A close aide of US President George Bush told an annual convention of American Muslims that hatred directed at Muslims was no more acceptable than violence done in the name of Islam.
“As we want Muslim voices to speak out against terror and violence and extremism, it is equally important that we be mindful of speaking out against all voices of hate and incitement including those raised against Muslims themselves,” Karen Hughes told the opening of the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) on Friday, September 2.
Hughes, one of Bush’s closest communications advisers, urged people of all faiths to speak out against the “backlash and widespread demonization of Islam and Muslims” that followed the 9/11 attacks and the London bombings, blamed on Muslim extremists.
Islam Online, 3 September 2005
The New York Times describes this as part of “an initiative to improve the flagging image of the United States among Muslims overseas” – in other words, the “Muslim outreach” strategy promoted by Hughes’s boss Condoleezza Rice, which Hughes herself has been hired to implement. Quite how the Bush administration expects this to work without a fundamental transformation of US foreign policy is unclear. Hughes was evidently chosen for her skills as a propagandist. However, at the time her appointment was announced, Juan Cole commented that it raised the question of “how much you can dress up the US support for Israeli occupation and annexation of Muslim lands or the US heavy-handedness in Iraq. PR without policy changes is most often not very effective”.
Of course, for hard right Islamophobes intent on pursuing the clash of civilisations, even the most superficial attempt to address Muslim sensibilities amounts to surrender to the enemy. Over at Jihad Watch, under the title “Karen Hughes plays dhimmi”, Robert Spencer declares: “There are no words.”