Cover story

Bridging the Cultural Divide

Kent State project promotes peace, teaches tolerance

When I met individually with Kent State University professors Dr. David Odell-Scott and Dr. Surinder Bhardwaj to discuss their study of the different religions practiced in Northeast Ohio, the first comment from each of them was, “We normally prefer to discuss the project together.” After learning more about the project and their relationship, I understood why. Odell-Scott and Bhardwaj are not only co-directors on the Ohio Pluralism Project and colleagues who respect one another, but also close friends, despite the fact they come from extremely different backgrounds and seem to have contrasting personalities.

These two unlikely friends met by chance in 1993, when a senior in Odell-Scott’s course on Comparative Religious Thought introduced him to his father, Surinder Bhardwaj, a renowned scholar and writer on the Hindu religion and professor in the geography department. The two faculty members had an instant connection that was made stronger, perhaps, because of their differences.

Bhardwaj, professor emeritus of geography, is a quiet, reserved man with a wise face and an air of calmness about him. Odell-Scott, chair and professor of philosophy and coordinator of religion studies, is outgoing, full of nervous energy and speaks with a charming Southern drawl.

Bhardwaj was born in India and raised as a subject of the British Empire. He came to the United States to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota, where he received his doctorate in geography. He has taught at Kent State since 1969. Odell-Scott hails from Alabama and attended Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, where he received a master of divinity and a doctorate in philosophy. He came to Kent State in 1990.

Influenced by Ghandi, Bhardwaj is a practicing Hindu and a state-licensed minister. Odell-Scott, who grew up during the civil rights era of the 1950s and ’60s, draws much of his inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. He is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

In spite of their differences, Bhardwaj and Odell-Scott share one important quality — a willingness to learn from each other and respect the other’s ideas. Their relationship is a wonderful representation of what they are hoping to accomplish with the Ohio Pluralism Project.

Mapping the religious landscape

The Ohio Pluralism Project began in 1998 when Bhardwaj and Odell-Scott co-wrote a grant and received funding from the Pluralism Project at Harvard University to replicate the Harvard Pluralism Project on a smaller scale in Ohio. Founded in 1991, the Harvard project seeks to help Americans understand religious diversity and engage in civil dialogue through research and outreach. By documenting the changing religious landscape of America and studying religious communities and the interaction between them, the project engages the public in the real-world challenges of religious pluralism, such as stigmas and intolerance of other beliefs. As an affiliate of the Harvard project, the intent of the Ohio Pluralism Project, according to Odell- Scott, is to map and monitor the development of religious communities in the state and offer opportunities for engagement between communities.

Religious pluralism in the United States is a relatively new field of study. In A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (Ju

ne 2001), author and director of the Harvard Pluralism Project Diana Eck writes, “The religious landscape of America has changed radically in the past 30 years, but most of us have not yet begun to see the dimensions and scope of that change, so gradual has it been and yet so colossal.” Before the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, the U.S. government specified how many immigrants from each nation would be permitted to enter — mostly from predominantly Christian, European countries. However, in 1965, U.S. immigration laws changed to a “preference” system, allowing entrance to individuals with scientific, technological or mathematical backgrounds or those with college degrees or doctorates. So countries like Pakistan and India — from which few immigrants were previously permitted into the United States — could now send many more people. Large migrations of people came also from Southeast Asia, seeking asylum from persecution by communist regimes after the fall of Saigon.

The change in immigration laws occurred to fill a technological gap in the United States, which lagged behind such communist countries as Russia, and opened the door to people from primarily

Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist countries. Odell-Scott says this created a change in religious diversity in this country.

In this “new world,” the immigrants encountered people from different faiths more often than they had in their homeland. While they initially focused on settling into their new home and getting established in their occupations, they gradually recognized their own internal needs of faith, says Bhardwaj. They began gathering first in their homes, then renting small buildings in which to meet, and finally purchasing and remodeling vacant churches or building their own temples, mosques and other houses of worship. As this transition occurred, these groups began to interact and engage with the larger community. Bhardwaj says this was very important, because unlike in their homelands where groups had been isolated in their own neighborhoods, the United States of

fered more opportunities for immigrants to interact with people from different religious traditions.

One of our national goals, says Bhardwaj, should be to maintain a country that is peaceful despite being pluralistic. He adds, “If we don’t understand each other, we might turn away from each other or become antagonistic.”

A major setback to understanding differences occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. Before that historic day, members of most religious organizations in the Northeast Ohio area felt welcome, says Bhardwaj. “But since Sept. 11, a great amount of uncertainty towards those outside their faith has occurred among the non-Christian religions that are newer to the United States,” he adds.

