projects – Page 40 – maraahmed.com

talking about #NoDAPL with local reps

met with chuck schumer’s staff today, with my wonderful friend sue smith, in order to talk about #NoDAPL and our own personal experience of traveling to standing rock. we focused on human rights (tied it to schumer’s opposition to jeff sessions as AG), gave context to NoDAPL (a history of theft and river dams that have made land uninhabitable, but also unemployment rates of close to 80%, rampant poverty and consequent social problems including suicide rates that are double the national average), and insisted that the racist language being used by ND congressional reps on the floor of the senate (calling water protectors and their allies terrorists for example) be challenged and stopped. we described the oceti sakowin camp – how well-organized, clean and spiritual it was – and reiterated the right to free speech and peaceful assembly. i hope that these face to face meetings work. sue insists that they can be effective, if they take the form of ongoing conversations. that’s exactly what we need to do then. next: kirsten gillibrand.

anti-racism work and engaging with trump

at an anti-racism worshop. a lot of talk about trying to burst the so-called liberal bubble and engage with trump voters. in fact, trying to connect with trump himself by focusing on mutually agreeable areas, to which i had to say, pardon me for being the agent provocateur here, but sometimes it’s ok not to find a meeting point with fascism. it’s ok not to make friends with the racist bubble. sorry for being radical and for using an extreme example, but if hitler were in power, would we want to find some common ground by focusing on mutual interests? guaranteed to be a killjoy 🙂

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Stanford – “The other America” 1967

the speech i used as the foundation for my talk today about dr king and his formidable legacy, at the Islamic Center of Rochester Inc. full house, a rousing speech by rev marlowe washington sr who urged us to speak up for justice, references to the parting of the red sea and MLK’s status as a kind of prophet by rabbi debbie till, and the tying together of racism, poverty and war by yours truly. best of all, in the middle of my presentation, we showed a clip from the actual speech, so that we could hear dr king’s powerful words firsthand. the most charming and unexpected moment came when a little girl from the islamic center, in a white dress and a lovely white hijab, began to beatbox during a rap she and her elementary school classmates had prepared about dr king and how cool his message was. they got a well-deserved standing ovation 🙂

Screening at Temple Emanu-El of Rochester

Screened The Muslims I Know at Temple Emanu-El of Rochester today. Wonderful turnout and post-screening discussion. This was the first time the film was screened at a temple or synagogue, since its premiere in 2008. Thank you Drorah Setel for making it happen! Photograph by SUNY Geneseo photography professor Michael Teres.

writing about MLK

starting to put my thoughts together and write a speech for this interfaith event at the Islamic Center of Rochester Inc this coming monday. want to use dr king’s “the other america” speech as a jumping off point. this event will be open to the public. rev. marlowe washington sr and rabbi debbie till will also be speaking. hope to see u there.

rochester activism fair

wonderful to be at the rocheser activism fair today. 52 activist organizations, lots of friends and familiar faces, but then many new connections, social justice causes and ideas about organizing and working together as well. bravo Athesia Benjamin for putting this together at the Visual Studies Workshop.

Standing Rock is what democracy looks like

My article about a trip from Rochester, NY, to Standing Rock, North Dakota, in order to support Indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, was published in Socialist Worker today:

“Standing Rock is not only a template for solidarity, intersectionality and grassroots organizing and action, but it also offers us hope. It articulates an alternative way of being, one that is non-violent, deeply connected to the Earth as well as other living things and creatures.”

More here.

oceti sakowin camp

oceti sakowin camp, standing rock, north dakota, dec 7, 2016.

home

after 38 hours of being on the move, traveling from bismarck to standing rock, then driving back non-stop to NY thru 3 different snow storms and dealing with a closed highway that had a 75 car pile-up, we are back home, to our loved ones 🙂

Caught in a snow storm near Bismarck

We are here, close to Bismarck, caught in a snow storm and forced to spend the night at a Ramada Inn. We drove for more than 24 hours straight, thru Pennsylvania, Ohio, across Indiana to Chicago, followed by Wisconsin, and then through St. Paul, Minnesota, to North Dakota and beautiful sounding names like Absaraka and Spiritwood. We hadn’t gone far when we started getting calls and texts from friends telling us about how the US Army Corps of Engineers had denied an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, after 6 months of resistance by the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies. We decided to continue. After hundreds of years of broken promises, constant infringements on indigenous sovereignty, land and resources and the violation of some 500 treaties, it makes sense to take government concessions with a healthy dose of skepticism. The demarcation between what is supposed to be the US government and big business is not so clearcut anyway.

Sadly, we were welcomed by a huge snow storm as soon as we hit North Dakota.

The landscape was visually bewitching throughout. There were the frost-covered golden fields of Minnesota, where dark trees break up vast horizontal lines and stick out of the earth like candelabras feeling the magnetic pull of the sky. The snow in North Dakota was heavy, the roads sometimes barely plowed. Sue continued to drive, straining to see where we were going. I don’t know much about Harry Potter but Sue told me the scene reminded her of King’s Cross Station and its symbolism in the book, a crossroad between what is real and otherworldly, between life and death. Utility poles were somewhat visible and lent some interest to an otherwise blank canvas. Most lovely though, was the dried-up grass along the sides of the road. It tried to poke thru layers of snow, creating lines and lines of mysterious calligraphy. A brand new script just for us.

We are here. We cannot wait to go to Standing Rock tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be daunting – snow, wind and freezing temperatures. Our hotel is fully booked so we will have to make a move. Hope it’s to Oceti Sakowin camp.

on my way to standing rock!

am leaving for standing rock tomorrow along with rochester activist friends.

we will be driving straight to north dakota, for 23 hours, and hope to be there on monday dec 5, the day the camp is supposed to be forcibly broken up and evacuated. thousands of veterans plan on joining the camp on dec 4, in order to shield water protectors and their allies.

am taking beautiful verses from the quran with me, as this indigenous-led movement for clean water, respect for the earth and for the sanctity of life, is completely non-violent and deeply prayerful. hope to contribute however we can, support the camp against a possible shutdown, learn as much as possible from the standing rock sioux and other indigenous elders, and be back later in the week.

pls keep us in ur prayers and donate, support, help the movement in any way u can. more info here.

#NoDAPL #WaterIsLife #StandWithStandingRock

screening of “the muslims i know” at SJFC

got back home from NC after driving for 15 hours yesterday, dropping our son off to college on the way. but no time to slouch today. i screened half of The Muslims I Know for a class at st john fisher college and got to talk to students afterwards.

i was invited by the brilliant Roja Singh who’s been teaching her anthropology class about globalization, immigration, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

the discussion went well, with students asking about minor clarifications related to cultural and geographic specifics they had noticed in the film. there were also larger questions about both islam and american politics that i was happy to address.

as we were ending the class, a student asked me how i felt about what was going on in the country. he said: “u’ve made a very sensible film and provided a lot of information here, but it cannot be easy. how do muslims feel right now?” i had to be honest and tell him that in all our family conversations over the holidays we had shared ideas about relocating to other countries/parts of the world.

it’s particularly sad to have these discussions with our kids. it’s not something i had to contend with when i was growing up. i always felt i had choices – stay on and study in europe, remain in pakistan, settle in the US, etc without these choices being forced on me, on account of fear. what a privilege that was. it’s not so easy for most…

thank u to professors like dr Singh for creating the space necessary for this type of dialogue in smaller, predominantly white colleges and universities. it’s so very needed.