Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan will be at Cerritos College as part of a spring 2012 Seminar Series. titled. “A Conversation with Tariq Ramadan, Transcending Tolerance: Islam, Pluralism, Resistance and the New World Order.”
His visit to Cerritos College is just one of many he will be making across colleges and unniversities across the state of California during the Seminar series.
Ramadan is a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University.
Professor John Haas states, “I think for many Muslims around the world, sometimes because of discrimination, many people are content to exist and to accommodate themselves to a lot of prejudices.”
He said that the key for Ramadan will be to emphasize that the west and Islam are not at war right now and that there’s a possibility of somehow integrating the west with Islam.
According to Haas, Muslims also have step up.
“Muslims must stand up for their own particular rights, it was okay in the very beginning to be part of the system but not always being unappreciated and not demanding the rights that one is entitled to.”
Haas says that Ramadan is plannaing about focusing his the Seminar Series on pluralism, the west, Islam, the duties and responsibilities of Muslims in the New World Order, what the New World Order owes Muslims and the fact that it’s okay to be Muslim and be entitled to all the privileges one would have in the west.
According to Haas, “Dr. Tariq Ramadan was offered a full-time position at Notre Dame and George W. Bush would not allow him to come into this country because of some donations he had made to some certain organizations.”
He said that Hilary Clinton end up interceding on his behalf to allow him to enter the United States.
He said that the main topic will be that toleration for Muslims is not the same thing as having respect, which is something that people deserve.
Anthropology major Cierra Raine shares her thoughts, “I think it’s a great idea, I think Muslim people are not as respected as they should be in our country.”
She continued and said that there’s a lot of biased information out there against Muslims.
In order for people not to be mislead Raine said “Knowledge is Power and if you get people out there talking about it and informing people than they’ll be to make decisions based on the information that they have.”
She concludes by mentioning that definitely thinks Muslims are sadly discriminated against.
Dance major Areal Hughes explains what she thinks.
“It’s actually very instrumental, I really do think that it’s very productive because there is a lot of bad press that comes from you know the west coming over there to Islam.
Hughes says that Islamic people really misinterpret the press.
She continues by saying what we really need to understand. “We really need to understand that just how we preach over here “We’re all unique people” we need to learn how to do that with unique races and unique countries and unique states and make sure that everyone’s included in that.”
Hughes concludes by mentioning she believes discrimination toward Muslims is something that occurs in the west.
