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For those of you just joining
us, I'm Margaret Lewis,
executive director of the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts, and Letters and would like
to welcome you to our special
event: Remembering the 10th
Anniversary of 9/11.
Today's afternoon of panel
discussions and exchange is part
of our Academy Evenings series
of talks held throughout the
state and here in Madison.
This fall we are focusing on the
theme perspectives on a
post-9/11 world, and we hope you
will join us for other events
mentioned in our season
schedule, and we hope you'll
feel free to take one of those
on your way out or else just
visit our website at
www.WisconsinAcademy.org
for further information
about all of our events and
about becoming a member of the
Wisconsin Academy.
The Wisconsin Academy is an
independent non-profit dedicated
to creating spaces for civil
discourse on urgent issues
facing our state.
And that's why we're all here
today.
So thank you so much for joining
us.
Our second panel of the
afternoon, Islam and American:
Citizenship and Democracy,
brings together three
extraordinary individuals,
Louise Cainkar, associate
professor in the Department of
Social and Cultural Studies at
Marquette University.
Louise, you want to raise your
hand?
Charles Cohen, on the other end,
UW Madison professor of history
and religious studies and
director of the Lubar Institute
for the Study of Abrahamic
Religions, and Asifa Quraishi,
and assistant professor of law
at UW Madison.
How about I start with Louise
and go down, but then Charles is
going to lead off our panel, and
we'll leave at least a half an
hour for your questions so that
we can respond and learn
together from those.
So Louise Cainkar's area of
expertise includes Arab American
studies, Muslim American
studies, and immigrant
communities, fields in which she
has published extensively.
Her recent award winning book,
Homeland Insecurity: The Arab
American and Muslim American
Experience After 9/11, draws
upon an analysis of national
security policies and historic
stereotyping.
She has conducted research in
Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Palestine,
and Yemen.
She recently completed six
months research in Jordan and
Yemen and Palestine for a
comparative study of second
generation Arab Americans who
are raised transnationally and
was in the New York Times today.
Friday.
Charles, well, we'll skip
Charles and go to Asifa first
because she's in the middle.
[LAUGHTER]
Asifa specializes in comparative
Islamic and US constitutional
law, and her recent publications
include articles on comparative
legal theory, Islamic criminal
law, and Muslim family law
in United States courts.
She has served as a public
delegate on the United States
delegation to the United Nations
commission on the status of
women and many others.
She is currently on the
governing board of several
organizations including the
National Association of Muslim
Lawyers.
Professor Quraishi holds a
doctorate from Harvard and other
degrees from Columbia Law School
and the University of California
at Davis and the University of
California at Berkeley and has
served as law clerk in the
United States Court of Appeals
for the 9th circuit.
And lastly but not least, who's
leading off our panel, Charles
Cohen, who came to UW Madison in
1984 with a BA at Yale and his
PhD at the University of
California Berkeley.
A scholar much in demand as a
speaker around the world and an
award winning teacher, Professor
Cohen is the co-editor of
Theology and the Soul of the
Liberal State.
He is currently co-editing a
book on religious pluralism in
modern America for Oxford
University Press.
He's inaugurated three major
programs at UW Madison including
the Lubar Institute for the
Study of Abrahamic Religions,
which opened in 2005 and whose
mission is to create better
understandings of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam by
encouraging ongoing discussion
of these traditions and their
interrelationships among
scholars, members of those
traditions and the general
public.
So we have just a great treat
for all of us, and I'm looking
forward, I'm sure as you are, to
the question and answer session
at the end of their, each about
10-minute, presentations.
So thank you very much, again,
for being with us.
Thank you panel for taking the
time and giving the time today
to be with us.
Thank you very much.
Charles.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
There seems to be differing
interpretations of how long
we're going to be, so I'll
compress what I had tried to
say, and I'm sure some of these
remarks can come up later in the
discussion.
If nothing else, 9/11 has
focused Americans' attention on
Islam and Muslims who went from
being a relatively invisible
minority of Americans to
becoming one of the most
interrogated and, according to
the polls, suspected groups of
Americans that one could find.
As a historian, I want to
provide some of the historical
context for evaluating concerns
that my colleagues will then
address.
I want to start off by saying
that Muslims are not by any long
shot the first religious
minority to receive Americans'
collective civic evil eye, and I
want to suggest that throughout
our history these concerns have
been far more political than
they have been religious and to
suggest that what we're seeing
now is not something new.
It's something that's deeply
embedded in the historical
dynamic of American religious
pluralism.
I think as I look out on the
debates since 9/11 about Islam
and about American Muslims, I
see very little debates about
tenets of Islamic theology.
So that, for instance, Islam
poses a radically monotheist
vision in the Koran directly
opposed to Christian
trinitarianism.
How often have you heard that on
Fox News?
[LAUGHTER]
Probably not much.
Nor, for that matter, have I
seen a great deal of debate
about, say, Muslim religious
practice.
Boy, those folks pray a lot,
don't they?
In some countries, France, for
example, has had some issues
about Muslims praying in the
streets, etc, etc.
That has not happened here.
In other words, I would suggest
the issues that trouble
Americans about Islam are not
about religion particularly.
I think they have more to do
with political control.
The obvious ones are terrorism.
People who have attacked us in
the name of Islam.
They have killed many people,
including, of course, Muslims.
And so that's one concern.
But more insidiously, I think,
American debate has come to
focus on a number of things, but
I'll pinpoint one and that is
Sharia.
Muslims want to turn the United
States into an Islamic state.
They want to impose Sharia.
And behind this discourse I find
a certain logic that as far as I
can deconstruct it, because it's
not always apparent or there's
some ellipses in it, but I think
it goes something like this.
Islam is necessarily an
expansionist religion.
It has been and continues to be
allied with state power, and
where it does not have it, it
seeks it.
Muslims try to impose Sharia
wherever they live.
Sharia is a system of law that
is incompatible with American
legal customs and values.
Therefore, and the syllogism
then presses on with this logic,
all Muslims want to impose
Sharia, and, therefore, and here
I think is the kicker, Muslims
can't be good citizens.
They cannot be part of the
American civil polity because
their primary political and
legal values are very much
counter to what we see as the
values and legal processes of
the American national state.
I think there is a minor chorus
of a critique that Islam is a
false religion, that it teaches
a dubious morality, but I think
the major concern, again, is
what I would call political.
Muslims want to deprive
Americans of their rights.
And so the questions that
Americans ask and which this
panel addresses, and I think the
title of the panel is absolutely
apt, is Islam compatible with
democracy?
And I think even more potent for
us, can Muslims be good
citizens?
I want to approach this, again,
as a historian by providing some
of the historical background
because these questions have
been asked before and not of
Muslims.
