April 17, 2011

To bring attention to and discuss the growing concern of bullying, MPAC will hold a apecial forum and panel discussion on April 17 from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Orange County Islamic Foundation in Mission Viejo, CA. The forum will be webcast live at www.mpac.org/webcast.

In a recent interview with the National Education Association about “Muslims In America: When Bullying Meets Religion,” MPAC Civic Outreach Coordinator Saadia Khan discussed the need for training students and faculty on cultural awareness.

“We have to teach children it’s OK to have disagreements as long as you engage in respectful discussion and that educators can be responsible facilitators of these discussions,” Khan said. She also highlighted several cases including a Muslim student in Texas who was beaten and thrown in a Dumpster and Hashem Omeira, who after constant bullying in junior high became a recluse and stopped socializing.

The article explores how the rise of bullying against Muslim Americans is parallel to the rise of Islamophobia, which has been fueled by recent controversies such as “Burn a Quran Day” and the Park 51 Center in lower Manhattan.

Bullying is on the rise even in Islamic Schools according to a recent article, “Beating the Bully,” in Islamic Horizons, which discussed a case where lighter-skin Arabs were excluding darker-skin Arabs or students were excluding others based on wealth and social standings.

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Marium F. Mohiuddin (marium@mpac.org)
Communications Coordinator