An update on my post from yesterday. This is from Jihad Watch.
Perhaps some may have thought I may have gone a little over the top when I discussed "Jesus on a dartboard" at Rutgers University in New Jersey. But as if to prove the point a story has emerged from the same University over a matter of censorship followed by profuse apologies to the Muslim members of the student body over the "insensitivity" of publishing - shock! - a cartoon of Muhammad.
Remember that the American Muslim Students Association (MSA) is a proven Muslim Brotherhood organisation and that the Brotherhood's goal is "Civilisational Jihad" against the West (page down for English translation), which includes curtailing any free speech that can be construed as critical of Islam on the nonsensical basis that it is Islamophobic, or even "racist", thus becoming "hate speech". At the same time by no means all Muslim students in America (or anywhere else) are even aware that this is the goal of their Muslim student group - many of course have an entirely antithetical set of goals and fully support Western freedoms.
One has to wonder how our dear Muslim friends at Universities - all around America & New Zealand - like being treated as though they are afraid of an open exchange of ideas. Every other group copes with it - in fact the Christians seem to have no choice but to cope with it, because no such "sensitivity", "respect" or "honour" seems to come their way.
Are our Muslim friends really not able to cope with such things without resorting to violence? Isn't that kinda racist of us to treat them with such contempt by believing that they lack the intelligence or self control to rationally engage or register their disapproval without resorting to violence? If that's the case then we now really are stigmatising the Other and treating them like lesser beings.
Make no mistake, as I said yesterday, behind all this "respect" for one particular religion - to the exclusion of all others - is plain old Fear. Fear of being attacked, either with words ("disrespect my beliefs", not "inclusive," not caring about "my important beliefs") or through lawsuits, or - always in the back of the mind these days - physically.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
On Jihad Watch Robert Spencer writes:~
"The April 5, 2016 issue of The Gleaner, the student paper of Rutgers University–Camden, published a cartoon of Muhammad, Buddha and Jesus in a bar. Then the April 19 issue of The Gleaner contained a letter from the Muslim Brotherhood campus group, the Muslim Students Association, saying that it found the image offensive and asking The Gleaner to remove the image from the April 5 issue and recirculate that issue without it. The MSA letter claims that Christians and Jews on campus told MSA members that they, too, found the image offensive.
The MSA letter states: “Even though freedom of speech and press is emphasized and is something all of us value as proud Americans, the University prides itself on diversity of people of different faith and backgrounds so we feel that it is necessary to respect those faiths and backgrounds by honoring their beliefs.”
The April 19 Gleaner also contains a response to the MSA letter, written by Christopher Church, the Editor-in-Chief of The Gleaner. Church apologizes to the MSA and agrees to meet with it “so that we can rectify this issue and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” He also agrees to remove any copies of the offending April 5 issue from the Gleaner boxes around campus and destroy them.
The Jihad Watch reader who alerted me to this sums up what is wrong here:
1. Freedom of speech is a Constitutional right. It is not negated by someone’s taking offense. This could have been and should have been a chance for Rutgers and The Gleaner to explain why the freedom of speech must be protected as our fundamental bulwark against tyranny, and why that means that we must all learn to put up with material that offends us.
2. Once a group’s feeling offended is taken as decisive, it may begin to take offense at other aspects of campus life it finds offensive. In the MSA’s case, it may begin getting offended at men and women sharing classrooms or coeds wearing tight jeans on campus.
3. In light of the violent attacks on those who have depicted Muhammad, The Gleaner by removing the image is bowing to the implicit threat of violence — which only in the long run encourages more violence. Rutgers’ Art Library recently featured an “artwork” depicting Jesus on a dartboard. It was ultimately removed, but not because it offended Christians. No one cares if Christians are offended: Rutgers officials know that offended Christians won’t murder them. Their solicitousness toward the MSA, by contrast, reveals that they know offended Muslims might very well kill them, and rather than stand up for the freedom of speech and against this kind of bullying, they signal their willingness to surrender and fall into line, accepting Sharia restrictions on speech."
Yep. That pretty much sums it up.
Copies of the letter to the editor and the editor's response are on the Jihad Watch page and are worth reading to see how these pivotal matters are couched in terms of respect and inclusion. Good wee lesson for us.
