Religious Freedom and Pluralism - Southeast Asian Journalists

November 27-December 11, 2004, Washington, D.C., New York, Memphis and Chicago
Contacts: Washington Foreign Press Center Program Officer: Joe Bookbinder; New York Foreign Press Center Program Officer: JoDell Shields
Telephone: 202-504-6354, Email: bookbinder@state.gov
Telephone: 212-317-8334, Email: shieldsjd@state.gov

The Washington and New York Foreign Press Centers organized a two-week reporting tour on "Religious Freedom and Pluralism in America" for young journalists from East Asian countries with significant Muslim populations.  The eight journalists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines traveled to Washington, D.C., New York, Memphis and Chicago. 

In the Washington, D.C. portion of the tour, the group engaged in a roundtable discussion on "Religion and Public Affairs in America" with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's Director, Luis Lugo, and Senior Research Fellow, David Masci and learned about American Muslim Life and Interfaith Dialogue in an interview with Dr. Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of International Relations at American University.  The group also attended a worship service at St. Mark's Episcopal Church and, afterwards, exchanged views with a dozen members of the congregation for 90 minutes.  The journalists got a State Department perspective on religious freedom and pluralism from David J. Young, Director of the Department's Office of International Religious Freedom.  The group also met with representatives of prominent Washington-based Think Tanks who deal with religion such as Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation who spoke about "America's Commitment to Faith, Freedom and Pluralism," and Joseph Grieboski, the founder and President of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, who spoke about "Religious Freedom, Democracy and National Security."  The group also interviewed J. Brent Walker, Executive Director, and Hollyn Hollman, General Counsel, of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs who described their mission "to defend and extend God-given religious liberty to all" while supporting "the principle that religion must be freely exercised, neither advanced or inhibited by government."

The group's program in New York included productive meetings with the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Director of the National Council of Churches, the Dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, Islamic scholar Dr. Peter Awn of Columbia University and Mark Stern, Counsel of the American Jewish Congress.  The Asia Society held a roundtable discussion with the group.  Afterwards the journalists participated in a private tour of the exhibit "China" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with curator James Watt, Chairman of the Asian Art Department.

The Memphis portion of the tour included an invigorating worship service and a delicious fellowship lunch at the Monumental Baptist Church and a moving meeting with the Church's Minister, Reverend Samuel Billy Kyles, who is a civil rights leader who befriended Dr. Martin Luther King and was with Dr. King when he was assassinated.  The journalists also got a taste of Muslim life in Memphis during their visit to the city's only Islamic elementary school and through their interview with its knowledgeable co-founder Dr. Nabil Bayaki as well as their trip to Masjid as-Salam, one of Memphis' three, active mosques.  The group also learned about civil rights, diversity and relations among religious groups through on-the-record interviews with the Vice President of Bridge Builders, Inc, a leadership and diversity training program, Jane Walters, the Principal, and ten students from the Grizzlies Academy, a "Break the Mold" school sponsored by Memphis' NBA team, the Director of Public Relations for Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association, a service organization which allows Memphians to put their faith into action, and a columnist with the leading Memphis daily, the Commercial Appeal, and through visits to the National Civil Rights Museum, the Soulsville Stax Museum and Music Academy and a home hospitality dinner with a diverse group of Memphians.

The Chicago program focused on academic and interfaith aspects of religious freedom and pluralism and included on-the-record interviews with leading religious scholars such as Dr. John McCarthy, Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago, Dr. James Halstead, Chair of DePaul University's Department of Religious Studies, and Richard Rosengarten, Dean of the University of Chicago's Divinity School as well as Dr. Garth T. Katner, the Education Director of the Interfaith Youth Core.  The group also learned about the city of Chicago's effort to ensure racial, ethnic, religious and gender harmony through meetings with leading members of the Chicago Council on Human Relations, including Kenneth Gunn, First Deputy Commission, Naisy Dolar, Director/Community Liaison Advisory Council on Asian Affairs, Hayelom Ayele, Director/Community Liaison Advisory Council on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and Denise Ferguson, Director/Community Liaison Advisory Council on Women.  The group also enjoyed a VIP tour of Chicago.