the way we work every day in life, the way we reach out country to country, people to people, they have to foster a mutual respect and underscore the freedoms that we seek.
I think it’s safe to say – I hope it is safe to say that may there are four partnerships that will be critical if we’re going to live up to our obligations to one another: partnerships for peace, for prosperity, for our people, and for the future of our planet. Let me begin just quickly with the fourth.
For many of us, respect for God’s creation in almost every scripture really demands and translates into a duty to protect and sustain God’s first creation. Our response to climate change ought to be rooted in a fundamental sense of shared stewardship of the earth that emerges from that tradition. We must also obviously strive to forge a partnership for peace, and there is no religion, no philosophy of life – whether Hinduism, Confucianism, Native American tenets – nothing that doesn’t talk about peace and the responsibilities of each human being to another.
I’ve just returned, as many of you know, from the Middle East, and I can tell you the need for lasting peace and security between Israelis and Palestinians, between Sunni and Shia, between so many different minorities and so many different people has never been greater than it is today. Our partnership for peace obviously extends far and wide, from the Syrian people to people on every continent on this planet, all of whom seek to achieve the freedom and the dignity that they so richly deserve.
We also can find a common ground in the partnership for prosperity. Tahrir Square, a fruit vendor in Tunisia – these weren’t religiously motivated revolutions, not at all. They were demands for respect and opportunity by individual human beings frustrated by the inability of governments to address their needs. And when youth see no hope for escaping from poverty or improving their lives, then problems can become truly insurmountable.
And to meet the demands of these populations for dignity and for opportunity requires new and creative partnerships. We need to reach beyond governmental and beyond government itself in order to include business, civil society, and of course, people of all walks of life working together in order to invest in the future through collaborations like the Partnerships for a New Beginning.
This brings me to the fourth partnership quickly, and then I will close. That is the partnership between our peoples. Earlier this evening, I met very briefly in the Monroe Room there with a group of outstanding representatives of the State Department who are part of programs we sponsor working with Muslim communities around the world. I’m very proud of the work that they are doing, and as Secretary of State, I not only find it inspiring, I think it is something we need to export and grow. All of these initiatives, in the end, add up to the way you find a different way of doing things, a different way of bringing people together to work for these common goals.
I’m pleased to tell you tonight that we’re in the process of expanding our capacity to do just that here in the State Department. We’ve created the first faith-based office, which will reach out in a major way across continents and oceans in order to try to increase our engagement with faith communities, and you’ll be hearing a great deal more about this effort in the days ahead.
Before I close, let me share – just share a couple things with you. I was impressed when I first visited Saudi Arabia, and I met King Abdullah, and I listened to him talk about his sense of urgency about bringing faiths together and his own initiative to try to reach out across the divide and bring Muslim and all other religions together. That has grown. There are Jordanians – Prince Ghazi and others – who are working similarly in efforts to try to reach across the divide and prove that radical, political Islam does not represent the true heart and faith.
I’ll share a story with you. It’s a story of bringing people together and of what makes a difference. It involves a rabbi, a Greek Orthodox bishop, and an imam. Now I know that sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke – (laughter) – but I want to tell you right up front, it’s not, it’s a true story. And I think Congressman Keating from my home state is here, and you can ask him, because he lived this story as I did. It embodies the kind of partnership and the way in which all of us need to think and ways in which we can be inspired.
Back in the early 1990s in Massachusetts, the Muslim community in Quincy, Massachusetts, home, I might add, of former President John Adams and John Quincy Adams, this – the Muslim community was looking for more land on which they could build an Islamic center – not a mosque, an Islamic center. And they found a large parcel in a nearby town. But when the residents heard about the plans, not unlike what happened in New York and elsewhere, they tried to keep the mosque from being built.
Dr. Ashraf, the President of the Islamic Center of New England, was about to give up hope, literally about to quit. He called everybody and talked to people. Then, out of the blue, unsolicited, he received a phone call from a man in another town, who just said simply, “Dr. Ashraf, I heard you need some land on which you want to build a mosque and a school, a center. And we would love for you to come and build your center here. We welcome you.”
My friends, when they finally broke ground, there stood three men holding shovels, breaking ground together: a rabbi, a Greek Orthodox bishop, and the imam. Today, that center stands tall and proud, and tonight, Dr. Ashraf’s niece stands right here. This is Farah Pandith’s uncle. (Applause.)