Religion has often been seen as
a political threat in the
history of the United States.
I'll give you two examples.
You're probably familiar with
both.
One, and then there are more
than two but there are two at
least major ones.
One, of course, are Roman
Catholics.
Particularly in the 19th century
those battles became bloody.
In 1834, a mob burned an
Ursuline convent in Boston
because of the supposed doings
that were going on in secret
between nuns and men whom they
were supposedly leading astray.
Nothing you can't see on the
internet now, but in 1834 it was
a big deal.
They were also bible wars,
sometimes just dealing with
whose bible should be read in
the schools, but in the 1840s
those became mortal conflicts as
well.
So certainly there's a long
history of protestant
theological disagreement with
Catholicism and vice versa, of
course, and I wouldn't want to
minimize any of that.
But a lot of the critique of
Catholicism was, and continued
to be into the 20th century,
though it was a little more
polite than it was in the 19th
century, is that Catholics could
not be citizens because their
premier loyalty is to a foreign
potentate: the pope.
And so the pope is viewed as not
simply or primarily a religious
figure but as a political figure
to whom Catholics must give
their foremost alliance, and
since they are allied, they cast
themselves as presumably
citizens of a foreign power,
they cannot be American
citizens.
A second example is Mormons.
Let me quote from Governor
Lilburn Boggs of Missouri who in
1838 said that the Mormons must
be treated as enemies and must
be exterminated or driven from
the state if necessary for the
public peace.
They're outrages are beyond all
description.
Now, there were certainly issues
about Mormon theology and even
more Mormon practice,
particularly once Joseph Smith
begins to unveil his vision of
celestial marriage, but there
was a great deal about Mormon
political practice and presence
that also disturbed people.
Mormons would be accused of
voting in blocks.
They'll just outvote us, even as
politicians, from first one
party and then another, sought
their votes.
And then when they go to Utah,
well, to Deseret, excuse me, at
the time, they begin to create
their own court system, and
basically a state within a
state.
So is there some reality,
political reality, to these
threats?
I think we have to say yes to
some degree.
The pope was historically a
potentate.
His lands had shrunk by the 19th
century, but he still had the
papal states.
In the past, the pope had
excommunicated protestant rulers
and, although this was back in
the 16th century, had said that
any Catholic who assassinated
Elizabeth I would not have
committed a sin.
Mormons claimed a vast swath of
the Intermountain West.
If you look at the maps that
Mormons had hoped that the state
of Desert would occupy, it's
basically now everything from
the front range of the Rockies
to parts of the west coast.
San Bernardino was originally a
Muslim town.
And in this area they set up
their own state, and at least a
couple of them used terms like
theodemocracy that rang rather
oddly in American ears.
In yet, I think history proved
that those threats were well
overrated.
The papacy never controlled
Catholic votes, nor for that
matter did the Catholic
hierarchy which steadfastly
refused to take positions, at
least in the 19th century, over
slavery, for example, when
protestants were very busy
taking positions because they
didn't want to be politically
involved.
Catholics melded into the
American political system, and
one of them, it's rumored, even
became president.
[LAUGHTER]
Mormons were also integrated.
Indeed, their religious and
political institutions were
suppressed by the protestant
national state.
I don't think it's too strong to
say that basically they were
blackmailed, that Utah would
never would have become a state
as long as Mormons exercised
polygamy and there were, over a
20-30 year period, there were
major attacks on the legal
system that Mormons had set up.
Moreover, when we start looking
at why Catholics came to this
country, they came for a lot of
reasons, mostly because they
wanted better economic
opportunity, which is why most
people came to the Untied
States.
They saw it as a land in which
they could prosper.
The history of the Mormons is
more complicated, and I'm not
going to treat it in 12 seconds,
but, ultimately, Mormons have
adapted to the United States, as
has it to them, and we now have
two, not one, Mormon
presidential candidates.
So I would suggest that the
dynamics of American religious
pluralism means that religious
bodies and the American national
state have adapted to each
other.
I see the conflict, or at least
the discussions about Islam now,
as another instance of that.
Is Sharia a threat?
Well, first we have to
understand what Sharia actually
involves.
I'm going to let Professor
Quraishi, who's and expert on
that talk.
One of the issues or one of the
strategies about being on a
panel is choose your colleagues
well so that they can take all
the hard ones.
But I think it's fair to say
that Sharia isn't necessarily
what most of us think it is.
And even if it is what we think
it might be, I don't hear a
whole lot of American Muslims
clamoring to establish Sharia
law.
Though there is a terrible fear
in the American polity right now
which is manifesting itself in
states passing laws, or at least
statements against the
imposition of Sharia law.
What I do hear Muslims saying,
and Professor Cainkar will, I'm
sure, address this, is they want
to practice their religion in a
way that is consonant with
America's highest ideals of
religious freedom.
I'd say to the rest of us, to
non-Muslim Americans that we
should not assume that Islam is
a unity in the same way that we
should not assume that
Catholicism or Judaism or that
any religion, that the adherence
of any religions think of
themselves in the same way, nor
should we think that American
Muslims all want to impose an
Islamic state that will set
Sharia over all of us.
I think I'm asking you then, as
a historian, to be sensitive to
the capacities of our own
religious history.
American Muslims, for their
part, I think have to learn how
to function as a religious
minority in America, but I would
say they've picked an opportune
place in which to do that.
So let me end by giving some
short answers to the questions
that I think this panel poses.
Is Islam compatible with
democracy?
At the global level, I think
that's a very interesting
question.
I think we're going to have to
see.
The events of this year, the
so-called Arab Spring, I think
leave us with great open-ended
questions.
As a historian, I'm not a
prophet.
I don't know how this will turn
out.
But if you asked me if Islam is
compatible with democracy in the
United States, I would have to
answer, on the basis of what I
see and the basis of our
religious dynamic historically,
yes, indeed.
And can Muslims be good citizens
of the United States?
I would say of course, they
already are.
[APPLAUSE]
Very nice.
Thank you.
I feel short here.
Can you see me?
[LAUGHTER]
Okay, I'm going to look at this
topic from a little bit
different angle.
I have just returned from six
months in the Middle East
studying transnational Arab
American Muslim teenagers whose
immigrant parents brought them
back home for high school.
I was interested in learning how
these overseas experiences
affect these teenagers sense of
being American.
American Muslims as a group are
often held up to question for
the loyalty to the United States
which is, to me, after decades
of research and many, many
personal interactions, a
baseless question.
And also baseless according to
research and recent poles.
It is clear that there are some
interested parties who, for
their own reasons, seek to
exclude Muslims from full
American citizenship and who
prefer such charges to build
support for their objectives.
Of course this attempt to
exclude a newer and growing
religious group is not a new
phenomenon in the United States,
so we just heard about that.
