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RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
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RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SAO PAULO 000663 
 
SIPDIS 
NOFORN 
FOR SRMC FARAH PANDITH, KAREN CHANDLER 
AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PASS TO AMCONSUL RECIFE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/12/08 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM PREL SCUL KISL KPAO OEXC BR
SUBJECT: Engaging Sao Paulo's Muslim Communities: SMRC Pandith's 
Visit 
 
REF: SAO PAULO 653; SAO PAULO 433; SAO PAULO 421; BRASILIA 709 
(08) SAO PAULO 542 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Thomas J. White, Consul General, State Department, 
Consul General; REASON: 1.4(B), (D) 
 
¶1.       (C) Summary: Sao Paulo offers unique possibilities for 
Muslim engagement, many of which were evident throughout Special 
Representative to Muslim Communities (SRMC) Farah Pandith's 
November 22-23 visit.  The major Sunni and politically moderate 
Muslims were delighted to receive SMRC Pandith and eagerly shared 
with her several of their flagship institutions, including the 
elaborate Santo Amaro Mosque, a Muslim School that serves a 60 
percent non-Muslim student body (Islam is an elective course), and 
a vigorous interfaith group supporting the Abraham Path Initiative. 
Sao Paulo's Muslim moderates worry about the rise of fundamentalism 
and Hezbollah influence among more recent waves of largely Shia 
Lebanese immigrants, as they promote a broadly tolerant vision of 
"modern Islam".  Their own community remains quite traditional, 
with women's and youth organizations limited.  Even so, the 
traditional leadership's eagerness to engage,  acute awareness of 
the dangers of radicalism, and their solid achievements in 
integrating Muslim and Brazilian identities make them an excellent 
example of how a unique MMC (Muslim Minority Community) has, by and 
large, carved out a positive space within a diverse Latin American 
country.  Post will seek Washington support to bring down a U.S. 
Sheik to help reinforce our engagement efforts as a concrete 
follow-up to SMRC Pandith's highly successful visit.  End Summary. 
 
Special Representative Farah Pandith's Visits Sao Paulo 
 
 
 
¶2.       (U) Special Representative to Muslim Communities (SMRC) 
Farah Pandith visited Sao Paulo November 22-23.  During the visit, 
she met with a number of representatives of the city's Muslim 
Communities, visited the Santo Amaro Mosque (the largest mosque in 
the city) and visited an attached Muslim school, and attended a 
reception organized by the Muslim Federation in her honor where 
Pandith spoke about the USG's engagement plans and took questions. 
SMRC Pandith also gave a press interview to the major Sao Paulo 
daily "Folha de Sao Paulo" in which she told her story as an 
American Muslim.  The Sao Paulo Muslims who received SMRC Pandith, 
the bulk of them moderate Sunnis, reacted enthusiastically to her 
visit and expressed eagerness about future engagement 
opportunities. 
 
Working the Lebanon Connection 
 
 
 
¶3.       (U) SMRC Pandith began her visit by attending the Lebanon 
National Day reception, a 1500-person gala organized by the 
Lebanese Consulate and held at Sao Paulo's prestigious Lebanese 
Club on November 22.  The majority of Arab and Muslim immigrants to 
Brazil are of Lebanese background and this event offered wide 
ranging opportunities to interact with various members of the 
community, including Sunni, Druze and Shia Sheiks as well as 
Muslims working in business, politics and law enforcement. 
 
The Santo Amaro Muslim Community 
 
 
 
¶4.       (U) SMRC Pandith visited the Santo Amaro Mosque and 
associated school November 23.  The local Muslim community built 
the Mosque, usually attracts 300-350 worshippers on any given 
Friday, with assistance from Saudi Arabia.  The community also has 
an Egyptian cleric who helps with the Mosque's ministry.  The 
mosque is the spiritual centerpiece of a complex of institutions, 
including a Muslim high school and a soon-to-be opened nursing 
school.  The high school houses 600 students, sixty percent of whom 
are non-Muslim (many on scholarships) and the study of Islam is an 
elective.  Mohammed el Zoghbi, President of the Muslim Federation 
that sponsors the school spoke with particular pride of the Santo 
 
 
Amaro Muslim Community's efforts to do good works that benefit all 
Brazilians.  (Note: The Muslim Federation is a moderate Sunni 
group.  It is one of several such groups that vie to become an 
umbrella organization for all of Brazil's Muslims.  End Note)  El 
Zoghbi noted that the school provides a strong, affordable 
educational alternative for young Brazilians living in a 
"peripheral" area of the city.  (Note: The Santo Amaro Mosque and 
Muslim School are located in a middling to poor neighborhood in a 
highly socially polarized city.  End Note.)  The Federation is now 
also constructing a brand new nursing school on the same grounds. 
It will have a 1200-student capacity and is programmed to open in 
January. 
 
