Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

In post-9/11 world, Washington State U. Muslims spread awareness
By Ingrid Rachinski
Daily Evergreen (Washington State U.)
02/09/2006

(U-WIRE) PULLMAN, Wash. — The aftereffects of Sept. 11, 2001 ignited anti-Muslim feelings that portrayed an ignorance about the Islamic religion. While some of the tensions toward Muslims in the United States have lessened in the past five years, there are still problems for those who fit the Muslim/Arab profile.

"Obviously it's relaxed quite a bit since [Sept. 11]," said Omar Abdurrahman, a senior business major at Washington State University. "Being a college campus you have people who are more intelligent... there are some threats, but for the most part the community has been supportive."

Among the members of the Muslim Student Association, there was a little disagreement about the role of the WSU community.

"I would say non-bias," said Anzor Balkar, a junior computer science major. "I wouldn't say supportive."

While the atmosphere that was prevalent in 2001 is not as prominent, especially on campus, some students are still affected by perceptions of their religion.

"I think we all have stories of people [we know] that were put in [Immigration and Naturalization Service investigation]," Balkar said.

The effect of post-Sept. 11 security and fear also affected them personally.

"Sometimes you get put into a group and you get stereotyped," Abdurrahman said. "I step into the airport and it's like all the alarms go off."

New government attitudes and policies have reached the WSU campus.

"With the Patriot Act, a lot of our community are not U.S. citizens, there are a lot of international students who are afraid," Abdurrahman said, referring to the USA-Patriot antiterrorism act. "Some are even hesitant to go to congregation at the mosque."

Despite the fact that a college campus generally consists of people who are better-educated, situations still occur in which the Islamic religion is paired directly with resentment.

"In one of my Middle Eastern history classes the professor would try to incorporate discussions," Balkar said. "And there would always be someone who would say things like 'Nuke 'em'... and you just have to bite your tongue."

Islam in the United States is a minority religion with 5 million Muslims, but worldwide up to a fifth of the world's population practices Islam. Despite this, many Muslims say the religion is largely misunderstood.

"Islam is a lot more similar (to other religions) than people know," Abdurrahman said. "As far as what sets us apart is we pray five times a day, we fast every day [for] a month... afterward we have a feast... and there's a pilgrimage every year."

But Abdurrahman stressed that the Islamic religion was more than just a summation of its parts.

"It's a way of life," he said. "The big thing in Islam is that religion is part of your life, it plays a role in everything you do."

The Muslim Student Association tries to portray what being Muslim is really about through events on campus such as International Education Week.

"We try to hold events on campus to help with education on our religion," Abdurrahman said.

For the Muslim Student Association, this has provided a good venue of interaction between students.

"There was some good [community support] when we had international week," said Mohamed Nuur, a junior computer science major. "There were a lot of people who really wanted to know, who were really interested in hearing about [the religion of Islam]."

WSU and many other colleges nationwide put on Islam Awareness Week, which is another opportunity to educate students about the Muslim way of life.

"We put on Islam Awareness Week to kind of educate and inform people," Abdurrahman said. "There's many stereotypes out there like all Muslims are Arabs."

The Muslim Student Association hopes to use these programs to make information available for students and to prevent generalizations and unfounded resentment.

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