Q: Your job is to recruit young people into a more constructive project.

A: Well, I'm not a recruiter ….

Q: You are definitely an influence.

A: I've got my own personal projects, like my school and my seminary. But at this point in my life, I'm actually just trying to put some balance out there because I feel that there's an incredible amount of disequilibrium in the way people are acting and the way they're thinking. There are irrational fears. If you see a woman wearing a hijab and fear is your first thought, something's really wrong. How do you racially profile terrorists when 90percent of the world falls into that? Mexicans look like Arabs, for God's sake, and anybody can change their name. I mean Abdullah can change his name to Eduardo. It's not going to be difficult, if they're clever. So how do you profile people?

Q: Six years ago, there were probably the same number of disenchanted young people in chat rooms and coffee houses complaining and plotting. But given the last five years, what are the chances now that it is going to become a more real and a more sinister force?

A: A major fear for me is that it will get worse with the profiling, with the alienation. I think especially for the young people and especially in the more underprivileged groups, but don't rule out the privileged as well. In the Communist period, the revolutionaries, the leaders were almost always-- Che Guevara, people like that-- they were always from the middle class and the educated. And empathy is a very powerful emotion. If you watch Al Manar Television in Lebanon, it's associated with Hezbollah. If you watch that for any length of time, you're going to get very angry. It's as simple as that. They show babies blown up, they show horrible scenes, and people see that and they get angry. There's always going to be a segment of angry people who are going to go out and do something.

Part of the real crisis of the modern age is that the individual has the power to do what pre-modern armies really couldn't even do. In the pre-modern world, you just couldn't do a lot of damage. In the modern world, you can. So we have real concerns. You have to go to a deeper level. Henry David Thoreau said for every thousand people hacking away at the branches of evil, there's only one person hacking away at the roots of evil. I really think we need to go to a deeper level and look at what the root of this situation is. There are a lot of people prevaricating out there, who just don't want to deal with the "why" question.

Q: It's become treasonous to talk about "why." So how do you get around that?

A: People need to know. It's the responsibility of the fifth estate-- the journalists. They need courage. I'm amazed at the courage of the journalists on the frontlines in Iraq, but we need intellectual courage in our community. We need to get rid of this hegemonic discourse that doesn't allow for any dissent, where people's jobs and careers are threatened by asking questions, because we have to ask questions.

Q: Well, let's start now. Why?

A: Why? We have a thousand years of cold war between the West and Islam. Let us not forget that the West in many ways defined itself, Europe defined itself vis-à-vis Islam. The Song of Roland is really one of the earliest pieces of Western literature, and it's about the antagonism with Muslims. So I think Islam has always been this nebulous "other" that we're afraid of, and that is part of our consciousness. The Crusades are also part of our consciousness. And the colonial period. But ultimately what you have is extremely repressive regimes. The reality is, almost all these Muslim governments are persecuting active Muslims, not terrorists. When you have very powerful secular tyrants, religion poses a very serious threat, and religion is a very powerful force inthe Muslim world.

So the repression of Islam, which has been going on for solong, has resulted in certain extreme views that have emerged within the religion. But you have to look at the reasons. Now we in the West have supported many of these regimes and see them as our interest. I personally don't think democracy is viable right now in the Muslim world. You need just governments, but you need strong governments. I think you can have situations that are not democratic but still are rooted in a concern about the people, the welfare of the people.

Q: How realistic is it to place hope on benevolent dictatorships?

A: I'm  not  talking  so  much  aboutdictators.   At  this  stage,  you  have  to  build  democratic institutions, and in that way, the West can help.  Look, we give $1billion in aid to Egypt. Do you know  how much juice that is on the  negotiating table,  in terms of what you demand of Egypt? Because  if  you  cut  off  that  billion  dollars,  you're  cutting off the  lifeblood  of  the  Egyptian government. America has an immense amount of power, but it doesn't use it in any benevolent way. It uses it to maintain a status quo. The same is true for almost all these Muslim countries.

(Continuation)