Young, Brilliant, and Muslim

     As soon as Raoff started talking, I knew I was in over my head--cultural references, media portrayals, history, philosophy. . .  I felt like a farmer in the presence of a scientific seed researcher.

     I'd scheduled an interview with three members of a student Muslim group to gain a perspective on the call for social justice under Indian law.  What I came away with was a respect for three men with varying personal views about their faith traversing a narrow path between righting social wrongs and being labeled extremist.

Learned men

          So what are these social wrongs?  The findings of the Sachar Report commissioned by the government of India in 2005 give some indication:

• Nearly 25% of Muslim children have never attended school
• Only 17 % of Muslim children of the age of 17 have completed tenth grade compared to national average of 26%
• Participation in higher education is 4%
• 31% of Muslims are below the poverty line.  They are the poorest group in nation outside Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
• Overrepresentation in prison population.  In Maharashtra, Muslims represent 32% of jail inmates and only 10% of the population
• Inflated claims of Islamic terrorism, in which young Muslims are falsely accused and detained for violence resulting from other sources.

 Each deplores the irresponsible and inflammatory portrayal of Muslim people by the likes of Bill Maher in his interview with ben Affleck, Samuel Huntington's ill-substantiated and polarizing theory "Clash of Civilizations," and Richard Dawkins' much publicized anti Muslim statements.  The "axis of evil" statements and their collateral damage ignore the realities and demonize populations for political expediency. 

     The point is that politicians, talking heads, and uninformed citizens have placed civilization on a path that can only be reversed by true knowledge, fact-based understanding, and communication.  And in today's interconnected global world there is no excuse to allow those in power to do the thinking for the average man.

    The portrayal of Islam as a threat is compounded in Kashmir, a conflict-torn Indian state near Pakistan with a 74% Muslim population.   Control of the region continues to be disputed by Pakistan and India and the desire for self-rule.   These three friends were among the first generation to receive an education in the 1980s after years of struggle and subjugation.  Their school was founded by the resistance movement.  They received a secular and Islamic education and during secondary school, more focus on scientific education.  

     The actions of the Indian army in allegedly massacring 36 Sikhs to coincide with Bill Clinton's visit in 2000 and then blaming Pakistani Islamic groups  to build anti Islamic sentiment is the subject of a film, Adharm (Chittisinghpura Massacre).  The subsequent disappearance of Muslim men is echoed in Raoof's family history   This politicized religious history along with Indian military police acts of violence against Kashmiri women and young men to squelch protest forms the base of their collective personal history.  

     What solutions, then, are posed by these socially aware men who found their way from a simple education in Kashmir, with its history of subjugation, to post graduate work in one of the best central universities in India to the tensions I feel in Fort Morgan, Colorado?

     

     Bust Stereotypes:  Negotiate space to alleviate tensions caused by Islamic phobia.

     Invest legitimate Muslim religious institutions with political agency

     Re-socialize and restore normalcy:  Religion is only one aspect of an individual's identity. 

     

     At the end of the interview is the afternoon breeze, we found common ground.  Maybe a scientific seed researcher needs to ride a tractor and maybe the farmer can spend a little time in the lab.

     Talking and sharing personal histories allows for mutual understanding--for finding solutions.