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<H1>Former U.S. diplomat interprets Islam</H1>
<DIV class=storysubhead>Newly settled in Montana, Dave Grimland tries to balance
negative images of the Muslim world.</DIV>By Sam Howe Verhovek<BR>Times Staff
Writer<BR><BR>April 1, 2007<BR><BR>PLENTYWOOD, MONT. — Dave Grimland spent
nearly 30 years as a foreign service officer — "telling the U.S. side of the
story," he says — in Bangladesh, India, Cyprus, Turkey and other nations with
large Muslim populations. He wrote ambassadors' speeches, arranged cultural
gatherings, and more than once hunkered down as angry mobs gathered outside the
embassy to protest American policy. <BR><BR>Now retired and living in rural
Montana, Grimland is once again telling a side of the story — only this time, in
quiet pockets of the Big Sky State, he's trying to tell the Muslim side to
non-Muslim Americans. <BR><BR>"I'm going to ask you, at least for this evening,
to try to put on a pair of Muslim glasses and see what the world looks like,"
Grimland said one recent night to about 40 ranchers, farmers and others in the
basement of the county library near the spot where Montana, North Dakota and
Saskatchewan meet. <BR><BR>Outside, it was snowing and 16 degrees. The nearest
mosque was about 120 miles away, in Regina. Many in the audience said they had
never met a Muslim other than Plentywood High School exchange student Alisher
Taylonzoda, from Tajikistan. <BR><BR>For two hours and 40 minutes — including a
brief break for cider and baked goods — the Montanans listened intently as
Grimland covered a sweeping amount of history and made a case that the vast
majority of Muslims are like the great majority of Christians, Jews or
Buddhists.<BR><BR>"No worse; no better," he said. "They want peace. They want to
live their lives." <BR><BR>A soft-spoken man of 63, Grimland has traveled to
dozens of churches, schools, small-town gathering halls and Indian reservations.
<BR><BR>He brings along a black roller suitcase crammed with books, magazine
articles and photocopies of slightly blurry maps, timelines, and "further study"
reading lists for those interested in the history of Islam. <BR><BR>Talking to a
dozen people there, 40 here, as many as 75 elsewhere, Grimland hardly expects to
change the world. But he does feel a calling. <BR><BR>"I'd been frustrated ever
since 9/11 by listening to comments [about] the backwardness of Islam, about the
religion's responsibility for the 9/11 tragedy, versus the actions of a small
number of Islamic extremists."<BR><BR>And so, Grimland said, "I just thought
maybe I could try to help people who haven't traveled, who haven't had the
benefit of having to know this stuff because it was part of their job."
<BR><BR>He didn't come to Montana to give lectures on Islam. He came here to
retire. <BR><BR>After the peripatetic life of an embassy public affairs officer,
he and his wife, Kathleen, a former UNICEF officer in India, moved in 1995 to
Columbus, about 35 miles west of Billings. They have a 15-year-old son, Michael;
Grimland also has a daughter, Debra, 36, in Atlanta.<BR><BR>Grimland and his
wife built a house on land they bought in 1990, after friends visiting India
from the States showed them photographs of the Montana property. <BR><BR>After
the 2001 terrorist attacks, as he watched television news and took in what he
describes as irregular coverage of the Muslim world in local newspapers,
Grimland felt that Montanans were being given little true sense of that world.
<BR><BR>"Islam, for most of us, didn't really even register on our personal
radar screens until Sept. 11, 2001," he said. <BR><BR>"And since then, we've
been assaulted with generally negative, often very violent images of the
religion." <BR><BR>Grimland does not remotely justify terrorism. <BR><BR>He does
try to explain what motivates jihadists, and why some Muslims don't condemn the
violence. <BR><BR>"Many Muslims do perceive the U.S. as decadent and
degenerate," Grimland told the gathering here, referring to Janet Jackson's
exposed breast in the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show and TV's "Desperate
Housewives." <BR><BR>When he filled in as a substitute history teacher at the
Columbus high school, he said, he was shocked at how sexually suggestive some of
student attire was. <BR><BR>Many in the audience here in Plentywood, seated on
folding chairs, nodded. <BR><BR>Still, when it came time for questions, many
also seemed to express polite skepticism about the Muslim world's desire for
peace. <BR><BR>"These moderates you're talking about — is there ever going to be
an outcry from them, or do they secretly agree with this?" asked Betty Overland,
a local banker. The "this" was the jihadists' violence against Americans.