A Direct Dialogue with Youth 
 
 
 
¶5.       (U) SMRC Pandith met with a cross-section of Muslim 
students, both male and female, from the high school.  The young 
people reported no real difficulties with anti-Islamist sentiments 
in Brazil.  Instead, they said that frequently other Brazilians 
simply do not understand Islam and are puzzled by the students' 
religious affiliation.  A number of the young women lamented how 
stricter Islamic customs - the prohibition on drinking, for example 
- made it difficult for them to socialize with non-Muslim Brazilian 
teenagers.  Overall, the group was friendly and highly accessible. 
The kids evinced interest in learning English and showed obvious 
knowledge of U.S. pop culture.  None had ever been to the United 
States. 
 
The Abraham Path 
 
 
 
¶6.       (U) The Lebanese Consul General, Joseph Sayah, hosted a 
coffee for SMRC Pandith where she met Muslim, Christian and Jewish 
leaders who are all behind the Abraham Path Initiative in Brazil. 
Founded by Harvard Professor William Ury, the Path program promotes 
a unique kind of Middle Eastern tourism.  It encourages Muslims, 
Christians and Jews to re-trace Abraham's journey in an effort at 
encouraging contemporary reconciliation between the world's three 
great Abrahamic faiths.  While the Brazilians behind this 
initiative help facilitate Middle Eastern travel, they also 
undertake activities in Sao Paulo.  They told SMRC Pandith about a 
recent "Friendship Run" they had sponsored that brought together 
Muslims, Christians and Jews together into one very positive public 
event. Joseph Sayah was incredibly interested in being useful to 
our mission. He saw the value of the new position of the Special 
Representative and provided SRMC with many ideas about engagement 
with Brazil's communities but also more broadly how USG can make an 
impact using the President's Cairo Speech. He was enthusiastic 
about the focus on youth and took SRMC aside to personally present 
his dedication to helping the US government take advantage "of this 
moment in time" and the "goodwill" out there for the President and 
our efforts to engage with Muslims. 
 
 
 
¶7.       (C) Brazil's Abraham Path sponsors share the overall 
global goals of the initiative, but they are also impelled by 
strongly local concerns.  As Salim Saheen, a Lebanese Brazilian 
banker and Maronite Christian, told SMRC Pandith, "Hezbollah is 
gaining [adherents]," particularly with more recent Shia Lebanese 
immigrants.  Consequently, the moderates want to "push back against 
the radicals" by promoting popular interfaith activities. 
 
Muslim Federation Reception 
 
 
 
¶8.       (U) The Muslim Federation organized a 40-person reception 
for SMRC Pandith at her hotel on November 23.  The SMRC spoke to 
the group about Secretary Clinton's vision for the US Department of 
State and the way she has asked us to engage with  Muslims.  SRMC 
talked about the new paradigm of engagement based on mutual 
 
 
interest and mutual respect. She spoke about the focus on the next 
generation (which was met with great enthusiasm) and she mentioned 
the upcoming entrepreneurial summit -- to urge guests to suggest 
names to post of dynamic and successful young entrepreneurs to be 
considered. SRMC also highlighted post plans to educate Brazilian 
Muslim applicants about our consular procedures and our desire to 
bring down an American Sheik.  Attendees responded very favorably 
to Pandith's remarks and several speakers suggested that both 
Brazilian Muslim business persons and students would welcome 
greater travel opportunities to the U.S. 
 
Comment: Beginning a Relationship 
 
 
 
¶9.       (C) Post's Muslim engagement remains a work-in-progress. 
Sao Paulo's Sunni-Lebanese Muslim majority is generally a very 
conservative traditional community in terms of family structure and 
both youth and women's groups remain nascent.  At the same time, 
Sao Paulo's Sunni Muslim leaders are well aware of the dangers of 
radicalization, which they have seen grow among the more recent 
flows of poorer, Shia Lebanese immigrants.  In response, they are 
actively promoting a tolerant "modern" Islam that highlights good 
works to benefit all Brazilians, regardless of faith.  In this, 
they are reproducing patterns of inter-faith comity from Lebanese 
history prior to the 1970s and leveraging Brazil's own home-grown 
tendency to broad cultural tolerance.   This results in an overall 
series of Islamic communities that - while not entirely insulated 
from radicalization - have strong interfaith connections and 
live-and-let-live traditions. 
 
 
 
¶10.    (C) Engaging Sao Paulo's Muslims with follow-up programs 
(like a visit from a U.S. Sheik) would help bolster mainstream 
Islam in Brazil, highlight the importance of freedom of religion in 
America, the diversity of Islam in America and debunk the myths 
that exist about Islam in America.  Moreover, such engagement would 
reinforce the Sao Paulo Muslim community's efforts to share its 
experience in interfaith relations and general good works with 
other Muslim communities around the world.  For this reason, Brazil 
merits its own MMC strategy (a Muslim Minority Country strategy) 
that builds on the efforts of a generation of Brazilian Muslims who 
have become adept at forming a Brazilian Muslim identity and 
founding successful institutions that are at once thoroughly Muslim 
and genuinely Brazilian.   END COMMENT. 
White