1) Has it been your experience that in your interactions with Greek Organizations, that they fall into any sort of stereotyping/prejudice toward Muslims?
2) Do you think there's an inherent mechanism in the institutions of Greek Organizations that may lead to stereotyping/prejudice toward Muslims? Or toward any group for that matter? 3) How do you define multiculturalism? 4) Do you think that Greek Organizations on this campus reflect that ideal? 5) Do you think that there is anything inherent in Greek Organizations that may conflict with Muslims' religious values? |
1. Yes, because there's organized discussion about Islam and Muslim organizations on campus, but ignorance about [their history]. If Greek organizations are based in Greek philosophy, they lack the knowledge of these roots. Without Islam Greek would not have been translated into Latin. Arabic was the Lingua Franca of the world at the time. It's a missing link. Stereotyping Muslims is a negation of the Greek foundation itself. They're actually indebted to them.
2. Yes, there's an ignorance of history in creating memory versus history. By having an eclectic vision of the history, it's reducing the memory to some chosen thing of history; it's self aggrandizing; undermining the underpinnings. 3. [Angela] Merkel declared the death of multiculturalism. There;s been a transition of European societies away from multiculturalism. It's a bad word in Europe now. In the United States, conservatives frame multiculturalism wrongly. We need to move to a new word, because it doesn't do the magic anymore--something more neutral; add something to the inclusive aspects, global aspects of society including the transitions of religions, ethnicities, etc. 4. The problem is they aspire into an elite way of dealing with society; they have a special lens, because in the Greek aura, you can escape the contradictions of society. They need to be more grounded in reality. I'm absolutely a fan of them, but they don't know the insides of Greek philosophy. 5. I don't think so. If they know the history of their ideas, they would know. |