Islamo-Facist Awareness Week
David Horowitz is campaigning for college republicans around the nation to host an event he calls “Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week.” He claims that we are forgetting the message and impact of 9/11 and that this week will give college students a better understanding of terrorism and what is at stake in the 21st century.
Actually, what he proposes sounds more like racism once you start to investigate. It seems David just couldn’t stand the fact that Americans aren’t terrified of the vague, exaggerated threat of Islam anymore and are actually starting to realize just what freedoms we have given up over the last six years.
David here would rather we focused on the evil Muslim than worry about children’s health-care or the fact that AT&T rolled over and illegally gave Bush all your phone records for the last six years.
Most awareness weeks focus on the plight of something or someone. Domestic Violence awareness week focuses on the plight of the men and women that are affected by spousal/partner abuse. Breast cancer awareness focuses on educating people on those who have suffered from breast cancer and helps people diagnose and get treatment if they get cancer someday. All of these awareness weeks focus on helping those who have suffered.
IFAW instead focuses on Muslims and the evils of Islam and tries to frighten people about the so-called “truths of Islam.” One of the points of IFAW is educating students about the “lie of peaceful Islam.” According to the briefing pamphlet, college republican groups are to debunk the myth and lie that Islam is peaceful by quoting choice excerpts of the Koran.
This of course is irrefutable proof of the evil of Islam, since if you quoted the Bible with choice excerpts you could also show how Christianity is not a religion of peace and worship of Jesus Christ. This is just a shallow and poorly hidden attempt to paint every Muslim as a terrorist and make America afraid again.
IFAW also has a list of selected documentaries that David Horowitz believes are educationally valid and factually correct. Unfortunately the networks that were going to run the documentaries pulled all of them because they were so extreme and error-ridden that if they had ran the program the network would have lost all journalistic credibility.
Instead, Horowitz wants colleges to air them and get by that whole fact versus opinion thing. “It’s always easier to make your point when you don’t have to check whether or not what you are saying is actually true,” must be a Republican motto.
Finally, IFAW adds more fuel to the fire by throwing down the gauntlet to Muslim Student Organizations. The information pamphlet on the website gives an open invitation to all Muslim Student Associations to prove that they are truly for peace with non-Muslims by condemning Islam and Islam terrorists for the violent criminals they are.
I think its just sick and disgusting that a student of Islamic faith comes to the United States for a college education and then has to somehow prove that he is not a terrorist by condemning his home country. Maybe we should make all Catholics take an oath testifying to the fact that they will not listen to the teachings of the Vatican because the Vatican is not the government of America.
Thankfully, NDSU is fair and open enough to not be celebrating this weeklong satire of open debate and awareness. The sad thing is that there are more than 200 colleges in the country that are not.
Nathan is a junior studying mathematics.