Common Ground Newsletter: 15-21 September 2009
Dear HumanDHS network friends
Please find below the Common Ground Newsletter: 15-21 September 2009.
Kind regards
Brian Ward
Common Ground NewsletterInside this edition 15 – 21 September 2009
Muslim Americans answer the call to serve
by Salma Hasan Ali
Writer and community volunteer Salma Hasan Ali describes the way Muslim Americans have responded to US President Barack Obama’s community service appeal during Ramadan.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 15 September 2009)
~Youth Views~ A better tomorrow for Pakistan
by Murtaza Kumail Khwaja
Pakistani medical student Murtaza Kumail Khwaja recounts his experience building a community organisation that calls upon youth to assume responsibility for the future of the country.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 15 September 2009)
Islam within Islam
by Shafeeq Ghabra
Shafeeq Ghabra, professor of political science at Kuwait University, looks at the evolution of Islamic thought and practice over time, especially in light of worldwide religious revivalism.
(Source: Arab News, 12 September 2009)
More Americans know their Muslim neighbours
by Parvez Ahmed
Associate professor of finance at the University of North Florida, Parvez Ahmed explores Americans’ shifting attitudes toward Muslims, and vice versa, in the eight years since the attacks of 9/11.
(Source: altmsulim.com, 11 September 2009)
Arab-Western dialogue through literature: an interview with Ulrich Schreiber
by Mohamed Massad
In this interview with freelance writer Mohamed Massad, Ulrich Schreiber–head of the international literary festival berlin–comments on the regional focus of this year’s festival and reminds readers of literature’s power to create understanding between the Arab world and the West.
(Source: Qantara.de, 10 September 2009)
Featured Video
This video on the Women Empowerment Program in Lebanon demonstrates how a simple attempt to change a grammatical norm in Arabic turned into a popular award-winning campaign for women’s rights in the country.
Muslim Americans answer the call to serve
Salma Hasan Ali
Washington, DC – This year, 11 September was proclaimed the National Day of Service and Remembrance, symbolically concluding a nationwide summer of service movement, United We Serve. This programme was launched by US President Barack Obama to encourage Americans to volunteer in their communities, and Muslim Americans stepped up to the challenge.
Since 11 September fell during Ramadan this year, it was a perfect opportunity for Muslim Americans to reclaim the day as one of commitment to one another and to our country.
Muslim Americans Answer the Call is a nationwide grassroots response to mobilise every single Muslim American in a united effort for community service. The Qur’an says: “Race one another in good works” (Qur’an 5:48). And since the campaign continued through Ramadan, many of us felt there was no better way to show our faith than in action. Beginning 22 June, the group committed to completing 1,000 community service projects, and we surpassed 3,000.
Projects ranged from partnering with the Salvation Army, an organisation dedicated to relieving poverty, to preparing thousands of meals for the homeless in our nation’s capital, to working with publishers to provide textbooks for under-funded schools on Native American reservations.
Last week I attended Fast2Feed, an interfaith iftar dinner marking the end of the daily fast, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC. The event was part of the 31 August to 6 September interfaith service week for United We Serve, and was only one of thousands of interfaith service events around the country. Coming from multiple faith communities, the attendees brought food for the needy and combined service with an opportunity to learn about other faith traditions.
It was the first time I had attended an iftar at a synagogue and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. And then I heard the call to prayer–beautifully recited by a young Muslim man standing on the bima, the raised platform where the Torah is read. He called out in Arabic, “God is great”, with two golden menorahs on either side of him, while standing in front of a Star of David etched in stained glass.
My children prayed on the synagogue bima that evening. As I watched my seven-year-old son Zayd, hands folded and facing East, and my 13-year-old daughter Saanya, head covered and eyes sparkling, I was overwhelmed with the poignancy of it all. I took a picture and let the moment wash over me.
And then it dawned on me: what I was finding so remarkable, so uniquely beautiful, seemed absolutely ordinary to them. For Saanya and Zayd, praying at the synagogue felt as comfortable as praying in our mosque or in our living room. For them, it was joyously unremarkable.
