LILY RESLINK
Staff Writer
To Najeeba Syeed, currently the inaugural El-Hibri endowed chair and executive director of the Interfaith Institute at Augsburg University, “peacebuilder” is an implied role within any title she holds — even if it isn’t a formal part of the job description.
Syeed’s list of professional experiences reflects a commitment to mediation and restorative justice.
“The goal of my scholarship, my community engagement and teaching have always been to find opportunities to humanize people for one another,” Syeed said.
At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, Syeed will deliver a lecture on seeing each other as human in times of dehumanization. She said she suggests listeners come equipped to ask how they can personally be “an agent of humanizing people across differences.”
Within Week Three’s theme of “Faith in the Public Square,” Syeed said the topic poses a series of questions rooted in the status of “multi-faith democracy” in the U.S.: “How important is the preservation of religious freedom, religious liberty and expression of religious difference (to) the success story of the United States in the past?”, “What are the choices we’re going to make as a country for the future?” and “Is religious diversity, religious difference part of what makes us unique as a democracy … in the world and an example of inclusion and tolerance of
religious diversity?”
She said it is important to remember the theme encompasses more than one faith in the public square.
“I come from a background that is not of the religious majority of our country,” Syeed said.
Syeed demonstrates expertise on Muslim-Jewish relations, as well as Evangelical Christian and Muslim relations throughout the United States. Coming from Minnesota, Syeed said, “I was really struck by the way our community, our campus and our neighborhoods were able to find humanity across religious difference, racial difference, ideological difference and stand for what I’ve called in my work ‘a lived theology of neighborliness.’”
Recently, Syeed said she has been able to observe Generation Z at the forefront of what she would call the “re-humanization of one another or the other.”
At her lecture, the university professor will share stories from her own students. She said these experiences prompt thinking into how the 17–21 age group is able to “effectively manage difference in a way that’s productive, supportive of one another and also surprisingly innovative.”
Syeed said she challenges assumptions that younger people have less capacity for empathy, and said this is a point in history where older generations can learn from the altruism of Generation Z across different spaces.
Syeed’s website biography labels her as “peacemaker, healer [and] scholar,” and outlines her social justice-based research and award-winning leadership of two conflict resolution centers.
“As someone who’s worked on issues of violence around the world, I think a lot of times we think about the beginning of violence being hate,” Syeed said. “One of the origins of violence is also fear of the unknown.”
To create a more peaceful world, Syeed advocates for what she calls “awkward spaces” — where people show up even when they are unfamiliar with a person, community or tradition and are afraid of saying something wrong.
“I think it’s important to have those awkward spaces to say, ‘Hey, I don’t know enough. How do I learn more?’ Because the way that I think violence will be reduced is us getting to know one another deeply,” Syeed said. “I’m hopeful that, whether it’s Chautauqua or other similar public convenings, we allow and build and think about those ‘awkward spaces’ and how they are a part of the ways in which our democracy is formed.”
She expressed appreciation of Chautauqua as a venue for sharing and learning from success stories of “re-humanization.”
“There is the ability to hear stories from contexts that might be wildly different from our own,” as well as share the experience of hearing those stories together, Syeed said. She said she is excited about the opportunity for listeners to connect her lecture material with re-humanization advocacy and “unsung heroes” in their own communities.
