While conflict continues to rage in many regions of the Middle East Pepperdine students with Middle Eastern backgrounds are waging a different battle – countering stereotypes and negative associations among their peers.
A new student organization called Middle Eastern Peace and Awareness (MEPA) which is currently awaiting official approval from Student Affairs will connect students of Middle Eastern background with those interested in Middle Eastern culture.
After staffing a table in the Waves Café for about a week the group held its first meeting Monday evening to discuss its future inform students interested in becoming involved and share ethnic appetizers such as stuffed grape leaves hummus and baklava.
Junior Loureen Ayyoub of Jordanian descent and sophomore Angela Sultan of Syrian descent are heading the club. Both transfer students they were surprised after coming to Pepperdine that such a group did not already exist and were eager to start one.
“We want people to learn about the culture dances food – and just how different we are said Ayyoub, acknowledging that there is great cultural diversity within the countries of the Middle East.
The meeting attracted 10 students and one professor, a diverse group including international students from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as Middle Eastern American students and non-Middle Eastern students.
Ed Gunaway, a junior majoring in international business, said he is looking forward to learning more about the Middle Eastern culture. Having lived in Indonesia and the United States, Gunaway said that Indonesia, which boasts the world’s largest Muslim population, has much in common with many Middle Eastern countries. He hopes that the group will help to remedy the lack of exposure to all aspects of the region among Pepperdine students.
It’s sad that the Middle Eastern culture has a bad reputation [of Islamic extremism] that isn’t true Gunaway said. It’s unfair.”
While MEPA will promote awareness about serious issues such as the conflict in Gaza the club presidents said they want to present the information in a fun way by holding movie nights belly dancing and presentations by special guests such as Aron Kador an Arab-American comedian.
“It’s a strategic way to lightly but directly address issues Ayyoub said. Humor can heal.”
When defining MEPA Ayyoub is explicit about what MEPA is not. Although religion permeates Middle Eastern culture she said it is not a tenet of MEPA. Although Ayyoub and Sultan hope MEPA provides a community for the minority of Pepperdine Muslim students it is not affiliated with any religion.
Ayyoub also said she hopes to defeat the stereotype that all Middle Eastern Americans are Muslim. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2000 census only 24 percent of Arab Americans are Muslim. The rest are Roman Catholic Protestant Eastern Orthodox or unaffiliated.
Both raised in the United States by Middle Eastern parents Ayyoub a Christian of Jordanian descent and Sultan who claims no religion and is of Syrian descent said people often assume they are Muslim because of their ethnicity.
Sultan said she attributes many of the misconceptions about Middle Easterners to students’ ignorance.
“While we were tabling just this week a student came up to us and said ‘Don’t worry I have awareness. I watch CNN every night'” Sultan said explaining that CNN alone does not lend a thorough understanding of the diversity of the Middle East.
While these misconceptions may seem inconsequential according to Ayyoub they are a principle cause of the increase in hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern descent since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001. In 2002 crimes against Middle Easterners quintupled from 99 in 2000 to 501 in 2001 The New York Times reported.
After learning how many Middle Easterners were victims of hate crimes Ayyoub founded an international club at her high school. As a transfer student to Pepperdine this year she is again addressing what she sees as a lack of representation for Middle Eastern students by starting MEPA.
Sultan has also experienced a lack of cultural understanding between people of different backgrounds. Her mother Wafa Sultan is a gender rights activist who emigrated to the United States in 1989 when it became too dangerous for her to continue her work in Syria.
Wafa Sultan became a household name in the Islamic world after she gave an interview on al-Jazeera in 2006 in which she commented on what she views as a backwards mentality that characterizes parts of the Middle East. According to a 2006 article in Time magazine Wafa considers herself Muslim but does not believe in Islam. She said she began to question her faith in 1979 after witnessing the murder of a professor by men with alleged ties to the ultraconservative Muslim Brotherhood political group.
Observing Middle Eastern culture through the lens of her mother’s political activism Angela Sultan believes in the power of speaking out with an opposing perspective. Although MEPA’s message to Pepperdine might not be as controversial as her mother’s message to Syria Angela Sultan said the new student organization will benefit the university.
As the club is starting other opportunities to learn about the Middle East will soon be coming to Pepperdine. The university recently received two grants to expand education programs about the Middle East. One is from Jewish philanthropists Guilford and Diane Glazer providing for an adjunct professor to teach a course in modern Jewish history. The other the Fletcher Jones grant will partially fund a Middle Eastern studies and lecture series on related issues.