Oh, the peace and understanding of Muslim student groups.
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Culture | Featured Stories — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The University of Georgia's student-run newspaper, the Red and Black (circulation 17,000+), dealt with Monday's fifth anniversary of 9/11 in a very unconventional way -- they ignored it. The middle of the paper's front page featured a giant picture of Steve Spurrier and a recap of Saturday’s football game against the South Carolina Gamecocks, with the juvenile headline "Cocks Blocked 18-0." Above the fold was an article about Muslim students “facing prejudice” – with the only supporting evidence of that being a story of mosque vandalism five years ago.
The only mention of the terrorist attacks themselves, the loss of American life, and the anniversary of that terrible day was on the editorial page – and even there, it was severely limited. Two recent UGA alumni gave their lives fighting the War on Terror; they were only mentioned once, and that in passing. When letters to the editor poured in complaining about the lack of anniversary coverage – as well as the refusal to mention any memorial events being put on by students, including the one organized by Hatfield and Bentley – the paper responded with an editorial defense of Monday’s decisions, saying of the outcry: “If it got students talking, then we did our job.”
Read on -- because there is a LOT more than just this.
It's an obvious point, but one which must obviously be said here -- the job of the media this past Monday was not to foster “talk” by summarily ignoring 9/11 – much less by choosing front page stories which serve as a collective slap in the face to the 2,997 innocents who needlessly lost their lives five years ago Monday. It was to remember – and to help others do so, as well.
Unfortunately -- and predictably -- the letter writers are now facing a backlash from their more "enlightened," more "progressive" fellow students. David Kirby, publisher of the University's conservative newspaper, the Guard Dawg, wrote this letter to the editor in response to the Red and Black's 9/11 (non) coverage:
Instead of focusing on the 2,977 Americans killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, The Red & Black chose to portray Muslims as the victims. Yesterday’s article “Muslim Students Face Prejudices,” focused on the backlash against the religion whose radical wing has killed thousands rather than memorializing the true tragedy — the senseless murder of nearly 3,000 Americans. This measure is a pathetic attempt at political correctness for a religion whose leaders haven’t collectively apologized for the terrorist acts of its members. If Allah does not condone terrorist acts, and the Koran does not teach this destruction, then Islamic leaders have the moral obligation to denounce these acts. At the University, I think the Muslim Student Association would be a great place to start for these types of official apologies. Anything less and the silence is deafening.
Any problem there? How about with this information added: Kirby called the President of the Muslim Student Association to let them know what he planned to write, and to give them an opportunity to respond -- and the MSA President declined to make a statement.
What MSA members did do [Editor's note: the Muslim Student Association has officially disavowed any affiliation with the group; it was started in the MSA's name, but not with the leadership's consent], though, was to start a new student common-interest group, called "David Kirby is ignorant." The group's logo is a picture of Kirby with the words "I suck!!" written on it, and the reasoning for it, as stated by the group's founder, was:
This dude wrote an editorial in Red and Black, which was published September 12th in the Red and Black, demanding the Muslim community and their leaders to apologize for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He specially attacked our very own Muslim Student Association. He is obviously ignorant about Islam and the Qur'an. We would like to invite him to become less ignorant and read a book about Islam, any book, it does not matter as long as it has a cover and it is over one phrase long.
Excuse me, but does this jive with anything that was written in the above-posted letter? Of course not. As is typical, with the Left as well as with most anybody else, the first things to go when in a losing argument are facts, logic, and civility -- as evidenced (even more greatly) in this case by the posts on the group's message board, such as this one:
you say that islam is an expansionist religion? ? ? ? HAH, wow, can you be any more blind and ignorant? tell me this, have you ever met a muslim MISSIONARY? have you ever met a muslim who said that everybody should be a muslim? this war isn't about religion, and if you are so ignorant to believe it is, then go right ahead. ...think about ALL that's going on in the world and then make a judgement. because if you do so, i am sure you'll come to the conclusion that 'islam' is just a nominal conduit used to get to something completely different and unrelated.
