Posted on 03/02/2006 4:27:41 PM PST by crazyhorse691
CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — A student's column in the Oregon State University campus newspaper has prompted protests by Muslim students, who say it is offensive to their faith.
The piece headlined "The Islamic Double Standard" was written by OSU microbiology student Nathanael Blake and published in the Daily Barometer on Feb. 8.
The column accused Muslims of expecting special treatment after a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Riots over the cartoons amounted to "savagery," Blake said. "Bluntly put, we expect Muslims to behave barbarously," his column said.
On Thursday, about a dozen students — including members of Muslim and Arab student groups — held a vigil on the campus to protest both Blake's piece and the Danish cartoons.
They handed out flyers that stated "While staying loyal to the main values of freedom of expression that founded this country, we also feel the need to reflect on the values of tolerance and acceptance on this campus."
Among the students offended by the column was Nada Mohamed, a 20-year-old junior and the vice president of OSU's Muslim Student Association.
"It was amazing to me that they (the campus newspaper) were allowed to publish this kind of stuff," she told the Corvallis Gazette-Times.
"Tears were flowing out of my eyes as I was reading," she said. "I felt like somebody was ripping my heart out."
At the Daily Barometer, editors said e-mail and phone calls poured in. Senior editors have met with the Muslim Student Association.
"The pain that it caused ... did not subside with time," said DD Bixby, the Barometer's editor-in-chief. "It kind of just festered."
She said editors have been checking copy with Muslim students, and on Tuesday deleted one paragraph from a piece scheduled to be published the next day.
Bixby said her staffers are "all pretty much Oregon-type kids" who knew little about Islam and didn't foresee how people would respond to the column.
Blake said that he expected a reaction, but, "I didn't expect it to be this prolonged or this strong."
On Feb. 14, Nada Mohamed's brother, Aly Mohamed, who heads the university's Muslim Student Association, fired back with an op-ed piece titled, "Whose double standard? A response on Islam, Muslims."
"It is quite sad to see the Daily Barometer follow our less-than-civil European media outlets," Mohamed wrote. "There is a lack of distinction between orthodox Islamic values and the actions of a minority of Muslims."
On the same day, Bixby published a piece defending her columnist and the paper's decision to publish the column.
"For me," she wrote, "it would be journalistically irresponsible to only print columns with which no one disagreed."
___
Information from: Gazette-Times, http://www.gtconnect.com
As promised;
link to Blakes column;http://barometer.orst.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/02/08/43e9a83e2a5ed?in_archive=1
Link to response;http://barometer.orst.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/02/14/43f19fe10280d?in_archive=1
"Orthodox Muslim values" = kill all the infidels, especially
Jews and Christians.
The dirka dirkas need chill out and recognize that they're just fueling the flames against their faith by acting like dumbasses.
"our less-than civil European media"?
Beheadings and suicide bombers ARE considered civil?
If it were a fatwa that the earth is the center of universe - would it be blasphemy to state otherwise?
"It was amazing to me that they (the campus newspaper) were allowed to publish this kind of stuff," she told the Corvallis Gazette-Times.
"Tears were flowing out of my eyes as I was reading," she said. "I felt like somebody was ripping my heart out."
Muslim organizatons have learned and now know exactly how to play the American people. They now know that all they have to do for the least (what they consider) hint of an insult, universities, government orgs and any authority will fall all over themselves to apologize. This stuff creeps and one day we will wake up and a law will be passed making it a hate crime to critisize a muslim for anything.
This is the USA we still have freedom of the press and most anything can be printed by anyone. Get used to it.
OB
You're free to leave the country any time you like. Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.
Nuts.
Wonderful article.
Read it in full and a sampling of the comments too.
makes me wonder where are our youth in all this? What are their thoughts, their leanings?
How aware are they about jihad? And freedom? How brainwashed are they with leftist crap? Does anybody have any theories on the answers?
I hope so of you are reading some of the comments that folks are posting about this article. Most have email addresses and I'm sure they would like to hear your thoughts. ;)
Agree. The editor defends the column and the writer then admits to having Muslims pre-screen her articles for "Islam-o-correctness." No better than the gutless wonders of the American MSM too intimidated to stand with their fellow journalists in Denmark during their hour of need.
This works both ways and offers the moozies an opportunity to tolerate and accept, which they refuse 100% of the time.
Then she added
"It was amazing to me that they (the campus newspaper) were allowed to publish this kind of stuff,"...
Which proves once again that tolerance and acceptance is not a part of their way of life.
From the response:
It is somewhat ironic that although Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is considered to be the most influential person who has ever lived (Michael Hart), and Islam is the fastest growing religion, that it is still misrepresented. The Islamic faith is by and large understood in the West on a level that resembles the ignorance incurred by such groups as the KKK and the Nazis.
That barely deserves a response, but the west thinks of Islam in the same terms the Nazi thought of the Jews and the KKK thought of Blacks.
Jews didn't behead people, treat their women as chattel, subjugate people against their wills to give the Nazi's their excuse to murder them at will
I'm not even going to get into the black issue.
Here's how an American would have stated this: "While staying loyal to the main values of freedom of expression that founded our country..."
Heck yes! That rotten minority of Muslims is trying to shut down freedom of expression, while these orthodox types are...uh...trying...to...shut down freedom of expression. Hmm...here appears to be a distinction without a difference.
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