Opinion
It’s a lot harder to hate someone when you know their name
Avital Carno from Bristol University explains how a joint JSoc Islamic Society event was received
February 14, 2017 13:21
2 min read
Avital Carno from Bristol University explains how a joint JSoc Islamic Society event was received
February 14, 2017 13:21Not everyone hates us.
I know it’s hard to believe but it’s true, I promise. As I looked around the university’s Multi-faith Chaplaincy, I realised that the other side was probably thinking exactly the same. By the "other side", I mean the members of Bristol University’s Islamic Society, who made up over half the room’s occupants. The building was filled with dark eyes and hair and skin, unusual in a city overwhelmingly populated by the white and blonde. Even more unusual was the presence of multiple girls wearing hijabs, enthusiastically engaged in conversation with sports-clad students proudly sporting their star of David necklaces.
On February 5, Bristol University’s Islamic Society (ISoc) and Jewish Society (JSoc) held a joint event. The basis of the event was simple: the societies would provide free food, and in return all the students needed to do was ask a single question to a member of the other society. As the Interfaith Officer for Jewish Society, I had collaborated with the Islamic Society’s (absolutely lovely) representative to write a series of questions, all intended to spark discussion rather than argument. We had also decided to rule out discussion of the Israel/ Palestine situation, feeling that it was more important to break down stereotypes and establish goodwill before starting up the heated political debate.
Before the event, I was nervous. I contacted the CST and emailed campus security to let them know the event’s time and place, in case intervention was needed. 'I had never had any proper conversations with Muslim men and apart from one entirely secular Muslim from Watford who I had gone to school with, my previous experience of Muslim women was practically non-existent.
There was no need to have worried. Although slightly stilted to begin with, conversation soon began to flow. Discussion quickly moved from the more formal topics of feminism in religion and the effects of Trump’s policies to favourite foods, birthplaces, and the meaning of names. The ISoc President, an international student from Pakistan, was painstakingly polite and softly spoken, the antithesis of all my preconceptions. Before taking a photograph, he asked for permission before even putting his arm on my shoulder.
One group of girls, surreptitiously giggling, compared their Jewish and Muslim mothers’ hilariously similar warnings against Bristol’s native uncircumcised population. As conversation progressed, the inherent cultural similarities between our two groups became increasingly apparent. Almas Talib, a second year Psychology Student and ISoc’s Interfaith Officer, was impressed by this sense of solidarity, commenting that "it’s always nice when marginalised groups, despite often being pitted against one another, can unite and overcome their differences".
Of course, I’m not naïve enough to believe that a room full of students eating lunch together is enough to solve one of the world’s oldest conflicts. That said, I do think lack of knowledge leads to hatred. And if that’s the case, the only way to overcome our blind hatred, our lazy stereotypes, is to see people as people, so much bigger than politics, because it’s a lot harder to hate someone when you know their name.
Avital Carno is a first-year English student at Bristol University