"Here we go again." A Northern Iowan Opinion Columnist wrote an article Nov. 17 titled "The real power of prayer" using the cut-and-paste technique to blasphemously spew a very apparent personal hatred toward Islam and Muslims.
The verses he quoted were taken out of context without any studying of neither its historic revelation nor why it was revealed. Had the writer continued reading, he would have found several verses that urge Muslims to forgive, pardon, suppress anger and treat others in a most peaceful and dignified way, even if they differed in opinion or belief.
The saddening aspect of this article is that it is published in a presumably educational newspaper affiliated with a great university such as the University of Northern Iowa. Our readers expect that "opinion columnists" would have at least done some research and studied the topic they are writing about.
Freedom of opinion is of course a churched aspect of any newspaper. However, if the techniques used to degrade others are based only on a cut-and-paste method without real fact-finding, then the intention of the writer should be questioned. I suggest that the writer of this article study what Islam is all about before using the cut-and-paste technique again to express his personal hatred.
Finally, I think the NI newspaper should apologize to the Muslim faculty, students and community at large for allowing such unprofessional, unsubstantiated or founded allegations against one of the most widely and peaceful religions in our world today.
Mohammed Fahmy, Professor
The real truth about prayer
Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009
Updated: Thursday, December 10, 2009 12:12
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To bring this all back together, you and Trevor seem to be buying into the syllogism of a violent Islam, which taps into “the contemporary American culture of Xenophobia / Racism” of post 9-11 America. It isn’t completely ignorance, but it is incredibly twisted logic. Furthermore, it is twisted logic that was published by the Northern Iowan. That is where this becomes more than just bad thinking, it becomes something that requires an apology.Finally, though I appreciate you, Trevor, and all of UNIFI’s dedication to freedom of speech, I think you all are overstepping your boundaries as “free thinkers.” In this particular example and in Blasphemy Day as well, UNIFI is using freedom of speech as a way to legitimate their intolerance of other people’s expression. Unless you are advocating some sort of anarchistic freedom of speech that trumps all other forms of freedom (which the United States does not advocate: see Roth v. United States, 1957) you don’t seem to be doing “free thinking” any justice. Moreover, by calling the Koran the problem, in addition to violating Islamic and cultural practices of not portraying Mohammed, you are attempting to enforce your own standards of “free thinking” upon a culture that has its own separate identity by denying said culture’s legitimacy. This is the same thinking that has proliferated recently and that permeates modern racist rhetoric (hence my use of racism as an umbrella term).Though I am an advocate of free speech and believe that such portrayals should be allowed, that does not give me the right to attack other people’s cultures, opinions, or religions, or in the case of race, a race’s unique history or traditions. This is what Blasphemy was doing, and this is why it was so heavily opposed on the UNI campus. “Free thinking” should be an open forum receptive to all types of thinking, where everyone should feel welcome and “free” to express and discuss their ideas. What it should not be is a close-minded group of individuals that believe their manner of thinking is the only right one, no matter how frenzied their supplications to the gospel of free speech. Though we seem to be arguing roughly the same thing, and my digressions may have overemphasized the place of Trevor's article in the rhetoric of UNIFI, I do think the actions of UNIFI, your defense of Trevor here, and the ideology used for Blasphemy Day should analyzed once more. UNIFI is an excellent idea for a group; it's just that its recent actions and spokespersons seem to have indicated otherwise.
(Part 1)
I think my use of racism rather than a more applicable word may have confused you a bit. What if we avoid my mistake in terminology and instead replace it with "religious intolerance" or "xenophobia" (as I used later in my comment)? Clearly I didn't mean racism in the fullest sense of the word - race in my interpretation does not make sense. Perhaps, to clarify, I should restate my opinions that were obfuscated in my previous comment’s whimsical satire of your opening paraphrase of J.S. Mill.Both you and Trevor seem to be arguing the same thing. Islam is used to legitimate violence, apparently more than any other concept, and thus something should be done about it. However, there is a very large difference between writing Islam can be used for violence and writing that because Islam creates some terrorism it is therefore "the problem.”Now you aren't going to find me arguing against the use of "Islam" to moralize violence. Islam is a very salient example of a concept being used to call for violence, much the same as Christianity was used during the “Troubles” in Ireland (5,000 deaths over 40 years), international security and morality was used for the war in Iraq (conservative estimate: 100,000 deaths over 6 years) and how rationality was used for the forced sterilization of ~60,000 people in 1900s America. However, conceptual violence is not the same thing as the concept that seemingly calls for it. People who commit violence are using the above concepts: religion, security, rationality, as engines to express other desires. The Troubles are an example of religion being used to call for freedom, the Iraq war is an example of vigilante world police, imperialism, or ethnocentrism (democracy is #1!) depending on your opinion, while the Eugenics movements were class and labor anxieties made into law.In other words, people use concepts like religion to attack, or support, systems of power in our lives. Violent actions are just salient examples of such – but at no point are these actual expressions of what each idea is. Yes, Islam is used to make gender oppression natural, freedom of speech significantly less free and allows various other institutions to operate that both you and I oppose. However, Islam itself is not at fault, how it is used is. (Furthermore, its stance on gender and speech, although interesting enough to warrant further discussion, is irrelevant to this conversation.)Although it is here that you caution me against my interpretations of universally accepted interpretations of jihad and the Koran (and subsequently go on to make your own interpretations later in your comment), I have my own warning for you. Disjointed Internet-age citations do not do justice to abstract ideas, especially those that come from antiquated texts that require official interpretations (you mentioned the Hadith as one of these). Trevor’s quoting from an internet source misconstrues the issue of jihad in one citation and blatantly omits “to the angels” in his second. Your citation, on the other hand, is bracketed on both sides by paragraphs immediately calling for peace and tranquility. Ironically, you’re quoting what I mentioned above, the use of religion to allow violence in a historical source. I’m sure you’re aware of the violent beginnings of Islam in Mecca and Medina, or the Christian struggles against Canaan. These aren’t passages that can be used to allow violence, especially not violence again the other “peoples of the book,” i.e. Christianity and Judaism, that the Koran repeatedly mentions as brothers. They are passages that are using religion as an engine to explain contemporary hegemonic desires.
