Will D. I. publish it?
Reader comment on item: Letter to the Editor of the Daily Illini

Submitted by Student from IL (United States), Dec 9, 2003 at 15:42

Dear Dr. Pipes,

The question is: will Daily Illini even publish your (much too polite) letter?

Please rest assured that my request for anonymity derives from my being a foreign student in this country rather than from any deep-seated cowardness.

I don't agree with everything some people in your camp, if not you yourself, say and fight for. In my opinion, intelligent center-conservative people should not throw out the baby with the water, and should not use September 11th as an excuse to enact unfair, global anti-immigrational/foreign students policies. It is rather likely that most people affected by the said policies will be innocent people willing to study and create, rather than "do Jihad" on Americans. (The Jihadists will find other ways to penetrate American borders anyway, unfortunately.) Some of them may be (potential) specialists in different fields, compelled by present policies to find refuge somewhere else and contribute to other societies' growth and well-being. The Bush administration seems not to distinguish enough between the -- despicable and dangerous, but few -- Jihadists and the bulk of the international students body. To speak the truth, at fault may also be the refusal, by most moderate (or moderation-claiming) Muslim students, to CLEARLY, GENUINELY and UNCONDITIONALLY speak up against the likes of Osama, Saddam, Yasser and his army of terrorism-condoning "Abu"s. While there must be plenty of utterly wonderful people among Muslims, they seem to be cautious, discreet, and too shy to speak up for decency. On the other hand, many of those Muslims who _are_ (even too!) vocal in agora seem to resent and reject any allusion to terrorism having anything to do with them, while always hinting at the terrorist agenda having some (if not all) valid points. An irresponsible manifestation of duplicity, which in the fullness of time can only further, were the truly moderate Muslims not to speak up, the cultural/political gaps already noticeable in American society.

All this being said, I was deeply ashamed by the unspeakably ugly & irrational ways in which Daily Illini chose to slander and vilify you. I read this newspaper for four years now and I've always found the I. Q. of the editorial/columnists crowd to shine at an amazing 200. When added up, that is. I used to laugh at the half-baked, inept blather pushed forward as "opinion" or even "editorial" piece. A bunch of self-important kids, one could see, historically illiterate, with a hardly-disguised radical agenda tainting each of their pathetic attempts to discourse. Whether they are to be labeled as agents of the "left" or of the "right" it doesn't really matter. Extremists are always the same, regardless of the last fashionable mask -- Nazi, Communist, Islamist or Anarchist -- they choose to wear.

In the past year or so though, Daily Illini became increasingly venomous and unamusing, in its almost open propaganda of hatred and racism. I couldn't believe my eyes when I've read all those childish and not-even-subtly-phrased lies meant to slander you. There surely are _arguments_, among yours, which could be reasonably contradicted with _arguments_. How thoroughly infantile, characterless, and intellectually weak a journalistic team needs to be as to resort to the type of character assassinations which would have made Julius Streicher proud? The burning Jewish star which adorned that editorial piece was the definitive proof that not "anti-Zionism", but sheer Jew-hatred is what animates and motivates radical activists such as the ones who hijacked the students' newspaper. One used to think Daily Illini could be useful at least in packing a sandwich -- one needs not to be an ecologist to think that a forest is a terrible thing to waste! -- but now there's too much dirt in it even for that.

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