Boston builds bridges in the Arab world

Several Boston-area human rights activists are in Morocco for an unusual set of workshops over the next five days that they hope will help build bridges among Arabs and improve skills for creating interfaith community programs in their own countries.

Leaders of Hands Across the Middle East Support Alliance, or HAMSA, a Boston-based non-profit, are taking part in the workshops at Al Akhawayn University, an English-language school in Morocco. Also participating are staffers from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the international human rights organization based in Cambridge (Disclosure: my wife works for UUSC).

One of the facilitators will be Fatema Haji-Taki, a program associate for civil liberties issues at UUSC. Before departing for Morocco, she told me that the program will bring together 10 young people from Morocco and another 20 from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and other Arab countries. The participants are all involved in working for civil liberties in their own countries.

Fatema Haji-Taki and Nasser Weddady (Photo: Dick Campbell)

The Arab participants will spend five days with their US counterparts, including Nasser Weddady and Jesse Sage, who are leaders of HAMSA in Boston. HAMSA is an arm of the American Islamic Congress, which bills itself as "passionate about moderation," and works against extremism at the same time that it promotes awareness among Americans of Muslim values.

Haji-Taki says the workshops will emphasize on-the-ground organizing and leadership skills that participants can put to work in practical ways within their communities.

Among the sponsors is the United States Institute for Peace, a non-partisan group in Washington that is funded by the US Congress to promote peace efforts and conflict management around the world.

Haji-Taki herself is a walking United Nations, well-suited for bridge-building. A Shi'ite Muslim, she was born and raised in Dubai. Her parents are Tanzanians of Indian descent who became guest-workers in Dubai. She moved from there to Minnesota, and has been in the US for 10 years; she moved to Boston a year ago. As she puts it: "I'm able to see through many lenses at once. I know what it feels like to be an outsider."