R-MWC to host meeting on relations between United States, Islamic world

R-MWC to host meeting on relations between United States, Islamic world

by Janet Nguyen
News and Advance (Lynchburg, VA)
September 8, 2006

Randolph-Macon Woman’s College will host a town hall meeting Tuesday to raise awareness about how the United States and the Islamic world can work together toward a better future.

The meeting is set for Houston Memorial Chapel from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. at R-MWC.

The meeting will look at lessons and changes over the five years since the Sept. 11 attacks as well as look forward to how U.S. and Islamic world relations can be improved in the future.

Salameh Nematt, the Washington bureau chief of Al-Hayat International Arab Daily and the LBC, the Lebanon-based Arab satellite channel, will be a featured speaker. Nematt has also served as head of the strategy unit at Jordan’s Royal Court - an advisory post for the king.

The event also will feature videoconference dialogues that will allow young leaders in the United States to speak with young leaders in the Middle East.

Speakers include MTV News correspondent Gideon Yago, South Asian rock star Salman Ahmad, former U.S. Senator and Sept. 11 Commissioner Slade Gorton, former Pakistani High Commissioner to Great Britain Akbar Ahmed and Islam scholar Shibley Telhami.

The meeting is part of a series of events called “Hope not Hate,” a town hall and videoconference series that the nonpartisan and nonprofit organization, Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) coordinates annually in the weeks following Sept. 11. This year, the event will visit more than 50 communities across the nation.

Members of R-MWC’s club, United Muslimahs, or UMMAH and AID will host the event.