Impromptu Speech on Islam

Last week, I was asked to give a talk at the final ICRS Buka Puasa before everyone left for Idul Fitri (the end of Ramadan, when people journey home to see their families). During orienation, George, the embassy official, strongly encouraged us to give this talk. I had no intention of doing so, particularly since my audience would be PhD religious studies students; apparently, though, he told our counterparts that we were ready to present, so that’s why ICRS was so excited for the talk. How frightening for someone with little knowledge of religion of any kind—from a country where religion is rarely talked about openly in a school context— to talk in public about such a contentious topic as Islam in the U.S.! Fifteen people showed up today—a mixture of male and female, Muslim and Christian Indonesians, as well as David and Karen, the two other English teachers at ICRS.

To aid us in our talk, George supplied us with a CD full of “propaganda” from the U.S. government; although most painted a bit too rosy picture of Muslim/non-Muslim relations in the U.S. (hence the term propoganda), I did decide to use a speech Barack Obama gave to open the White House’s Buka Puasa. In it, he pointed to the important place Muslims have in our country. He also argued that we need to extend our relationships with Islamic countries past merely political or militaristic alliances—that to create real cross-cultural and inter-religious dialog, we needed to engage with each other through education and other soft diplomacy. As I’m proud of our new president, I didn’t feel too bad about letting him open my talk.

After 20 minutes of minor technical difficulties (we couldn’t figure out how to have the movie projected with sound,) I hit play. After the first five seconds, I realized that I could use full screen mode, making viewing easier, and I clicked on the appropriate button. And it froze, just as Obama was making an uncharacteristically ugly face. And so the picture remained, while his voice continued…After the clip, I explained that normally our President moves his mouth more, which cracked people up. Indonesians love a good joke!

I then talked about the place Islam has in the U.S.: the fact that it’s the fastest growing religion in the U.S., and that we have the second largest Islamic diaspora in the world (after Paris) in Deerborn MI; the fact that we have two Muslim Congresspeople; and several famous sports figures that are valuable advocates for religious tolerance. I also pointed to the ways Muslim people in the U.S. are contributing to the welfare of their communities—how during Ramadan, a mosque in Knoxville TN started a fast-a-thon to encourage religious understanding and to help the hungry. They recruited non-Muslim friends, who then asked for pledges or donations for every hour they fasted. It was a huge success; so huge, in fact, that it has recently gone national.

To temper the optimism, though—I’m not that naive—I did mention the case in Colorado (information compliments of Amy) where 103 Muslim were fired for walking out on the job during Ramadan. They had asked if they could change their break to sundown (rather than an hour later, as their usual schedule dictated) so they could break their fast and pray (only for a month). The company said no and fired them when they protested. So much for religious tolerance. The Supreme Court ruled that firing them was against their civil rights. Indeed. It’s not like they wanted to take extra time off work—they just wanted to take a break at a different time.

After a few comments about how kind people have been to invite me to their many Buka Puasas, despite the fact that I’m non-Muslim—and about how gracious people have been at these events, offering to let me eat first as a guest when they had been fasting all day—I opened the floor for discussion.

Elis, a woman who had spent her MA degree in Idaho, began with her experience of Ramadan in the U.S. explaining how her Mosque had also done a fast-a-thon (they were expecting 30 students to participate, and 200 showed up). Another woman, Attun, explained how kind her host family had been, waking up at 5:30 in the morning on Eid and driving 3 hours so she could go to a Mosque and pray. These experiences give me hope that Americans are becoming more open to Muslims—that despite the misleading images put forward by the media that all Muslims are misogynist terrorists, we are reaching out to people of different faith who share the same values—of kindness and charity, in family, and in community.

There were multiple questions about Obama’s position on political questions, and, most importantly, I was able to ask questions of them too. They talked about different fasting rituals in different countries and within Indonesia itself, the ways fasting made them feel, how sundown and Eid was decided in Indonesia (astronomically or by sight of the crescent moon); Christian Indonesians asked questions of Muslim Indonesians; and so on for over an hour. I probably learned much more from this discussion than they did in listening to my speech! After our discussion and before we broke fast, Agus, a semi-toothless, extremely kind middle aged man came up to me and asked if he could have a copy of Obama’s speech. I gave him the CD. He said he is going to write an article about it; Attun also asked for a copy of my speech to put in her blog. I guess they did like something about my talk—though I feel like my delivery was a bit awkward.

Before sundown, a Muslim Imam from Egypt led a short prayer and we all feasted together on ridiculously spicy food and tiny little sweet cakes, laughing and joking. Maybe there is something to say for soft diplomacy of this kind—what began as a chore assigned by the U.S. embassy turned into a real learning experience.