Bhardwaj says responses to the Ohio Pluralism Project have been different since Sept. 11, as well. He explains, “These newer religious groups are concerned about how they’re going to be perceived by the larger population, and there is a tinge of fear.” Fear makes it more difficult to build relationships with religious organizations and their leaders. Creating a bond of trust requires a huge effort, adds Odell-Scott, because it must be earned. But both professors believe the Ohio Pluralism Project can help overcome the religious stigmas created by the events of that day and their aftermath.

Teaching tolerance

Odell-Scott and Bhardwaj seem to have done a remarkable job of earning the trust of Northeast Ohio’s religious leaders. Each semester, students from Odell-Scott’s Comparative Religious Thought class and Bhardwaj’s Ohio Cultural Diversity Workshop visit multiple cultural and religious areas, including Islamic mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples, Jewish synagogues and Sikh gurdwaras, as well as ethnic Christian churches.

“Students get accustomed to recognizing the diversity that exists around them, and these visits provide them with an opportunity to interact and engage with a different community from their own,” explains Bhardwaj.

Meredith Shoop, a student in Odell-Scott’s course, visited a Sikh gurdwara in Richfield, Ohio. The members made her and the other students in the class feel very comfortable, she says. “As a student, you’re given the status of someone who needs to be educated,” she explains.

Shoop, an agnostic who was raised in the Christian Church of Unity, says it is important for her to visit places where religions are practiced. “There are things I couldn’t have learned in a classroom, like the sound of their music or the experience of entering their temple where worship takes place,” she explains.

Dr. Ramaswamy Sharma, temple manager of the Greater Cleveland Shiva Vishnu Temple (Hindu) in Parma, Ohio, says his organization welcomes visits from the students: “We try to reach out to the external community, so allowing students to visit our temple and observe our services is one way we can do so.”

It is important for students to have firsthand experience about how Hinduism is practiced, adds Sharma. “It allows them to see the religion through their own eyes without interpretation from

others, like in textbooks,” he says.

While students benefit from these trips, so do the religious organizations that open their doors to them. Sharma says that the interaction with students gives members of his organization “insight about society at large.” On a personal note, he adds, “It also gives me a very spiritual satisfaction when I share my knowledge with them.”

The Venerable Ashin Wareinda, a monk from the Wat Lao Siriwathanaram Buddhist Temple in Akron, Ohio, says, “When I am talking with students, it is like a friendship, and both of us learn from each other.” I experienced this firsthand myself, when I visited Wareinda at his new temple in Akron.

As I left my shoes at the door and walked in, he immediately made me feel welcome and was open to any questions I had about his faith. After my interview was finished, I couldn’t help but ask Wareinda what he enjoyed most about being a monk. He answered, “When I talk to people and teach them about the Buddha and his teachings, like now — with you — is when I am the most happy.”

And I thought, “This is what Bhardwaj and Odell- Scott mean when they speak of engagement and learning to respect the uniqueness of one another.”

Sharing and communicating like this are what inspire Odell-Scott and Bhardwaj to continue their work with the Ohio Pluralism Project. Odell-Scott recalls a particularly memorable experience that helped confirm his conviction in the effort.

On the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11, someone threw a log through the glass door of the Kent mosque on Crain Avenue.

“It was very disconcerting to the Muslim community,” says Odell- Scott. “It was very disturbing to drive by the next day and see the damage.”

Others in the neighborhood felt the same way. According to Odell-Scott, David Jackson, a 1982 Kent State alumnus, wanted neighbors in the area to collect money to help fix the door. He also wanted people to sign a card so the members of the mosque would know that what happened was not representative of how the neighborhood and Americans in general felt towards Muslims. Four middle school students and one Kent State student went door to door, collecting $500 in less than a week.

“Jews, Christians and others representing the diversity of the Kent community all responded with concern,” says Odell-Scott. The leaders of the mosque accepted the donation and said they would use the money to fix the door and match the amount donated to buy books on the topic of religious tolerance between America and Islam.

Odell-Scott says the leaders of the mosque declared this was the “true” America.

“It said a lot about the Kent State community and made me very hopeful,” says Odell-Scott.

Peaceful acts of engagement between different religions and cultures are the goal of the Ohio Pluralism Project. Odell-Scott and Bhardwaj hope the project continues to build bridges of communication for students, families and communities. Bhardwaj adds, “We have an opportunity to develop a model for the world on how different religions can engage peacefully. Our project is a little part of it, but at least it is part of it.”

The friendship between the two men plays a small part as well. As Bhardwaj told me: “Who would have thought a boy from a remote Indian village and a boy from the bayous of Alabama would ever meet to discuss issues of freedom, human dignity, colonialism, oppression, slavery, caste and religious pluralism — all with stark honesty and yet with respect of the other’s religious traditions?”

                                                                                                    <Magazine Home Link>