Panellists at the Clarke Forum’s event “Community Responses to Anti-Muslim Hatred” spoke on how to address and combat the recent rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, as reported by numerous media sources such as The New York Times and The Huffington Post.

The event took place at 7 p.m. on Monday Feb. 13 in the Stern Great Room. Student project manager Rehoboth Gesese ’17 introduced the event and spoke of President Donald Trump’s influence on the prevalence of anti-Muslim views. There was some tension in the room, as some community members later expressed their support of President Trump’s policies which the speakers attributed the rise of Islamophobia.

Joyce Davis, World Affairs Council Harrisburg president; Samia Malik, director of education of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Harrisburg chapter; Ikram Rabbani ’17 and Ann Van Dyke, Community Responders Network were the panelists for this event.

Davis moderated the evening and began the event by sharing her experience working in the media in Muslim-majority countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. She then described the principles of Islam and concluded that when there is ignorance, “there is great confusion, there is great fear.”

Following Davis, Malik described her personal experience as a leader in the Central Pennsylvania Muslim community. She listed recent incidents of local hate speech, including a letter sent to a mosque in Steelton, PA. that stated “You are evil. You worship the devil.”

Following Malik, Rabbani shared his point of view as a Muslim student at Dickinson. Rabbani offered suggestions on how to unite communities through finding strength in differences. He praised Dickinson crossing guard Rob Stone for his ability to connect with others through a smile or small conversation.

Van Dyke, a civil rights advocate, was the last speaker. She called for community action, stating that “silence is the welcome mat for hate.” She spoke of increasing hate in communities, citing economic difficulties and silence of community leaders as key factors. She concluded with a statement of encouragement: “love is always stronger.”

After the speakers finished their presentations, the forum opened for questions. Dickinson students asked for advice on how to respond to everyday encounters with hateful speech and prejudice. Afterwards, community member David Delp, who was also present at last week’s Clarke Forum event with speaker Lalo Alcaraz, stated: “Well I thought [the event] was good, and I always like more community questions, and sometimes I like to see a little more… opposing points of view. And I do favor what Donald Trump’s doing, I can say that, and I think that we need to be vigilant during these times, and that’s my stance.”

After the event, Gesese expressed his feeling that the event went “really well, the Clarke Forum has been doing a lot of good work and bringing events like this that are trying to illuminate the sort of things that people of the Muslim faith are going through.” Similarly, Clarke Forum executive director and Dickinson professor Amy Farrell felt that the event also went well, and noted that she was “very happy with the different perspectives that they [the speakers] brought from their personal lives.”