Our friend and member of our columnist team Salim Mansur has written a nice email this morning thanking us all. I’m happy to post it here:
Dear Joel:
I don’t know how these things are done, but I am writing you this note to thank you and through you the many fans of PTBC who wrote me, or wrote about me on your site, congratulating me for being a recipient of the American Jewish Congress’s Stephen S. Wise award (named after one of its founders) along with Salman Rushdie and three other recipients (Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan and Tashbih Sayyid). Needless to state, I was humbled and honoured by the gesture. I thought I’d share with you and the friends of PTBC my brief remarks at LA event I attended. With best wishes,
Salim
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Speech given at the awards’ night of the American Jewish Congress, Los Angeles, California on September 17, 2006.
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Good evening.
I cannot fully express how deeply honoured I am and feel to be here this evening among you – Board of Directors, Members, Friends and Supporters of the American Jewish Congress, and then to take a seat among such an outstanding group of people, my sisters Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan, and my brothers, Tashbih Sayyid and Salman Rushdie.
When Allyson Taylor mentioned I will have 6 minutes of your time this evening, I was reminded of a Mark Twain story. It is quite likely many of you know it. When some publisher came to Mark Twain for his writing he replied if the request was for a novel then to come back a week later; if it was for a novella to come back a month later; and if it was for a short story to come back in a year’s time. I am programmed, as most academics are, to speak for 50 minutes as my class withers away, but tonight here at LA I come prepared not to exceed the 360 seconds Allyson has set for me.
In three weeks the world will mark, most likely by ignoring the occasion, the 25th anniversary of the murder of Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt. The forces of bigotry and hate that overwhelmed President Sadat on that morning of October 6, 1981 – men with poison in their hearts who sprayed machine-gun bullets into him and men who spoke from pulpits in mosques in praise of the killers – are bent in making an inferno of our world.
President Sadat was murdered for scaling the walls of enmity separating Arabs and Israelis, Jews and Muslims, and embracing his one-time foe with warmth and without recrimination. He was a martyr in the cause of making peace, of seeking reconciliation, between two people who both revere Abraham as their patriarchal ancestor. My own efforts since before 9/11 have been to keep reminding ourselves – Jews, Christians, Muslims – our quarrels and enmity are of our making as we pervert what comes from the God of Abraham Whom we worship in manner of our own choosing. I do not know anymore than anyone else in this room or anywhere else on our planet if there truly will come a time when peace will reign on earth, when lambs will share fearlessly the company of lions, when swords will be turned into ploughshares, when men and women and children will wait breathlessly for the promised Messiah of Abraham’s God to arrive and rule before the end of time. My faith tells me such an eventuality will come to pass, Insha Allah (God-willing). But I do know – my head and my heart tell me – none of this will occur unless Muslims become reconciled with Jews, repent for wrongs done in thoughts and deeds, and seek reconciliation as President Sadat did even as he walked to his death.
I end with the memorable words of President Sadat from his epochal speech to the Israeli Knesset in the afternoon of November 20, 1977, for these words express all that I cherish as I strive to walk in the path that our prophets illuminated for us with their lives. President Sadat concluded his address saying, “I repeat with Zacharia: Love, right and justice.” Then he said, “From the holy Koran I quote the following verses: ‘We believe in God and in what has been revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the 13 Jewish tribes. And in the books given to Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord, Who made no distinction between them.’ So we agree, Salam Aleikum – peace be upon you.”
Thank you, my friends.
Thank YOU, Dr. Mansur.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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