The school education in India already has a strong inculcation of the idea in various ways that all religions are equal and we must not regard any religion as superior to others and we must respect each others’ practices. I think this needs to be inculcated in the school syllabus in the US. Also an equal emphasis on all religions. For example, Indians tend to participate in the festive celebrations of all religions, no matter whether it’s their religion or not. So you’ll find here non-Hindus celebrating Holi and Diwali and non-Christians celebrating Christmas and non-Muslims giving Iftar dinners etc. – and they expect to be included in each other’s festivals. I am told by the American students that this doesn’t happen in the US – everyone celebrates their own festival and they don’t celebrate festivals together. I think this kind of culture builds boundaries between communities – a feeling that this is “our” practice and that is “their” practice.

You are right, this teaching of tolerance should be there and perhaps the best way is to insert it in school education in subtle ways, not overtly. Ideas formed in childhood die hard. Perhaps ideas against extremism can also be a part of school syllabus, without mentioning any particular religion, as part of the teaching that all religions teach love and peace for humanity and violence is not a part of any religion. Without this engagement, the neo-converts and young people are likely to fall prey to the ideology of hatred being disseminated by the exremists.

Religion is a third rail issue for the US government. When the Constitution says that church and state will be separate, it means exactly that. (There are arguments about just whether the state is forbidden to promote a religion, the most usual reading, or must also push against religion, but that’s a somewhat different issue.)

This means that the US government is singularly unable to run programs like the sensitization centers you describe. Where the US gov’t to attempt to tell Muslims what Islam is, there would be uproar across the religious communities. There would also be considerable derision across the Islamic world.

The best that can be sought, I believe, would be to run programs that emphasize that civil society and democracy depend on tolerance for others and acceptance of the fact that not everyone agrees on even primal issues. This is not nearly as ‘sexy’ as something more affirmative about religious beliefs, it lacks traction. But going much further would be pushing the buttons of very many religious groups, either in anger against what they see as favoring one religion, or envy that their religion is not receiving the same attention. Those trends are already visible within American society. Look at the nonsense about ‘taking Christ out of Christmas’ or the fury that meets a high school teacher’s assigning some verses of the Quran in a cultural studies class.

In short, US government and religion do not mix. Instead, religion is seen as something individual, even individualized! The Supreme Court, for instance, has ruled that a religion is what a follower of that religion says it is, even if that follower is the only adherent the religion has. If there are disputes about orthodoxy, those are to be solved exclusively within the religious organization and courts may not play any role whatsoever.

Any American radicalized in America is nothing short of an F-in RETARD!

As for radicalised Muslims, I’m told by Oby the UK has built sensitisation centres for teaching the peaceful aspects of Islam to White Muslims and also to children of immigrant non-White Muslims. Others can also benefit from this campaign. The aim is to stop the White converts and others from going into extremist ways. It’s a 2 million Pounds industry.

John,
Back to our business discussion – perhaps you can get the US government to fund such sensitisation centres in the US and you can run a series of such Centres in the US, operating from an exotic US city! All religions lead to the same divine power, so instead of the usual message of love and peace from Christianity, no problem in teaching the peaceful message of Islam. That’s an innovative Christmas idea, what do you say?

Seriously …. you guys have the time to analyze a non-existence character …

Now guys … that how do I spell Success!

I am really tired this day … so no ranting going on …

Till we meet again ….

Jay are you suggesting that KSA is “exotic”? I suppose one could look at it that way- maybe “exotic” changes it’s meaning when you live there!

Well, I will not give up. There must be something we all can do to make Xroads more interesting for people like R!

How about….
2. tiger woods jokes?
3. Hollywood / Bollywood gossip?
or maybe
4. dedicate this site to a very much needed analysis of the supersymmetric aspects of the dimensionality of string physics theory, particularly the M-theory component with its 11 dimensions. If we can somehow find a way to harmonize quantum mechanics with general relativity, old R. will have to eat his words.

or, on the other hand, maybe we can find some exotic country in the middle east, modern yet ancient, powerful yet notorious, full of paradoxes and ambiguities, for you to write about.

Oh what will it be……