Youth and the Future of US-Muslim World Relations a plenary from the 9-11 Plus 5: A Hope Not Hate Summit hosted by Americans for Informed Democracy (AID)
The Summit was a three-day conference in Washington, D.C., that brought young leaders from around the world together to commemorate the fifth anniversary of September 11th and to discuss how to improve U.S.-Islamic world relations over the next five years.
The Summit was co-sponsored by Americans for Informed Democracy and The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution.
Bio
Dr. Akbar Ahmed
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC. According to BBC, he is considered "the world's leading authority on contemporary Islam."
He is former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, and has advised Prince Charles and met with President George W. Bush on Islam. His numerous books, films and documentaries have won prestigious awards and his books have been translated into several languages including Chinese and Indonesian. Ambassador Ahmed is regularly interviewed on CNN, CBC, the BBC, ARY TV and has appeared several times on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Night Line.
In February 2005, the National Cathedral held a special Evensong Service to honor him. He is also a Senior Fellow at The Case Foundation in Washington, D.C. He spoke at the Chairman's Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series at the Pentagon and gave the inaugural lecture for the first Chair in Jewish-Muslim Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Ambassador Ahmed is the Principal Investigator for the "Islam in the Age of Globalization" project, sponsored by the Brookings Institution, American University and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in addition to his tenure appointment at American University. He was nominated as the "Most Inspiring Person of the Year 2005" and a finalist in the poll conducted by BeliefNet.
Shadi Hamid
Shadi Hamid is an Associate at The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), a newly-incorporated research and advocacy organization dedicated to examining how genuine democracies can develop in the Middle East and how the US can best support that process. He also serves on its Board of Directors.
His articles have appeared, most recently, in the Carnegie Endowment’s Arab Reform Bulletin, The Christian Science Monitor, The Jerusalem Post, The Daily Star, The Jordan Times, and Insight Turkey. He has forthcoming book chapters on political reform and Islamists in Jordan in Democratization in the Middle East (Routledge) and From Islamic Theology to Muslim Politics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Dialogue (Cambridge Scholars Press).
As a Fulbright Fellow in Amman, Jordan, Hamid conducted extensive research on the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front. He was previously Legislative Fellow at the Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein, where he worked on foreign affairs. Hamid has also served as an advisor on Muslim outreach for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the State Department.
Mark Hanis
Mark Hanis founded the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-Net) to provide ordinary citizens with tools to prevent and stop genocide.
GI-Net's goal is to change the way the United States and the international community respond to the world's worst crime. GI-Net's aim is to recruit a committed and diverse group of individuals and communities to form an active network that realizes the never in never again.
GI-Net members educate their communities, lobby their elected officials, and fund raise directly for civilian protection.
As a grandchild of four Holocaust survivors with a background in human rights, Hanis was compelled to focus on genocide prevention. A recent Swarthmore College graduate, Hanis has been featured in The New York Times and The New Republic, and has appeared on CNN Headline News and NPR.
Frankie Martin
Researcher, Islam in the Age of Globalization Initiative.
Hadia Mubarak
Hadia Mubarak was the first National President of the Muslim Students Association to be either female or born in the United States. Her parents are from Syria; she grew up in Florida. She is now a graduate student at Georgetown and a researcher in the Islam in the Age of Globalization program.
Hailey Woldt
Hailey Woldt is a researcher with the Islam in the Age of Globalization Initiative. She is also a student at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She has recently returned from an 8-country ten week tour, with Dr. Akbar Ahmed.
Some of the students offer clear and pragmatic solutions to engaging the American public in discourse and myth breaking stereotypes about the Muslim world, however, some come-off like the ignorant, defensive, and fearful audience they are preaching to...