Again, huh? One line, especially, jumps out at me as being a mind-blowing ignorance of facts -- both current and historical: "have [sic] you ever met a muslim [sic] who said that everybody should be a muslim [sic]?" I think a better choice of questions -- and one which could actually be answered quickly, as there are few or no examples to give -- would be, "Have you ever met a muslim who did not say that everybody should be a Muslim?" Expansionism and conversion -- often at the point of the sword -- have been staples of Islam for centuries, and the tradition is being continued by today's radicals.
A great example of what an understanding, progressive follower of the "Religion of Peace" this is, is the fact that he is also a member of the student group "F**k Israel" (asterisks supplied by me -- the group's name is the unedited version of the word). Nice representation of a religion whose public image is hurting, there.
A co-administrator of the group wrote:
Drawing conclusions about a whole race or religion based on the actions of a small minority is prejudice; no better than those americans in the early 1900's who believed that blacks were barbaric, savage, and stupid. If you guys would like to see the true face of Islam then come to the mosque sometime during Ramadan. It is coming up and I think everyone would be suprised at how supportive, understanding, kind, and peaceful true muslims are. I am not muslim, but I still go to the mosque because of the wonderful people. Church, Mass, Temple, Mosque... these are all houses of God and we should treat eachother as the brothers and sisters that God made us to be.
Last I checked, it wasn't non-Muslims who were blowing up mosques...but I suppose I could be alone in that observation. I don't think so, though.
This effective rebuttal was also left on the group's message board:
I mean this in all politeness, but what are you guys trying to accomplish here? Who are you to pass final judgement on those who believe Islam is an intrinsically expansionist and violent religion? Laying the Qur'an aside, we could talk about 1,400 years of Islamic expansion through war. We could talk about Muhammad's own war mongering and incitement to murder. We could even talk about present day terrorism being a continuation of a never ending jihad to subjugate all non-Muslims to Islam. Or, we could talk about the countless Muslim and non-Muslim scholars who believe the Qur'an teaches holy war, with the Dar al-Harb v. Dar al-Islam teachings. So, before you lob the word ignorant around, you need to realize their are dozens of conservative, Islamic scholars who would disagree with your statements.
Well said. Islam is struggling enough right now without having to worry about representatives like these.
Nice response to an extended hand, as well. What are your thoughts?
The problem is, that even from Western venues like Vancouver, those "peaceful" sermons and lectures get put into practice around the World.
From:
Abubaker's Muslim centre [Vancouver, B.C.] preached hatred of Jews
Last updated Oct 22 2004
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/bc/story/bc_abubaker20041022.html
Rudwan Khalil Abubaker was among a group of Chechen rebels killed by Russian troops earlier this month. Russian military officials identified the body by a Canadian passport and B.C. driver's licence.
In Vancouver, Abubaker's family lawyer, Phil Rankin, has called him a gentle man with an interest in soccer and music, and with no connection to violence or explosives.
But the Muslim centre he regularly attended in East Vancouver preached the virtues of jihad and hatred of Jews.
In one diatribe last spring following Israel's killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Younus Kathrada told his followers, "We know what happened over the last week and how the brothers of the monkeys and the swine assassinated and murdered one of the heroes of Islam, the Salah al-Din of this day and age, Ahmed Yassin."
The lecture was posted on the Dar al-Madinah website.
In his lecture, Kathrada also said the enmity between Muslims and Jews will never go away. He lashed out at Muslims who say bridges should be built between the two religious communities.
He said there will never be peace, instead there will be an apocalyptic war.
"Then what will happen? Listen to the good news after that. The prophet ... says that the stone and the tree will say, 'Oh Muslim, oh slave of Allah, that verily behind me is a Jew. Then come and kill him,'" said Kathrada.
Rankin said no matter what was said, Abubaker was no extremist.
This is just more of the same rhetoric from the Muslim community. Did you every notice they always avoid answering questions and reply with some diatribe based on a false premise or attempted vicissitude? I often wonder if many in that community know their own religious history.
Furthermore, they find shelter with liberals who promote Islam in the interest of political correctness and peaceful cohabitation. Yet that community is even more ignorant of history and facts. Here are some brief facts; Muslims perpetrated September 11th, 1993 WTC bombing, USS Cole bombing, Embassy bombings, countless atrocities in Iraq, countless attacks on Israel, genocide in Darfur, Somalia, attacks in Spain, London (tried again recently), Beslan and the list goes on. Small radical sect? Hardly.