Okay, upon the occurrence of the
Fort Hood murders in November
2009, perpetrated by a clearly
highly disturbed second
generation Arab American Muslim,
and after responding to many
media calls on this matter and
to questions about what might be
the effects of Muslim American
transnational ties and visits to
the parents' homelands on being
American.
I thought, well, we can offer up
all sorts of examples to prove
that American Muslims feel good
about being American and that
transnational ties and visits to
the homeland somehow do not turn
American born Muslims against
their place of birth, but we
really didn't have any
systematic research on this.
So I proposed such a study for
which I received funding.
I had a one-semester sabbatical,
and I launched into an
ethnographic journey into the
lives of nearly 100 Arab
American Muslim teenagers, age
16 to 18, attending high school
in Amman, Jordan; Sanaa, Yemen;
and Ramallah, Palestine.
I learned many things from this
research, but I will focus today
on the points of relevance to
our topic at hand: citizenship
and democracy.
First of all, I learned that
these youth recall very fondly
their lives in the United
States.
So they left generally around
between age 10 and 12.
They spent their first 10 to 12
years of their lives here.
They spoke of the schools, the
neighborhoods, of sports, of
cousins, of shopping malls, of
food, of friends, and all of
which they missed very dearly.
In fact, the overwhelming
majority said they were really
upset when their parents told
them they were leaving the
United States to go to school
overseas because this is their
home.
Then they found out, upon living
in these new places, that they
really were American.
They thought differently, they
dressed differently, the walked
differently, and of course they
spoke English.
In other words, living overseas
crystallized their sense of who
they were, and that was
American.
What was America to them?
A place where there is freedom,
a place where there are many
types of people, and a place
where one can dream.
If that wasn't enough, they
learned that everybody else saw
them as Americans too.
We know how social groups, and
especially teenagers, are eager
to point out who is different,
so at times they had to take
some flack for being American,
not because they were American
or not because American was bad,
but simply because they were
different.
Boys wore their pants slung
lower.
Girls preferred comfortable
clothing to high heels and tight
jeans.
So you could tell by the way
somebody dressed, actually,
walking down the street if they
had come from America.
The majority of these American
Muslim youth enroll in private
high schools that have an
all-English curricular stream,
many of which were built just
for teens like them.
And in two of the three
countries I studied, the
Ministries of Education accepted
two exams as equivalent to the
required comprehensive high
school completion exam to
facilitate their return for
university education in the
United States.
In other words, these Muslim
American teens end up attending
schools with teens just like
themselves, all of them trying
to figure out who they are as
persons.
Over a period of time, this
process becomes complicated.
Your parents want you to learn
the language of their homeland.
To develop your pride in your
Arab roots, your parents want
you to understand what it means
to be Muslim, and each teenager
goes through their own process
of figuring out this mix.
Nearly a hundred percent of
these youths said they plan to
return to the United States for
the rest of their lives, and
especially to go to college.
They have big dreams of a
college education and a career,
males and females alike.
They hope to marry and start
families in their mid to late
20s when they're stable.
And they want to marry and
American and a Muslim just like
themselves.
Initial data analysis shows that
many of these youths said they
would return to the United
States with a deeper and more
confident understanding of who
they are.
While there was no single answer
to the question, who am I,
responses ranged from I'm an
Arab American, I'm a Palestinian
American, I'm a Jordanian
American, I'm a Yemeni American,
I'm a Muslim American to I don't
know, I have no idea, or I don't
fit any category, which is a
position they think the United
States has plenty of room to
accommodate.
They see this as one of the
great things about the states is
it's such a mix of peoples so
you can be who you are.
In addition, many of the youths
stated they had increased level
of understanding and pride on
the part of themselves they knew
only peripherally in the US, the
part that is denigrated in
American culture.
For example, I just have two
quotes here.
One young woman said to me,
"Before I came here, I didn't
like being Palestinian because I
did not know what it was.
I just thought we were weird and
we weren't allowed to do
anything because we lived in
America.
But when I came here, I really
learned what being Palestinian
means and it's a really good
thing, actually, and I'm very
proud now, and I wish I could
take this back to America and
tell everybody what it's like to
know who you are."
And another young woman said
to me, "I now, after this
experience, have the courage to
say yes, I'm an Arab American.
I want to be able to stand up
and say I'm proud of who I am.
I want to be able to wear a
hata," that's the checkered Arab
scarf, "and not feel that I need
to take it off and be ashamed.
I want to be able to say Arabic
words in public."
I learned that when they left
for the Middle East, they had
highly negative views of their
own self.
Like I asked them what they
expected when they moved to
these countries, and they
expected terrorists and they
expected backwards people and
uneducated people and economies
that weren't developed.
They had very negative
self-images.
And these were developed from
the American and some of the
Arabic media too.
So, seeing that they had these
negative images of who they
were, these journey sojourns to
the Middle East really have
positive outcomes.
So, they will return to the
United States stronger persons,
feeling good about being
American and about being Arab
and Muslim.
And hopefully they will be
better able to handle the
troubles that may face them as
young adults.
But what will they return to?
The United States has changed
since they left three or four
years ago.
Alongside all of its economic
issues, there are powerful
campaigns, even social
movements, seeking to exclude
American Muslims from American
democratic life, from social,
cultural, and political
citizenship.
These campaigns and movements
have ramped up anti-Muslim
sentiments among the American
public.
These are not negative views
holding on from post-September
11th days.
We were seeing much progress in
acceptance of American Muslims
in the years following 9/11, and
we saw just a rapid increase in
American Muslim civic engagement
after 9/11.
No, these more recent social
movements are cultivating
hatred, they're leveraging 9/11
for their own benefit, and you
see them performing as Koran
burnings, Ground Zero Mosque
opposition, anti-Sharia
campaigns.
They're heightening is a recent
phenomenon, and it gets more
news coverage than all of the
amazing accomplishments of
American Muslims over the last
10 years.
I'm speaking about American
Muslim youth group soup
kitchens, civic action
campaigns, get out the vote
drives, reclaiming abandoned
properties and build safer
neighborhoods, Arab American
filmmaking, Arab America music,
Muslims also filmmaking, music,
all these campaigns.
American Muslim, despite the
pressures and challenges, or
perhaps because of them, have
risen to new heights of civic
engagement and citizenship in
this country.
But as I kept up with the
American news while I was living
in the Middle East, I could not
help but be horrified by what's
happening in this nation.
Observing from the outside,
reading about all the hate
promotion coming from a range of
sectors, but especially
disturbing when it came from
elected officials and persons
intending to run for the office
of the President of the United
States.
I had to ask what are we doing
and where are we going as a
nation?
Is closing down democracy by
excluding certain groups a
positive step for this country?
