In a gray-walled, institutional hall usually reserved for prosaic debates over traffic and town budgets, Mohamoud Abdirahman rose from the audience last month and approached a panel of five town councilmen sitting in judgment.
Civil war had forced his family to flee their native Somalia in 1991, when he was a child…..MORE: NYTMES
“We want to work to help achieve statehood and dignity for the Palestinians, but I was hoping that my 
speech could trigger a discussion, could create space for Muslims to address the real problems they are confronting—problems of governance, and the fact that some currents of Islam have not gone through a reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to modernity. My thought was, I would communicate that the U.S. is not standing in the way of this progress, that we would help, in whatever way possible, to advance the goals of a practical, successful Arab agenda that provided a better life for ordinary people.” …more: theatlantic.