This is what our shared humanity asks of us, even demands of us. And when we speak of our faith, it can’t be just about our personal relationship with God, it has to also be about our personal relationship one to the other, each to everybody else.
I think you will agree with me. I have never met a child in my life – two years old, two and a half years old, three years old – who hates anybody. They may hate their broccoli or something else they’re forced to eat, but they don’t hate other people or kids. They learn that. It is taught. It is passed down.
And what we need to do is care for our fellow men and women, whatever the differences. If we are doing God’s work, we can do that. So let us act in faith – act in faith – even as we preach it. Let us treat each other with respect. Let us lift up humanity and live our faiths fully and freely and draw inspiration from this day of fasting and every day of fasting in Ramadan. Ramadan Mubarak. Thank you. (Applause.)
My post was written by Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt with his permission.
FOR: Sikastupd AND ALL THE REST OF MUSLIM LOVERS!
In the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood,” a young girl almost gets eaten by a wolf disguised as her grandmother. The moral of the story: Be careful whom you trust.
Learned early by children, the moral isn’t always retained by adults. Scams often victimize those too trusting.
When honest endorsers naively lend their high-profile name to such a scam, investors foolishly assume their investment is safe. But those blindly accepting endorsements as gospel without independent investigation court disaster.
Investigative responsibility especially arises when endorsers promote investments outside their expertise parameters, such as churches sanctioning political party agendas effecting U.S. national security.
Such an endorsement was given by the Presbyterian Church (USA). It is a political scam artist’s dream.
The church’s intentions are good — seeking to embrace another religion in an act of equality. But it fails to recognize the threat this other religion poses to Presbyterianism’s future existence — a religion hiding a deadly political agenda it silently promotes.
The religion is Islam. It lacks tolerance for non-Muslims under a religious/political system of laws known as “Shariah” — so adverse to the U.S. Constitution, supporting one system excludes the other.
Islamists predicted in a strategy document they wrote, Americans will awaken too late to realize the Constitution has been targeted.
Before embracing Islam as a religion amongst equals, the Presbyterian Church needs to understand how Islam’s Koran views all other religions.
Concealed within Islam is a political belief system of superiority (Koran 3:110, “You are the best of peoples ever raised up for mankind”), entitling its believers alone to human rights — limited as they are. Presbyterian Church leaders opening their arms in a show of tolerance fail to understand Islam’s sinister designs to displace Presbyterianism, and all other religions, based on this belief.
Hard to believe? These designs are recorded in a 1991 strategic document Islamist leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood wrote explaining how to topple U.S. democracy by paralleling Prophet Muhammad’s successful actions in imposing Islam upon others 14 centuries ago.
Discreetly circulated, the strategy paper seeks to use America’s penchant for tolerance and political correctness against it, slowly replacing the U.S. Constitution with Shariah. “Shariah creep” is already making headway!
Found stored in a hidden sub-basement during the 2004 search of a Muslim leader’s U.S. home, the documents are most telling concerning the strategy’s success — evidenced today by the Presbyterian Church’s endorsement of various Islamic Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated entities (including unindicted co-conspirators in a fraud case that funneled money to terrorist groups).
Similar to Muhammad’s seventh century successful strategy, Islam’s modern era assault strategy involves three “jihads.”
“Stealth jihad” is applicable when Muslims find themselves a minority seeking to plant Islam’s seed among a majority non-believer community.
For Muhammad, it began when living among pagans in Mecca. It involves the “peaceful” promotion of Islam, assuring the majority of its tolerance to co-exist with other religions. Koran (109:6) says, “You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion.”
Meanwhile, as did Prophet Muhammad, Muslims plot victory over non-believers, pretending to be friendly but lying about Islam’s true intentions. Lying is a sin for Presbyterians but isn’t for Muslims under “taqiyya,” allowing deception to further Islam’s influence.
Stealth jihad’s endgame is to intimidate the majority into feeling guilty Muslims are victimized — guilt allayed by then granting Muslims protected status over other religions.