The past several years, 11 September has been used to evoke fear, animosity and division. This was our opportunity to demonstrate who we are and what we believe in through our actions, to reveal what is central to our faith through acts of service and compassion, and to reclaim our place in the American mosaic.
The United We Serve campaign ended on 11 September. But it should really mark the beginning of a more collaborative, sustained effort to make service a part of our daily lives. On 11 September, I talked to Zayd’s class about Ramadan and Eid al Fitr, the Muslim celebration marking the end of Ramadan. Saanya and I made cards after school, continuing our craft-based service project to raise money for children’s education and then served dinner at a homeless women’s shelter in our community.
Our president calls us all to action. Our faith calls on us to act. Nothing should stop us in this race to good works.
###
* Salma Hasan Ali is a writer and community volunteer. This article first appeared in The Sacramento Bee and was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 15 September 2009, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
Return to top
~Youth Views~ A better tomorrow for Pakistan
Murtaza Kumail Khwaja
Lahore, Pakistan – As young Pakistanis, my friends and I often sit and discuss the country’s political and developmental issues. With some dismay, we acknowledged one day that Pakistanis generally wait for others to get things accomplished because they feel hopeless after having voiced their concerns for over 60 years to no avail. However, we can no longer perpetuate this kind of culture; we need to take collective action to move forward as a society.
We decided to prompt change in the country ourselves by building a sense of communal responsibility. At the time, we didn’t outline clear objectives, but the idea was to get up and do something for the greater political and economic good of Pakistan.
We formed Zimmedar Shehri (Responsible Citizens), a group of individuals who believe in a better tomorrow. Pakistan is a developing country, but it has potential for growth and change. We stand by a simple philosophy, that each individual has a part to play in the improvement of the country.
Young and enthusiastic, we started at the grassroots level to create positive change. We decided to find a solution to the growing garbage problem in Pakistan. Everyone complains about garbage spilling on to the sidewalks and filling the streets, but there is no real action from anyone–locals or politicians–to put an end to it.
Our initiative began as a small group of young men and women who cleaned crowded and dirty market places on Sundays. Sometimes, we would stay in one small area for up to three hours to clean it thoroughly. Our objective was simple: we wanted to help people realise, through our actions, that each person has a responsibility towards society as a whole, to accept that responsibility for change lies not only with the government but also with the people, and to realise that we need to work together to achieve this change.
This initiative also has a larger aim: regaining Pakistanis’ trust in government. It was important to show people that once you get something started, people notice and help will come, no matter how great the obstacles might be.
When we first began the project in March 2009, we began as four young men–all 22 years of age with a Facebook group to spread the word and the intention of doing hard work. Now, almost 40 people regularly join us in our marketplace cleanup events, which are held every Sunday. We also get locals from the area to join in, and once they do, the number of people can sometimes reach up to 80.
We carried out surveys amongst local shopkeepers and nearby residents and found out that more garbage bins were needed, so we are putting pressure on the city council to provide those bins. Members of the National Assembly of Pakistan have visited us during our events and have assured us that these bins will be put up if we can arrange funding for them.
Just last month, we opened a chapter of Responsible Citizens in Islamabad, headed by Ali Faateh and Meekal Jamil. They hold regular events. One week, they picked up trash in a busy neighbourhood and the following week they, along with prominent human rights activists, organised a candle-lit vigil outside a church in a Christian neighbourhood and apologised to the Christians on behalf of the nation for the violent anti-Christian riots in Gorja last month, which resulted in the death of seven Christians and the destruction of 51 homes.
We also started a clothing donation campaign to assist those living in slums. We have already collected approximately 100 bags of clothing from our families and friends and there are still many more waiting to be packed. In addition, we plan to establish a volunteer base for our events and three-day workshops on community service and responsibility in schools nationwide.
Currently, we are negotiating with people in Karachi and Peshawar to open chapters of Responsible Citizens in those cities as well. There remains a great deal of work to be done. But through these projects, which have already begun to grow and inspire change, we hope to foster a new sense of commitment for a better tomorrow in Pakistan.
