Dear editor,
In response to Geert Wilders visiting Temple, I am appalled that such an institution would invite such a bigot. His speech is not free speech but religious racism disguised as free speech. He exacerbates emotions and is indeed fueling the fire of hatred between Muslims and people of other faiths.
Not only does the public get a distorted image of Muslims and Islam, but also his pathetic 17-minute documentary propagates negative feelings to erupt against Muslims. These damaging images lead to intolerance and hate crimes. For the people of this faith, it frustrates and insults them to a deeper level.
If Mr. Wilders’ goal is to educate people and eradicate ignorance, he has not accomplished his objective. His statements, speech and documentary give nothing more than a negative, distorted and corrupt stereotype against Islam and Muslims. So, not only is the information incorrect, but it is misinforming and further propagates the already misconstrued image of this religion.
Islam is probably the most misunderstood religion, and when it comes to this particular religion, people are probably the most ignorant. Making radical statements and openly demonizing a religion is accomplishing nothing more than promoting religious racism in the name of free speech.
Ayesha Butt
Graduate Student
Ayesha, duh, don’t you know it is ok for Jews to preach hatred against muslims?
Who are the bigots?
“Hamas in their own voices”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i08L09V0_sg&feature=PlayList&p=545AE613E19ECE75&index=5
Extermination of Jews and Americans, who are the bigots?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKeAVBYAbn0&NR=1
Cute little girl indoctrinated to hate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg3m3t87-dk&feature=PlayList&p=545AE613E19ECE75&index=8
Jihad on Campus – Saudis’ Multi-Million Dollar PR Agenda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivMVgYixFEI
Jihad against Muslims who became Christians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nUuGoykIag&feature=related
Who are the bigots?
Temple News, are you going to ban this comment too and remove it as you did remove two other comments I posted replying to what Ayesha Butt and Professor Qaiser Abdullah wrote? Temple News, they have the right to express what they want and I do not, what is this?
Questions, questions, and more questions
Since when is another person’s opinion hate speech? Since when ignoring the truth to avoid conflict is called peace? Is silence peace or oppression? Then Cuba and Iran are “peaceful” because everyone is silent. How can anyone forget—just to have peace—the young girls killed by their fathers who believe in honor killings? It is better to be silent even knowing that there are thousands of girls screaming with terror? Ignoring evil acts is not peace and silence is not a solution. How can the feminist organizations deny what women go through under radical Islamic regimes? How many of the young students in socialist organizations know what it really means to live in a socialist country; you only know what you read, what you have heard, and what your professor has told you; but you have no idea of what you are promoting. How come that many who stand for social justice, stand only for the justice of some? This reminds me of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Therefore, everyone should care for the injustice against the victims of radical Islam.
Injustice, according to Islamic extremists is allowing the opponents to their violent acts and views to have freedom of speech, and to denounce their atrocities. Who is condemning the Muslim groups at the University of California in Irvine? These radicals attack this country and all that we are; they walk their campuses with signs that read, “Death to the Jews.” Who is condemning this hate speech? Where are the socialists, Muslims, feminists and other groups alike having their protest denouncing these events?
Now before MSA apologists pull out their canned answer (that the Koran doesn’t command honor killings), let’s review the evidence. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR4107
In the showcase “moderate” state of Jordan, penal code, Article 340 (hyperlinked above) states: “(a) He who discovers his wife, or one of his maharim [female relatives of such a degree of consanguinity as precludes marriage], while committing adultery with another man and kills, wounds, or injures one or both of them, is exempt from any penalty; (b) He who discovers his wife, or one of his sisters or female relatives, with another in an illegitimate bed, and kills, wounds, or injures [one or both of them] benefits from a reduction of penalty.”
The Jordanian Islamic Action Front (IAF) issued a fatwa that declared honor-killings are seen as favorable by Islam; male relatives should punish their female relatives and not leave this duty to the state. Ibrahim Zayd al-Kaylani, head of the IAF’s Ifta committee, said that a man who restrains himself from committing an honor killing, leaving this unpleasant burden to the government, “negates the values of virility advocated by Islam.” Article 340, Kaylani added, is based on “the Islamic principle that allows a Muslim to defend his honor, property, and blood.” Muhammad ‘Uwayda, dean of Zarqa University’s Shari’a College and a member of the lower house, stated that while the Shari’a does prohibit individuals from taking the law into their own hands, “cases where a man catches his wife committing adultery are the exception.” The IAF issued a fatwa to the effect that “canceling Article 340 would contradict the Shari’a.”
Thus, we see the showcase “moderate” state of Jordan has declared that honor-killings are part of Islamic dogma.
I do not intend to go into the range of legal doctrines circumscribing Muslim immorality laws. Suffice it to say, Westerners are well aware of the campaign to hide these (and other) shameful aspects of your religion of mysogyny.
In point of fact, it is Ayesha’s co-religionists (not Americans) who remain unaware of her moderate/rejectionist views forbidding “the action of force”— as evidenced by the ubiquity of this practice in Muslim cultures globally.
Muslims like Ayesha can chew the carpet and mutter the Koran until they’re blue in the face, hoping to discern truths from the illiterate, psychotic babblings of a dead false prophet. But don’t expect Westerners to waste our breath convincing her co-religionists.
Ayesha needs to refute her jihadist brethren (who typically don’t read the Badger Herald)— which shouldn’t be difficult in light of her insistence that Islamic teachings are “misunderstood.”
But despite a great deal of bluster, there is no large-scale organized movement of Muslims countering the jihadist doctrines— and no coherent moderate Muslim theology that teaches against jihad or the subjugation of women on Islamic grounds.
Islam’s sharia law system is ossified and unchangeable. The values put forward and acted upon by the culture of “honor killings” are mandated by the Koran and praised in the hadiths, Sira, and by hundreds of thousands of scholars and billions of Muslim voices that have exhorted death for immorality over the ages. Indeed, public execution of women for immorality (adultery, etc.) is commanded— and widely practiced in the Muslim world.
Instead of smugly lecturing Westerners, Ayesha should go to Gaza— or Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Paris banlieue, etc., ad nauseum— and try challenging her co-religionists about how honor killings misinterpret the Koran. Any guesses how long Ayesha’s apostacy would be tolerated?
“Honor killings is absolutely Islamic”
Good job!! Mr. or Mrs. without name. Many women under Islamic regimes will thank you.
Ayesha wouldn’t last an hour in Sadr City… thanks for lecturing us.
Geert Wilders is not a bigot. It’s Jew/Christian-hating Muslims who are the bigots. And Islam is a bigoted hate-filled War/Conquest political ideology.
Of course Mr. Wilders’s film and presentation are free speech – you just don’t like what he has to say, Muslim Ayesha.
Islam is a political ideology disguised as a religion.
Wilders presents the TRUTH about violent and vicious, hate-filled Islam, which is NOT “misunderstood.” Here’s Islam: Kill all non-Muslims until we rule. That’s Islam. Anyone who denies that is ignorant or just plain stupid.
Uh, Islam demonizes itself, Ayesha. Got that? Islam demonizes itself.
Of course this un-PC comment will probably be removed by the Orwellian Censorers’ at TN.