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Emory Wheel – February 27, 2007
GA: The wheel prints hate against Islam
Sharefa Aria, Ridwan Khan, Huma Mirza and Aneel Naeem
What is the difference between the Internet hate site jihadwatch.com and the Wheel? Not much, if you read Robert Spencer's commentary on the Wheel's decision to run an advertisement equating jihad with bigotry against non-Muslims, women and homosexuals ("A Bestselling Author Offers a Different Definition of Jihad," Feb. 20).
It is apparent that Muslims, including Emory's sizable Muslim community, have become the new "other" - a scapegoat for terrorism, war, cavities and whatever other ills currently plague society.
What other community could be compared to Mussolini's black shirts or the Nazis with impunity on the pages of a major university newspaper? Were the same things said about Zionists, the paper would understandably baulk about running such material. Evidently it is acceptable, however, to print such work attacking Muslims.
When talking about Spencer, for example, the Wheel demurred from printing the entire title of his book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. As is evident from that title, Spencer has no academic background in Islam, but is rather a polemicist whose expertise is in Islamophobia. Spencer's specious arguments and David Horowitz's original ad use cherry-picked quotes without any context to stigmatize a community, which comprises nearly one-fifth of our world population.
When the Wheel first ran Horowitz's ad, we believed that the paper's staff simply prioritized revenue before civic duty. However, running Spencer's editorial suggests a more active agenda to malign Islam and hurt the Emory Muslim community. To see the kind of hate Spencer spawns and which the Wheel facilitates, one need not go further than the comments section of the newspaper's website. Like-minded bigots across the country congratulate Spencer for exposing "barbaric" Islam, while another claims Islam is not "religion, but a mental illness." Is this the kind of discourse with which we wish to define Emory?
For both the Wheel's record as well as Mr. Spencer's, we'd like to say that we are Muslims, and being maligned by the Wheel is unacceptable. It is our very Islamic beliefs that command us not to threaten or transgress against our fellow man, but rather to be productive members of both the Emory and greater human communities. No Muslim at Emory is proud of Al-Qaeda, but at the same time we can distinguish between the religion and those who exploit it for political motives. This kind of exploitation is not relegated just to terrorists, but is also used by Islamophobes like Spencer - and now the Wheel - to erroneously smear every Muslim.
The core issue is simple. Like Fox News' madrasah debacle, the Wheel has taken it upon itself to recast the Arabic language. To set the record straight, jihad is any struggle, and the greatest jihad is to improve one's self. It is a process that both Emory University and the Wheel should take part in.
It is time for the University to reevaluate its relationship with the Wheel. The simple fact is that as long as there is a school newspaper, it will represent the whole of Emory. Student newspapers at Georgia Tech, New York University and other schools have reflected the bravery and good sense of their communities by refusing to run the ad in the first place. Such material does as much a disservice to Emory as an institution as it does to the Emory Muslim community.
It is incumbent on the administration to take more responsibility for the Wheel, as the newspaper, and even the advertising it runs, is a reflection on our entire community.
[Sharefa Aria is a College senior from Norcross, Ga. Ridwan Khan is a College senior from Lawrenceville, Ga. Huma Mirza is a College junior from Lilburn, Ga. She is president of the Muslim Student Association. Aneel Naeem is a College senior from Lawrenceville, Ga.]
http://media.www.emorywheel.com/media/storage/paper919/news/2007/02/27/Editorials/The-Wheel.Prints.Hate.Against.Islam-2744335.shtml
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