arguchik: (classroom)
arguchik ([personal profile] arguchik) wrote2007-10-21 11:38 am
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wear green wednesday

if you're going to be on a college campus wednesday--especially one with a college republicans chapter that plans to observe islamo-fascism awareness week (that includes UW)--wear a green t-shirt to show solidarity with muslim students (and, by extension, opposition to the college republican douchebags). according to the seattle times article i linked to in the previous sentence, the UW muslim students association will be handing out green armbands, and is encouraging people to wear green, because green is a color traditionally associated with islam. it is important to send the message back to college republicans and allied groups that their attempts to foster fear, hatred, and intolerance of islam and of muslim people, are unacceptable and ineffective.

michael medved will be speaking on the UW campus in association with "islamo-fascist awareness week," hosted by the UW college republicans--thursday evening, 7pm, at kane hall. keep your eyes peeled. perhaps there will be a protest.

[identity profile] malafrena.livejournal.com 2007-10-22 05:02 am (UTC)(link)
I wonder if we can get green armbands to wear to preschool . . .

[identity profile] fr-defenestrato.livejournal.com 2007-10-22 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Michael Medved is an asshole extraordinaire, and these college GOPpers sound pretty foul as well; but having just read Sam Harris's The End of Faith I get nervous whenever anybody around me tries to claim that it's "intolerant" or "bigoted" to point out how very dangerous fundamentalist Islam is in the world today. Many Muslims, particularly Westerners, have reached the point there their faith does not focus on, or even entail, the violence against unbelievers that the Qu'ran absolutely insists on (much as most Christians these days don't go around stoning people for working on Sunday). But there are some very, very scary people in power throughout the Middle East, and even in the most developed countries of Europe the percentages of resident Muslims who believe suicide bombing is sometimes justified in the name of Islam is positively terrifying. I personally think there are better things to do than to protest a rally that tries to remedy what is, in essence, an absurd burying of our colletive heads in the sand, in the name of "tolerance" or "diversity"... I also find it pretty unpleasant when one group, in the course of protesting, tells the public what the group their protesting "really means," as is clearly the case here.

Now, egging Michael Medved is, of course, highly encouraged (and for every egg that connects, you get another virgin in the afterlife).

[identity profile] marlowe1.livejournal.com 2007-10-22 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
The pity is that there is a very dangerous strain of Islamist belief that is largely glossed over. But it really should be up to Muslims to condemn it for the most part, just like it's up to Xians to condemn Falwell.

But everyone likes to make excuses for their own group.

[identity profile] arguchik.livejournal.com 2007-10-23 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
the problem is that "Xians" perceive "their own group" as diverse--that is, some christians see themselves as different from falwell--so long as the comparison is internal to christianity. the way "islamo-fascism" is portrayed by the college republicans, the bush administration, and too many others who get a lot of press coverage, covers up diversity within islam, and portrays practitioners of that faith as a homogeneous (and "dangerous," "fascist"--nevermind that facism is a form of government) group, as "Them." what gets covered up is not the "very dangerous strain of islamist belief," but the diversity of islamist belief; and, in the comparison, the very dangerous strains of christian belief get covered up as well, in the interest of fostering a kind of solidarity among christians as against islam.

(i'm leaving aside, for now, the slide between "college republicans," which by its name is ostensibly a secular, political organization, and "christians," which is obviously a collection of many different religious belief systems.

[identity profile] arguchik.livejournal.com 2007-10-23 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
i should also add that the "slide" i allude to at the end is analogous to the slide from islam to fascism.