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Dave Eggers and “Zeitoun”

From Zeba Iqbal: — Hello All – Have you heard about a fantastic new book by Pulitzer nominated author Dave Eggers? The book, Zeitoun, called an ‘instant American classic’, is about a Muslim American man, Abdalrahman Zeitoun and his family in New Orleans. Zeitoun stays behind to help neighbors after Hurricane Katrina only to be detained and suspected as “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda. Timothy Egan writes in his upcoming New York Times Book Review (on August 16, 2009): “Imagine Charles Dickens, his sentimentality in check but his journalistic eyes wide open, roaming New Orleans after it was buried by Hurricane…

Grass Roots Development May Hold Promise in the Muslim World

I would actually hope that it holds promise for everyone: There is, Khan averred, a “dominant player fallacy” or the tendency to place “too much reliance in national governments and other institutions which may have relatively superficial connections to life at the grass-roots level.” Thus, “urban-based outsiders often look at these situations from the perspective of the city center looking out to a distant countryside, searching for quick and convenient levers of influence.” The secret, then, is to work “from the bottom up” and not from the top down, as is so often the case. As he told the dinner…

Queens, NY Action: Hindi/Bangla Translation Help Needed

Dear friends and colleagues, Hope you are enjoying your summer. I need your help recruiting volunteers for an historic event that Chhaya is putting together in York College on Saturday August 7th. It is a foreclosure prevention rescue fair where lenders and housing counselors will assist distressed homeowners with loan modification applications. As you know our target population is immigrants, particularly from South Asia, who have been significantly impacted in this crisis (our research shows that in some zip codes in Queens, as many as 50% default was among SA homeowners!) We expect as many as 500 homeowners to attend…