And I wondered how these youth
that I had just spent six months
interviewing, so convinced that
the United States is their
homeland, will manage this
hatred when they come back.
And sometimes I wonder if this
isn't what some of those hate
promoters want, some kind of
self-fulfilling prophecy.
On the measure of Islam and
American democracy today, I can
only conclude that the homeland
these American Muslim youth
dream to return to will not be a
welcoming place.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
I'm going to continue with
some of that but try to turn it
into some more real life
examples of citizenship
and democracy
of American Muslims.
But I want to echo what we've
just heard, that it seems to be
getting worse, not better, since
9/11.
Basically, the attitude about
are Muslims part of American
democracy, can they be, and the
kinds of examples you just gave,
that it's a benefit to a
presidential campaign to say you
won't appoint a Muslim to your
candidate or that a Mosque is a
representation not of the
spiritual home of Americans,
some Americans, but it represent
inherently something about
terrorism, and, therefore, it's
offensive to build it in some
particular place.
So things have gotten so bad
that even Jon Stewart and
Stephen Colbert find it relevant
and necessary to address this.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Sorry.
That's all right.
This is from the rally to
restore sanity and/or fear, if
you don't recognize that
reference.
Kareem, my man.
Hey, Kareem.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar is Muslim.
Well, that's not fair, Jon.
That's not a fair example.
Kareem is cool.
We're friends.
Well, we're acquaintances.
You know, a real friend
understands that no matter what
religious position someone
plays, we're all on the same
team.
[CHEERS]
There are terrorists and
racists and Stalinists and
theocrats, but those are titles
that must be earned.
You must have the resume.
Okay, so I'm going to be
cutting to a couple of different
videos, so if you tolerate the
dark room, I'll try to set them
up.
Basically, I do have all the
credentials that were listed,
and I do teach Islamic law, and
I could answer questions about
Sharia and is Islam compatible
with democracy, and I could tell
you stories about and reasons
why Islam is not a threat to the
United States and how Muslims in
America are very happy and proud
to follow the laws of the land
and how many of us, like me, are
very proud to take an oath to
uphold the Constitution as part
of our job.
But I think what's really
missing from these American
conversation about all of this
stuff is a face.
It's actual people.
So unless you happen to know a
real life American Muslim, you
have very little in your own
knowledge and your own sort of
awareness to balance out what's
showing up in the news about
terrorism, etc, etc, and so it's
very difficult to then sort
through what's hyperbole and
what's real and what's really a
threat and what's not, and
you're very vulnerable to
rhetoric that's often
politically motivated.
So I want to use this time,
rather than answering academic
questions about those things,
which I'm happy to do in the
Q&A, I, instead, want to use
this time to introduce you to
some Muslim Americans.
I want you to see their faces, I
want you to hear their stories,
I want you to appreciate them as
people and as fellow Americans.
So we see one of them, Kareem
Abdul Jabbar, in this Jon
Stewart video.
A lot of people know Kareem
Abdul Jabbar is Muslim.
Some people don't.
There's many other famous people
who happen to be Muslim.
Another sports hero is Hakeem
Olajuwon.
Both of these individuals, by
the way, it would show up in
American awareness that they
were Muslim if they happened to
be playing a game during the
month of Ramadan and then they
were fasting through the game
and then it was remarked at how
amazing that was.
Also, Mos Def, the rapper, is
Muslim.
Dave Chappelle, the comedian is
Muslim.
And all of these are practicing,
self-acknowledged Muslims.
But what about the not so
famous?
Most of us are not so famous.
So what I've noticed is actually
lately what's newsworthy about
Muslims is how unnewsworthy we
really would be without the
Muslim in our title.
We really are normal people,
right?
And it's really not that weird,
our daily life and everything
else.
So one of the really beautiful
ways of describing this is a
great movie that was just
released in limited release this
weekend called Fordson, and I
want to show a brief trailer of
that movie right now.
You have the chance to play
football today.
You fight til the end.
You got that?
Yes!
Let's go!
[CHEERs]
That game plan at Fordson
High School is similar to
countless other prep teams
in the country.
But it is also why this story is
uniquely theirs to tell.
[SPEAKING ARABIC]
Our kids, who are 90%-95%
Muslim Arab American, are
playing this all-American
game.
You have some people that just
don't understand and don't want
to understand what Muslims are
about and who they truly are.
I think people are just
ignorant.
I think if people don't know
what's going on or they don't
know who we are.
They've never met us before and
they're making judgments before
they've even met us.
We're all teenagers.
We all have the same, we all
like the same things.
We all have the same aspects in
life.
Arabs as called terrorists, I
still know how that feels.
They happen to be Arab
American, they happen to be
Muslim American, but they're
American high school kids and
these kids are playing football
and football, just like it is in
Texas, in Ohio, at Fordson is
kind of a religion.
For generations, faith,
family, and football have bonded
the Arab American community at
Fordson.
Football begins in August here,
and in recent summers so too the
holy days of Ramadan when
Muslims fast from sunrise to
sunset.
No water nor food mixed with the
intense exercise created a
challenge for those who
practiced both sport and faith
with the same passion.
The solution?
The country's first overnight
football practice.
I know we tweaked it because
of religious reasons, but, quite
honestly, it was more for safety
than it was for anything else.
Five-minute water break.
Our coach would reassure us
that we had to stay hydrated,
and he would talk about things
that happened in the nation with
kids passing out because of the
heat.
Players and families not of
Muslim faith never questioned
the decision to practice all
night.
My coaches just called my mom
and talked to her, just asked
her could I practice at night.
She said that would be fine.
Whatever is better for the
team is what I want to do, so I
agreed with it and went through
with it.
Even those guys are
non-Muslim faith, they're still
all family so what we do,
they're going to do.
They're going to breathe the
same air we breathe.
If we're going to practice at
night, they're going to practice
at night with us.
Give our guy a chance to
catch the ball.
The midnight to 4:00 AM
schedule has demonstrated the
strength of this diverse
community and proven to be
stronger than any controversy
challenging its practice.
People will send emails
saying what's going on in
Dearborn?
You're practicing Sharia law.
You're doing it.
I say no, we're practicing
constitutional law, thank you.
We're doing it.
We're following American
laws.
We're following board policy,
state laws, and federal laws.
And we're meeting the needs of
constituency.
It's not different than the
Christian faith wanting certain
days off of school because
they're important to their
holidays.
If you're out there saying
that Muslims in Dearborn are
having to do things that are
against America, there's just no
evidence of it.
In fact, the evidence is quite
to the contrary.
We're not evil.
Anything that you see in the
mainstream media, like in the
Middle East that happens, it's
nothing like that over here.
We're just normal Americans.
Ultimately, our youth are
just like any other youth in the
United States.
