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After five months in the Middle East and far too many hours on airplanes, I’ve settled in for a summer with Americans for Informed Democracy. I’ll be AIDemocracy’s Global Development Campaign Intern for the next two months before starting my final year at American University. If it weren’t for the frightening level of humidity, I’d be overjoyed to be back in Washington.
At this point, I’m smiling before people have even finished asking me where I studied abroad. If mentioning my first semester in Nairobi, Kenya, doesn’t cause people’s eyes to pop out of their heads, telling them I’ve just arrived from Cairo, Egypt, certainly does. When they’ve recovered from their shock, most people smile and ask me how I liked Africa and the Middle East. I can’t help feeling that they’re inwardly wondering why a sweet girl like me would choose to live in the big, scary, developing world with the Muslims, starving children, and deadly water-born diseases. Maybe that’s just my own paranoia.
I’m frustrated, I suppose, that my study abroad choices generate so much surprise. First of all, Kenya and Egypt are not scary places. There are certainly dangerous conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East, but there are many more beautiful places full of kind people who will draw you into their homes and lives with both arms. Second, these are the two regions about which Americans know the least—aren’t those the places I should be going as a student? I was in Nairobi following Kenya’s violently contested December 2007 elections, in Egypt following Obama’s inauguration, and in Syria for his historic address to the Muslim World. How could professors, government officials, or the American media possibly teach me more about global politics, ethnic and religious conflict, and the perspectives of people in other parts of the world? We should really be surprised that more students aren’t studying in Cairo, Nairobi, Damascus, Accra, Amman, or Abuja.
Guest post from Karen Jernigan:
The situation in Israel/Palestine today has become a mainstream media target. With Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Gaza and the announcement of new U.S. policy to give $900m in Gaza reconstruction aid verses the $300m to Israel, America is watching and waiting to see how this policy shift may help to promote President Obama’s commitment to fair representation and multilateralism.
At The University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Affairs, a film screening and discussion of the American Media Foundation’s feature, “Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land,” led to a debate of the current administration’s dealings with regard to the recent Gaza incursion. It has been obvious that American media has sought to protect U.S. ally, Israel, in covering the situation from a pro-Israeli stance. In the film, Noam Chomsky and other notable scholars and media representatives relay the issues of linguistics and choice clips that our media utilizes to capture and frame the situation in Israel/Palestine. Here at DU, professors Nader Hashemi and Mary Morris agreed on the fact that there is not a strong Arab representation in America or in Palestine for the Palestinians. This allows for American media to convey the situation as they have. Additionally, this film was produced in 2004, Israel is our nation’s strongest ally, and since 2004, mainstream news networks have sought to communicate a much more fair documentation of the conflict.
Guest post from Ruhi Shamim
As a 2008 “Innovators in Cultural Diplomacy” fellow, an initiative brought to you by Americans for Informed Democracy (www.aidemocracy.org), I gained a deeper understanding of the current progressive Muslim American identity movement. While the identity issue at hand has personal significance to me as a Muslim American, it is my commitment to the bigger picture of an inclusive, diverse democracy that fuels my work in this field.
My initiative, “The Crescent Project” was developed in response to the need to organize the Muslim community on my campus based on a common principle of open dialogue that did not exclude self-identified Muslims who have diverse views, practices, and experiences. I reached out to upperclassmen who have achieved leadership positions in a variety of aspects of the university culture (athletics, student government, grassroots organizing, the arts, the sciences, etc..) and who also represent the diversity of the Muslim experience (Black Muslims, International Students, Shi’as, Sufis, Converts, Secular Muslims…) to create a network of support for incoming freshman who are negotiating identity questions upon arriving at college. We wanted to encourage Muslim youth to be engaged in the university community without being pigeon-holed as the token Muslim and without giving up their connection to the Muslim identity and heritage. Through this project, we created open dialogue for alternate views and a forum for active community engagement.
