Outreach to Muslim-Majority Countries

The U.S. Department of Commerce and its International Trade Administration will be organizing at least 25 commercial trade missions to foster stronger commercial and trade ties. The Department of Commerce's Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) has undertaken a program to modernize commercial laws in the Arabian Peninsula in order to support entrepreneurship in the region. Bahrain and Oman have referred to parliament new draft commercial companies’ laws written with CLDP assistance. These new laws simplify company organization, facilitating entrepreneurial start ups.

Also with CLDP assistance, Bahrain and Oman have adopted new Corporate Governance Codes and E-Commerce Laws. CLDP has trained judges from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen in the settlement of disputes arising from banking law, company law, contract law and insolvency law.

The Commercial Law Development Program is allotted $1.5 million to modernize Pakistan's commercial laws and regulations, and train business and legal communities. The Pakistan Special American Business Internship Training (SABIT) program includes training and business-to-business meetings, and will promote bilateral commercial ties, expand business opportunities, and support economic development in the Palestinian Territories.

The Department of Commerce is developing commercial ties, projects and training programs through the Task Force on Reconstruction and Development in Iraq and Afghanistan that facilitate establishment of markets conducive to trade, investment, and private sector development.

Muslim Violence Is A Fact Not A Prejudice

Executive summary about Muslim Violence by Ruth King

There is a debate going on about Islam. The question being asked is: Does Islam itself – not just poverty or social exclusion – provide ideological fuel for extremism and violence?

It is all too tempting to promote one-dimensional explanations of religious violence. Monash University doctoral candidate Rachel Woodlock said that social exclusion was the root of Islamic radicalism.

There are those who, like Woodlock, demand that critics of Islam be stigmatised as ignorant, right-wing racists. Violence in the name of Islam is well-attested in nations in which Muslims are dominant, and it is non-Muslim minorities that suffer the exclusion. Pakistani minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti and Punjab governor Salman Taseer were subsequently assassinated because of their opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

These laws are supported by Pakistan’s Islamic elites. Closer to Australia, there have been well-publicised attacks on Ahmadiyah Muslims in Indonesia, including brutal murders. These were undoubtedly influenced by a theological belief that Ahmadiyah adherents are apostates from true Islam. Although prominent Indonesian leaders were quick to express abhorrence for the attacks, many Indonesian Muslims have called for Ahmadiyahs to be outlawed.

These events demonstrate the ugly effects of stigmatising minorities, and it would be deplorable to simple-mindedly extrapolate the religious views of Pakistani, Egyptian Muslims and apply them to Australia. It is a bitter pill for the vast majority of Australian Muslims to swallow that their faith has been linked, globally and locally, to religious violence.