This approach failed with Mecca’s pagans who kicked the Muslims out for belittling their religion but did win Muhammad sympathy among Medina’s non-believer majority who provided protection upon his arrival. This gave Muslims time to increase their numbers and resources, gaining influence while so protected.
“Defensive jihad” follows, allowing Muslims to violently defend any attacks–whether military or verbal.
In his day, while enjoying Medina’s protective umbrella, Muhammad initiated this jihad by attacking Mecca’s pagans, claiming they had “attacked” Islam by rejecting it. He used assassins to silence critics.
Medina’s majority began awakening — too late — to the fact neither Muhammad nor Islam were peaceful. The Islamic seed growing in Medina became a vine choking the rights of the majority as Muhammad imposed Islam upon them, opening the door for the final jihad.
Now a majority with political power, Muslims employ “offensive jihad” by aggressively focusing violence upon all non-believers, including those who protected them earlier and even those who had never attacked. Koran 9:73 states, “Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them.” Despite non-believers’ non-aggression, Islam finally reveals its true colors as a non-peaceful religion declaring (Koran 3:151), “Soon shall We cast terror into the Hearts of the Unbelievers.”
The tolerance Muslims espoused as a minority vanishes when they become a majority, demanding non-believers submit to Islam by paying a tax or converting. This is observed today as most Muslim countries ban non-believers, prohibiting them from practicing their own faith — contrary to the Presbyterian Church’s policy.
Transitioning from stealth to offensive jihad, the Koran changes tunes. Gone from the latter is the “Kumbaya” of the former; allegations of Muslims’ false victimization give way to real victimization of non-Muslims to “convert or die.”
Islam is built upon a platform of hypocrisy, deception, human rights rejection for non-believers and violence (demanding death for apostates, contrary to any other religion’s practices).
Culling extremists from the supposedly majority peace-loving Muslim herd is difficult as taqiyya allows deception, raising the question whether moderates are wolves in sheep’s clothing. If Islam is peaceful, moderates have much explaining to do about a Koran strongly revealing a contrary view.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy is its blueprint for overcoming democracies throughout the West — only differing on timing. The United States is in stealth jihad; Europe is in defensive jihad; offensive jihad is yet to come.
But, as extremists boldly declare, Islam’s flag one day will fly over the White House.
The chameleon changes color to deceive predators. Islam changes color to deceive non-believers. Little Red Riding Hood proved capable of sensing such deception. Will the West prove equally as capable?
–
Oh no, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
sounds like someone has done their homework, you probably didn’t even read it did you?
Zumwalt has been an outspoken critic of the Muslim religon, John Kerry, Democrats and anyone or anything who doesn’t see things his way. And, according to him, the world is going to hell in a handbasket unless the US blows up the people he doesn’t like.
No one is bodacious that has their head buried in the ground.
Col. Zumwalt is a decorated Marine Veteran who holds a degree in Islamic studies. It would behoove you to pay attention!
Kerry quoted Ben Franklin: “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”
While we may give anyone the right to express their “religious” beliefs that does not mean we are required to accept them. Islam goes way beyond the boundaries of what we have defined as a “religion” and seeks to control all others – the kaffir. Just take a look at what has been happening in Europe.
While we may give anyone the right to express their “religious” beliefs that does not mean we are required to accept them
Better tell that to those who would subvert the constitution by ramming their “christian beliefs” into law.
Sika – have you actually read the Constitution? Which Christian belief do you think has been “rammed” into law that is so horrendous?
No I haven’t read it. I don’t really believe in it either. I spend most of my time here at NIT but when I’m not blogging here I am in Algona shopping. Get off my back.
are you saying that you don’t believe in the constitution?
It isn’t me, Maybe. It’s Matt/LVS playing games. He’s such a vindictive little puke. He hates that I prove him wrong over and over and over so he’s trying to find ways to discredit me. HA!
First of all the only time that I saw that you won an argument was with me and that was just 1 little point that I gave you. You are the one that said after he asked you if you have read the constitution you said no I haven’t and I don’t believe in it either. The original statement about using the constitution to ram Christianity through.
That was MATT. He used my name to say that! I most definitely HAVE read the constitution and most certainly stand by it!
