Message to America front Egyptian President Anwar Sadat

As part of our Bicentennial observance, TIME asked leaders of nations around the world to address the American people through the pages of TIME on how they view the U.S. and what they hope--and expect--from the nation in the years ahead. This message from President Anwar Sadat of Egypt is the tenth in the series.

Generations of modern Egyptians [as well as others from] all over the Arab world have looked to America with interest and hope. There, in your new world, brave men with vision and faith have toiled to carve out of the wilderness a new civilization that fulfills the needs of man in freedom and the pursuit of happiness, away from the atmosphere of bigotry and domination that plagued Europe in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and obstructed its human experience. Your experiment of building what is now the oldest federal system where human beings and states are equal before the law with no discrimination on the basis of class, national origin, religion and color represents a light that can illuminate the human march toward a better world.

We in Egypt are the oldest "nation state" in history. As such, we enjoy the benefits of the deep roots of values and beliefs that kept us through the difficult ups and downs of history. We emerged into the modern world with a deep sense of identity and with an accumulation of human beliefs and experiences that are helping us to face the process of rapid modernization. We have to achieve in days what you achieved in years, because many centuries have passed while we were suffering from retardation, stagnation and foreign domination.

Through the exercise of power and the pursuit of self-interest, a gap has developed between the United States and nations of the Third World. What is needed is to bring about a dialogue between us and you to bridge this gap in a peaceful and creative way and fulfill on a world scale some of your achievements in America. But the process of give-and-take between the Third World and the more advanced world is not a static process. The dynamic interchange should enrich us both so that we can produce the kind of world system that can achieve peace, stability and the unhindered pursuit of happiness for all, while preserving individual identity in a community of free people the world over.

In the past 50 years, the dream of America, which young Arabs have long admired, has been marked by an attitude of indifference, bias and wrong judgments in the political arena. Attempts to redress the injustices committed against European Jews have unfortunately been pursued without due sensitivity to the rights of the Palestinian people. This resulted in the complex tragedy that plagues the Middle East. We who believe that ending one injustice should not be done by committing another should try to find a just and human way out of this complicated dilemma. To this aim, we trust that the United States will pursue with resolution and determination the effort to accord the Palestinian people their legitimate right to self-determination and help us build a new Middle East that respects national rights and that is free from discrimination, domination and racialism. This is the challenge that faces America in the Middle East as you begin your third century, and we dedicate our effort to work with you and all the peace-loving nations to make this hope a reality. We have taken together the initial successful steps to break the deadlock and to orient our efforts toward this aim. Now we have ahead of us a great challenge of working together to build up the foundation and the edifice of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

The great challenge that faces our world in the coming hundred years represents problems of universal character and dimension--problems such as the widening gap between the developed world and the Third World, nuclear proliferation, the conservation of natural resources, the nationalization of the use of energy, the pollution of the human habitat, the achievement of national population levels, universal cooperation in the atmosphere and in the seas, and the world food problem.

These problems can be tackled only by an effective internal and inter-area cooperation. Their very nature dictates the substantive change that should take place in our ways of thinking so that we can be able to tackle these kinds of problems, which will assume paramount importance for the coming generation. So, as we dedicate our efforts to complete the process of national liberation, the ending of colonialism and the building of a stable and just international system, we have to direct our efforts to the new challenge that lies ahead.

I have advocated and implemented in Egypt the policy of dialogue and openness between us and the world. We are practicing the dialogue of cooperation by deeds and words alike in the area of economic and technological development. A pattern of triangular relations between advanced technology in cooperation with the capital of oil-producing countries is helping the Egyptian people to build a sound and dynamic system that can cope with the economic challenge.

I advocate this policy of the "effective dialogue" on the world scale to tackle the problem of development. America, as the leader of the Western world, is expected by us all to play a pivotal role and pioneer the Western world in this dialogue. Together we can face this challenge through effective peace and establish a world system based on real harmony.

Let us join our effort in the spirit of real dedication to forge a world order based on human values and aimed at fulfillment of human creativity and excellence.

I wish the American people happiness and prosperity, and I wish for the Arab people and the American people to work together to make the hope of peace in our area a living reality.

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