###
* Murtaza Kumail Khwaja is the founder of Zimmedar Shehri (www.zimmedarshehri.com) and a fourth-year medical student at Fatima Memorial Hospital College of Medicine and Dentistry in Lahore. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 15 September 2009, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication
Return to top
Islam within Islam
Shafeeq Ghabra
Kuwait City – Ramadan, which began on 22 August, offers an opportunity to reflect upon the surge in religious observance and ritual across the Muslim and Arab worlds and what the future might bring. For the last three decades, an Islamic revival has held the Muslim and Arab worlds in its grip. Although religious revival is a worldwide phenomenon, politicised Islam has run deeper than other religions. The secularism and mainstream Islam of the 1970s was replaced, to varying degrees, by a deep commitment to political Islam.
The Arab and Muslim worlds of the 1950s and 1960s had a forward-looking attitude with an eagerness to modernise. Trends in education, art, music, theatre and dress could be characterised as progressive. For example, in Kuwait in the 1950s, a group of young women burned their abayas, the cloth (usually black) that covers the entire body. Earlier, in 1923, Huda Sharawwi–a leading Egyptian feminist–publicly removed her veil in front of a crowd. Within a decade, few women in Egypt remained veiled.
Many scholars have hinted or insisted that nowhere in the Qur’an or Islamic texts is the hijab, the scarf covering the hair, mandatory. Qasim Ameen, a leading Arab thinker at the turn of the 20th century, wrote books and articles on the liberation of women from tradition and discrimination. His interpretation of Islam found no place for the hijab or other covering, or multiple wives.
A quick look at how Arab, Persian and other Muslim women of the 1960s and 1970s dressed in the Middle East reveals that few wore the hijab and even fewer donned an abaya. In the 1960s in Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait and Tehran, short skirts–even miniskirts–were the fashion of the day. Male and female swimmers occupied some of the same public beaches in Kuwait and other parts of the region.
Only Saudi Arabia, because of historical political factors particular to the Najd, a centre of conservative Islamic thinking, remained untouched by such trends and lifestyles. How then did the Arab and Muslim worlds go from adopting such dress codes to viewing the veil, abaya, and hijab as part of Islamic tradition?
The June 1967 war delivered a crippling blow to Arab secular nationalists. Individualism, secularism and elements of liberalism had yet to extend roots deep into the region. The Arab defeat by Israel contributed to the rise of the Islamic forces that filled the vacuum left by the secular nationalists led by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. After 1967 many politicians and leaders took refuge in orthodox religion. The Arab-Israeli conflict played a major role in interrupting the political and social evolution of the region along lines similar to those taken by Latin American nations and others.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution without a doubt also factored prominently in the revival of Islamic traditionalism. Its leaders used Islam as an ideology and banner in rejecting the failed policies of the shah and US influence in Iran. The revolution spearheaded the ascendance of an Islamic ideology in which the hijab became a symbol. Some 40,000 teachers were dismissed from Iranian schools, which adopted a new, Islamic curriculum that emphasised an isolationist orientation and had an anti-modern tilt.
These developments represent a world closing in on itself, turning away from Europe and the forward-looking attitude of an earlier era. On the other hand, some leaders in the region began to use religion specifically to avoid a revolution like the one in Iran. Several Arab governments formed alliances with rising Islamic trends and moved to implement a legal system based on Islamic principles, which was interpreted as restricting co-education and changing curricula, enforcing or encouraging dress codes for girls and women to include the hijab, and increasing public commitment to Islamic rituals.
The Egypt of President Anwar Sadat led the way, and other governments followed. The victory of the Afghan mujahideen fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1989 provided strength and confidence to the rising Islamic movements. The war also made possible the alliance between Afghan, Arab and other Muslim fighters, including Osama bin Laden, the United States and Arab regimes.
The Muslim world today stands at a crossroads. An orthodox interpretation of Islam continues to prevail with a strong tilt toward political Islam. In addition, an undercurrent of a new movement in the Arab world seeks freedom of choice and a renewal of the aborted liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s.
