Videoconference Brings Middle America, Muslim World Face-to-Face

Videoconference Brings Middle America, Muslim World Face-to-Face

by Staff Writer
News from Public Affairs
10/05/2004

Also see http://www.earlham.edu/~publicaf/peacejustice100504.html

RICHMOND, Ind. — Within 48 hours next week Earlham College students will engage in a discussion of the supposed “clash of civilizations” between America and the Muslim world with some of their Arab peers in Cairo, Egypt, and hear from the director of Columbia University’s Middle East Institute regarding “America’s perilous path” from Israel to Iraq. Both events occur during an expanded Peace with Justice Month on campus.

Earlham is one of only six U.S.-based colleges — including the University of Chicago, Middle Tennessee State University, Northwestern University, the University of Texas and the University of Virginia — chosen to participate in a series of face-to-face dialogues on U.S.-Muslim relations sponsored by the non-partisan group Americans for Informed Democracy (AID).

On Tuesday, Oct. 12, from 10 - 11:30 a.m. in the Richmond Room of Landrum Bolling Center, six students representing Earlham will talk live, via videoconference, with six Arab Muslim students attending American University in Cairo. According to Earlham second-year student Yvette Issar, coordinator of the event for the College, the dialogue will open with five-minute presentations by two students on each side of the teleconference on the subject of “American Power and Global Security.” Following will be a wider ranging discussion of other foreign policy issues, including the present U.S. military involvement in Iraq, perceptions of America in the world, and the upcoming U.S. elections.

Because of limited space, only members of the Earlham campus are expected to attend and observe the videoconference exchange. Rashid Khalidi

However, as is customary, the next day’s (Oct. 13) convocation address, “Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East,” by Columbia University Professor of Arab Studies Rashid Khalidi is free and open to the public. Khalidi will speak at 1 p.m. in Goddard Auditorium of Carpenter Hall. He will examine the record of Western involvement in the Middle East and analyze the likely outcomes of what he characterizes as “our most recent incursions” in the region.

A former advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington, D.C., Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993, Khalidi currently is vice president of the American Task Force on Palestine and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. The Yale and Oxford graduate previously held teaching positions at Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, Georgetown University and the University of Chicago.

Hope, Not Hate

“I get a sense of rising anti-Americanism around the world,” Yvette Issar says about one of the prime motivators of her involvement with AID and the planned videoconferences between American college students and their counterparts in Cairo, as well as Jakarta, Indonesia; Safat, Kuwait; Beirut, Lebanon; Lahore, Pakistan; and Istanbul, Turkey. “I don’t know that that’s really fair. I think there is the good, the bad, and the ugly in all parts of the world.

“Americans are not smarter or dumber,” continues Issar, who comes to Earlham from Kenya, via India. “They’re not more involved or less involved. Only sometimes they’re made to seem a certain way through U.S. foreign policy.”

The intent of the face-to-face dialogues, Issar says, is to further a recent recommendation by the 9/11 Commission that the United States “act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world” and express America’s “vision of opportunity and hope.” Meanwhile, participants at the other end of the virtual bridge will have equal opportunity to share their values, viewpoints, and visions for the future.

“Communication is more than speaking the same language,” says Issar (the upcoming interchange with Cairo will be conducted in English). “Maybe Americans need to discuss if they want their foreign policy to reflect their view of the world, or if they want it to be influenced by how they want to be perceived. Should outside perceptions influence foreign policy?”

No one participating in the dialogues has been assigned a “pro” or “con” position on any issue, Issar insists.

“We only want everyone to be respectful,” she says. With her colleagues at AID, Issar hopes that after all of the videoconferences, there will be follow up discussion between the participants through e-mail, blogs and other online forums.