Opinion & Commentary:
College kids' counter protest is cause for concern

By Harry Glazer
Nov. 9, 2007

In late October, Muslim student leaders at Rutgers organized a counter protest against an activity that didn't take place on campus. Their rationale should raise red flags for the Jewish community as well as for all those who value a sensible approach to the threats we face.

According to an article in the Rutgers student newspaper The Daily Targum (Oct. 26), the Muslim students mobilized to protest "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," a weeklong protest organized by conservative writer David Horowitz. The goal of the "Awareness Week" was to counter what Horowitz claims are the two lies of the political left: That President George Bush created the "war on terror" and that global warming is a greater danger than terrorism. Horowitz also sought to raise awareness of the role of Islamic radicals in fostering terrorism worldwide.

Despite the fact that (as the Targum noted later in its article) no "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" activities actually took place at Rutgers, the leaders of the Muslim Student Association of Rutgers and the Islamic Society of Rutgers took action. They organized other Muslim groups on campus to send a letter of protest to Rutgers President Richard McCormick and to rally other students to wear green in solidarity with Muslims.

Islamic Society President Mayez Enver told the Targum: "You can't judge a religion based on what someone from that religion does. You can twist around anything in religion for your own agenda."

Muslim Student Association president Sana Sheikh added that, while "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" was also designed to raise awareness of the oppression of women in Islam, this was a misconception. According to Sheikh, "The oppression of women is alive today, but only among individuals whose personal opinions affect their behavior, not based on religion."

At the risk of violating politically correct viewpoints, I must beg to differ.

Right now a growing number of Muslims engage in premeditated violence against people of other faiths, and/or against their own coreligionists whose views or practices differ from their own, while the vast majority of other Muslims sit by idly. Given those circumstances, then, I'd assert that it is reasonable to say that we can, and should, judge that faith by the actions (or inactions) of those members.

All too frequently we read news reports of brutal terrorist acts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and in the Palestinian areas adjoining Israel. We know, by now, that many of these terrorist acts are sponsored, or supported by, one of the largest Muslim countries in the world -- Iran.

However, we do not read of regular condemnations of these actions, or initiatives to counteract this tide of violence, from the leaders of any of the other Muslim countries in the world -- where the vast majority of Muslims live. Nor do we read of large, grass-roots protests held in those nations to condemn the violence inflicted in their faith's name -- the sort of protests we do see when a few cartoonists in a newspaper in a small European country make fun of their faith's founding prophet.

While it is true that a small but growing number of Muslims in Western counties have raised their voices in alarm against terror, silence by the rank and file is still the norm. So it appears that terrorism is either practiced, or silently accepted, by most Muslims worldwide.

The oppression of women is also a significant part of how a large number of Muslims worldwide practice their faith, or quietly acquiesce as others do. In Saudi Arabia women are forbidden from driving cars by themselves or appearing in public without burqas. In Iran public morals police will detain women who are not dressed modestly enough, with the standard set by the government.

In Muslim countries and (as increasing numbers of press reports make clear) in European countries, ‘honor killings' of young Muslim women whose dating habits anger their families are receiving more and more publicity. Recent news reports suggest that such killings claim hundreds of lives each year in Syria, and thousands in Jordan, alone; there may well be many more casualties since the crime, tied to family shame, is unlikely to be truthfully reported by the immediate families of the victims.

The Associated Press reported (Oct. 30) that there are efforts underway in Germany, now backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, to criminalize the forced marriages that are imposed on young Muslim women by their families. A volunteer support group in that country, Hatun und Can, reportedly has rescued 75 Muslim women caught in such menacing family situations since February of this year.

We could say that such discrimination or crimes against women do not reflect the values of Islam. But if many Muslims of our era allow them to take place in their communities without protest, then for all practical purposes Islam is linked to oppression of women.

Efforts to disassociate Islam from the violence or oppression practiced by many of its adherents are not limited to the college campus. These disavowal efforts have become a common practice of prominent self-appointed American Muslim community spokespeople, best exemplified perhaps by the double-speak of the national Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other such groups. Well-meaning leaders in our own Jewish community have echoed such denials as well, in their efforts to defuse the cultural conflict at play worldwide by engaging Muslim leaders in dialogue here.

I believe that there are a number of decent, moral Muslims who live in the United States and contribute a great deal to our society. I believe as well that, by virtue of their awareness of U.S. national values of tolerance and respect, there are many Islamic leaders in our country who support peaceful coexistence and respect women's rights.

But if we sit quietly while members of the Muslim community, or our own community, euphemize, rationalize, or outright deny the connection between Islam and the manner many of its adherents observe it (or allow it to be observed), then we may well fail to be sufficiently vigilant to the continuing danger of Islamic terror that we face in Israel…and in the United States as well.

Harry Glazer is a monthly columnist for the Home News Tribune.