Islamo-fascism Week prompts students to hold service event

The Gilman tunnel is not exactly the ideal location for a bakery, scarf factory and artists' meeting spot to coexist.

And yet, for four hours on Friday, Nov. 16, 21 student groups came together in the name of service and changed that.

Hopkins's first collaborative day of service, called "Healing a Fractured World," was organized by the Muslim Student Association (JHUMA) and the Interfaith Community with active involvement by campus service, awareness and religious groups.

The event was meant to create a "commitment to a better tomorrow through community service based on understanding and coexistence," according to the event's publicity.

Seniors Farah Qureshi and Brittany Schriver organized and led the event.

"Originally, 'Healing a Fractured World' was supposed to be a small collaborative event between JHUMA and Habitat for Humanity (HFH), as a reaction to [David Horowitz's] Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," Schriver said.

The plan was originally for JHUMA and HFH to organize a day of service in which all the campus religious groups would be invited to build a house in Baltimore one afternoon, Qureshi said.

This year, Qureshi is serving as a fellow for the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC).

The organization based in Chicago that promotes interfaith work and raises awareness about the separation the separation between pluralism and totalitarianism in religion.

It was through the IFYC that she heard about the Horowitz campaign, which spread over 150 U.S. college campuses.

"My role as a fellow at Hopkins is to promote dialogue and religious pluralism on our campus in new and creative ways, and to work with already existing organizations to show the greater Baltimore community that fostering peaceful, meaningful relations between a diverse people of different faiths is not only a fundamental tenant of this country, but also absolutely essential to our progress as a people," Qureshi said.

She explained that the IFYC launched its own series of alternative programming on campuses.

Called "A Different Kind of Conversation about Religion," the event is based on bringing young people of different religious backgrounds together "on the basis of doing common action for the common good."

"The purpose is to shift talk of religion today from a debate between two polarizing camps, one side arguing that one religion must completely dominate all others and the other side arguing that the institution of religion is entirely antithetical to human freedom and equality, to a discussion in which we can come together on the basis of our shared values, and in the process, learn about the differences that make us unique and respect each other for those differences," Qureshi said.

"Seeing as Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week didn't actually come to the Hopkins campus, Brittany and I had to really think outside of the box about how to plan an event in which we explicitly denounced IFAW not through rhetoric, but rather through our actions," she said.

The event ended up involving many more campus groups than Qureshi and Schriver had anticipated.

"We asked, would you be interested? And we got a lot of support. Twelve different service groups as well as nine religious groups came together to show that we might all be different on the surface but we all believe in service," Schriver said.

"When we approached these groups, we told them why we were doing it - to show that stigmatizing and maligning one religious group based on stereotypes rather than truths doesn't just hurt that one faith, it calls into question the very basis of America: the idea that this is a land where a religiously diverse people can live in freedom, harmony and most of all, respect," Qureshi said.

"It was better than I expected. Let's face it, Hopkins is apathetic to everything. But people stopped by for even half an hour and we are blown away by the support," Schriver said.

For the event, the Gilman tunnel was set up to host 12 different activities that went to help 12 different community-building organizations across Baltimore.

Additionally, at the center of the tunnel, a table displayed posters made by the Interfaith Council which explained why service is an important part of each of the nine major faiths and the goals which the event was meant to achieve.

The atmosphere was festive though the air was cold, with a WJHU DJ, free doughnuts, coffee and a raffle.

People visited tables to participate in activities benefiting greater Baltimore, such as scarf-making for MANWA House, hosted by Hopkins Organization for Community Building and Social Change (HOCBSC). This is HOCBSC's second year in existence.

"We are working towards branching out into Baltimore and progressive change. This year we are taking a more grassroots approach," junior Ambroshia Murrietta said.

Murietta is the co-chair of ethnic diversity, one of three subdivisions of HOCBSC. The other two are health and religious morality.

Senior Naseer Jones, HOCBSC's founder, explained that the organization plays a role as a public advocacy and community service group.

"We know the problems and the solutions. We're working to bring the greater Baltimore community and the nonprofits to campus," he said.

Active Minds, Hopkins' mental health advocacy group, was another service group present.

Members and stoppers-by constructed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Project PLASE, which benefits people at a group of homeless shelters.

Juliana Kerrest, Active Minds' president, described how more homeless people are mentally ill, and how important it is for college students to address the issue of mental illness despite the stigmas associated with it.

According to Schriver and Qureshi, Healing a Fractured World cost a total of about $3,000, which includes the price of creating T-shirts.

It was funded by the Interfath Council, the HSA collaboration committee and Campus Ministries.

The IFYC also helped with promotional materials and information, although they did not contribute financially.

"It was a huge success and I sincerely hope the Interfaith Council takes it on as an annual event. While the Interfaith Council hosts a ton of events that focus on community building, it's a rare occasion when all the faith groups come together for an event such as this," Qureshi said.

"It's really important for the greater Hopkins community to see what dedicated, bright people there are working at the IFC to build bridges between faith groups and learn about each other and respect each other in a time when mass media and popular culture wants to divide us into polarizing camps," she said.

"We come together on our shared hope for a better tomorrow: a hope that all of humanity shares and must be committed to in order to improve our world as we know it."

The groups that participated were: the Student Advocacy Board, the Baha'i Club, the Buddhist Student Association, the Catholic Community, the Latter-day Saint Student Association, the Methodist Student Group, the Hindu Student Council, the Jewish Student Association, the Sikh Student Group, Active Minds, Alpha Phi Omega, Circle K, Habitat for Humanity, the Hopkins AIDS Alliance, HOCBSC, Project Health, SALUD, Slam AIDS, Vision|Xchange, Cooking4Love and STAND.