Young Muslims gather in D.C. for leadership summit

Young Muslims gather in D.C. for leadership summit

05:02 PM EDT on Monday, July 14, 2008

By Amanda Milkovits

Journal Staff Writer

Dr. Naba Sharif, a former pediatric resident at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, in Providence, was one of 25 Muslim Americans selected to speak with national political leaders and public officials shaping national policy during last week’s Young Muslim American Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C.

For Sharif, 28, a new graduate of Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, the meetings were an opportunity to talk to national leaders about the concerns and hopes of Muslims, like herself, who worry about growing issues of civil liberties, homeland security, and surveillance. She and the others met with political representatives and government officials who were already sympathetic to their message. But the group also wanted to meet with those who weren’t, Sharif said yesterday.

“We wanted to tell them who we were and show them … we are people who are just like you and interested in protecting civil liberties and interested in homeland security, and interested in protecting the environment,” Sharif said. “Hopefully, they will respect [Muslims] as much as they respect any other constituency.”

The Young Muslim Leaders Summit was sponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an American institution founded 20 years ago to inform and shape public policy.

Sharif grew up in Wappinger Falls, N.Y., and she was a teenager when her parents took in a Bosnian woman and her child for two years so the mother could be treated for cancer. She organized a clothing drive for Bosnia in her hometown and was later awarded a Young American Medal for Service by then-Attorney General Janet Reno. She volunteered for a month at a Guatemalan health clinic and also traveled to Egypt to learn Arabic so she could read the Koran.

Until last month, Sharif spent three years as a pediatric resident at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and mentored other Muslim students at Brown University. During the World Cup in 2006, she traveled to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as part of a delegation of physicians teaching Middle Eastern high school students about the human heart.

Sharif is taking classes at the Harvard School of Public Health in preparation for practicing as a pediatrician in Washington. She plans to continue advocacy work, both on the part of her patients on issues such as health-care coverage for children, and on the part of Muslim Americans on civil liberties.

In the post-Sept. 11 world, Sharif, like many other Muslims, has been subjected to searches and questioning at airports. She laughed a little as she recalled occasions when she and a sister, wearing headscarves, were the only ones targeted. “It was so obvious that we weren’t randomly selected,” she said.

Such experiences helped drive the summit group’s questions last week to representatives of the civil liberties offices at the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security about civil liberties, homeland security, and the Foreign Intelligence & Surveillance Act. The government representatives offered reassurances that they were balancing civil liberties concerns and national security, such as setting up an oversight office for civil rights, Sharif said.

The group met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Congressmen Adam Schiff of California, Frank R. Wolf of Virginia and Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, was particularly inspiring, Sharif said.

“He talked about the alienation of the Muslim community, but he said, you know what, that’s even more reason to get involved, to show the public we are here and we want to make a difference in society,” Sharif said.

During a meeting with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, they discussed a recent worldwide poll of Muslims that asked questions including their thoughts about the West, Sharif said.

What did the Muslims most admire about the West? Technology, freedom and democracy, Sharif said. What, generally, were their biggest concerns? Job security.

The responses didn’t surprise Sharif, who saw the survey as an example of how similar people are.

“It’s all one and the same,” Sharif said. “We’re all human beings. We all have the same humanity instilled in us.”

amilkovi@projo.com
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