Students participate in forum

Students participate in forum

by Christopher Moore / Tribune Staff Writer
Daily News Tribune
9/29/04

WALTHAM -- Students at Brandeis University last night participated in a "Hope not Hate" forum to foster a conversation on U.S.-Islamic relations in response to what they saw as persistent animosities and misconceptions on both sides.

The event was part of a Boston Town Hall series sponsored by the nonpartisan group Americans for Informed Democracy. Elnaz Zarrini, a student and co-organizer of the event, said she heard about the forum in a newsletter she received from AID.

"The area was of interest to me, because I'm Persian," said Zarrini. "I was born in Iran. We moved here when I was 5."

Zarrini said she applied to AID to become an organizer because she was dissatisfied with the lack of dialogue between both cultures.

"I just feel like there's not enough of it," said Zarrini. "Right now, we see evidence of such writhing hatred between the two worlds. The whole message of the Town Hall is one of multilateralism."

Zarrini said many of her fellow students questioned whether the forum was anti-Semitic -- a question that surprised her, given that she herself is Jewish.

"A lot of them do not feel that dialogue with Arab nations is necessary or even feasible," said Zarrini. "This campus needs to learn that dialogue with Muslim countries doesn't mean anti-Semitism."

The forum included remarks from six panelists representing various political, cultural and academic views on the nature of Islam, America's role in the world and the roots of unrest in the Middle East.

Thomas W. Simons Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, said one needed to look no further than the 1970s to find the causes for strife in the Muslim world. The corrupt regimes that replaced colonial powers in the late 20th century monopolized oil wealth while destroying agriculture, said Simons. The result was a wide gap between those with money and those without, coupled with a farming population that was pushed into cities "cracking with the weight" of the additional burden.

"Ladies and gentlemen, that is a recipe for political radicalism," said Simons.

Simons expressed hope that Iraq will someday see an end to its turmoil after the U.S. occupation, but said, "The aftermath has been so botched, so prolonged" that he could not make any short-term prediction of stability.

Ali Banuazizi, a professor at Boston College and president-elect of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, expressed skepticism about the Bush administration's "war on terror," saying terrorists do not all fall easily into the same category. He characterized the belief "that you can uproot evil from the surface of the earth" as naive.

"The war on terrorism has become an excuse and a license for a segment of the American political elite to settle some scores, to proclaim moral superiority over many segments of the world and to promote objectives that go well beyond the fighting of terrorists," said Banuazizi. "To put them all together and think of 'the terrorists' is an act of imagination."

Julian Hollick, a producer of radio documentaries on Islam, said the real difference between Americans and most of the Muslim world stems from culture rather than religion.

"In this country, there is an ideology of individualism" in which the individual is prized above the community, Hollick said. "A lot of people in other countries and other cultures resent this. Americans are learning that there are other values you must respect, even if you disagree with them."

The panelists disagreed on how well America's version of democracy would fare in the Muslim world, and even on what type of democracy America really has. But all agreed that in order for progress to be made, both sides have to acknowledge their own contributions, both positive and negative, to the current state of affairs.

"It's not enough to understand one side or the other," said David Gill, a professor at the Heller School at Brandeis. "What is necessary is to begin to identify as citizens of the world. To respect the differences."