A Livonia Arab American is being recognized as a community peacemaker by the Wayne State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, which is expected to honor the Vietnam veteran during a May 14 reception at the Next Energy building, 461 Burroughs Street in Detroit.

Ron Amen, pictured with wife Mona Amen, is to receive an award as a “Community Peacemaker” from the Wayne State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies on May 14.

Ron Amen, 63, an interfaith, intercultural and human rights activist has been working to bring together distant Detroit-area ethnic and religious communities long before it was popular, said Amen’s brother Alan Amen.
“He’s been in the forefront of intercultural group interactions… and he’s been an activist on behalf of issues concerning Arabs and Muslims since way before 9/11,” Alan Amen said.

Alan Amen, 61, said his older brother got him involved in activism during the Vietnam-era anti-war movement and still works alongside him in the Palestinian rights movement.

Ron Amen said it was his experience in a combat helicopter platoon in Vietnam that led him to activism later.

“The things that I saw left a real bad taste in my mouth when I came back home,” he said. “That really got me fired up — besides the fact that I grew up in the south end of Dearborn… Long before September 11, [Arab Americans] weren’t too popular in Dearborn… but once they got to know us, I made lifelong friends from the other side of town.”

Amen has taught intercultural workshops for the Wayne County Sheriff’s academy, developed interfaith outreach initiatives at the Islamic Center of America, worked with the Palestine Office-Michigan and is currently director of operations at the Arab American National Museum.

Later this month, he’ll host a group of 21 Birmingham Jewish community senior citizens for a tour of the museum.

“Those kinds of things just didn’t happen 5, 6 years ago,” he said.

He said he frequently sees examples of progress that comes from area intercultural and interfaith efforts.

“I am seeing more communities now, certainly the Arab ethnic and Muslim communities, get together with other communities throughout the Detroit area, certainly since 9/11,” he said.

“These things — they work. They take time, of course… but once you get past some of the initial hurdles, people are willing to hear from us and are willing to listen to our side of the story.”

Last year, the Arab American Political Action Committee awarded Amen with an “AAPAC Member of the Year” award for his activism.

Before the May 14 reception at 5:30 p.m., the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies is uniting with the Cranbrook Peace Foundation to present its annual peace lecture at 3 p.m. in room 100 of the General Lectures Building on the WSU campus. International development economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University is to deliver the foundation’s annual peace lecture at the event. There is no charge for the lecture and tickets to the reception are $35 each. Contact Rochelle White 313.577.2166.