When students crowded into the IMU Oak Room on Tuesday night, it didn’t matter they identified with different religions, races, ages and sexualities. For one hour, they put aside their backgrounds to come together for a town hall with one goal in mind: to make the Muslim Student Association great again.
About two thirds of attendees were not MSA members but rather unaffiliated Hoosiers who wanted to support the community.
“We want to demonstrate that we’re not a group to be feared,” MSA Vice President Aatif Basher said.
The group held the forum to encourage the IU community to offer advice on how to create better events and reach out to other circles. They split into subcommittees that included Service, Faith/Interfaith, and Spaces and Support.
In these groups, both members and nonmembers were able to voice concerns and opinions on how to fix issues they see in MSA.
Although she is not a member of the group, junior Kinza Abbas said she grew up with many of the people involved in MSA but had a hard time fitting in.
“I’ve never really felt included or invited into these spaces and these communities,” Abbas said.
The problem is larger than just MSA at IU, she said. It also includes the overall Muslim community and its inability to create reform and fix problems like apathy in Muslim culture.
“I do think people have similar concerns and similar frustrations, and I think people are talking about that now,” Abbas said.
Senior adviser Fariha Hossain said the diverse crowd was reassuring for the future of MSA and the country.
“People need to work together and come together to create unity,” Hossain said. “It’s a lot harder just saying it. You need to act.”
In an effort to support more minorities, Hossain said MSA has already reached out to UndocuHoosier Alliance, a group focused on protecting undocumented IU students, by advertising for their events and signing a petition that would allow undocumented students from Indiana to pay in-state tuition.
“I hope that they see we’re willing to work hard and put in effort to make campus a supportive and safe place for everyone,” Hossain said.
Originally, MSA hoped to plan the event before the final election because they didn’t think it would be relevant, but Hossain said that changed when Donald Trump was named president-elect.
For Hossain, the results were unexpected. She said she has gone through many emotions about the results in the past week.
“Initially, it was disbelief and then fear of what’s going to happen,” Hossain said. “Now I’m used to the idea and sort of anxious to see what’s going to happen moving forward.”
Junior Michael Melfi came to the forum to show support as a member of Christian group Jubilee.
“We’re just here to show support and solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in the wake of this past week,” Melfi said.
Melfi had a safety pin on his shirt as a visual representation of his alliance with minority groups, an idea he said he found on Facebook. He has already worn it for a few days and has no plan to stop anytime soon.
“The message of Jesus is about social justice and fighting oppression, and I think Donald Trump is the opposite of that,” Melfi said.
