Posted on 10/30/2007 11:38:15 AM PDT by Posting
Islamo-fascism Awareness Week a success
October 29, 2007
By Thomas Walker Email Print Share Facebook Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Islamo-fascism Awareness Week is not about racism, bigotry, Islamo-phobia or a claim that all Muslims are radical and seek to harm those who don’t agree with them. It is to raise awareness about the growing group who are.
Islamo-fascists are a group whose deadly fascistic ideology has affected close to every country on the globe, made almost 9,000 attacks since September 11, 2001, and now kills about 1,300 people per year.
Many opponents of this event, which took place at nearly 100 university campuses nationwide, believe that it unduly links fascism with an entire religion.
If this is the case, Muslims should debunk this “myth” by opposing their radical brethren around the world who suppress women, honor kill, behead the infidel and murder moderate Muslims who oppose their bloodthirsty agenda.
The claims that this event is racist in nature is an elementary diversion of the clear argument being made — that there is an extreme brand of Islam posing a threat to anyone who defends freedom and humanity.
The College Republicans are not claiming that all Muslims are fascists.
Furthermore, the term Islamo-fascism was initially coined during the ‘90s by moderate Muslims struggling for democracy in Algeria. They were brutally oppressed and 150,000 were killed by militant Islamists.
Taking a look at the past few years, one can hardly help but be alarmed at the growing level of terrorism attributed to Muslim extremists.
From Asia to Africa to Europe to North America and, of course, the Middle East, this is a threat that we must understand and address.
Every attack, from the World Trade Center attacks, to London, to Bali, to Madrid, to Chechnya to growing levels of violence in the Philippines and Thailand seems to have the same common denominator.
One may argue that all these groups have different political concerns and the religious justification for their violence only explains part of a highly complex phenomenon.
While I don’t disagree that there are unique geopolitical and economic contexts and ulterior motives behind the diverse global geography of the extremism, there remains a similarity: In virtually all of these situations, the terrorists demonstrate a willingness to religiously justify violence to address political grievances. This is something that should concern everyone.
Another point of contention is by those who believe that because the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people, and since everyone already knows about the threat of terrorism, an event like this is unnecessary.
We do not feel that we are exaggerating the threat or inciting people to have a tainted view of all Muslims.
Our only point in hosting this week is to remind people of the conclusion of the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission Report: “Bin Laden and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: To them America is the font of all evil, the head of the snake, and it must be converted or destroyed.”
The fact that the majority of Muslims want to live in peace is irrelevant and ignores the reality that there are still a growing number of fanatics who are fighting in the name of Islam.
Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has stated clearly the goals of radical Islam: “Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.”
A final — and probably most convincing — point that many raise is that we cannot adequately address this issue unless we account for the role that U.S. foreign and economic policy, as well as past colonialism, plays in aggravating this issue.
I acknowledge that at times U.S. policies have not always served our best interests; however, one can hardly argue that our foreign intervention has always yielded negative results or even has always dealt with the Muslim world.
It is irresponsible for one to lay complete or even majority blame on Western imperialism, colonialism, Israel or economic liberalism because the reality of what we are witnessing around the world does not fit cleanly into this premise.
According to Samir Khalil Samir in Asianews “If it were true that Islamic terrorism was simply a reaction to Western injustices, then how do they explain the terrorism carried out against the Buddhists? Why then have Islamists slaughtered thousands of Buddhists in Thailand?”
Similarly, Shmuel Bar, in his book The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism, argues that “to treat Islamic terrorism as the consequence of political and socioeconomic factors alone would not do justice to the significance of the religious culture in which this phenomenon is rooted and nurtured.”
The eminence of this threat is made even more clear from the foiled attacks on the several airliners from London’s Heathrow airport to the six would-be-terrorists arrested before attacking U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix.
Islamo-fascism Awareness Week seeks to remind people that we still have an enemy that must be dealt with to protect the United States and the innocent all over the world.
[Reach columnist Tom Walker at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]
Awareness is a rare quality...
Islamo-fascism awareness week was followed with a front page and much inside page by the Muslim Student Association on how the "racists" need to be "educated" and become "aware" about "misconceptions." Here are two quotes: "This is a religion of peace, not a religion of terrorism. The killing of innocent civilians is not allowed" and my personal favorite:
“From the film it seemed as if Jihad meant only a ‘holy war,’ but there is a deeper meaning. It really means ‘struggle,’ and that can be applied to so many things in life, like, for instance, exercise,” Qadir said.
The next day, the paper had A "religion and politics" feature: a full-color front page on Muslims and politics (more of the same). The inside had a large section by a Hindu, one by a Muslim, and a skinny column by a liberal Christian who called all pro-Life conservatives "doctor killers."
Take for example beheading/chopping-organs I would call it an "exercise" alright just so "happens", which is a kind of "sport" by the religion of "inner struggle Jihad", not my type of gymnastic or the entire Judea-Christian culture's.
Washington State University in Pullman WA tried to shut it down...
The President of WSU was funding a group that is against it on the WSU campus...
http://palousitics.blogspot.com/2007/10/rumor-mill-could-it-be-again.html
Radical? To me that is fundamental to the religion.
Read the Koran and Hadith for further clarification and edification. - Tom
The next time that happens, you need to confront the people that publish the “racist” part, and ask them point blank what “race” Muslim are? You will get a bunch of deer-in-the-headlights looks. Watch in fun as the lights dawn upon their propagandized brains.
Good point
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