Faithful America is an interfaith organization that works for many of the same things AID does–an end to poverty, diplomacy, economic security, the prevention of climate change, an end to hate speech, etc. It’s founder, Tom Perriello, ran for congress in Virginia. This hateful ad was launched against him by his opponent.
The ad accuses Parriello of supporting gay marriage and “apologizing to Arabs” for the U.S. troops, stating that Parriello is “perfect for New York, too liberal for us.” A mosque flashes in the background as this accusation is made. What actually happened is that Faithful America ran ads in Iraq apologizing for the mistreatment in Abu Gharib.
Parriello won by a very narrow margin, but a few things bother me about this campaign that ran against him. First of all, the fact that we have become such a partisan, divided nation. The fact that calling someone “perfect for New York” can be an insult is an illustration of this. Parriello in fact grew up in southern VA but went to law school at Yale and then worked for a NY firm for a few years. This should not make him less competent to represent Virginians. The second thing that bothers me is that a mosque as shown as an insult to Parriello. His efforts for interfaith cooperation and diplomacy are a reason why conservatives should not vote for him? I hate that our country has divided into “us” “them” categories: Muslim, Christian, Northernern, Southerner, Gay, and Straight.
-Liza Butler-
I was recently having a conversation with a Muslim-American friend about the upcoming election and how most of the members of her community are voting for Obama. My friend’s family, like many other Muslim families, voted Republican before 9/11 and before Islam became a dirty word in politics that it seems politicians need to apologize for. Like many Muslims, her father espouses most of the Republican values, but has stopped voting Republican, and has lost some of his motivation to vote all together, because he feels the Republican Party does not want his vote.
There are 4 million Muslims in America, a significant voting block, yet politicians, both Democrat and Republican, have tried to place themselves as far away as possible from this demographic. Obama has had to convince people of his standing as a Christian as a result of his Indonesian upbringing and Muslim middle name. Why does Christian=American? Why can’t Obama have Muslim roots and still be equally as patriotic and American?
The following article interviews various New York City Muslims about the election, and most have the same question: how did their faith become a word that politicians want to distance themselves from? How has the word “Muslim” become a slur? People expect moderate Muslims to apologize for the extremist factions of their faith; Muslim-Americans are expected to constantly be on the defense. It seems the only time Islam is mentioned in the media these days is in relation to terrorism or an extremist regime. Christianity has its own share of violence attributed to its name, yet Christians are not expected to apologize for the things done in the name of their faith. Both Democrats and Republicans in this election are guilty of making Islam a dirty word, something to flee from rather than a block of 4 million voters to talk to.
-Liza Butler-
A rise of organized interfaith dialogue across university campuses is finally seeing the fruits of its labor on the national scale. Since 9/11, organizations such as Americans for Informed Democracy, the Interfaith Youth Core, and 20,000 Dialogue have taken the lead in facilitating interfaith dialogue between different American communities, with particular attention to the Muslim community. These dialogues provide a space for mutual learning and relationship building between peoples of different faiths and backgrounds. Interfaith dialogue has been playing an increasingly important role post 9/11 especially for our society so woven with diversity.
This presidential election has brought to the spotlight the marginalization of one of the many religious faiths that help make this great country: Islam. Several rumors have been injected in the presidential race labeling Senator Barack Obama as Muslim, which is a false rumor, but the real harm is that its been seen as a negative attack. Last week, General Colin Powell’s appearance on Meet the Press brought that issue into the spotlight when he responded: “Well the correct answer is ‘He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian.’ But the really right answer is ‘What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?’ The answer is ‘No. That’s not America.’” Home of many religions and cultures, the US is celebrated for its tolerance and religious freedom. Interfaith dialogue promotes these types of American traditions and Gen. Powell’s courageous comments, however long overdue, is an applauded attempt to revive this pillar of patriotism.
