On Tuesday, September 20, Augustus Richard Norton came to Carnegie Mellon to give a lecture and field questions on "America and the Muslim World: Divergence, Collision, or Dialogue?" A.R. Norton is a professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University, and was invited to Carnegie Mellon by Laurie Eisenberg of the history department.

Norton has traveled many times to the Islamic countries of the Middle East and sought to challenge some of the things Americans think they know about the Muslim world. According to Norton, American policies towards the Middle East are distorted by terrorist activities. Our view of terrorists has also distorted our knowledge of the entire Muslim population.

"The number of people who are engaged in acts of alleged violence against the US and other western countries make up something like one-thousandth of one percent [of the Muslims in the world] ... there's a much bigger Muslim world out there far beyond this one-thousandth of one percent," said Norton.

According to Norton, many Muslims have actually shown empathy, rather than antipathy, towards the U.S. when devastating events take place. Norton commented, "Following the attacks of September 11th, there were spontaneous demonstrations; literally... hundreds of thousands of Iranians went into the streets, in many cases carrying candles, and basically demonstrated their solidarity with the victims of these attacks." But according to Norton, American's knowledge of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world is incomplete, and we don't always see this portrayal of their values and opinions.

To assist in demonstrating his point, Norton cited some recent polls of Muslim and European countries, noting the similarities between the two. Much of the Muslim world shows high support for American-made products (i.e., movies, fast food, soft drinks) and values the United State's freedom, but not our political actions. In the latter case, though, the Muslim percentages of support were very similar to those exhibited by European countries. There is also a fascination with American affairs, especially the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal of a few years ago.

Even with such a fascination with and support for America, there is nevertheless a complicated set of attitudes held by the Muslim public toward the United States, which often differs from the opinions held by important political figures of the region. With support for America comes the controversial idea of globalization and its effects. According to Norton, there are many different opinions about globalization in the Muslim world. The people enjoy the convenience of supermarkets and fast food chains, often preferring them to their regional establishments. But, with convenience comes moral "baggage," often in the form of skimpily dressed women on billboards in countries where women are almost never seen dressed so loosely. Also, Muslims are not just concerned with America's actions but their own government's operations, too. According to Norton, many in the Muslim world are more concerned about the inefficiency of their governments, than their interactions with the outside world.

He concluded by describing many of the political thinkers of the Muslim world, emphasizing their differences in opinion from the normal American understanding of Muslim thought. He also mentioned the availability of Muslim-written literature that is provoking widespread debate. Yet, Americans are not involved in this debate, and, according to Norton, "We need to pay attention to this [debate]. We're not seeing it all, because I think in many ways we've allowed our policies that should be addressing a police problem of one-thousandth of one percent to basically shape to significant measure our focus to 1.1 – 1.2 billion people. We need to be aware of these things; they're very important."

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