The Scary Truth
Reader comment on item: Letter to the Editor of the Daily Illini

Submitted by David Garipoli (United States), Dec 18, 2003 at 03:09

Dr. Pipes,

It is in a round-about way that I have come to find your website; over the years, through various sources, I have read your articles, and without noting the authors, have found them to be a beacon of REALITY in a sea of uneducated ignorance towards the topic or militant Islam.
What you have pointed out in this article, is something that I have seen at every campus I have attended. (I am currently working on my PhD in Chemical Engineering) As an undergrad, I witnessed militant Islam first-hand. Rallies were set up by a Palistinian group that essentially forced a Jewish speaker to cancel his presentation mid-speech. The palistinian group members then proceeded to deride police officers who came to halt the disruption, during which the group's leader noticed a Jewish name on one of the police officer's badges, and began to set the scene for a 'hate motivated' crime against himself. It sickened me how sensible rights fought for by the African-American community four decades ago were being abused and reused as a means to degrade others and stigmatize individuals on their 'list' as 'racists' or 'hate-mongers'. Furthermore, there was a writer for the student newspaper--funded through student fees, and published for 40,000 readers--for more than a year, who constantly--and I mean constantly--attacked the Jewish faith. When people of other races and religions joined in to ask him to stop his often ill-sourced spewing against Jews, he began to attack Christians, recalling grade school history of the Crusades and such.

Finally, as I predicted, he cracked, and his hatred spewed forth on what would be his last article: He spoke about how he had grown up in a rural part of the state, and "hated his redneck neighbors", and wished violence upon them, extreme violence. The article carried over to what I would expect to hear from a 20 year old Palestinian heading to the Jewish border with C4 strapped to his chest. It was disgusting, and he was finally fired. The moral of both of these stories--and how they tie into your article--is that these people were well masked behind what we American's nostaligcally, and respectfully recall as civil rights. The bottom line, I have discovered (I actually discovered this earlier, in 1999, when I spent some time in Hamburg on the very street where the 9/11 hijackers lived, not a nice place to be an American), is that militant Islam is crafty, and Left/Right wing students on college campuses are too involved in their politics and necessity to preserve their image to even attempt to uncover this problem. 'Multicultural Centers' on campus have become a haven for these people, stealing the stage from minorities that founded the centers--centers that were initially used for progressive and integrated progects on campus. Now these centers have become sources of funding (once again, from the wallets of the students) for Muslim speakers--almost entirely those speaking out against Israel, and the American government's foreign policy. As a side note, and proof that American law, freedom and social progression is being turned on its head by these individuals, I will point out that not one-not a single speaker-pointed out any problems with any of the governments in the middle east, or even remotely hinted that Arafat's billions in Swiss acounts were in any way in need of discussion. This was a clear sign to me that these people were not interested in objective discussion, as it should exist on college campuses. They were simply there to generate animosity.
Lastly, I was sorry to have read the blatantly ignorant articles written by the school newspaper mentioned in your article. But, I am not surprised, this type of junior-varisty journalism gets printed at nearly every college campus. Thankfully, many of these amateur, reactionist writers never make it in the real, working world of journalism.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.