I have a desire to take Norm, Chuck and Al and bang their bloody heads together
On the night of 11 September 2001, Al Dershowitz of Harvard law school exploded in anger. Robert Fisk, he roared over Irish radio, was a dangerous man. I was "pro-terrorist". I was "anti-American" and that, Dershowitz announced to the people of County Mayo, "is the same as anti-Semitic".
A standing wave in a rope fixed at its boundaries is an example of an eigenvector, or more precisely, an eigenfunction of the transformation giving the acceleration. As time passes, the standing wave is scaled by a sinusoidal oscillation whose frequency is determined by the eigenvalue, but its overall shape is not modified.
Dr. Muriel Walker, a professor of French language and literature at McMaster University recently organized an event on campus called "Hijab Day". In short, it was a show of solidarity with Muslim women, inviting non-Muslim women to don the Hijab for entire day to experience life in shoes of Muslim women who themselves becomes symbols of faith that is so oft-misunderstood and because of that, frequently subjected to hate and discrimination.
That is an effort we Muslims need to applaud. Dr. Walker did this entirely on her own. This wasn't something done in conjunction with any Muslim group on campus. This was her vision and was a product of her outstanding moral integrity. Unfortunately, the spirit of tolerance and diversity that Dr. Walker's exercise was promoting was attacked. On Monday morning, Professor Muriel came to her office door to see it covered with a garbage bag. Underneath it, anti-Muslim slurs and hate speech. And as though message wasn't already clear enough, the Danish cartoons of the Prophet (s) also were tapped to the door.
As Muslims we have a very important responsibility to stand up for our rights. These are the not the rights afforded to us by virtue of being Muslims or by Islam. No -- but our very basic inalienable rights based on our humanity. We cannot allow this to be passed in silence. To be noted in a book somewhere and kept from eyes and ears of the wider community. Silence in this case, amounts to an indifference towards the proliferation and nourishment of hate. Dr. Muriel stood for our cause, she organized an event whose benefit would accrue only to us--to our sisters, our mothers and our wives. We must stand with her, matching her integrity with our voice of support.
Our community leaders need to speak up against the Campus Services officials who failed to catalogue the evidence and university officials who have tried to keep this hush-hush. We need to come out in coalitions with our brethren of other faiths and culture groups to condemn these acts and allow to use these incidents as cases which strengthen our commitment to understanding and tolerance. Our frustration is shared universally, and to embrace that is to strengthen our cause and message.
There is no race, ethnicity or faith group for whom hate and discrimination is circulated with almost complete impunity save for Muslims. These are realities we are all familiar with and I'm sure we can collectively enumerate hundreds of examples of Islamophobia, its growth and strong presence in our workplaces and schools but our energy should be devoted entirely towards prevention and the elimination of this hate. And its moments like this, where we can utilize the new found attention and buzz that's been created and fill it with our voices. Our voices are the most effective now. Seminars and conferences, even public statements made at other times which may be more re-fined and more articulate neverhave the same impact. They are unable to stir up public outrage because the lights and attention are gone.
It is we who are responsible for our rights, we cannot depend on any other group of people, no matter how noble or reliable they are to defend us. We also must be clear that our anger and disappointment is simply with the existence of hate. Not with any other group of people or even any likely suspect. Our desire is not to pit ourselves against an aggressor but its educate and allow for the unlearning intolerance.
Write letters to Human Rights and Equity Services, ask for the incident report written at the scene by Campus Security Services and if a Police Report was filed by the university. We cannot and should not feel a sense of helplessness, that would amount to the worst tragedy of this entire episode. We must, and I emphasize must, voice our concerns to anyone who will listen, whether they like it or not. Amongst the many problems Muslims face -- economic uncertainty, education deficits and cultural discomfort -- the spread of overt and flagrant hate is the most pressing and more damaging. It was this type of treatment which was the norm during the 1930s for Jews all across Europe. They were routinely defiled and humiliated in open spaces with the approval of public officials. And it wasn't until we uncovered the masses of bodies at Auschwitz that the world began to regain its moral conscious. It is only upon God that we can lay our trust.
I implore all of you, if you care for this brotherhood and sisterhood which bonds us by principle, love and faith in God, you will serve it and -- you will protect it.
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