Liberal Arts Forum

Students from Noor-Ul-Iman School participate in building bridges at George School.
A day of unity for everyone By: Matthew Fleishman 01/18/2007
George School students gather to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in celebration held Jan. 15

While most area students were sleeping in on their day off from school, George School students of all races and backgrounds spent their day honoring the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through speeches, song, dance and interracial dialogues.
“We are going to bring people together as opposed to splitting them apart,” said Nathaniel McKee, the Dean of Students at the George School. “That’s what MLK Day is all about.”
The 17th annual celebration of Dr. King’s life began with a two-hour ceremony that included the showing of a documentary that went from King’s entrance into the civil rights movement to his “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington.
The assembly in the Walton Center on campus also included students singing songs about the struggle for civil rights and equality, a ballet interpretation, a step dance, the reading of the “I Have a Dream” speech in 15 languages.
The speech was broken up into small sections, and students recited small parts of the speech in English, German, French, Hindi, Arabic, Korean, Russian, Danish, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Chines, Vietnamese, Japanese and Creole. It concluded with each of the students saying, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last!” in the 15 different languages.
“This day is not just for one particular group of people,” McKee told the students.
McKee told the students that the first inspiration for the first George School celebration of Dr. King’s life came about when two white students and one black student came to him in 1988 and stressed the need for the school to do something in Dr. King’s honor.
“What King stood for in his message is so aligned with our tenants as Quakers,” said McKee. “It’s okay for us to disagree, but when we are at a place where we can’t discuss what we disagree on, we are in trouble.”
Three years after President Ronald Reagan declared the first Martin Luther King Day to be celebrated as a Federal holiday on January 20, 1986, the George School celebrated their first annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration.
After the assembly, the students were given the chance to take part in two of a possible 28 workshops about peace, freedom, equality and other topics that Dr. King supported.
One of the workshops offered was “Being Young and Muslim in America,” in which the George School invited students from the Noor Ul Iman School in New Jersey to speak about how their religion affects their daily lives, how they are treated by non-Muslims, and to clear up misconceptions about what their religion stands for.
During the workshop, Ibraheem Catovic gave a presentation entitled, “Islam: The Misunderstood Religion.” He told the more than 60 students, faculty and parents on hand that Muslims believe in the Jewish and Christian prophets, but believe that the Archangel Gabriel revealed the text of the Qu’ran to Muhammad. Catovic explained that the idea of a Jihad is not actually a “Holy War,” but a “call for defense” and it requires that the proper rules of warfare, such as not killing civilians, women, children, or the elderly, and not destroying other faith’s places of worship, are followed.
Reem Nasr gave those in attendance a look into what it is like to be a teenage Muslim girl. While she still hears racists comments, the American born teenager of Lebanese and Egyptian ancestry felt that Martin Luther King Day was a perfect time to discuss the current issues facing Muslims in America and around the world.
“Today we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King and his values…as Muslims, we are taught non-violence, and just as blacks fought back against racism, Muslims, too, seek an end to bigotry and racism,” said Nasr.
Osman Turan spoke about how he leads the life of every other teenage boy who plays sports and video games, he just doesn’t have the distractions or peer pressure related to drugs and alcohol because Islam forbids the use of them.
“When I talk to people and they find out I’m Muslim, they see that I’m not different from any of them,” said Turan.
In addition to the workshop on being a Muslim teen, students participated in workshops on making America a better place for everyone, accepting diversity, and embracing Dr. King’s ideas.
By the end of the day, each student, no matter what their background, were treated a day of ideas of the purest form. Ideas worth fighting for, worth going to jail for, and in the end, worth dying for.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1686&dept_id=41297&newsid=17727217&PAG=461&rfi=9

Looking from the sharia’ perspective, everything in Islam revolves around God. The distinction between ‘ibadat (acts of worship) and ‘adat (civic transactions) is not a division between sacred and secular. There is no church and state in Islam. Many critics of Islam see this as a hindrance to democracy, freedom, civil liberty, modernity, etc. They argue that such a separation is needed for a balance of power. The separation between church and state is considered an axiom in the West. Thou shall not mix sacred and secular.
Well! The Muslim nations did their best to mimic the West (and are still working very hard). It is not a secret that Turkey under M. Kamal adopted “the most progressive” constitution – the Swiss constitution. Most Arab nations adopted the Constitution Francaise and most non-Arab Muslim countries adopted the British Constitution. However, the problem persist – Muslim countries have borrowed a system established on Western values only to find despotism, anarchy, oppression, violence, etc at home. They are neither “democratic” nor “free”.
Nevertheless, these countries do represent a core “Western” value, they function on the basis of separation between the church and the state.
“Aql bari kai bhains!” Good luck folks!

Op-Ed Contributor
The Lottery’s Next Big Loser: Illinois
By EDWARD UGEL

Published: January 28, 2007
“I worked for a company that searched out winners who didn’t have the option to receive their winnings in a lump sum or had chosen not to, and who then had spent themselves into short-term debt and needed money before the next annual payment. We were happy to buy their future payments in exchange for quick cash, at a handsome profit to ourselves…

Believe me, these financially lost winners were the rule, not the exception. There are databases overflowing with the identities of winner after winner who won seemingly huge amounts of money only to find themselves destitute (and sometimes dead)”.

Edward Ugel is the author of the forthcoming “Money for Nothing: One Man’s Journey Through the Dark Side of America’s Lottery Millions…”

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Can Polyester Save the World?

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: January 25, 2007
The NY Times
WOKING, England

“JOSEPHINE COPELAND and her 20-year-old daughter, Jo Jo, visited Primark at the Peacock Center mall here, in the London suburbs, to buy presents for friends, but ended up loaded with clothes for themselves: boots, a cardigan, a festive blouse, and a long silver coat with faux fur trim, which cost £12 but looks like a million bucks. “If it falls apart, you just toss it away!” said Jo Jo, proudly wearing her purchase.
Environmentally, that is more and more of a problem.
With rainbow piles of sweaters and T-shirts that often cost less than a sandwich, stores like Primark are leaders in the quick-growing “fast fashion” industry, selling cheap garments that can be used and discarded without a second thought. Consumers, especially teenagers, love the concept, pioneered also by stores like H&M internationally and by Old Navy and Target in the United States, since it allows them to shift styles with speed on a low budget.
But clothes — and fast clothes in particular — are a large and worsening source of the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, because of how they are both produced and cared for, concludes a new report from researchers at Cambridge University titled “Well Dressed?””

“Time and time again, we have seen that most Imams cannot even communicate with the youth. In such a desperate situation, a youth coordinator should be able to provide much needed support… Let us search for youth coordinators – smooth operators, who could close the generational gap between the adults and the youth”.

I believe we have to be realistic. There is a lot of talk about youth not coming to the mosque but very little effort. Adults are simply caught up in their world: political candidates, masjid politics, wkend school, funerals, marriages, next speaker, who’s giving khutba, elections, etc. The adults DO NOT understand the chanllenges faced by youth. Most immigrant parents have no clue what it is like to be a Muslim in public school – just ask ‘peer pressure’… For this reason, mosques across the US need to hire these “youth coordinators” – preferrably college age students who are usually involved with MSA/masjid activities and are known for their good Islamic behavior. I am sure these potential youth coordinators/second imams exist in all of our communities. We have to go out and search for them.
We cannot afford to sitback and watch an entire generation be alienated from the masjid. We have great examples of successful youth programs because they have these young energetic youth advisors/coordinators. Their primary concern as a masjid employee is to make sure that there are enough activities for youth. I will be very blunt to all the respected uncles & imams – It is this simple:

“Put your money where your mouth is”.