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Edina Lekovic: Spokeswoman for the Muslim community |
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By InFocus News Staff
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Edina Lekovic, originally from Montenegro and raised in San Diego, is one of the prominent faces of American Muslims in the media. As communications director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Lekovic frequently appears on national television stations, including CNN, MSNBC and BBC. Her articles have been published in newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times. She has also participated in international conferences focused on Muslims in the West. Lekovic graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s in American literature and culture, and is currently a master’s candidate in communication at Pepperdine University. Without a doubt, Lekovic is a major player in the movement to advance the American Muslim community socially and politically, and InFocus was honored to speak to her regarding this topic.
InFocus: Tell us about your childhood and your background. Edina Lekovic IF: So, how did you get more interested in Islam? EL: IF: Your parents came from Montenegro - have you ever visited there? What was the experience like? Could you educate us briefly in that area? EL: IF: Who were your role models growing up? EL:. IF: How did you end up working in the nonprofit sector? EL: IF: As a spokeswoman for a large Muslim organization who has appeared on major news networks, what do you feel is the most challenging part of your job? What is the most difficult interview that you ever gave? EL: My hardest interview? There have been a few. Going on O’Reilly Factor or debating Steven Emerson are never a cake walk, But what is difficult on a daily basis is finding a way to be self-critical without being self-hating. IF: Do you feel your message is being heard? EL: IF: In 2003, you were invited by the Malaysian government to be one of two U.S. representatives to the International Conference of Muslim Young Leaders. What did you learn from that experience, mingling with young Muslims from around the world? EL: IF: In a post 9/11 world, what challenges do you face as a Muslim woman in the United States? EL: IF: Tell us more about Elev8, the arts-based Muslim youth leadership program that you co-founded. What is the purpose of this group? EL: Along with three other friends, I co-founded Elev8 in 2000. It is an arts-based leadership program for Muslim high school students in southern California. Today, it is made up of seven Muslim women in college, graduate school and young professionals (ages 23-30) who share a common belief in the power of art and the need for leadership among young people. We choose to utilize the arts as a tool for personal growth and social change. Our most recent program, called Project LA, involved about 15 kids from the L.A. and San Fernando Valley in a six-month journey through the diverse communities of Los Angeles to expose them to community-based art, explore the ways that art is used to tell stories and push for change, and to develop their own original work which was displayed at a community exhibit in late August. I certainly feel an increased level of scrutiny as a Muslim woman, but I also feel an increased level of responsibility. The Muslim community is often judged through the lens of gender equality (or lack thereof), and so the contributions and achievements of Muslim American women are a crucial part of our overall story. Sept. 11 has also forced our community to take a good hard look in the mirror and realize that everything is not OK. Muslim women should not be asked to wait their turn before they are given full participation in their mosques and have equal access to leadership and teaching positions within the mosque environment. The diversity of experiences and challenges and aspirations I encountered matured me significantly, and forced me to see that while we can strive to be one Ummah, we are entirely separate entities that must work for our own relevant advancement in our own societies. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. The other part of the experience that I was not prepared for was the level of curiosity about my experiences as an American Muslim. I felt frequently that I was being put on the spot for President Bush’s policies. I found that I had the most in common with my European peers, who faced the same melting pot Muslim community issues I faced. The message we are trying to send out is that Muslim Americans are finding their place to contribute to our society, that we share the same set of values and that we’re interested in working for the good of all people. I think that message is slowly getting out there, but it’s a slow process. We are present on a lot of national media outlets, where we discuss breaking news and issues around Muslims and Islam, and we speak at forums in universities and mosques and churches, but that is not enough. The most challenging part of my job is juggling the massive demands being faced by our community. We have so much development needed in so many areas that it can be overwhelming. I think the most challenging part of all this is getting through to Muslims who want to see change but seem unwilling to work for change in realistic and sustainable ways. I went to UCLA because I wanted to study journalism and work at the UCLA Daily Bruin, one of the top college newspapers in the country. I started pursuing my master’s in communication at Pepperdine because I felt there was a broader need to understand not only how to perfect my work as a journalist but also to understand the broader realm of "effective communication." My studies brought into focus my interest in working in this area, and the job offer from MPAC to serve as communications director came at the right time. I accepted it because it incorporated what I was most passionate about, and allowed me the opportunity to utilize the knowledge I had of both the media industry and the Muslim community. I have always looked up to Peter Jennings as a professional hero in journalism from the time I was around 8 years old. My sister, Munira, has always been a role model to me because of her focus and tenacity. She has always demonstrated the ability to identify a need, craft a project and execute it. My eight-year relationship with Dr. Maher Hathout has been one of the most meaningful in my journey as a Muslim. He is the first Muslim American leader with whom I interacted who presented a vision of Islam that is humanistic, relevant, balanced and logical.I have only been able to visit Montenegro once - in 2004 with my parents. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life - it gave me the opportunity to understand my parents better. Montenegro’s population of about 650,000 is roughly evenly split between Christians, Catholics and Muslims, and it became its own country in May 2006 when it seceded from Serbia. The Muslim population traces its roots to the Ottoman Empire, and local Muslims exhibit varying levels of religious practice. It’s a place of great contradictions, but also of a fairly strong sense of co-existence. It was day one on the campus at UCLA that my sister and I ran into the MSA from a table on Bruin Walk. That brief and confusing interaction with a young Muslim who chose to practice his faith away from his parents was perplexing enough to draw me to attend a jumu’ah prayer, which was compelling enough to keep me coming back, which was compelling enough to make me curious enough to read the Qur’an, which then led me to choose to be a Muslim when I was 19.: My parents are from Montenegro (former Yugoslavia). My sister, Munira, and I were born in Vienna, Austria. We moved to the United States in 1978, first to New York City and then to San Diego. I was raised in a faithful but secular home. We were raised with the knowledge that we were Muslim but with little understanding of what that meant. Growing up, I knew that being Muslim meant that I wasn’t allowed to date, drink, eat pork or have sex but I had no idea what our core belief system was as Muslims. When people would ask me (usually during Ramadan because I was fasting) what we believed in, I would say "We don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God, I think."
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