The reform movement in Iran is symbolic of the climate for change in the region. The world today is witnessing the beginning of the end of the isolationist, political Islamic model in the Middle East. The way religion and politics have interacted for the last 25 years is on the verge of transformation towards a different model. One of the challenges will be salvaging the humanism and equality of original Islam from the Islam of anti-modernism and fundamentalism that evolved from conflict with the outside world. Discovering Islam within Islam will be a long and turbulent journey.
###
* Shafeeq Ghabra is professor of political science at Kuwait University. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from the author.
Source: Arab News, 12 September 2009, www.arabnews.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
Return to top
More Americans know their Muslim neighbours
Parvez Ahmed
Jacksonville, Florida – Eight years after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the latest survey from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press shows an unmistakable trend of Americans slowly but surely beginning to appreciate the challenges and aspirations of their fellow Muslim citizenry. Perhaps this trend is a result of nearly half of Americans saying that they personally know someone who is a Muslim.
The fact that so many Americans profess knowing a Muslim is surprising given the fact that Muslim Americans make up fewer than two per cent of the overall US population. The latest Pew poll shows the percentage of Americans who view Islam to be a violent religion is at its lowest level in recent years, although not lower than the 25 per cent mark recorded in the first Pew poll on this subject shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The biggest change in attitude came among surprisingly conservative Republicans, a 13-point decrease in the view that Islam is violent.
Coinciding with this positive trend are the findings that show more Americans, nearly six in ten, saying that Muslims are subject “to a lot of discrimination”. While the empathy factor for Muslims has increased, knowledge about Islam and Muslims remains pitifully low. Two-thirds of people who are not Muslims find Islam to be “very different or somewhat different” from their faiths.
The Pew report states that, “slim majorities of the public are able to correctly answer questions about the name Muslims use to refer to God (53 per cent) and the name of Islam’s sacred text (52 per cent)”. Only four in ten correctly answered both “Allah” and “the Qur’an.” Those who know a Muslim are least likely to see Islam as encouraging of violence and most likely to express favourable views of Muslims.
The change in attitude towards Islam and Muslims are undoubtedly the result of more Muslim Americans than ever before taking the time and making the effort to reach out to their neighbours and colleagues trying to explain away the misunderstandings about their faith. In recent days and months, major American leaders have also taken extraordinary steps in reminding fellow Americans about the valuable contributions being made by Muslim Americans.
“I saw…a photo essay…of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave…you could see the writing on the headstone. And it [listed] his awards: Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he [could] go serve his country–and he gave his life”, observed General (Ret.) Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State, in an interview on Meet the Press in October 2008.
More recently US President Barack Obama, speaking at a Ramadan iftar dinner which marks the end of the daily fast during Ramadan, noted, “And like the broader American citizenry, the Muslim American community is one of extraordinary dynamism and diversity–with families that stretch back generations and more recent immigrants; with Muslims of countless races and ethnicities; and with roots in every corner of the world. Indeed, the contribution of Muslims to the United States is too long to catalogue because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country. Muslim Americans are successful in business and entertainment, in the arts and athletics, in science and in medicine. Above all, they are successful parents, good neighbours and active citizens.”
Perhaps Obama stated the obvious but if more American opinion leaders find the courage to do just that then the trend towards a more positive view of Islam and Muslims will undoubtedly accelerate. And America will be better for that.
Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently noted that the US military is bungling its outreach to the Muslim world and squandering goodwill by failing to live up to its promises. Mullen’s views are backed by data that shows opinions about America and America’s intentions remain alarmingly poor in much of the Muslim world. To change the hearts and minds, American rhetoric will have to be backed by American action.
Mullen went on to say, “Our messages lack credibility because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises.” One reason we have failed to build trust relationships with the Muslim world is because so few Americans understand Islam and Muslims.
Muslim Americans will have to increase their efforts to reach out to their neighbours and colleagues. Americans of other faiths will have to reciprocate. Undoubtedly, understanding is a two-way street. Muslims must also increase their efforts to understand the faiths of other people. Given today’s global political tensions, economic unease and ecological concerns, the need for identifying our common ground and working together for the common good is urgent.
###
* Parvez Ahmed is associate professor of finance at the University of North Florida and a frequent commentator on the Muslim American experience. His articles can be read at drparvezahmed.blogspot.com. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from altmuslim.com.