Perhaps some may have thought I may have gone a little over the top when I discussed "Jesus on a dartboard" at Rutgers University in New Jersey. But as if to prove the point a story has emerged from the same University over a matter of censorship followed by profuse apologies to the Muslim members of the student body over the "insensitivity" of publishing - shock! - a cartoon of Muhammad.
Remember that the American Muslim Students Association (MSA) is a proven Muslim Brotherhood organisation and that the Brotherhood's goal is "Civilisational Jihad" against the West (page down for English translation), which includes curtailing any free speech that can be construed as critical of Islam on the nonsensical basis that it is Islamophobic, or even "racist", thus becoming "hate speech". At the same time by no means all Muslim students in America (or anywhere else) are even aware that this is the goal of their Muslim student group - many of course have an entirely antithetical set of goals and fully support Western freedoms.
One has to wonder how our dear Muslim friends at Universities - all around America & New Zealand - like being treated as though they are afraid of an open exchange of ideas. Every other group copes with it - in fact the Christians seem to have no choice but to cope with it, because no such "sensitivity", "respect" or "honour" seems to come their way.
Are our Muslim friends really not able to cope with such things without resorting to violence? Isn't that kinda racist of us to treat them with such contempt by believing that they lack the intelligence or self control to rationally engage or register their disapproval without resorting to violence? If that's the case then we now really are stigmatising the Other and treating them like lesser beings.
Make no mistake, as I said yesterday, behind all this "respect" for one particular religion - to the exclusion of all others - is plain old Fear. Fear of being attacked, either with words ("disrespect my beliefs", not "inclusive," not caring about "my important beliefs") or through lawsuits, or - always in the back of the mind these days - physically.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
On Jihad Watch Robert Spencer writes:~
"The April 5, 2016 issue of The Gleaner, the student paper of Rutgers University–Camden, published a cartoon of Muhammad, Buddha and Jesus in a bar. Then the April 19 issue of The Gleaner contained a letter from the Muslim Brotherhood campus group, the Muslim Students Association, saying that it found the image offensive and asking The Gleaner to remove the image from the April 5 issue and recirculate that issue without it. The MSA letter claims that Christians and Jews on campus told MSA members that they, too, found the image offensive.
The MSA letter states: “Even though freedom of speech and press is emphasized and is something all of us value as proud Americans, the University prides itself on diversity of people of different faith and backgrounds so we feel that it is necessary to respect those faiths and backgrounds by honoring their beliefs.”
The April 19 Gleaner also contains a response to the MSA letter, written by Christopher Church, the Editor-in-Chief of The Gleaner. Church apologizes to the MSA and agrees to meet with it “so that we can rectify this issue and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” He also agrees to remove any copies of the offending April 5 issue from the Gleaner boxes around campus and destroy them.
The Jihad Watch reader who alerted me to this sums up what is wrong here:
1. Freedom of speech is a Constitutional right. It is not negated by someone’s taking offense. This could have been and should have been a chance for Rutgers and The Gleaner to explain why the freedom of speech must be protected as our fundamental bulwark against tyranny, and why that means that we must all learn to put up with material that offends us.
2. Once a group’s feeling offended is taken as decisive, it may begin to take offense at other aspects of campus life it finds offensive. In the MSA’s case, it may begin getting offended at men and women sharing classrooms or coeds wearing tight jeans on campus.
3. In light of the violent attacks on those who have depicted Muhammad, The Gleaner by removing the image is bowing to the implicit threat of violence — which only in the long run encourages more violence. Rutgers’ Art Library recently featured an “artwork” depicting Jesus on a dartboard. It was ultimately removed, but not because it offended Christians. No one cares if Christians are offended: Rutgers officials know that offended Christians won’t murder them. Their solicitousness toward the MSA, by contrast, reveals that they know offended Muslims might very well kill them, and rather than stand up for the freedom of speech and against this kind of bullying, they signal their willingness to surrender and fall into line, accepting Sharia restrictions on speech."
Yep. That pretty much sums it up.
Copies of the letter to the editor and the editor's response are on the Jihad Watch page and are worth reading to see how these pivotal matters are couched in terms of respect and inclusion. Good wee lesson for us.
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