Ludmila Zamah and seniors Habiba Hopson and Lydia Masri. (It was senior "Ugly Sweater" Day.) Photo: Mary Coleman Forrester
“Being Muslim Does Not Make One Any Less American or Human”
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RABIC language teacher Ludmila Zamah spoke about “Islamophobia and the Media” at an all-school convocation in December in the Olcott Center. A Muslim, Ludmila wears a hijab, and she began her talk by recounting a recent personal experience with Islamophobia: While walking in a town near Loomis Chaffee, someone yelled a derogatory anti-Muslim epithet at her from a passing car. “That man never gave me a chance to become known to him,” said Ludmila of the aggressor. If he had, she went on, he might have discovered her to be “a prairie girl at heart, a classic Indian dancer, a cat lover, an Arabic teacher, and JV volleyball’s biggest fan.” A Canadian-born naturalized American citizen of Indo-Caribbean descent, Ludmila grew up in Kansas City and, through her education, developed a deep appreciation for the Arabic language and culture. Because of her head scarf, the man guessed correctly that Ludmila was Muslim, she said, but he probably also assumed, incorrectly, that the hijab meant she was foreign and that she was oppressed and yet somehow dangerous. “How did we get here?” she asked her audience. Wrong and hurtful assumptions like these result, at least in part, from the fact that many Americans know little about Muslims living here and
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SCHOOL THEME FOR 2015–16
THE CHANGING NATURE OF JOURNALISM
abroad, Ludmila indicated. People buy into negative stereotypes prevalent in the media, popular culture, and the political arena. Pointing out that Muslims are often conflated with Arabs, even though by far the largest Muslim populations live in Southeast Asia, not the Middle East, Ludmila referenced the numerous negative depictions of Arabs in popular culture. Even in some media intended for children, Arabs are shown to be “dangerous, bloodthirsty, backward, and unintelligent — the enemy,” she said. Coverage of Muslims and Arabs in the news also is slanted toward suspicion and is associated with terrorism and violence, she said, even though groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda represent only a fraction of 1 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims and their radical ideologies do not represent the majority. “To the majority of Muslims ‘Allahu Akbar’ is not a battle cry,” explained Ludmila, but rather a call to be mindful of God’s presence in their daily lives. For most Muslims, she continued, “jihad” is not a holy war, but rather an internal struggle to remain committed to doing the right thing by way of Islamic teachings.
Ludmila shared facts to dispel some common misconceptions about Islam, and she described some ways Muslims are trying to break the stereotypes, including through humor and social media. She also showed an excerpt from an ABC program called “What Would You Do?” in which an actor posing as a shop clerk refused service to and used insulting and inflammatory speech toward a female actor wearing a hijab. Witnesses, who were not aware that the clerk and customer were actors, responded in varying ways: Six people sided with the shop clerk, 13 people vocalized their objections to the injustice, and 22 bystanders said nothing. Whether you are Muslim or not, it is important to speak out against Islamophobic behavior, Ludmila said after showing the video. Freedom of worship is an American ideal, and “being a Muslim does not make one any less American or human,” she said. Ludmila joined the Loomis faculty in 2013. She previously served as a lecturer for five years at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. She earned graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and lived in Cairo, Egypt, during a year-long graduate fellowship at the American University Center for Arabic Study Abroad.