There are several actions which would start to provide some modicum of credibility to their community. First, stop denying that Islamic Fascism is some small radical sect. That is substantially counter factual and insulting. Practitioners exist in a plurality of nations that house primarily Muslim populations. Next, cease the denials that Islam is a religion which does not teach forced conversion and using other violent means against non believers. We can all read history, scholarly opinion and the text itself. Finally, desist with the supercilious tonality of your statements. It betrays an enormous choleric disposition and disdain for Western concepts such as freedom, democracy and human rights. One final peace of free advice. Research your religions text and history holistically. Once that study is done, you will probably never call Islam the religion of peace again. That is just a sycophantic platitude repeated by the willfully ignorant or purposely deceitful.
Flame away, because I know the response will be vitriol and name calling
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Excellent link to the post (I thought so reading it the first time).
First, let me be clear I am not a biggot and have no issue with Muslim's that engage in peaceful pursuits. As indicated here, I think it would be counterproductive to engage in holistic pejorative labeling.
However, to deny these egregious offenses are not primarily associated with Muslims is nonsensical pablum. Accordingly, the profiling is a sagacious exercise in self defense that helps exploit a common identity. Now conversely (as I believe you pointed out) they are not the only group that should be examined. Id est.; Nazis were obviously German, but had numerous ideological collaborators. Accordingly, we should not miss the fact that others may assist their endeavors. We should therefore use secondary levels of screening to insure completeness. Incidentally, I believe this aptly describes our current modus operandi which is obviously effective.
Furthermore, agreed the variegated adjective use does not help their cause. Qualified statements, or unqualified as it may be, are revealing of either a complete misunderstanding of the holistic situation or a deliberate parochial attempt to mislead the uninformed.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
they say things like hom much they decry the killing of all innocents, without defining what "innocents" means?
This is just more of the same rhetoric from the Muslim community. Did you every notice they always avoid answering questions...
Whenever there is some terrorist attack by Muslims, it seems to be followed by the obligatory statement from the CAIR types that they decry all killing of innocents. What's left unsaid is that the people killed were not "innocents" as far as they are concerned, because they weren't Muslims. So what they're really saying is that anything the US and Israel does is wrong (i.e. truly killing of innocents) and the rest is okay.
At least that's my take, but I admit some amount of bias.
...but all I ever hear from CAIR is the warning "not to judge all Muslims by this, blah, blah, blah." If they do decry the killing of said "innocents," then I guess I've just turned off and walked away in disgust by that point.
This is an example of why we need to gen up political support for a Jihad Sedition law. Those who find no expansionist elements in Islam will certainly have no objection to a law which targets only those who seek an new Islamic caliphate and the submission of all to Islam through whatever means including violence.
John E.
The most glaring thing about this is that they call for an apology from the Muslim student group on behalf of all muslims. That's absolutely innapropriate, and absolutely out of line. Do we ask German students to apologize for Hitler? Do we ask Japanese students to apologize for Pearl Harbor? How about Viatnamese students for the war in Vietnam? Any white males on here want to apologize for being white and being male?
It would be great if worldwide leaders did renounce their extremists, but it does NOT have to be done by US college students, and calling them out to apologize IS predujiced, and is innapropriate.
How about they put an end to the sophistry and factually discuss the issues? Why don’t they make a simple statement which intellectually responds, and states non violent operative principals of Islam? For example, describing how these attacks are in opposition to Muslim principals and an egregious violation of doctrine. It would commence some personal responsibility or indicate an effort to redefine their religion, although without that qualification it would be more sophism.
Instead they present a non sequitur which ends in talking about the writer’s ignorance. Frankly, they have exposed their own shallow lack of eruditeness on the subject, hence Jeff’s point in the story.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
They seem to wear bomb belts.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Like I said in an earlier diary, a big problem we face here is the left's incorporation of Muslims, Arabs, and Persians into their standard 'minority' schtick.
We need to marginalize CAIR, deride these wacko student groups as what they are, and demolish this collectivist nonsense that is central to the left's worldview.
Then when we ruthlessly attack Islamofascists and their sympathizers, the collateral damage will be mitigated.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.