While the current global leaders met in St. Petersburg this week for the G-8 summit, Bowling Green was also hosting an event of a similar nature. The 150 college students who met in the Union this Saturday at the Global Youth Leader’s Summit hoped to find common ground with their peers as they discussed “Hope not Hate: The Future of U.S. – Muslim World relations,” which was the main topic of the summit and an issue many international leaders face today.

With an expert panel and small group discussions, the future leaders shared experiences and opinions on the usually delicate subject.

The overall attitude of the young leaders was one of hope, and left student leaders like Anna-Katie Hartman feeling inspired.

“I feel that as college students we have a responsibility to educate ourselves. That is the only way to create change,” she said.

Hartman ran a small discussion group at the event, about the potential they have as leaders to change relations between countries that are predominantly Muslim and the United States.

“It’s so hard to sit down with such a different group of people, but overall, the event went well,” Hartman said. “It good to talk about this stuff, and it’s great to educate yourself “me for example, I feel like I should have given this more thought. We’ve been at war for how long and as college students we should educate ourselves.”

BGSU Marketing and Communications representative Bonnie Blankmanship was an adviser for the event.

“This is a fabulous opportunity, being a student led and student participation event. Hearing different perspectives on such important issues and learning how to defuse conflicts before they start are, in my opinion, invaluable experiences,” she said.

That is one of the highest goals of the Global Youth Leader’s Summit. Inspiration for this event came from a summit hosted by the Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) at Yale University. The AID mission statement is, “to build a new generation of globally conscious leaders who can shape an American foreign policy appropriate for our increasingly interdependent world.”

This mission is what inspired Jake Gallardo, an international studies major from Manila, Phillipines to organize the Youth Leaders Summit. In doing so, he hopes to see more tolerance from his fellow students, maybe more importantly, his friends. When asked why he did this, his response was very personal.

His story begins with a dream that an American friend had shared with him. In the dream, she was taken to Afghanistan and shown a cave with a map of the United States that had planned the attacks of Sept. 11.

“She said that she was so terrified,” he said. “But, I was really shocked that those kind of dreams were in her subconscious ” On the other hand, I have friends from Malaysia, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom and they all chant ‘Death to America! Down with the U.S.!’ Why can’t we talk to each other?”

It seemed to Gallardo, that there was a widening gap between the people he knew from one world and the people he knew from another.

“Try to imagine that you have two sets of friends who have negative attitudes toward one another; and you are constantly stuck in the middle. I am not happy. These are all my friends,” he said. “As an international student with both American and Muslim friends, I see the issue from both sides and feel that we need more informed decisions ” I see mutual skepticism between my Muslim and American friends. I want to break this pattern and establish new dialogue between them.”

Last fall semester, the AID sponsored over 250 of these youth leadership events to spread ideas, opinions and friendships among students. In addition to discussing political issues, the AID sponsors workshops on discussing political issues with peers. Sarah Bush Director of Campus Outreach for the AID, led a workshop entitled, “Talking Global Issues with Americans.”

Bush explained how unintended biases reduce the effectiveness of political discussion.

“Biases can also be called frames, or simply the way people think about political issues and they don’t know it,” she said. “These frames are very important to the way we discuss certain issues. If the facts you present don’t fit the frame, very often it is the facts that will be rejected and people will keep their frames.”

Bush went on to discuss how students can avoid this rejection by making sure our language is not spiced with their own frames. “Just be open-minded and remember that your opinion is your own.”

In addition to small group discussions, an expert panel was provided to offer their expertise in different areas as well as answer questions from the enthusiastic crowd. In attendance was the Imam Farooq Aboelzahab, of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, who provided his expertise in Islamic law and practice.

The panel also held seats for the Honorary Consul General of Syria, Naji Arwashan, and the Honorable Consul General of Turkey, Nurten Ural, offering knowledge of the political climate and experience in the Middle East.

Also attending from Ohio University’s political science department was Political Analyst Marshall Lilly who answered questions about the overall political picture.

When asked about what future leaders can do to better themselves he told them, “Have pride in your education. This means you must educate yourself on issues that you want to learn about. And don’t just read the books that you agree with. Read the ones you don’t, too. This will prepare you to talk about issues like this with someone who you disagree with. And always, always remember to be humble.”

After hearing the panelists speak, Hartman felt privileged to have been present.

“It was really interesting to hear what the Imam said,” she said. “He wasn’t a politician. His view on everything was that he had his personal religious beliefs but he does not think that this should interfere with the way other people live their lives.”

After attending the Yale summit, Gallardo was inspired to bring a similar function back to BGSU and began a four month long journey of frenzied preparation.

“It has been a very exciting few months,” said Gallardo, who received grants from the AID and the College of Arts and Sciences to produce the event.

The event played host to students from such universities as John’s Hopkins, Cornell and Andrew Carnegie University. Also attending were students from local Ohio schools like Case Western, Ashland and Ohio University.