<BR><BR>Grimland said that there were moderate Muslim voices but that they
rarely got media coverage.<BR><BR>Bennie Lund, 78, a retired Plentywood
elementary school teacher and wheat farmer who also once ran the local General
Motors and Dairy Queen businesses, said he had a question. <BR><BR>"I was
wondering about this plan to send 7,000 Iraqis over here now," said Lund,
referring to a Bush administration plan to provide asylum from worsening
violence in Iraq. <BR><BR>"I'm wondering whether that's a good idea or not at
this particular time," continued Lund, saying that some refugees might secretly
harbor an inclination to violence toward America. <BR><BR>"How quickly can they
be sent back?" he asked. <BR><BR>"Well, these are people who have worked with
us, some of them," Grimland said. "It might never be safe for them to return. We
have an obligation — " <BR><BR>"Well, they're going to have to be scrutinized
very well," Lund said. "That's just common sense." <BR><BR>Lund and his wife,
Ann, said they had come to Grimland's lecture because they were curious to hear
the perspective of an American who had visited so many foreign countries —
something they had never been able to do. <BR><BR>Neither of them had ever even
obtained a passport. <BR><BR>"We've always worked; we've always been busy," said
Ann Lund, 74.<BR><BR>"We never did have time to go to Europe or any of those
places." <BR><BR>Grimland's low-key, low-tech presentations are backed with
small grants for travel and other expenses from the Montana Committee for the
Humanities.<BR><BR>Most everywhere he goes, Grimland seems to make it a point to
listen as well as to speak. <BR><BR>While speaking on the Fort Peck reservation
for the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes, he asked to meet with local leaders, just
to get a sense of what was going on. <BR><BR>"I spent a lot of time abroad,"
Grimland explained over breakfast one morning at the Buckhorn, an eatery in tiny
Poplar, Mont., with ministers and tribal leaders. "I still have a lot to learn
about my own country." <BR><BR>An hour or so later, Grimland found himself an
invited guest at a weekly meeting of the 15-member tribal council. <BR><BR>The
leaders grilled him. <BR><BR>"This war in Iraq, the problem seems like it's
tribal, definitely tribal," said Rick Kirn. "We know a bit about tribal
conflicts. <BR><BR>"I'm not sure Bush was getting good advice on that when we
went in." <BR><BR>The discussion turned to the Islamic religion. <BR><BR>"You
know, a wise man once taught something to me," said council member Roxann
Bighorn. "He said there are as many ways to pray as there are blades of grass.
<BR><BR>"So we don't denigrate anyone else's religion." <BR><BR>The subject
turned to long-standing grievances. Another council member, Floyd Azure, pointed
to a large framed print behind the chairman's seat.<BR><BR>It depicts Mt.
Rushmore — and above Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, the
faces of four Native leaders hover in the clouds: Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull,
Geronimo and Red Cloud. <BR><BR>The presidential carvings in the mountain, Azure
said, are "a total slap in the face to the Sioux people. <BR><BR>That's sacred
ground to the Sioux. If I had my way, they wouldn't be up
there."<BR><BR>Grimland said he first got the idea for his talks when the head
of adult-education programs in Columbus asked him whether there was something to
offer besides "the usual programs on computing, knitting, welding, yoga, etc."
<BR><BR>"I thought out loud with her [and] fairly quickly came up with the idea
of a course on 'basic Islam.' I certainly wasn't trying to convert anyone …. I
just wanted there to be a better understanding of the
religion."</DIV></BODY></HTML>