American University Islamic Lecture Series

Engaged Conversations: Perspectives on Islamic and Contemporary Global Issues -- Interfaith Dialogue & Action

Date: November 19th

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location:

American University
Mary Graydon Center 200
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20016

Featured Speakers:

Dr. Sayyid Syeed,
National Director, Interfaith & Community Alliances, Islamic Society of North America

Dr. Zainab Alwani,
Program Director & Professor, Arabic & Islamic Studies, North Virginia Community College
Professor, Johns Hopkins University

Imam Yahya Hendi,
Chaplain, Georgetown University 

Marci Moberg,
Conflict Analyst and Dialogue Practitioner 

Dr. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Moderator
Professor, International Peace and Conflict Resolution, American University

For more information please contact tawhid@american.edu

United States Institute of Peace

Displacement in Colombia: Promoting Accountability and Gender Responsiveness 

Date: November 23rd

Time: 11:00am-1:00pm

Location:

United States Institute of Peace
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 17th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

Description: With more than four million internally displaced Colombians- an average of more than a quarter of a million people annually in recent years- and a million more forced to flee across national borders in search of safety, Colombia now ranks just behind Sudan in the numbers of people displaced by the conflict. The conflict has had a differential impact on the population, however. Women, youth, Afro-Colombians, and indigenous communities have been disproportionately affected by the conflict and by the displacement it causes.

This panel will look at the gendered dimensions of Colombia's internal armed conflict and the specific impacts that conflict violence has had on Colombian women. Panelists will analyze the efforts of civil society organizations to secure legal protections for the displaced population and to work for their implementation. They will discuss the Colombian Constitutional Court's landmark decisions that charged the government with responsibility to protect the rights of the displaced (2004), and to guarantee displaced women the right to justice and assistance (2008). They will evaluate the Colombian government's efforts on a number of specific issues, including land tenure, sexual violece, security, humanitarian needs, and differentiated socio-economic needs for Afro-Colombian and indigenous women.

Featured Speakers:

Dr. Maria Emma Wills,
Chair, Gender Research Unit, Historical Memory Commission
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Andes

Alejandra Vegas Rodriguez,
Lawyer, Colombian Commission of jurists

Ruby Castano,
Coordinator, National Women's Department,
National Coordinating Body for the Displaced

Mr. Andrea Lari,
Senior Advocate, Refugees International 

Melanie Teff,
Advocate, Refugees International 

Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Bouvier, Moderator
U.S. Institute of Peace

For more information please visit: http://www.usip.org/events/displacement-in-colombia

Woodrow Wilson Center

"Islamism: What is to be said and done?"

Time: 3:30-5:00pm

Location: 

Woodrow Wilson Center
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027

Description: More than any of his predecessors, President Obama has reached out to "the Muslim world." But what of the terms and the timing of that demarche? If, as expected, he visits Indonesia next year, he will try to build on his oratorical successes in Istanbul and Cairo by addressing Muslims in the country that has more of them than any other. He has a way with words. But what words should he use? Is "the Muslim world" too diverse even to exist? Do "radical Islam" and "Islamism" defame a religion for acts of violence done in its name, or are these terms only politically incorrect? Among Muslims around the world, sympathy for terrorism as jihad appears to have declined. Would the US be better off ignoring religion and dealing with Muslim-majority countries from Morocco to Malaysia in purely secular terms: as nations not congregations? Is it time to revisit the entrenched assumption that the revival of religion has killed secularism and rendered policies based on it as offensively ethnocentric as they are empirically naive? If the "clash of civilizations" misnames a plethora of clashes between Muslims themselves, should the enlightened mutual reassurances of elite-level "inter-faith" dialogues give way to less rhetorical and more realistic efforts toward "intra-faith" understanding and conciliation? What, in short, is to be said, and done? Prof. Emmerson's talk will also reference his latest co-authored book, Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (Stanford University Press, November 2009).

Featured Speaker:

Donald K. Emmerson,
Stanford University

For more information please visit http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event_summary&event_id=558411