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Former President Clinton Urges Respect
By Marilee Miller
Medill News Service
WASHINGTON -- Former President Clinton warned Americans against allowing the
Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to have a
divisive impact on the nation.
"The terrorists… cannot win unless they affect the way we think and act," he
said. "They want us to be afraid of them. They want us to be afraid of
each other. They want us to be afraid of the future."
"We have to show people all over the world that America is not the enemy of
any faith or people," he told an audience of a sold-out crowd Tuesday night
at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
The former president related a conversation he had after the attacks with a
visibly distraught man outside the New York City's Armory Crisis Center.
"Have you lost someone?" the president asked the man.
"No. I haven't," the man replied. "But I am an Egyptian-Muslim-American.
Believe it or not, I probably hate what happened more than you do. And I am
so afraid my fellow Americans will never trust me again."
"That's one of the things they want," Clinton said about the terrorists.
"And we can't give it to them."
"We have to keep working at home," he said. "I was very impressed when the
president went to a mosque and met with Muslim leaders to point out that
Islam is not our enemy... The attacks on Muslims and mosques are
(intolerable). They are, by and large, carried out by people who are angry,
scared and still ignorant of the roots and diversity of Islam."
"The most important thing that we should be thinking about at this time is
how all of us can respect each other's admirable qualities and help bring
them out," he said.
The speech was part of a distinguished speakers series sponsored by the
Greater Washington Society of Association Executives.
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