By Seeme Hasan

“Bush is a good man,” says Jawad Mojtaba of Afghanistan, age 22, per Kim Barker of the Chicago Tribune. Mojtaba is talking about a market now known as the Bush Bazaar. The Bush Bazaar is the place to go to find Kabul’s best bargains; not only because the prices good, but more so because the goods on sale have never been seen in Afghanistan before.

The Bush Bazaar, named by the Afghani people after the U.S. President, is a bazaar where cheap American goods fly off the shelves, regardless of their use. “People usually say, ‘Let’s go to the Bush Bazaar and buy American products,’ ” said shopkeeper Ghulam Rassul, 59, a one-time army colonel, as published by Amy Barker in the Chicago Tribune.

Strange as it may seem, some cheap grocery items make a person think of the goodness behind President Bush. After all, the freedom to import goods and negotiate upon them freely, within a safe atmosphere, has not been seen in Afghanistan for decades. Truth is stranger than fiction because President Bush, indeed, is a good man.

President Bush just sent out invitations to the White House Iftaar party. In conjunction with the White House, and under the personal orders of President Bush, almost every American embassy around the world will also be hosting Iftaar dinners for Muslim guests. Each Iftaar party will start with an evening prayer, known as the Azaan, with dates being offered to open the fast.

President Bush made the Iftaar dinners a staple of the modern White House, and I’ve been attending them since they started in 2001.  Listening to the Azaan at the White House is an experience I wish I could better describe: think of a handsome American military soldier, dressed in his best uniform, standing towards the East and reciting the Azaan. His beautiful, melodic voice, slowly fills the long halls of the White House with all guests bowing down, in preparation to recite their prayers. And this all taking place inside the center of the Free World.

The first time I heard the Azaan at the White House, it sent chills down my spine. I did not know if I should cry or smile. My religion and my state had just come together at the First House of the nation.

I had never been a prouder American citizen.

This year, President Bush will start the dinner by recognizing the Imam of a New England Mosque, Dr. Imam Talal Eid, who will start the  evening off with a prayer. Then President Bush will give a speech, talking about Islam being a great religion and followers of Islam being peaceful people, as he reiterates each year.

I appreciate President Bush’s personal touch over the dinner, as he makes it a point to personally pick the menu items himself. President  Bush’s choices of halaal lamb, dates, delicious desserts, while no  liquor is served, is a demonstration of his personal knowledge of the  religion of Islam and its associated dietary laws.

The evening will finish with President Bush shaking everyone’s hand  and posing for a photograph while the religious leaders receive hugs  and kisses from him. President Bush - you are a good man.

Include me on the list of happy Muslims, Mr. President. A happy, American, Muslim, is how I would best be described.

Mr. President, you did not start this war; terrorists did. And despite chides to blame Islam, you have never alienated the religion of Islam, nor criticized it.

Mr. President, you did not ask for this war to happen, and despite risks of criticism, you have made us, as Muslims, always feel comfortable in the White House, your house, and our house.

Mr. President, you are the first U.S. President to say we will make a state of Palestine, as well as being the first American President to ever send millions in aid to Palestine, with promises of more.

Mr. President, you are the first U.S. President who has said we will solve the issue of Kashmir, in creating peace between all South Asian countries.

Mr. President, I speak for all Muslims when I say that you honor me and all Muslims by having an Iftaar dinner at the White House and every U.S. embassy around the world.

You are a good man Charlie Brown, I mean President Bush.

This week a Berlin opera house cancelled a performance of Mozart in the latest of many crises over religious sensitivities. A moderate Muslim asks: Have we learned anything?

By Akbar Ahmed Special to Newsweek

The voluntary closing of the Deutsche Oper Berlin because of the anticipated sensitivities of Muslims hearing about their Prophet’s severed head assumes great symbolic significance in the age of globalization in which we live. Images, events and words—as we saw in the case of Pope Benedict a few days ago—have the capacity to inflame societies across the world in a matter of hours.

Although I totally support free speech and freedom of expression, and have been saying so publicly, all of us need to be sensitive to the culture and traditions of other faiths. I am not talking of a purely academic or idealistic discussion but the possibility of people losing their lives as a result of some perceived attack on faith made across the world. I believe that the lives lost and the properties destroyed—including mosques and churches—after the Danish cartoons controversy erupted could have been avoided had there been people of greater wisdom and compassion at the start of the crisis.

The first crisis that acted as a catalyst in the context of our discussion was that of Salman Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses.” It appears that we did not learn any lessons from that controversy. The West continued to insist on freedom of expression and the Muslims continued to insist on their right to protest when the central figure of their religion, that is, the Prophet of Islam, was under attack. Lives were lost and property damaged across the world. From the Salman Rushdie controversy to that generated by the pope’s remarks, we have seen relations between the West and the Muslim world steadily deteriorating. Read the rest of this entry »