At a time of surging hostility in America toward other cultures – China-bashing, threatened Quran burning, campaigns against the building of mosques – a Baltimore writer has teamed with an Iraqui refugee to launch a campaign for cross-cultural understanding.

MICA grad Justin Sirois, 31 met Haneen Alshujairy, 21 online in 2007 while looking for Iraqis to interview for “MLKNG SCKLS,” a collection of short stories about displaced Iraqis that serves as the basis for Sirois’ forthcoming novel Falcons on the Floor.

After years of email, GChat and Facebook correspondence, the international friends and now colleagues have gone on to co-found a new project called the “Understanding Campaign.”

The  organization has a simple and hopefully powerful goal: For “everyone in the world to read just one word of Arabic: Fhm (fuh-hem’),” which means “understanding.”

Now and then

Of the 60 potential interview subjects that Sirois solicited on the bilingual website MyLanguageExchange.com back in 2007, Alshujairy, who is a student, was the “most articulate” and interested in what he was doing, he said, in a phone interview with the Brew.

Sirois and Alshujairy got to know each other after a few months of corresponding online.  She fled to Cairo in 2003 but her family is from Fallujah.  He moved to Baltimore from Florida when he was 18 to study printmaking at MICA.

Alshujairy’s connection with the two sieges of Fallujah also made her ideal, Sirois said; she “had ties to the city and the period that I wanted to talk about…It gelled kind of perfectly.”

Their first “creative collaboration” was Sirois’ collection of short stories, which  Alshujairy read and edited (The novel based on these stories will be published by Publishing Genius in June 2011).

Afterward, they wanted to keep working together and “extend their audience beyond the literary fiction crowd,” said Sirois.

Thus, the “Understanding Campaign” was born.

A video instructing how to write “Fhm” in Arabic

Fhm = Understanding

Sirois and Alshujairy’s idea is that learning the meaning of this one particular Arabic word will help “break down the taboos and the misunderstandings, and all the biases we have towards the Arab world,” Sirois said, in a YouTube video he created to explain the project.

“For us its a perfect way to combine art and writing and everything we enjoy and get people motivated about Arab culture and the Arab world and the Middle East in general,” he said.

So how does the Understanding Campaign “work”?

In addition to literally learning the meaning of the word, Sirois and Alshujairy hope people will document where they’ve placed Fhm stickers, buttons and t-shirts (available on their website) with photos, and email them to submit@understandingcampaign.org.  Sirois then posts the images online.

They’re also asking artists and designers to learn the word and design their own version of “Fhm,” some of which they’ll feature on the stickers and buttons (such as the main image in this article).

Response

The project that came from the fortuitous online meeting has only continued to grow.  In the last two weeks the campaign received a donation from actors William H. Macy and wife Felicity Huffman, who have since signed on as official endorsers.

“He is the first celebrity who’s come onboard,” said Sirois.

Another supporter is Ken Baumann, a friend of Sirois as well as an actor who plays the role of Ben Boykewich on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

In addition to acting, Baumann is “a brilliant writer and publisher of innovative fiction,” said Sirois.

City Paper named the Understanding Campaign Baltimore’s “Best Campaign” of 2010, and Sirois and Alshujairy have created a six-week Kickstarter campaign in an attempt to raise $10,000 to start an official nonprofit organization that will use literary projects in an attempt to bring the Arab and Western worlds closer together.

So far, 150 people have pledged $5,516 , and they have 16 days left to come up with the remaining funds.

They’re offering limited edition stickers and buttons designed by guest artists, including Baltimore’s Squidfire and artist Kamrooz Aram, to people who donate to the Kickstarter fund.

Not all responses have been positive but Sirois isn’t surprised, nor does he really seem to care.

“The overwhelming response is positive, which is really cool and not surprising, but we have had a few hyper-negative responses from bloggers,” said Sirois.

One such obscenity-riddled blog post, which Sirouis posted on the Kickstarter page for discussion, criticizes the campaign for seeking “cash,” and questions trying to understand Islam and Arab cultures.  An excerpt:

I have heard, over and over and over recently, how Westerners need to “understand” Islam and/or Arabs. What about Muslims and/or Muslims learning to understand the West? Or modern society? Or how to behave like civilized human beings? Or how to use toilet paper?

Sirois doesn’t seem fazed.  The one or two “irrational and strange and overall boring responses” are the minority, he said laughing.  “You have to expect that kind of stuff.”

What’s next

The Understanding Campaign co-founders have their fingers crossed that they’ll reach their $10,000 goal (Kickstarter pledges are only received if the full goal is met within a certain period of time).

In the meantime, Sirois and Alshujairy are making plans for the future.  He will visit Cairo early next year, where the two friends will meet in person for the first time.

Once Alshujairy is done with her studies, she will come to the US and perhaps join Sirois on a book tour. 

“It’s a tiny idea that’s taken off and people seem to really love it,” said Sirois of what they’ve created.  “It’s pretty amazing what one little word can do.”