US-Muslim Engagment Project Makes Headlines
by Elliot GreenbergerThursday, September 25th, 2008
There was an article in the New York Times yesterday about our latest project with the US-Muslim Engagement Project, which launched yesterday.
The piece, “Report Seeks Engagement With Muslims by Diplomacy“, discusses the origins of the interactive website, ChangeTheStory.net, that See3 developed:
After 18 months spent examining the deteriorating relations between the United States and the Muslim world during the Bush administration, a diverse group of American leaders will release a report in Washington on Wednesday calling for an overhaul of American strategy to reverse the spread of terrorism and extremism.
The report, “Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World,”; was produced by 34 leaders drawn from religious, business, military, foreign policy, academic, foundation and nonprofit circles. The group included Democrats like Madeleine K. Albright, who was secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, and two former Republican congressmen, Vin Weber and Steve Bartlett.
What came out of this report was a need to make the information accessible to a wider audience, so Intersections enlisted See3 to develop ChangeTheStory.net and to provide much of the video content for the site.
Robert Chase, Founding Director of Intersections said, “Our goal was to build an interactive experience for concerned individuals, educators and religious leaders, to provide entry points into the report, which is not necessarily accessible to the common person, and to help people apply the principles of the report to their local settings.”
See3 produced 14 videos for the site, which also offers timelines, maps, discussion guides, educational tools, and plenty of resources.
There has been a lot of media coverage of the report already, and we hope that ChangeTheStory.net continues to educate and engage on this important issue. Even the presidential nominees have been involved:
The McCain and Obama campaigns have been briefed on the report’s recommendations, and both were receptive, said Mr. Weber [chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy] and other members of the group. There is a briefing on Wednesday for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and members of Congress, and a public release at the National Press Club in Washington.
Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Republican leader of the Foreign Relations Committee, has sent the report to his colleagues with a letter saying it contains “constructive recommendations on how we can approach this pressing concern in a bipartisan framework.”
Chase explains, “We wanted to create something groundbreaking, distinctive, and totally compelling to a public that has the potential to build bridges between U.S. Muslims and people of other faiths.”