You look at any town, any city
in this country, Friday nights,
what are they doing in the fall?
They're going to play a football
game.
They're going to watch a
football game.
So that was, how more
American can you get?
Football.
That happens to be in Dearborn,
Michigan, where there's a very
large population of descendents
of Arab immigrants, large
population of Muslim Americans
as well as Christian Arabs also
in that area.
So that demographic created that
situation.
That is a feature from a local
news channel about this team.
This team is featured in this
movie called Fordson.
I think it's called Faith,
Fasting, and Football or
something like that.
It's released in limited play.
I think it's in Chicago right
now.
So that's an example of we're
normal, we're just like
everybody else, but I'm aware of
the other part of this title for
this talk being citizenship.
And so, okay, you're normal but
are you really good for America?
Are you good citizens?
Do you do anything that actually
helps our society?
And, of course, we do.
Just like any group of
Americans, some do more than
others.
There are many, many examples.
Louise also mentioned some just
very briefly a list of things
that are being done as good
societal civic engagement by
American Muslims.
I picked one as an example to
feature here.
This is a video featuring the
organization IMAN, which stands
for Inner-City Muslim Action
Network, based in Chicago.
And the text of this goes pretty
fast, so I'm going to read you
the text ahead of time so that
you can then just take in the
images.
So the text that you're going to
see on the screen says: On
Chicago's south side, food
deserts have become the norm and
liquor stores are the only place
to quench your thirst.
Foreclosed homes and buildings
riddle every block, threatening
any sense of community, becoming
hotbeds for gang activity,
violent crimes, and drug abuse.
Unable to pay skyrocketing
healthcare costs and with no
insurance for support, many
residents are plagued with
chronic but curable illnesses
reducing their quality of life.
For a generation looking to
serve, IMAN is providing unique
space to inspire Muslim and
non-Muslim communities, the
human community, to take
transformative action.
We're working for health,
wellness, and healing in
inner-city communities,
challenging the status quo of
Muslim run liquor stores and no
access to fresh foods.
There will be no more food
deserts.
Our community will become an
oasis for healthy foods.
We're helping brothers rebuild
their communities house by
house, erasing the stigma of an
ex-offender while investing in a
greener future.
We're attempting to provide a
holistic clinic experience
because we believe that
healthcare is a basic human
right.
We're looking toward the future
to ensure another generation can
share in our inspiration and
hope.
IMAN is connecting the local to
the global and striving to
create a transformative model of
service for the Muslim community
and the world at large.
[SPEAKING ARABIC]
That's Mos Def right there.
When you look at the --
campaign, we don't have access
to fresh foods or we don't have
grocery stores within a six-mile
radius in communities that once
had dignified businesses.
The store that we're working
with has opted to say, look,
I'll curve some of my business
ideas of just making a profit to
provide fresh vegetables and
foods in my store.
We've talked to people who've
lived in the neighborhood for 10
years, after receiving a smoothy
from us saying, man, we're glad
that you're here.
When you're looking at how
marginalized things are around
here, how impoverished things
are, how tough just economical
overall things are, and then we
have so many dedicated and
committed people that are from
this community, that are in the
community, it's really inspiring
when you are focusing in on
helping the collective or doing
good work, you end up finding
your own greatness.
What we're doing is we're doing
-- and these are the differences
that you can make possible.
They're lives, yours, mine, and
the people around us.
We have the ability to influence
in a positive way the direction
and trajectory of their lives.
That's my doctor.
She saved my life.
As we move into this next new
decade, we continue to ask that
you keep IMAN both in your
prayers and in mind as you think
about the type of transformative
work that is reflective both of
our traditions and of the best
of our values as we seek to work
with some of the most
marginalized communities and
inspire them with not only they
can become but what they can
inspire in all of us.
So, that's IMAN.
There's many, many other
organizations similar to that
and doing other civic related
things that aren't focused on
inner-city kinds of issues.
These, by the way, all started
before 9/11.
This is part of the natural
evolution of American Muslims
being part of our society.
There's a lot of things featured
in there.
There's the free clinic.
There's the food service.
There's another free clinic run
by Muslims that was started by
medical students in Los Angeles
in 1992.
IMAN's 1995, 1997.
So these have been around a
while, and there's other earlier
sort of collective action kind
of things that have been
happening as long as Muslims
have been in the United States
in various forms.
What I want to point out is that
how much all of this is
quintessentially American to me.
They exemplify the core idea of
democracy that we all share in
an ownership of everything
around us, the good and the bad,
and that we have a voice in how
they are and how they should be
and so that we, individuals, are
as responsible as the next
person.
So the idea that where you see a
need, if you have an idea, want
to fix something, you roll up
your sleeves, you get a petition
started, you run for office, you
collect action in your local
community, and not saying to
yourself someone should really
do something about that.
We have a sense that we're part
of this.
We're all involved in this
together.
It's that pride of ownership
that I see is really the core
concept of democracy.
That's America.
That's also Islam.
The problem is when we miss the
American and the real what I
think is the true Islam because
of the Muslim stereotype, and we
can't see past that stereotype
,and so we tend to make
judgments based on fear and a
lot of cases just
misinformation, and we then
attribute all of that to the
person we see, and we're not
unable to see all of these
nuances.
I want to end with a short video
from a Muslim American, the
first Muslim American elected to
congress, Keith Ellison,
representing the state of
Minnesota, I think it's the 5th
district Minnesota.
By the way, when he took his
oath of office, does anyone know
what book, first of all, he took
the oath on?
Koran.
Who's Koran was it?
Thomas Jefferson.
It was Thomas Jefferson's
Koran.
Thomas Jefferson owned several
Korans and donated them to the
Library of Congress.
I thought that was a brilliant
move to, again, show the
historical relevance of Islam in
the United States.
So he, like I said, serves in
the House of Representatives
representing Minnesota.
He, among others, but he's so
public a politician that he's
been accused just because he's a
Muslim that he may in some way
be some kind of part of the
infiltration and threat of Islam
to the United States.
And he's brilliantly responded
to that.
The video I'm going to show
here, some of you may have
already seen it, it was his
testimony during recent hearings
on the radicalization of Muslims
set up by Peter King.
And this is Keith Ellison's
contribution.
Mohammad Salman Hamdani was a
23-year-old paramedic, a New
York City police cadet, and
Muslim American.
He was one of those brave first
responders who tragically lost
his life in 9/11 terrorist
attacks almost a decade ago.
As the New York Times eulogized,
he wanted to be seen as an
all-American kid.
He wore number 79 on the high
school football at Bayside
Queens where he lived.
He was called Sal by his
friends.
He became a research assistant
at the Rockefeller University
and drove and ambulance
part-time.
One Christmas he sang Handel's
Messiah in Queens.
