Mark Brennan
The Johns Hopkins University
The first part of the Ibrahim Leadership and Dialogue Project in the Middle East has been a whirlwind. In a matter of two days, we attended an orientation in Washington D.C. designed to introduce us to the goals of the program, as well as Middle Eastern politics, economics, and cultures.
Our orientation began with hearty congratulations from the program’s sponsor, The Ibrahim Family Foundation. With short addresses from S.A. and Winston Ibrahim, the tone for the program was set. They discussed the role of Islam in America from the perspective of an American immigrant family of the Muslim faith. More broadly, they emphasized the importance of “sharing America with the world.” The Ibrahim family designed the program with the hopes of presenting American society and values to the world, via multi-culture and faith dialogue.
Immediately after the welcome from the Foundation, Professor of Political Science Steven David of the Johns Hopkins University gave brief introductory remarks. Professor David has accompanied the programs abroad for two years now. In his introduction, he emphasized the necessity of trips and international exchanges like this, that encourage cross-cultural dialogue in today’s increasingly globalized world. Additionally, he gave a brief introductory lecture about the many religious, historical, and geopolitical origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I appreciated the care and thought he put into his lecture, to ensure it was well balanced and relatively unbiased.
The Ibrahim Family Foundation also organized a lecture with Jordan Hassin (Crosby-Volmer International Communications). He spoke about many ideas, but what struck me the most was his comment about being an ambassador to the Middle East. He suggested that we are now inherently what the Institute of International Education (IIE) calls “citizen diplomats,” and thus represent the United States to foreigners. “Each of you is a product of the ideals of our country, and therefore ambassadors,” he noted.
Finally, we heard from IIE. The Institute is a longstanding pioneer in international education, and is founded on the idea that lasting peace between nations is found through understanding, and that international exchange is the best way to achieve this understanding. IIE’s Mike McCartt and Eric Johnson gave a brief introduction about the program and the Institute, and echoed S.A. Ibrahim’s congratulations.
After the final round of introductions, we had our first meeting. It was Akram Elias, President of the Capital Communications Group. Mr. Elias is in the cultural intelligence business. He spoke extensively about the differences between what he terms cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence. Mr. Elias explained that emotional intelligence is often used as the rationale behind actions in the Middle East. Having always attended western schools that emphasize cognitive rational reasons to events, this was a foreign concept to me. Thus to understand the Middle East in a cultural, religious, or political sense, it is essential that one understand the many deeply rooted emotional currents in Arab, Israeli, and Persian society.
Following Mr. Elias, we were privileged to visit the Israeli, Jordanian, and the United Arab Emirates embassies. At the Israeli embassy I had the chance to speak with their Director of Communications, Jonathan Peled, and ask questions about the Israeli naval blockade / flotilla incident. Through he was remarkably receptive to all questions, he always managed to answer them in the most diplomatic fashion. As a side note, the Israeli embassy’s security was quite impressive. It owns the only metal detector for which I had to take my belt off, out of the many embassy and airport detectors I have walked through in the past 3 days….. After the Israeli embassy we visited Jordan’s and the UAE’s embassy. Their representatives were very hospitable and receptive to questions. It was interesting how they spent much of the time we had with them reinforcing the importance their current leaders have played in their country’s development.
A final domestic meeting we had was with various representatives from the Obama / Biden Administration, including: Herro Mustafa, Special Advisor for Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; Pradeep Ramamurthy, Senior Director for Global Engagement; and Paul Monteiro, Associate Director of the Office of Public Engagement, all of whom addressed domestic and international interfaith dialogue. One was the Jewish liaison for the White House. They all emphasized the importance of interfaith dialogue in today’s world, just as Professor David did during his remarks. They were all incredibly accessible, and it was nice contrasting the comments from the embassy visits with the White House visit.
With our orientation completed, we left for Dulles International Airport for the 6pm (ET) flight to Dubai (arrival: 11pm, the next day, Dubai time). Luckily, we had enough time during a layover to get lunch in Amsterdam, and visit the Anne Frank house. Though totally jetlagged, we are now in Dubai, about to begin to apply the qualitative understanding our orientation gave us to Middle Eastern affairs.
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