So that’s one of the things we learn through this whole business of asking what are role models. We also learnt some very strange role models, they are unlikely role models. In the Middle East Oprah Winfrey came up a couple of times. Young Muslims when they looked at Oprah Winfrey she’s one of the role models. Again and again the profit coming up the early Muslims, some or the heroic Muslim the great names like Abu Bakar and Omar and Ali they would come up, contemporary names would come up, contemporary names very often you have some of these pop singers some of these young Muslims.

Michelle: Cultural [IB].

Akbar Ahmed: Cultural heroes that are emerging through out the Muslim world in the region in the Middle East in South Asia. So it is a community the Muslim Community very vital it’s alert it’s a live, it’s a way of the world, it’s watching the media, it’s watching others watching it. So it’s not all gloom doom it’s also a question of we’re here, we’re to stay this is our country and I think taken a back by 9/11 because suddenly it’s saying why American so suspicious of us? Why are Americans asking us these question because we are Americans and the big question of course is these are citizens so why is America now suddenly looking at them as if though they are not citizen but second class citizens. That is the big question and we have to ask this.

Michelle: Why were all these folks I mean in Washington we tend to, we’re kind of wonky like we tend to pay a lot of attention to people that maybe people around the country don’t. So I often kind of look on this [beat] when I read about Muslims Americans that I’d interested to see purely cultural figures and I think that ten years from now you’ll you see as we talked about sort of just the maturation of civic institutions and that kind of thing that there will be cultural figures who are more well known than there are now but I it’s bit interesting to hear who those people are …

Akbar Ahmed: It’s also painted. Michelle if you look at history as scholars of history we are constantly looking at the past and comparing it to the present. When I look at the Muslim world just two or the decades ago, I see these figures who whether you like them or don’t like them to agree with them or not agree with them these are huge figures with a large imprint. In the Muslim world you had the ‘60s you had President [IB] and you had King Fesser and you had [IB] and earlier you had Nassir in Egypt. These are figures who are making an impact on the world [IB]. These are big names and today somehow [Zedari] or [Kazai] don’t quite match up in terms of stature. Similarly in the west, half a century ago you had JFK and you had these great figures in American history and earlier you had Eisenhower and you had some really extraordinary leaders Roosevelt and again today you have Bush and now of course President Obama very eloquent and a beautiful rhetoric but not quite matching up to the early vision and expectation that everyone had of him. So they’re also phases I think in human history where a leadership achieves a certain level and sometimes you have a period of bareness and plateau and I think the Muslim world is going through that particular period.

Michelle: So it’s not just … because part of the change that‘s going on is also in our communications culture where everybody was watching for example the same, we were talking about reading the same newspapers. So it might have been easier for certain figures to dominate because everybody was they had less options of people to look towards but I that if you think something else is going on?