He saw all of the Star Wars
movies, and it's well-known that
his new Honda was the one that
read with the young Jedi license
plates.
Mr. Hamdani bravely sacrificed
his life to try to help others
on 9/11.
After the tragedy, some people
tried to smear his character,
solely because of his
Islamic faith.
Some people spread false rumors
and speculated that he was in
league with the attackers
because he was a Muslim.
But it was only when his remains
were identified that these lies
were exposed.
Mohammad Salman Hamdani was a
fellow American who gave his
life for other Americans.
His life should not be
identified as just a member of
an ethnic group or just a member
of a religion but as an American
who gave everything for his
fellow Americans.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, it's now a time for you
to ask questions, and please
feel free to address any
of the panelist or all of them
but do wait for the microphone
so that everyone can hear
and it can be properly recorded.
So thank you so much.
My name is Alan Weisbard.
I'm a colleague of Chuck's and
Asifa's at the university.
Asifa, you used a phrase that I
think resonated with the
presentations of all three
of you, and that was
quintessentially American.
And what I want to ask is what
we should and should not learn
from the experiences of European
democracies facing challenges
that are similar to those that
Louise particularly identified
but resonated in each of the
presentations?
How much are the questions we're
struggling with broadly about
participation in democratic
societies, how much are their
special features of the American
experience that will distinguish
how things play out here from
how they're playing out in other
parts of the world?
A topic I love to talk about.
I'll be brief.
It's part of the social
movements in these campaigns to
exclude Muslims in the United
States really came out of
Europe.
Muslims in Europe have a totally
different situation than Muslims
in the United States.
They came there, historically,
for very different reasons.
Most of them were guest workers.
They were not by and large
citizens or offered citizenship,
and in many of those countries
that remains the case.
They're low income.
They're ghetto.
It's a totally different social
demography.
So the issues of Europe are not
the issues of the United States,
but a lot of these people, these
organized social movement people
to try to stimulate anti-Muslim
notions in the United States try
to make that connection so
people here get scared.
But I really, there's nothing
demographically, historically,
politically, civically similar
about Muslims in Europe, and of
course in Europe there are
variations between countries,
and Muslims in the United
States.
I would just add to that that
in my observation, I don't know
how much this is a total,
complete description, but my
observation is that religious
freedom in the United States
means something a little bit
different than religious freedom
in Europe.
And the idea of secularism is
something different here than it
is in Europe.
And so secularism in many
European countries means
assimilation to the existing
ethnic national norm.
And the United States, because
of our own history of
immigration and accommodation of
difference, I think the best of
America is when we accept and
embrace that difference and come
together and find out common
ground, and that's our voice
rather than those who are
different must become like us,
and then we have a debate over
who is the us.
And I think that, to me, that's
the biggest difference in how
our democracy does and should
operate.
I think to that I'll just add
a historical note.
I think that the values of
religious freedom are deeply,
deeply engrained in this
country, constitutionally but
historically and culturally.
They're deeply rooted in the
18th and in some places even in
the 17th centuries.
I think that may be in part why
the issues about Islam, at
least, again, as I identify
them, are not religious.
That is, people aren't saying we
can't accommodate these people
religiously, we can't
accommodate them politically.
But I think that that value,
which I think is part of the
better angels of our political
nature, is always there and
always rubs up against the
counter-tendencies that all of
us have been talking about.
Hi.
Thank you very much.
I have read that there are some
folks who practice the Sunni
type of Islam.
They believe that 60 years of
tyranny is better than a day of
chaos and that democracy is
inherently chaotic and messy.
I hope what I've heard, what
I've read, a tiny little bit
about is wrong or that I've not
gotten it correct, but that
there are elements of the Koran
when fundamentally interpreted
that say that democracy is
forbidden, inherently evil,
counter to Islam.
I'm not sure where that, is
there anything like that in the
Koran?
Where would the fundamentalists,
the Taliban, be finding that,
and where does that distortion
come from?
Wow, you got time for a
class?
That's a lot in one question.
So, first of all, there isn't
anything specific about
democracy in the Koran.
There couldn't be.
It would be anachronistic to try
to have a concept that's so
modern have been addressed in a
scriptural document from 1400
some years ago.
So there is commentary about
just government, and it
identifies past rulers as good
and bad.
Some of them also in the Bible,
by the way.
Islam believes in all the same
prophets as the Bible.
So Solomon and Queen of Sheba
and things like that.
So there's indications of a good
governor and what a good
governor would do, but nothing
very definitive.
In fact, the difference between
the Sunnis and the Shias in the
beginning was a political
difference over who should rule,
and that's what started some
eventual theological
differences.
And so there isn't any direct
about how a government should
be.
In fact, that is why there is so
much debate within the Muslim
community about that, and the
quote that you gave is one of
many political theorists about
what a government should be
like.
What's a good caliph, what's a
good ruler, what's a good imam,
and there's a debate.
One person felt very strongly
that keeping social order and
keeping people safe, even if it
was a dictatorship, was better
than the anarchy of unsafety and
chaos and violence in the
streets which is what often
results with total chaos to
anarchy.
He wasn't speaking about
democracy being total chaos.
He was just saying the opposite.
And there were many Muslim
political theorists who
disagreed with that and then
ensures the entire volumes of
political theory within Muslim
legal discourse.
Why do people, like the Taliban,
make up some kind of connection
between these things?
Well, why does any political
leader to do anything to try to
grab things that have religious
resonance with people to make a
political point?
So they couldn't be pulling off
of anything Koranic about
democracy, but you could, I
don't actually know if the
Taliban have used that
particular quote, but say, oh,
see, chaos is bad and isn't
democracy chaos, look how
chaotic democracy is, and then
make an argument.
Well, you can pick apart any one
of those premises and disagree.
And, in fact, many Muslims have
disagreed, and I think the
discussion of the Arab spring
was brought up, and I have said
many times that the antidote to
Bin Laden is what is going on in
the Arab revolutions today.
Those are dignity-based
revolutions based on their human
desire to govern themselves,
which many argue there is
evidence in Islamic history that
is supportive of that concept
that is counter to whatever
dictatorships we've had in the
past and in the present.
And it is, I think that is an
indication that anybody's who's
arguing against democracy,
they're going to see the real
life reality of, the workability
of changing your society based
on that kind of peaceful
resistance as a better way than
violence.
And I think the entire Arab
world is seeing the success of
that and being energized by it.
I just want to add that you
can't judge people by a sentence
in a book.
I just came from living in
predominantly Sunni Muslim part
of the world, and everybody's
talking about democracy.
So they don't seem to be any
sentiments among Sunnis against
democracy in the real world.
I think finally, too, a
couple of points about thought
patterns that we have in trying
to make sense of these things.
