'Hope Not Hate' tackles stereotypes

'Hope Not Hate' tackles stereotypes

by MEREDITH GOAD
Portland Press Herald
09/15/2004

BRUNSWICK — Anouar Majid has his feet in two cultures: He regularly travels to Morocco, which is predominantly Muslim; here in Maine he is an English professor at the University of New England. "I find a tremendous amount of misunderstanding on both sides," he told an audience of about 80 people at Bowdoin College Tuesday evening.

Majid recalled telling people on his trips abroad that he majored in American literature.

"People would mockingly look at me and say, 'Do they have a literature?' " he said. "They have no conception of American history. To them, America is represented through entertainment, the cultural media and popular culture. That is their image of the United States."

Majid spoke at a town hall meeting at Bowdoin College, one of more than 30 "Hope Not Hate" events being held across the country in September and October. Hosted by a nonpartisan student group called Americans for Informed Democracy, the meetings offer a forum where regular citizens can discuss world events and the future of U.S.-Islamic relations with politicians, ambassadors, journalists, military officials and scholars.

Majid said non-Muslim Americans and Muslims abroad must go beyond political debates and start asking deeper questions if they are to begin to understand each other - the kind of questions that were raised at Tuesday's event.

He said on his last trip to Morocco, in the spring, he tried to do something similar with a group of Muslim students. He asked them to consider how one can maintain a national, cultural or religious identity and yet coexist with others, without falling into the trap of trying to convert people or assuming superiority.

He also spoke to them about a fundamentalist tendency toward absolutism, "in which you have a Muslim stand up and say 'I am right. My belief is right.' "

"With this kind of mindset, they're not capable of examining their beliefs self-critically enough to understand that there's a tremendous amount of pluralism in the world," Majid said.

Kevin Reinhart, a professor of Islamic studies from Dartmouth College, said he is often asked the same question by Americans and people he meets on his travels in the Middle East: "Why do they hate us?"

Reinhart said non-Muslim Americans need to learn more about Islam, because that knowledge is important for developing smart policies and economic practices. But he said efforts to understand Arab culture can sometimes dehumanize it.

As an example, Reinhart pointed to news coverage of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The mistreatment was explained in the context of Arab males' "peculiar sense of honor and their particular sense of modesty," Reinhart said.

But Reinhart asked people in the audience to imagine how they would react if they were asked to strip naked and simulate sexual acts, as the prisoners were told.

"I suspect that you would be angry, humiliated and frightened," he said. "The very fact that we try to explain this through some peculiar Arab characteristic ultimately denies the humanity that we both share."

The town hall meetings were inspired by the 9/11 Commission report, "which really emphasized the need for the U.S. to share our vision of hope and opportunity with the Muslim world," said Seth Green, a Yale law student who is executive director of Americans for Informed Democracy.

Family members of the victims of Sept. 11 have participated in some of the meetings.

The series will end Oct. 12 with video conferences pairing students at six universities in middle America with students at six universities in Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon.

Just after Sept. 11, Americans were aware of the importance of tolerance and condemned revenge crimes against Muslims, Green said, and people in the Muslim world condemned the terrorist attacks. But over the past couple of years, attitudes have changed.

Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center show that in March 2002, 25 percent of Americans believed that Islam encourages violence. By July 2003 that figure had risen to 44 percent.

"There's been a real increase in anti-Islamism in the U.S., and overseas anti-Americanism is rising," Green said. "While we associate Muslims with terrorism, in the Middle East and south Asia and other parts of the Muslim world, America is now associated with Abu Ghraib."

Brett McEvoy, a Bowdoin senior majoring in political science, helped organize the town hall meeting because he saw anti-Americanism firsthand when he traveled abroad last year. Other international students he befriended told him he was "not the typical American" after getting to know him.

"On the one hand, it made me feel good that they appreciated who I was," he said. "On the other hand, it really disappointed me and upset me that that is how the average person today is viewing an American."

Green said the purpose of the town hall meetings is to dispel stereotypes.

"We really wanted just to replace (those views) with a broader, more complete, more informed understanding on both sides," he said.

Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:

mgoad@pressherald.com

Affected by 9/11? How do you think the US could build better relations with the Islamic world?

Paul Estaver of Warrenton, VA Sep 15, 2004 2:28 PM I'm most encouraged to hear discussion of ways for Muslims and Western cultures to talk and to find avenues for co-esistence. It's most important for Westerners to understand that the Muslim world is not monolithic and that Wahhabist extremism is only one single element in the huge world os Islam. Much to be learned by both sides.

Ed McCarthy of Buxton, ME Sep 15, 2004 9:01 AM Come off Mr. Bush's nonsense that we are "hated for our freedom" rather than for what we do. Our penetration, military and political, into the Arabs' back yard, our upholding of corrupt Middle East regimes, and our one-sided support for an Israeli regime engaged in a brutal and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory have brought on the hostility we face. Present the Israelis with the prospect of an end to aid and alliance if they do not move directly toward a truly just settlement with their neighbors; turn off the "Axis of Evil" rhetoric toward Iran and Syria; demand a nuclear-free Middle East, to include Israel; and make clear our intention to get our military forces out of Iraq and the rest of the region as soon as possible: then we might have something to work with.

Helen of York, ME Sep 15, 2004 8:32 AM I agree that we should all be more tolerant of religions other than Christianity. It is a hard lesson to learn, but we all need to see that each one has a right to their beliefs. Muslims are basically fine people. I think instead of associating "terrorists with Muslims" we should associate "some Muslims with terrorists" and not condemn the whole Muslim religion.