Source: altmsulim.com, 11 September 2009, www.altmuslim.com
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
Return to top
Arab-Western dialogue through literature: an interview with Ulrich Schreiber
Mohamed Massad
Bonn, Germany – According to the head of the international literary festival berlin, Ulrich Schreiber, this year’s event–which began on 9 September–aims to be a milestone for literary communication between Europe and the Arab world. Freelance writer Mohamed Massad talked to Ulrich Schreiber to discuss this year’s regional focus.
The focus of this year’s programme for the international literature festival berlin is on the Arab region. What does the programme hold in store?
Ulrich Schreiber: The international literature festival berlin (ilb) is the most international of all international literature festivals around the world. Every year we invite over 150 prose and poetry writers from around 50 countries on all continents to present and discuss their work at almost 300 events. In our “Reflections” category we address key political topics. This year that includes visions for the future of dialogue between the West and the Arab world.
The “Speak, Memory” section consists of readings from texts by authors who are no longer alive–all the way from the ancient Greek poet Homer to the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who died last year.
Another important part of our programme is “International Children’s and Youth Literature”–more than 10,000 of our over 30,000 visitors are of school age, storming our morning readings at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, an exhibition venue in Berlin. In recent years we’ve placed more emphasis on young literature, inviting authors who aren’t yet known on the international circuit but have grabbed people’s attention with debut novels in their home countries.
The festival has already featured various authors and musicians from Arab countries in the past. And now we want to intensify the contacts we’ve forged and the knowledge of Arab literature in the West.
We’ll be focusing our efforts on setting up a stage in Berlin, offering our guests from the Arab world a chance to present their literature, their intellectual, cultural and political standpoints, in an authentic way. We want to ask: what issues are moving the Arab world?
Is that the only reason why you chose the Arab region as the focus of this year’s festival?
In view of recent developments I think it’s become absolutely essential to promote greater understanding for Arab cultures in the West, if I may put it in very simple terms. And what art form is better placed to do that than literature, which tells us all about people’s most intimate wishes, hopes and fears?
So the aim of the focus on the Arab region at the 9th international literature festival berlin is to open up the cultures of the Arab region for an interested audience, promote mutual understanding and encourage contacts between artists, players in the cultural industry and authors.
What were your criteria for selecting Arab writers?
To start with, I’d like to say that we always go to great lengths to get something approaching an overview of the literary terrain of our focus region, this year as every other year.
And our main criterion is naturally literary quality. We were advised by former guests from the Arab region, translators from Arabic, European publishers of Arabic prose and poetry, the Goethe Institutes in the Arab region and local authors recommended to us in Cairo, Alexandria, Ramallah, Dubai, Beirut, Damascus and Israel as well, where there are also many Arab writers.
We wanted to persuade outstanding authors from the region to participate, including writers from the younger generation not yet familiar with Germany.
What is your assessment of previous encounters between Arabic and German literature?
There are already various cultural projects focusing on the dialogue component of relations between the West or Europe and the Arab region. Our Focus programme aims to follow in the spirit of these projects–for example, project manager Peter Ripken’s work at the Frankfurt Book Fair or the West-Eastern Divan, a Berlin-based project devoted to improving mutual knowledge of the literature of the Middle East and Germany, through encounters between authors from the two regions.
Admittedly, we have seen an increase in interest in the literature and cultures of these countries since 9/11–the clearest expression of that being the Frankfurt Book Fair’s Arabic focus in 2004. But in essence, the reception situation has changed very little: Arabic literature is barely published and read outside the region itself. The encounters have been too marginal in character to date.
What are your hopes for the festival’s Arab focus?
That it will be a milestone in literary and cultural communication with the Arab world, that friendships will be forged and plans made by the German visitors to travel to these countries and intensify their contacts there.
What is your answer to authors from the Arab world who aren’t in Berlin this year?
You mean writers who might be disappointed not to have been invited? My answer is this: the festival will go on forever!
###
* Mohamed Massad is a freelance writer. This article, translated from German, is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from Qantara.de.
Source: Qantara.de, 10 September 2009, www.qantara.de
Copyright permission is granted for publication.