One is let me ask you to fill in
the blank: 1.3 billion blank
think that...
Now, let's put Christians in
that instead of Muslims.
1.3 billion, or let's take out
the Shiites, let's take out the
protestants, so something like
1.2 billion Catholics think all
the same.
So one issue is be very careful
to essentialize the thinking of
any group about anything.
The second point might be if we
look at some of the 17th and
18th century Anglo-American
thinkers whom we revere as
founders of our smaller
republican government, they
weren't always thrilled by
democracy, whatever democracy
might mean to them.
[INAUDIBLE]
In others, as a historian
I would say we need to approach
these issues looking at the
longer term.
And I think one of the
difficulties right now is that
both the urgency of the moment
and the terrible actions of 9/11
still resonate so strongly and
because we live in a world of
instantaneous communication and
global networks that we expect
things to happen right now.
Right now.
Now.
In fact, I'm behind myself.
[LAUGHTER]
Actually, historical change
sometimes works more slowly.
We're seeing Islam in America at
a particular point in time.
Just one point to illustrate
that about ecclesiastical
institutions.
In the long-term, I think we can
see certain behaviors, the
desire to have imams who are
trained in the United States so
they can speak to American
Muslim congregations, the
pattern noticed on a big book on
American religion last year,
American Grace, that Muslims are
acting, they're joining
congregations, sort of like
Presbyterians.
That is, the ecclesiastical
makeup of Islam in America is
starting to look kind of like
American normative religious
practice.
And we're in the middle of that,
and I think it's going to go
towards completion, but we're so
attuned to right now that we
don't see it.
So I guess this is a warning:
don't essentialize and don't
dehistoricize.
That begins to answer the
question that I was going to ask
about looking ahead from all
three of you.
We heard from Louise a concern
about how unwelcome things were
going to be for these young
people coming back after having
been there, a concern about the
direction things seem to be
going.
From Asifa we heard there's lots
of good things going on that
Muslim Americans are involved in
doing.
And then our historian was
talking about how we've had
these kinds of religious hatred
issues in the past.
Are there models for what
happened then that is now going
to happen now in what's coming
up next?
Is it going to get worse before
it gets better?
Historian, do you have a
model?
Historians have models?
No, of course not.
[LAUGHTER]
And a historian is the last
person you want to ask about
the future.
[LAUGHTER]
But since you ask...
[LAUGHTER]
I'll say something.
And that is my family will not
recognize me in the role of an
optimist.
[LAUGHTER]
That's them, that laughter.
And nor will my staff.
And I won't say that this is
easy, but I do think that the
historical record suggests that
we are in one particular
historical moment.
We might be where Catholics were
in the 1840s or where Mormons
where in the 1830s and '40s and
'50s and '60s.
And because we tend to focus so
much on the now, we miss the
larger trajectories.
Now, I'm not going to say that
this is going to turn out well
because I don't know.
I just think that there are many
forces among which, and I would
go back to American values of
religious freedom which even
people who don't like other
people say they adhered to and I
tend to accept them at face
value that if the dynamics of
our history play out as they
often had or have, we're going
to get through this.
The difficulty is that right now
we're trying to do it under the
threat of terror, and that puts
a different political cast on
the situation.
I just want to add, I
actually am an optimist but not
about this situation.
I've tried to be but I think
that it's going to be hard to
wish this away, and I think this
is a way it's different from
prior experiences in this
country is that Muslims are tied
into all sorts of wars in
foreign policy issues in the
United States.
So how is antipathy against
Muslims going to wither away
when there are significant
American military operations in
Muslim majority countries.
That, to me, is a problem.
There's a question over here.
Can I?
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, she's saying they're
similar to Germans in the wars.
I was going to add the Japanese
experience.
And I have gone back and forth
between being optimistic and
being pessimistic, and often it
depends on who I'm talking to.
Sometimes I'm very inspired by
openness and willing to learn,
and other times I'm very
discouraged by fear and building
upon that.
I teach constitutional law.
I teach the Korematsu case.
That makes me scared.
In fact, when 9/11 happened, I
was scared for my child and
wanted to know if maybe he could
hide if I had to hide him
because I was aware that legally
speaking we have never
overturned the idea that
detention camps might be
justified in the name of
security.
So I'm very aware of that, and
I'm very inspired though when
people like the Japanese
American population see the
pattern and come out and speak
in support and on behalf of the
threat that they see happening
to Muslim Americans, and they
see the pattern from their own
experience, and very famous
Japanese Americans have been a
part of that.
It goes back and forth.
For me, what happens in the
future to me is about how much
can we all learn from our own
past.
[INAUDIBLE]
Sorry, there's a question
over here.
I'll come down to you.
I have run into two people
who have told me that on page
207 of the healthcare law
Muslims are not going to be
required to get mandatory health
insurance, that that was put
into the law, and I don't know
if there's any truth to that.
I checked the internet and there
were citations on it both ways.
Do any of you three know
anything about that?
I have no idea.
I wonder why.
If it were true, what would be
the rationale?
Is it survival of the fittest?
Let them die off on their own.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know what that would be.
Their religion would not
allow them to have health
insurance.
On, no, no, no, no.
If that's the question, is there
anything in Islam that would
prohibit a Muslim from getting
health insurance, no.
That's not the case.
Well, just a brief comment
first.
Even as great a liberal democrat
as Hubert Humphrey was a
proponent of building
concentration camps for
suspected radicals during the
early Cold War a period.
Also, I wanted to point out that
a suspicion of Catholics as we
know endured right up to the
elections of 1928 and 1960, and
I think that suspicion may also
have been a factor in that the
US was one of the last major
countries to establish
diplomatic relations with the
holy see.
I think there was still that
paranoia as late as the 1980s
when relations were finally
established.
My question is this, it's my
understanding that in Islam the
concept of separation of church
and state simply does not exist.
I'm not saying that it's good or
bad necessarily, but it's just
that there's this cultural
misunderstanding because that
concept has never been a part of
Islamic society.
Again, to answer that really
well, I'd have to spend many
more hours here.
In brief, I don't like that
phrase because it is so
European, and I think it has us
look at law and government and
religion through a European lens
that it is not possible to have
any kind of interactive
relationship between religion
and government without
degenerating into theocracy and
without having the state church
controlling the government.
And that is simply not the
Muslim experience of law and
government and religion.
Not because there is or is not a
separation of church and state,
I don't find that that
translates exactly right either
way, I would say yes and no.
But to better understand it,
first there is no church for
Muslims.
There's not entity that speaks
on behalf of the religion.
That's sometimes good and
sometimes bad for political
social reasons.
Where is your pope saying
terrorism isn't Islamic?
There isn't one.
So it's hard.