This guy is a FLAMING IDIOT. Thank god he was not elected to be our president. Those damn Muslims LIKE killing eachother and us. Their goal is to take over the world and people like this IDIOT and Osama Obama are helping them. VOTE them all out and put in a government for the U.S.A. I can just imagine how our military people that fought in Iraq and Afganistan must feel after risking their lives over there. What a waste.
Prove any of those wild statements. Pick one.
You really are STUPID aren’t you Kathy.
Yet another name! You really are desperate!
@SIKandSTUPD-No, you are really fat Kathy from Whittmore/Algona-You post on here just to start trouble. You are a liar and a cheat. Everyone who knows you over there says you are insane. Now you want to blame me and Matt for your lying post. People have found you out. Go back to 5 east where you belong. They have a tripe X straight jacket just waiting for you you crazy idiot. Get off our site and stay out. You have no business posting anything about our city or even our county. You have only been here a handful of times in your life. And now you are to fat and to lazy to make the trip.
I am laughing so hard! I don’t know who or what you think I am, but you are way off, fellas! hahahahahahahahaha!
But just to be sure, don’t forget these fun facts:
Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, or traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. Most jurisdictions allow legal action to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism.
Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and have been made to someone other than the person defamed.[1] Some common law jurisdictions also distinguish between spoken defamation, called slander, and defamation in other media such as printed words or images, called libel.[2]
Similar to defamation is public disclosure of private facts, which arises where one person reveals information that is not of public concern, and the release of which would offend a reasonable person. “Unlike [with] libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy.”[3][not verified in body]. False light laws protect against statements which are not technically false but misleading.[4]
In some civil law jurisdictions, defamation is treated as a crime rather than a civil wrong.[5] The United Nations Commission on Human Rights ruled in 2012 that the criminalization of libel violates freedom of expression and is inconsistent with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[6]
A person who defames another may be called a “defamer”, “famacide”, “libeler” or “slanderer”.
@SikandSTUPD-careful-laughing to hard can give 300 pound fat people a heart attack. Would you like me to post your facebook address on here? Poor fat Kathy. The “B” finally got found out and she doesn’t like it much. We all know who you are and where you live. You brought it on yourself with your big mouth and your insults and posting how much smarter you are than the rest of us.
I don’t know who poor fat Kathy is, but I doubt if she cares what you think! I know that I don’t! You’re so tough and cool, how about you post YOUR facebook page here? Then we can all see who is the guy that sits in his wheelchair and attacks everybody ALL DAY.
It’s only defamation if it isn’t true. This is a open blog as you well know. You have used it to your advantage for months.
I only attack people who have attacked me first. All you had to do was post decent and I would never bother you. But no, you think it is a one way street and you can say or do whatever you want. It doesn’t work that way. By the way, you are wrong again, I can walk just fine.
@SikAndSTUPD-By the way, this is a OPINION site. Everything on here is someones opinion including mine. I have posted that in the past.
Oh, so it’s everybody’s opinion but anybody who disagrees with you? That kind of opinion?
And btw: Most jurisdictions allow legal action to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism.
In other words, all this crap you’ve been spewing about me. All the lies, slander and name calling.
LVS,
Why do you think our servicemen and women were in Iraq and Afghanistan? To protect us? No, to protect the people there who were subjected to Al Queda’s reign of terror(and, if truth be told, to protect American economic interests). To assume that we were there for any other purpose is incorrect. It was stated that the Iraquis had wmds, but of course that wasn’t true. So, if the government knew that wmds weren’t there, and they did, then we had to have an underlying reason for entering into the war. It was oil.
When you say these Muslims like killing each other, you are referring to a small number of religious zealots who have bought into the rationale set forth by Al Queda, not Mohammed.
If others categorize Iowans the way you categorize Muslims, then they would believe we were all like Steve King and buy into his way of thinking. I know you don’t have much respect for King and I respect you for seeing him for what he is. But don’t categorize Muslims like he categorizes Hispanics. Please.
@bodacious, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you are wrong, there was wmd’s in Iraq. I know because I not only saw them but carried them on my truck. I took pictures of them but military intelligence took my camera. There was reports of IED’s with serin gas used against US troops. Besides we knew there was wmd’s there because back in the 80’s we gave it to them.
@bodacious-do you really think that makes any difference. They still went over there and fought to save those people and now they are going back to the way they were before. Can you imagine how they feel about that.