Events

Waiting for the Preacher: Obama’s America in World Religious Context

6 September 2010

Jack Miles, Senior Fellow for Religious Affairs with the Pacific Council on International Policy and Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies, University of California, Irvine

Bill Clinton went to war to rescue Kosovar Muslims from Serbian Catholics and dreamed of reconciling Palestinian Muslims and Israeli Jews. George W. Bush left office embroiled in a war to reconcile Iraqi Muslims to one another. Strange errands, these, for a pair of ardently declared American Protestants! Now comes President Barack Obama, fathered by a Kenyan Muslim and raised for significant middle years by his atheist mother and a Muslim stepfather in Jakarta.

America, Islam & the 'Ground Zero Mosque'

9 September 2010

Jack Miles, Senior Fellow for Religious Affairs with the Pacific Council on International Policy and Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies, University of California, Irvine.

Plans to build an Islamic centre near the site of the 9/11 bombing have become a flashpoint for debate over the nature of America and its relations with Islam. Eminent American religion scholar and journalist Jack Miles argues that the conservative critics of the “ground zero mosque” are Osama Bin Laden’s best friends. The indispensable premise of the master narrative of international takfiri extremism, he argues, has been that the United States is at war with Islam. If American conservatives prevail over the Mosque, the world's Ummah (Muslim community) will conclude that Americans really do blame them for the terrorist actions of a Muslim few. Osama bin Laden would win a major tactical victory without firing a shot. The goodwill generated by Barack Obama’s speeches in Ankara and Cairo would be undermined. American efforts to improve relations with the Islamic world would be set back for years. The global stakes over a small piece of ground in Manhattan could not be higher.

9/11 - America and Islam Nine Years On - A conversation with Jack Miles, Waleed Aly and Geoffrey Garrett

15 September 2010

A free public seminar sponsored by the US Studies Centre, Global Terrorism Research Centre, Centre for Islam and the Modern World, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation (ACJC), Monash European and EU Centre, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash Asia Institute.