On the other hand, it makes it
accessible to anyone to learn
and be a Muslim and have many
alternative visions and
articulations of what Islamic
scripture says and means.
So, historically, there was a
separation of rulers and
religious scholars, and the
religious scholars were never
really in control of the
government.
They were a separate entity.
So in that sense you could say
there was a separation of
religious scholars and the
rulers because it was not
theocratic in the sense of
religion defining the law that
the state was making.
However, the rulers identified
as Muslim and they did things
with Muslim values, and all of
that infused into what they did.
So in that way it's not
secularism and separation of
church and state.
So it is and it isn't true.
I think the better way is to try
to approach it from the
perspective of what Islam says
rather than the perspective of
what Europe says about law and
religion.
While I'm here and on the topic,
Sharia, anybody want me to
define Sharia?
Yes.
Okay.
So Sharia literally means a
street or a way to go.
In the Koran the reference is
talking about god's way.
So basically what it is in the
Koran is identifying the divine
path, how you should live in
your life to be a productive
human being based on divine
inspiration.
Not an unusual concept for any
spiritual person.
And so as a legal term of art,
the question becomes what actual
rules then govern that life
choice?
What I find, personally, very
inspiring about Islam and
Islamic law in particular is
that that interpretation of
scripture has always been done
by human beings, religious
scholars, but that those
religious scholars identified
themselves as human and
fallible.
So all the way through the legal
rules that are extrapolated from
that scripture of identifying
the Sharia, the path, god's way,
were awareness that they may or
may not be right in their
articulation.
So the actual rules, the actual
legal doctrine, if you want to
know how people decide to live
what they put in their will and
how they get married and then at
the higher levels of what
witnesses are required for this
kind of a case prosecution,
those depend on which school of
Islamic law you're actually
looking at.
There's actually quite a
diversity of Islamic law,
actually laws, that define what
those ways to live are.
So Sharia is the big concept of
the way to be, god's way.
The specifics, you actually
shouldn't be using the word
Sharia.
Actually, the word is fekh which
literally means understanding,
and that elaborates that idea
that the human beings doing this
extrapolation were given their
best understanding of god's way.
They could right, they could be
wrong, there are many other
scholars who had alternative
understandings.
And so as a Muslim if you're
looking at what rules to follow,
you would pick a school or you
might develop your own school
based on your own expertise.
And that is a more accurate
description of the laws.
So the idea that Sharia is some
kind of a code of behavior that
is monolithic and uniform is a
very inaccurate way of thinking
about Islamic law for Muslims.
And, again, I think it has to do
with seeing it through European
experience of one way and it's
dictated by one singular human
being that is telling you
religiously how to behave, and
then in some way if they can get
control of the government than
they can really control
everybody.
And for Muslims, historically,
there was never really one
articulation of Islamic law that
was implemented on everybody.
It was an accommodation for all
these different schools by the
government.
In fact, including an
accommodation for other
religious communities like Jews
and Christians because for them
to follow their own legal rules
wasn't an affront to the overall
system because the overall
system was itself pluralistic.
So to accommodate the Jews
coming in Spain, a height of
Muslim Jewish relationships, it
didn't challenge the legal
system to have accommodation for
other groups.
So Sharia is the way or the
ideal, and the specifics you
have to go much deeper into the
actual legal doctrine.
We have time for one more
question.
Thank you very much for all
of your comments.
I have a question about what you
would see the role of the press,
media institutions, and the
educational institutions in
helping to resolve some of these
problems.
I've always been bothered that
when Timothy McVeigh blew up the
building in Oklahoma City no one
said a Christian extremist
terrorist, but anything that
happens somewhere else, if the
person is a Muslim that's the
first thing you hear, a Muslim
extremist terrorist.
But we have lots of other
religious extremists terrorists
around, but they don't seem to
get quantified that way.
And then in terms of education,
seven years ago I attended the
first conference that I've ever
attended about Christianity and
Islam, and I was really
surprised and chagrined to learn
that I had not known this that
the largest population of
Muslims is in Indonesia and that
India, which is basically a
Hindu country, has more Muslims
living their than Pakistan does,
which is an Islamic country.
So I think the educational
problem is very large, that
people do not really know even
just basic facts.
And last week on National Public
Radio they had story about how
Muslim community centers in
schools are now having to teach
their children about 9/11
because they weren't born when
9/11 happened, and so they're
having to figure out how are we
going to teach our Muslim
children about this incident.
So I'm just wondering if any of
you have comments about how our
institutions could better serve
us.
I'll make a quick response to
the education one because I did
a study of this after 9/11, and
also note that these kids I
interviewed, the worst
experiences they had as kids was
either with teachers or school
administrations who were
operating on faulty ideas about
Muslims and Muslim women, like
their mothers are always
humiliated it seems is the
common story I hear at schools.
But when I did the study, I
found out that the teachers just
don't know because they go to
high school and they go to
college and they get a
bachelor's and there still
aren't that many classes on
these topics.
And Muslims are not integrated
into our curricula on whether
it's, there's starting to be
about ethnic groups or whatever,
so teach the teachers is what I
came out of that with.
There have been efforts and
I've been a part of efforts, is
this on?
It doesn't sound like it.
I've been a part of many efforts
and I know colleagues of mine
who work specifically in
improving the textbooks,
specifically California schools
but it was expanded to the rest
of the country to correct things
based on inaccuracies that the
kids were experiencing, bringing
it home and the parents being
surprised and then continuing
education programs by various
local Muslim community centers
doing basic education about
Islamic history and Muslims in
America, Islamic values.
What I've noticed is the problem
is part of this backlash of the
fear of Muslims that a lot of
these efforts are being opposed
because it is some kind of,
again, an infiltration of Sharia
into our curriculum.
And when I hear this I would
laugh if it weren't so sad.
And so there are efforts and
then there's the counter-effort.
Same thing with the media.
There was some acknowledgment
that Anders Breivik in Norway
was doing this from his
understanding of his Christian
ideology, and then it went away.
And then there were those who
defended, Christianity, of
course that's not Christianity,
but you know very few, except
for Jon Stewart and others at
that level, made the point that
how ridiculous it is that we
would do it in one case and not
another.
So I actually think the media is
being better served by Jon
Stewart right now than many
others.
[APPLAUSE]
And it's also a matter of this
quick response kind of media
that we have now and there
isn't time for
reflection and accuracy.
And, sadly, we are out of
time again on a very important
topic, and I know there are many
more questions in the audience,
and we invite you to come into
the lobby and have some punch
and cookies and ask our speakers
a few more questions if they can
stay a few more minutes while we
set up for our final panel about
arts and how arts help us deal
with tragedy.
So thank you all so much for
coming, and let's thank our
speakers.
[APPLAUSE]