The week in rewind...
assalamualaikum wa rahmatullah,
one of the most....draining/amazing/frustrating weeks everrr....
read below:
Prayer and Protest
By Sarah Brummett
Contributing Writer
March 30, 2006
More than 40 students from the NYU’s Islamic Center gathered in the Kimmel Center’s lobby yesterday for a teach-in to discuss their reactions to the controversial Danish cartoons that were supposed to be displayed at a panel discussion held inside the building.
The students originally planned to protest the presentation of the cartoons, but the event’s sponsor, the Objectivist Club, decided to only display blank panels after NYU demanded that it close the event off to the public if it chose to display the cartoons.
For several days before the event, the Islamic Center was in contact with NYU officials requesting that the cartoons not be displayed because members believe the images were racist, promoted religious intolerance and perpetuated hatred, Islamic Center president Maheen Farooqi said.
One of the goals of NYU’s Objectivist Club is “to provide a receptive atmosphere for individuals interested in learning about Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism,” according its website, nyu.objectivismonline.net. Since the eruption of the Danish Cartoon controversy, the Ayn Rand Institute has begun a “Free Speech Campaign” of panel discussions at universities, like this one hosted by the Objectivist Club.
“You don’t have to have images like these to talk about [freedom of speech],” Farooqi said.
She added that Muslim students were also concerned that the display of the images at the public event would possibly incite violence against members of NYU’s Muslim community. Prior to the event, Islamic Center students bought hundreds of tickets to the event to restrict outside attendance, but when the Objectivists pulled the cartoon’s presentation, they agreed to give back all the tickets so that they could be sold to members outside of the NYU community, Farooqi said.
“We don’t support these images, but we do support the dialogue,” Farooqi said. “We do want to talk about it — we don’t want to just leave ourselves out of it.”
Muslim students were joined in their protests by students from NYU’s Antiwar Network and the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life.
“These racist stereotypes of Muslims are being used to justify violence,” Antiwar Network member Elizabeth Wrigley-Field said.
Figures from other groups on campus shared solidarity with the Jewish and Muslim students, including Rabbi Yehudah Sarna of the Bronfman Center, who spoke to the group and said that “the freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to listen.”
Group members said they supported the Islamic Center’s efforts based on their own experience with religious intolerance, hatred and violence.
“This is an emotional moment for me, too — as a Jew, as someone who understands where you’re coming from,” Sarna said.
The teach-in ended with Sarna reciting evening prayers alongside Muslim students outside Kimmel within the protection of police barricades.
After the prayers ended, many of the Muslim students attended the panel discussion.
CAS junior Muniba Hassan said the panel discussion turned out to be worse than she and other protesters suspected it would be.
“We didn’t think they were going to make these generalizations and broad comments on Islam,” Hassan said. “This was very unfair to Muslims.”
People are afraid to address the cartoons, and we shouldn’t have to worry about skirting sensitive issues, said panelist Jonathan Leaf, the resigned editor of the New York Press.
“We lose ability to talk to Muslims and express to them that people around the world are afraid of Islamic violence,” Leaf said.
CAS junior James Ferguson said that many of his worst fears about the event had been confirmed.
“I feel tricked into coming,” Ferguson said. “The flyer said it was about free speech, and a third of the time they talked about Islam and didn’t have any Muslims to give their side.”
Ferguson said one man even asked him if Osama Bin Laden was his hero.
“I was shocked,” Ferguson said. “I didn’t think stereotypes would get that far out of hand. I lost family members in 9/11 — I was very offended by the question. It was living proof that this lecture had everyone hating Muslims.”
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Cartoon choice backfires
by WSN Staff
March 30, 2006
If you’re really that curious, it’s not too difficult to do a Google search to find the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad that have caused so much uproar in the past few months. Not content with that, the NYU Objectivist Club, during a panel discussion on the cartoons last night, planned on having the 12 cartoons on display.
While news of this understandably upset Muslim groups on campus, with some level of compromise, the event could have been an enlightening and helpful discussion on the cartoons and the root of the initial controversy. Instead, after an entire day of negotiations with NYU’s administration, the group decided not to show them at all. In lieu of an educational and informative panel discussion, it turned into a tense and hostile airing of the speakers’ indignation that ultimately contributed nothing.
Freedom of speech — as has been pointed out ad infinitum since the controversy began — extends to the freedom to insult and offend. At an Objectivists’ event, they had the right to display whatever they want without bending to opponents.
The Islamic Center, however, offered a number of alternatives to simply not showing the cartoons, and it would have easily been possible to arrange to show them for a short time, so those who would be offended wouldn’t have to look at them. Displaying the cartoons all night would have completely driven devout Muslims from the event, which would have narrowed the scope of the debate even further. And although, as one panelist mentioned, hate speech is certainly protected by the First Amendment, the hostility it engenders is anathema to a constructive discussion on the issue. Some of the panelists’ more outrageous and offensive statements about Islam is testament to such a statement.
It seems unfortunate that, even with assistance from a third party, they were still unable to work out a mutually beneficial agreement that would have allowed for a more balanced debate. As a result, everyone lost out. It ended up dealing less with the actual issue at hand and more with the panelists’ anger at having their toy taken away.
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I will post my comments later... (maybe)
posted by Iqra Bismi Rabbika @ 10:25 PM
Comments: 5
