Islamophobia: An Intangible Reality

As one of the current hot topics of discussion, Islam and the social representations linked to it, urged the Sociology Club to schedule and organize a dialogue on Islamophobia. The event, titled "Islamophobia and the Anti-Mosque Protests in the U.S.," took place on Nov. 4, in LWH 2094 and was part of "Café Society," a series of events organized by the Sociology Club once every semester. A lot of people joined in order to "explore, discuss, and debate the topic of Islamophobia," according to the flyer, succeeding in this way to fulfill the actual goal of the event.

Mike Armato, assistant professor of Sociology, greeted everyone, explained that the goal of the event was "to have a respectful, hopefully enjoyable, interesting, engaging conversation" and offered some suggestions about how the event would flow. People that joined "Café Society" were divided in six discussion groups. Armato, along with the Lauren Jarrell and Bilal Hussain, the Sociology Club Co-Chairs, and Sarah Vali and Jessica Mercer, event organizers, were the moderators of the discussions.

On the projector there were four questions, provided in order to help the groups get started with their discussion and expand their topic.  The questions were about the opposition to building Cordoba House near "Ground Zero," concerns of those who oppose mosques elsewhere in the U.S., the links between views toward Muslims/Arabs and views toward undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and the links between mosque protests in the U.S. and France's recent banning of the hijab and burqa. The Sociology Club had also proposed through their event flyer some readings, though they were not mandatory for the participation in the discussions.

Each discussion group moved to a different part of the room and, after introducing themselves to the others, people started sharing opinions and experiences about the phenomenon called Islamophobia. The groups expanded their conversations to other topics too, like the effect of Hollywood on Islamophobia, economic policies, immigration, as well as discrimination and religion in general.

The event ended with a general discussion with the whole group. There were interesting insights discussed and people reached the conclusion that Islamophobia is not merely about religion after all; it's something other and something more than just that. Hussain said that taking action against phenomena like Islamophobia "starts off with events like this, so at least people can get the engine rolling in their heads, […] and then it goes on." After expressing their satisfaction with the number of people who attended the event, the Sociology Club members thanked everyone for participating and for sharing their thoughts and ideas.

For more information about the Sociology Club and the events they organize, visit them in their website http://www.neiu.edu/~sociolgy/socClub.html (watch out the spelling of "sociology" in the link, since, in this case, it is actually "sociolgy").