It appears as though my point was lost on the majority of you all. My 2/24 Wespeak was not designed to attack ALL Muslims; in fact, I mentioned TWICE that that was not my intention (I even mentioned that I knew many would ignore that point). However, when one is discussing a particular group of people, the use of “generalizations” is often necessary. Perhaps I should have mentioned each rioter, each terrorist, each “barbarian” by name? If one is to notice something in common about a group of people (in this case, radical “extremist” terrorists and Islam), then it seems appropriate to call attention to that, and to question it. Certainly, that is not intended to include every Islamic adherent; rather, it is meant to notice a pattern amongst a particularly violent group of hateful people. One could easily make the correct “generalization” that “Wesleyan students are liberal”—yet that would include some of us (myself) that do not fit under that flag of liberalism (NB: Despite one Wespeak stating that I voted for John Kerry, I voted for Michael Badnarik).
I understand many of my readers are Muslim. But please do not use your heritage, culture or religion (and god forbid, skin color) to justify your position. To do so is to imply that if only I were Muslim, then my points would be well-received. I never brought up the color of anyone’s skin, and so I do not respect the attack on me that cites me as “racist” or “prejudice.” Racism is the belief that one’s inherent worth and value comes solely from the color in one’s skin. I never made such an absurd claim, and never would. That is prejudice. Allow me to coin the term, if one has not done so already, POSTjudice. That is judging someone based on knowledge of their actions and behaviors. If someone walks onto a bus and blows themselves up with the desire to kill as many people as possible, or when that is an organization’s expressed goals (see: Hamas, Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad), then I can judge you. And I will.
I don’t believe that my Wespeak exuded hatred, but rather contempt that was directed at the perpetrators of all the evils I spoke of during my “prejudice poem” (good use of alliteration, but otherwise a phoolish phrase). I am not talking about the families and friends that you spoke of, all of whom I assume were not involved in such inhumane violence. I did not judge those of you that I know nothing about—your friends, your families, whomever may be innocent nonviolent adherents of Islam. However, those nineteen Sept. 11th hijackers, those terrorists who blew up the navy vessel in Yemen a few years ago (killing fifteen or so innocent sailors), the Chechen rebels who seized a Russian school and killed over 300 schoolchildren, the people who blew up the Golden Mosque in Iraq the other day, THOSE are the people that I am talking about. Yes, they are savage, bloodthirsty barbaric animals. And they all have one thing in common: their so-called dedication to their religion, Islam. How has Islam managed to pervert these people, but not so many others? I can’t say. How many people has Islam perverted in such a way (i.e. how many is “many, many, MANY”)? Again, I cannot say. My point was and is to get people to take notice that all of these monsters are primarily Muslim. For those of you that are not such violent people but ARE Muslim, you have nothing to worry about; it is not you of whom I speak.
The last issue I wanted to address is this absurd assertion that somehow the Western world is as guilty of the same savagery that I accuse much of the Muslim world of—as if, for example, the legalized slavery that was perpetrated in this country 150 years ago not only justifies, but is comparable to, all of the above-mentioned terrorist activity. I do not condone slavery, of course, but that should be examined in the context of the time period (remember, Africans were enslaving Africans before the Europeans got there). The terrorist acts committed today are anachronistic: the rest of the world has nixed that sort of behavior centuries ago. Furthermore, the “savage exploitation” of the Muslim world by the Western world is either a gross over-exaggeration, or a reflection on the author’s blindness. America provides millions and millions of dollars in aid (stolen from hardworking taxpayers who don’t have a say in the matter) to countries that hate them, and do not appreciate them for it. Allow the U.S. to cease payment on that aid, and see where that leaves these countries. The mistakes that the U.S. has made should not be forgotten, but nor should they be taken out of context, or used to justify actions far more savage and primitive.
Many thanks to editor-in-chief, Matt DiBlasi, for publishing and defending publication of my Wespeak.
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