Cynicism runs rampant at Brown. We are taught to question everything we hear in the classroom, and we often turn this cynicism into inaction, into a belief that the really big issues are the ones we shouldn't work on by virtue of how monumental the problems facing us are. Dr. Eboo Patel, in his talk on Wednesday night in Salomon 101, offered an option based on action, one directed specifically at students here when he said, "I don't think there is a better place in America to implement this than right here at Brown University."
The "this" he was referring to was the doctrine of multifaith. He spoke to the students gathered in Salomon 101 about what is at stake, about "the cut of hate" that is deeper now than at any point in recent American history. He rallied us with stories of "the forces of inclusiveness," of the Muslim community in Gainesville, Fla., who responded to a threat of Quran burning with an interfaith book drive. Dr. Patel's message was one of profound belief in today's youth to use the opportunity presented by the "forces of bigotry" to find the common ground of shared values.
Interfaith is about "equal dignity and mutual loyalty." It is about finding the shared stories, the shared beliefs, the shared fundamental principles that transcend personal religious practice and are rooted in all of us who believe in tolerance and an inclusive definition of what America is. Where I felt most at fault, as if I personally hadn't done enough for these undeniably good forces, is when Dr. Patel said, "The song of pluralism isn't being sung."
Dr. Patel's remarks were a rallying cry for those in this community who have been looking for someone with a positive message towards progressive change in the social norms of America. They were also searing. His words remembered the promise of a generation before us, and asked us to find "a new version of ‘never again'."
He asked us to help rephrase the discourse in society, to change from an "us versus them" where the "them" means "Muslims," and instead substitute "extremists." "The extremists of all traditions belong to one tradition: the tradition of extremism," he said, warning those assembled that those extremists will always show up prepared.
The challenge that Dr. Patel brings to the Brown community is one of building a knowledge base of interfaith understanding and language. The biggest problem we face is that people don't even know what interfaith means. No one has a picture of what an "Interfaith" America would look like.
In response to a question about how we begin, Dr. Patel said, "This is about having a conversation with your twelve-year-old brother." His challenge for youth is to start putting words and examples and stories of a new definition of what it is to be American — a definition that is entirely inclusive.
In my last column, I worried about America's seeming desire to abdicate global leadership in matters of religious freedom, especially in regards to the Cordoba House, otherwise known as Park51 or the so-called "ground-zero mosque." Rather than take a negative stance, Dr. Patel has challenged us to build from the Cordoba House and Quran burning scandals, saying that "America should never go through the embarrassment that we've felt in the last two months."
In my conversation with Dr. Patel, he told me that a college campus is "a model for what good looks like." By creating a dialogue and by teaching others the language of multifaith, maybe the media will realize they are "getting played by terrorists" every time they show a beheading on television. There couldn't be more at stake. We should be fighting to build an America where no child of any religion is taught that it is right and good to hate those of other religions.
We can all agree on multiculturalism. At Brown, we have the Third World Center and programs during freshman orientation about a dozen different kinds of plurality. Why can't we take the next step and embrace the idea of a multifaith community, regardless of our level of observance or lack of religion? Dr. Patel told me of a Jewish and a Muslim student at Wesleyan who realized that in both of their faiths, fasting was about justice. They organized a multifaith school-wide fast where the money that would have been spent on lunch that day was donated to a food bank.
These small acts of coming together and inclusion are phenomenally simple. But enough people choose the didactic path of extremism, and they have been entrenched in the United States for so long, that the rest of the population needs to counter them. We need to abolish the religion line. We need to stop watching as fundamental rights and values are crushed by the smallest of minorities. Brown students are not exempt.
Susannah Kroeber '11 hopes that next time an interfaith speaker comes to Brown, the message will be so familiar it will be almost redundant information.
