Inter-faith dialog the way forward

Johan Fernandez The Star Asia News Network/Selangor, Malaysia

Los Angeles is often referred to as a city where the minority is the majority. There is no single race that is in the majority here and its wide diversity of cultures, where 130 languages are spoken, and religions shows how complex the city is.

For the first time in its history the city has a Hispanic, Antonio Villaraigosa, as its mayor.

It is also a city known for racial strife, like the Watts riots of 1965 and the Rodney King affair in 1992. There has not been any major racial tension in recent years but getting communities together continues to be a huge task.

Representatives of Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other minority communities have found that inter-faith dialog is one way to understand one another better.

Daniel Sokatch of the Progressive Jewish Alliance said that through such contacts, "the golden age of dialog between Jews and Muslims in Los Angeles has been set in motion".

Los Angeles Human Rights Commission executive director Rabbi Allen I. Freehling told a group of foreign journalists from New York and Washington at a briefing on "Multiculturism and Peaceful Coexistence" that inter-faith dialog had brought Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and other minorities closer together.

Freehling said "understanding" was the more appropriate word to "tolerance" in respect to relations between various faiths, adding that the dialog began in 1999.

Also at the meeting at Los Angeles City Hall were California Sikh Council executive director Nirinjan Singh Khalsa and Muslim Public Affairs Councils executive director Salam al-Marayati.

Salam: "It is the turn of American Muslims to overcome stigmatization by clearly demonstrating to all that America is home and that no foe, domestic or foreign, will change that."

Salam said that in the U.S., Muslims were more integrated compared to Europe. Immigrant Muslims who came in the 1960s and 1970s represented the elite and educated Muslim from the more affluent class.

In the case of Europe, cultural barriers separated Muslim ghettos from mainstream society. In general, European Muslims belonged to the underclass.

While social forces in Europe might alienate Muslims, it was political forces in the U.S. that repelled many.

He said that although Muslims did not live in economically depressed physical ghettos, many lived in a psychological ghetto caused by the lack of acceptance they felt from their neighbors and colleagues, especially in the post-Sept. 11 era.

Sokatch said there was much common ground between Jews and Muslims. There are an estimated six million Jews in the United States. Nearly a million reside in California, with close to 700,000 in Los Angeles itself. In comparison, there are 300,000 Muslims in California.

"We see the establishment of a different paradigm of relations with the Muslim community and other ethnic and religious groups as an imperative," said Sokatch.

"This is something that we can't afford not to do if we are going to make Los Angeles the first American majority minority city. If LA works better as an multi-ethnic and inter-ethnic city, then we will provide a model for the country to change in a positive way."

He said Jews had "arrived" politically, economically and socially "but prejudices and problems remain".

"We also maintain a certain psychological fear in this country, that is understandable given the reality of Jewish history," said Sokatch.

"The question of the great American balance between assimilation on one hand and maintaining a religious, ethnic or cultural identity is always the pull, and I believe this is an area where moderate Jews and Muslims have more in common than other groups in this country. Our cultural, ethnic identity is formed by our religious ethical identity."

Salam said American Muslims could stem the tide of isolation by articulating a message of Islam "that is American-based, not Arab or South Asian-based".

"U.S. political leaders, from the president to mayor, can do more to isolate the terrorists by embracing mainstream American Muslim communities instead of isolating those communities by excluding them from serious conversations about security of the United States," said Salam.

Muslim leaders in the United States, as in Britain, had established a partnership with law enforcement, he said, adding that partnership needed national attention to illustrate that the walls of pluralism were impenetrable to the ideologies of hate.

"It is the turn of American Muslims, like other religious minorities in the United States before them, to overcome stigmatization by clearly demonstrating to all that America is home and that no foe, domestic or foreign, will change that."

He said reports that the suspects in the London terrorist attacks were in fact home-grown British Muslim lads were reverberating throughout the U.S. Muslim community.

They were forcing Muslims to focus on how to prevent such incidents in the United States.

The challenge, he said, was to prevent the stigmatization of people who feel disowned by mainstream America. This social ailment should concern all Americans who want to see an end to the evil of terrorism and who wish to pursue the ideals of pluralism.

Perhaps the community most misunderstood after Sept. 11 was the Sikhs.

Nirinjan Singh said there were 250,000 Sikhs in the United States, of which, 60,000 were in Los Angeles.

In the wake of Sept. 11, he said, five Sikhs were killed for wearing turbans and having long beards, and being mistaken as the Taliban. There were thousands of hate crimes against Sikhs.

"In reality, there is a 99.9 percent chance that those wearing a turban and beard are Sikhs and not Muslims," he said.

The reality of what happened to the Sikh community in the U.S. and worldwide is a stunning and poignant example of what's wrong and why we are having these problems to begin with.

Nirinjan recalled a session with top echelon enforcement officers, when he asked whether anyone knew what a Sikh was.

"Of the three hands that came up, two thought it was a Shiite Muslim. And these are the top officers of this government who are supposed to be understanding and handling terrorist problems and all these issues," he said.

Johan Fernandez is Editor, North America Bureau, based in New York. His e-mail is johan10128@aol.com.