Not ignoring that his remarks come during a backdrop of a close presidential election, Americans should retake ownership of their society and protects its freedoms from abuse in presidential campaigns. And it should not stop there. The increase of political involvement seen across the country during this campaign season should be used as momentum for post-election activities that not only hold the next president accountable for their election promises, but also hold us citizens accountable for upholding a community of diversity. Several actions can be taken and many are listed on AID’s website, including other initiatives by many of our partner organizations, so the real test is what actions will be taken!
As Laura mentioned in her most recent post, this week I got the chance to hear Dr. Dalia Mogahed speak at Goucher College to present some of Gallup’s findings in their recent Poll of the Muslim World. While some of her presentation simply seemed to reinforce what I already knew (or believed), other points took me more by surprise.
When she mentioned poll results which showed statistics like 75% of Saudi men believe that a woman should be allowed to hold any job for which she is qualified, I was a little bit skeptical – remember, in Saudi Arabia it is currently against the law for a woman to drive a car. It reminded me of reading recent media speculation on the “Bradley Effect,” the tendency of (white) American voters to tell a pollster that sure, they have no problem voting for an African-American candidate…when, in fact, they really do, and it affects their decision on election day. Americans don’t want to appear racist. Isn’t it fair to believe that Saudis don’t want to appear sexist? And when that’s the case, how can you trust these numbers?
I put this question to Dr. Mogahed during the Q&A session of her presentation, and her answer was: well, you can’t completely. There are a certain number of people who are giving the answer they think they should, rather than the one that’s true. But, even if the numbers aren’t completely accurate, the responses at least indicate the number of people who believe that that’s the desirable answer. It’s called an espoused value: the positions or beliefs that a society aspires to, even if we’re not yet there.
In my mind, then, numbers like these become a way to measure society’s potential. Our hope for the future. If 3 out of 4 men in Saudi Arabia at least feel that they ought to feel that women should have equal opportunities to men, then it paves the way for progress.
(Although how we’ll get an accurate measure of that progress, I certainly don’t know.)
This afternoon Kate, Arya, and I attended “Is there a Clash of Civilizations? What a Billion Muslims Really Think”, a presentation by Dr. Dalia Mogahed at Goucher College. Dr. Dalia Mogahed is a senior analyst at the Gallup Poll and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which recently concluded a poll of 1.3 billion Muslims in more than 35 nations. The poll addressed a variety of political and cultural issues, many of them related to international relations and how Muslims view the West. Some interesting points Dr. Mogahed discussed included:
- When asked respondents were asked what they admire about the West, the top two responses in both Western and Non-Western countries was Technology , and Liberty and Democracy
- Most Muslims value Democracy and Self-determination, but most of those surveyed did not believe the US is sincere in its committment to spreading the former or supporting the latter except in Afghanistan
- In a survey of how religion is portrayed in the Western media, Christianity was represented by religious leaders (such as clerics, members of a church institution, etc) 68% of the time, while most representations of Islam (53%) came from militant radicals
- Muslim respondents aspired towards the levels of development found in the West, but – like conservative Christians in the U.S. – most wanted their society to progress without sacrificing their core values
- Respondents’ “dreams for the future” centered around jobs and education for their children – in fact, with 25% of the global population planning to migrate away from their home country permanently in pursuit of better employment, Dr. Mogahed predicted that Jobs are becoming the “new global resource” driving human migration and motivation
This is a just a small, unrepresentative sample of some of the points and findings that were discussed at the event. Overall, I found Gallup’s findings to be very interesting and relevant to US foreign policy, and even more so to U.S. public opinion. As Dr. Mogahed pointed out, a successful democracy needs an informed public, and as many as 57% of Americans claim to know little or nothing about Islam, even now (Gallup 2007). But don’t take my word for it (as LeVar would say) check out http://www.muslimwestfacts.com/mwf/109345/Issues.aspx for more information on the Gallup’s Poll of the Muslim World and look for some more posts from Kate and Arya!
