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BY JONATHAN EMONT

In print | September 25, 2008

“Faith, Politics, & Society: Muslims in America,” an interfaith discussion on the discrimination faced by American Muslims, convened last night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The event was brought to the Swarthmore campus via live-stream technology, and was a marked experiment for WITF-TV and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the event’s two main sponsors.

Billed as “An interfaith discussion of challenges facing Muslims in America,” the event opened with remarks by Stephen A. Glassman, the chairperson of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

Mr. Glassman noted that “Pennsylvania is on the leading edge of rapid demographic change,” and said that this, as well as the current economic downturn, could inflame latent religious and ethnic tensions. He said that the day’s discussion would address the challenges to religious freedom that exist in Pennsylvania.

A constant theme of the night was the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment following the events of September 11, 2001. The keynote speaker, Imam Hendi, a Muslim Chaplain and Professor of Comparative Religion at Georgetown University, addressed America’s post-9/11 worries about Islam.
He said that as an American and a Muslim, he was doubly hurt by the attacks. Apologizing on behalf of all Muslims, Hendi said that on September 11, his faith was “attacked, was kidnapped, was hijacked.”

He then went on to discuss ways in which people of Muslim faith contribute to America’s culture and livelihood, saying that “11,000 Muslims serve in the United States’ armed forces” and that even as early as the 1800s there had been Muslims serving in the United States government.

One of the main goals of the night, and the panel discussion in particular, was to distinguish between radical Islam and its more moderate strains. Studies have shown that American Muslims tend to be more moderate in their beliefs than their European and Arabian counterparts, and this was underscored in both a video that preceded the panel and in the discussion itself.

During the night’s lectures and panel discussion, a contrasting portrait of America was drawn. America was both a land that, throughout its history, had welcomed and supported diversity, while also being a place fulsome with nativist prejudice and fears.

Current discrimination against Islam was often viewed in a historical context, as a new wave of prejudice against a different “Other” that, the event’s sponsors hoped, would one day come to pass.
Shannon Powers, the Director of Communications for the Human Relations Commission, in briefing this reporter via telephone, was particularly insistent on this point, saying that “Muslims are just the latest group to face this type of discrimination.”

She said the two main goals of her organization were to enforce Pennsylvania laws relating to discrimination and to institute diversity education programs.

Saying how “thrilled” she was that Swarthmore students and faculty were able to listen in on the discussion, Powers said that Swarthmore was a “guinea pig” for the possible airing of other such events in this fashion.

Live-feed streaming may well become a model for future discussions, as it makes events more accessible, potentially broadening the event’s audience base.

It also allows live-stream viewers to interact with the panel members using questions submitted by e-mail, as many Swarthmore students and faculty had the opportunity to do last night.

At Swarthmore, 15 students attended the event, with a couple of faculty members rounding out the count. Shilpa Boppana ’11 said, “In our classes we read a lot about the Muslim faith.” She came “to hear actual people discuss it.”

The coordination between the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and Swarthmore College came courtesy of Sharmaine LaMar, of the Equal Opportunities Office. Ms. Lamar was contacted by the PHRC and made preparations for the live-stream feed.

The panel discussion is the first of a series of five discussions planned by the sponsors. Each segment will be edited and aired on the WITF-TV’s local affiliates, as well as by PBS. The Pennsylvania Human Relation’s Commission hopes to package the five events into an instructional DVD.

Powers said, “We’re hoping to defeat the assumption that certain people have less of a right to be here than anybody else.”

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