SVEND WHITE, is an active member of the Islamic community of Washington, DC. He is an Internet consultant specializing in e-government and multi-lingual software development for international organizations. White is also a political activist. His interests include the following: conflict resolution, democracy & civil society development in the Middle East and South Asia; the reformulation of traditional Islamic religio-political discourse—while remaining rooted in traditional Islamic faith—to meet the challenges of a modern, pluralistic world; the re-examination of the role of the ulema (i.e., the scholarly class) in Islamic culture, especially as regards women and religious minorities; interfaith dialogue, especially between Muslims and Jews; human rights and economic justice in American foreign policy.

While all Muslims from non-traditional ethnic backgrounds have interesting stories about how they came to Islam, Whites story is particularly unusual: His father, Barry, was raised in a Catholic family in Boston and embraced Islam as a teenager in 1957, while his mother, a Danish woman, converted in Copenhagen in 1970. Soon after her conversion, they became penpals—thanks to a mutual friend in Copenhagen—and married in 1971. Thus, unlike most Caucasian American Muslims born in the early 1970s, he was raised in a ғtraditional Danish-American Muslim household in Boston.

He currently works for a media & technology firm in Washington, DC, that supports economic development projects in the Middle East and around the world. Before getting into the Internet technology field, White worked as a freelance translator and journalist. White has a bachelors degree in French Literature from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, and has lived and/or worked in Europe, Africa, and South Asia. He has articles on Islam and foreign affairs in a number of publications, both print and online. White is also the Secretary of the CSID Executive Committee and the CSID webmaster. 

http://akramsrazor.typepad.com/

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