To bring this all back together (ironic lolz), you and Trevor seem to be buying into the syllogism of a violent Islam, which taps into that "contemporary American culture of Xenophobia / Racism” that I mentioned earlier. It isn’t completely ignorance, but it is incredibly twisted logic. Furthermore, it is twisted logic that was published by the Northern Iowan in an atmosphere that is incredibly negative toward Islam. That is where this becomes more than just bad thinking, it becomes something that requires an apology.Finally, though I appreciate you, Trevor, and all of UNIFI’s dedication to freedom of speech, I think you all are overstepping your boundaries as “free thinkers.” In this particular example and in Blasphemy Day as well, UNIFI is using freedom of speech as a way to legitimate their intolerance of other people’s expression. Unless you are advocating some sort of anarchistic freedom of speech that trumps all other forms of freedom (which the United States does not advocate: see Roth v. United States, 1957) you don’t seem to be doing “free thinking” any justice. Moreover, by calling the Koran the problem, in addition to violating Islamic and cultural practices of not portraying Mohammed, you are attempting to enforce your own standards of “free thinking” upon a culture that has its own separate identity by denying said culture’s legitimacy. This is the same thinking that has proliferated recently and that permeates modern racist rhetoric (hence my use of racism as an umbrella term).Though I am an advocate of free speech and believe that such portrayals should be allowed, that does not give me the right to attack other people’s cultures, opinions, or religions, or in the case of race, a race’s unique history or traditions. This is what Blasphemy was doing, and this is why it was so heavily opposed on the UNI campus. “Free thinking” should be an open forum receptive to all types of thinking, where everyone should feel welcome and “free” to express and discuss their ideas. What it should not be is a close-minded group of individuals that believe their manner of thinking is the only right one, no matter how frenzied their supplications to the gospel of free speech. Though we seem to be arguing roughly the same thing, and my digressions may have overemphasized the place of Trevor's article in the rhetoric of UNIFI, I do think the actions of UNIFI, your defense of Trevor here, and the ideology used for Blasphemy Day should analyzed once more. UNIFI is an excellent idea for a group; it's just that its recent actions and spokespersons seem to have indicated otherwise.
1. Trevor's article (hereafter TBA) is tapping into the incipient racism of Islam as a religion of violence, and syllogistically calling for the removal of its legitimacy as a religion.
2. This is wrong because of:
I: "cut and paste" techniques (referring to the use of an inaccurate internet source to quote out of context Qur'an citations. For more on this misuse, look up the citations in your local, academically published Qur'an)
II: blatant mistranslations of the fundamental practice of "fighting" which instead translations to "jihad" or "striving against oneself, to better oneself." (again tapping into Islam as religion of violence)
III: Ethics. Both of journalistic and the fundamental human sort.
IV: The Contemporary American Culture of Xenophobia / Racism (returning to heading 1)
3. Due to TBA's inherent ignorance of Islamic beliefs, its laughable assumption that Islam is a religion of violence, and the ethics assumed to be possessed by any newspaper, TBA should not have been published.Thus, the issue here is not an attack upon the venerable tenant of America's freedom of speech, as your skillful appropriation of the article seems to imply, but rather, ignorant journalism, misrepresentations of truth and the NI's culpability as publisher. What the issue is here, is when freedom of speech is used to legitimize arguments that have little to no merit in public discouse.Any intelligent person could construct the argument that religion, or really any idea, can be used by certain individuals to legitimize unsavory actions. But assuming that, because certain people appropriate an idea for ill that therefore makes said idea inherently wrong, that is illogical (Furthermore, this is the very point that Professor Fahmy is making). TBA was an article that could have taken that path, but instead chose to appeal toward xenophobic thought by choosing Islam as its target. By choosing Islam, TBA became less about the idea of religion being appropriated by fundamentalists, and more about his "very apparant personal hatred toward Islam and Muslims."This is what is not needed in the "open marketplace of ideas" that the Northern Iowan represents. Ignorance is not an idea that belongs in my dear marketplace. Especially not ignorance that calls for the repudiation of a specific religious text.Finally, I have to disagree with your postulation that "the violent consequences that result from fundamentalism should not be ignored, especially in the case of Islam." What makes Islam any different from any other idea? Was the rationality championed by the eugenics movements of the 1900s any less despicable? I think you may be treading dangerous moral waters here. Perhaps you could clarify, if not for yourself, for at least my sake?
-George MacDonald
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