Re: How do we deal with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism? | Gillian Caldwell | Big Think

Re: How do we deal with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism?

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It’s important to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims.

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Gillian Caldwell:

Gillian Caldwell is the Executive Director of WITNESS, an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy capaigns. Caldwell was a Co-Director of the Global Survival Network (now WildAid), where she coordinated the two-year undercover investigation into the trafficking of women in Russia that culminated in her 1997 film, Bought and Sold. She is the leader of the Witness to Truth video project in Sierra Leone that urges the government of Sierra Leone to implement TRC recommendations. Caldwell was the reipient of the 2000 Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership award and has been named one of 40 Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs by the Schwab Foundation, a 2003 Tech Laureate by the Tech Museum, and a Special Partner by Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Caldwell received her BA from Harvard University and her JD in human rights law from Georgetown University. Her videos have been shown as evidence in legal proceedings, such as the international war crimes investigation against Slobodan Milosevic, in the Sierra Leone Truth Commission proceedings, and at the UN. Ideas recorded on: 8/13/07

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TRANSCRIPT:

Well I think it’s important to not paint too broad a brush. When you talk about a jihadist or a fundamentalist, you’re not talking about a Muslim. There are . . . And I think Muslims are being vocal about distinguishing themselves between, you know . . . distinguishing themselves from fundamentalists and from fundamentalist interpretations of the text. So I just think it’s quite dangerous to get into too fast of an analysis about what an entire, you know, an entire part of the world thinks, and believes, and hopes for. And in fact what we’re seeing is the influence of a relatively small number of extremists who are able to capitalize on, as I mentioned earlier, a tremendous sense of disillusionment, and rage, and frustration at a lack of opportunity. And that’s what happening here is that people are capitalizing on a desperate economic situation; and of course a war on terror which is, as I know from just having produced a film recently with 14 human rights groups worldwide that features the stories of ___________ whose an Ethiopian national British citizen currently held in Guantanamo Bay, tortured into confessing to crimes he did not commit. And _____________ Lebanese national, German citizen, pulled off a bus in the middle of Macedonia and held without charge. You know not a shred of evidence against him either. So when you start to get into a situation where people are whisked away in the middle of the night, held incommunicado, have their rights abrogated, and are tortured into humiliating . . . and humiliated into doing things and saying things that are virtually untrue, you are of course going to create a backlash and a response. And I think that’s, you know . . . that’s where the fundamentalist energy is coming from.

Recorded on: 8/13/07