Letter to the Editor: Speaker’s Comments Offensive

Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Updated: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Letter to the Editor: Lecture Went Just as We Expected

Ahmad Mostafa | Muslim American Society

Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Updated: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

When [the Muslim American Society at the University of Cincinnati] first heard about [Nonie Darwish’s lecture], we approached the “Chabad” student organization to have an open dialogue, to convey our concerns and to ask them to replace this speaker.

We made it clear to them that this speaker promotes only hatred against Islam and the Arab society without using any references for her claims. We further made it clear that in return, this will not benefit a Jewish organization in any way.

Unfortunately, Chabad insisted on inviting her and disregarded our concerns, and the university officials’ stand was that even hate speech is considered free speech.

As a result, the Muslim American Society had no choice but to launch, along with other student organizations, the “Students United Against Hate” coalition in an attempt to establish a just and anti-hate community at UC.

As expected in the speech, Nonie Darwish had no grounds for her claims, she was completely misleading and she was contradicting herself. It was absurd.

It is unfortunate that this speaker was invited to UC by a student organization; although they were informed, they insisted on ruining a community that should have brought students of different backgrounds together disregarding the hate between any type of group.”

Blahblah

Wed Nov 19 2008 18:27

Hmm...or like me...you could just think all religious views are a crock of bull. Agnosticism is the only sure fire view, and that's all about admitting you have no idea what's going to happen when you die. And since none of us really for sure do know, seems like the most logical point of view to me.

Blahblah

Wed Nov 19 2008 14:37

An Observer

Wed Nov 19 2008 12:30

What we see here is that if you attended this talk with an open mind (as the reporter Liz did) you understood Nonie's important message and did not find this talk to be hate speech but valuable information on a topic that many people are too scared to talk about. It seems that the MSA, MAS, and CAN had already made their mind up as to what Nonie's message was without even giving her a chance, as illustrated in the above title - "Lecture Went Just As Expected" - and the protest they held before they had even heard Nonie's talk.

The only person who needs to apologize here is the members of the audience who did not give Nonie the chance to exercise her right of free speech and for the people who wanted to listen the right to hear what she had to say.

Its amazing that people who claim they are against hate posts messages filled with so much hate.

I believe that there were those who heard Nonie's talk who agreed, but are too scared or intimidated to speak out.

eeyore

Wed Nov 19 2008 11:17

It is sad that Ahmed's perspective doesn't reach print until this section of the news. It confirms for me how he and his organization are treated as "less than" that of the rest of UC's student community. Throughout our dealings with student affairs, campus scheduling, other organizations, and this newspaper, UC has demonstrated that Muslim views are less important than other views.

Add comment

I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Verify you are human:

Enter the characters in the image above:

Letter to the Editor: Sorry for the Visit

Jonathan Dress | President of Chabad

Print this article

Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Updated: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The lecture, titled Finding the Peace, presented by Nonie Darwish in Swift Hall last Thursday, fueled many emotions.

While many students, like myself, showed up prepared to hear a personal story of how the speaker overcame a corrupted sect of Islam and now courageously advocates human rights, others protested her presentation, believing that she preached hate-speech towards the entire Muslim world.

Unfortunately, the speaker seemed to focus more on “faults” within the Islamic scriptures, than on a resolution for peace. I can only assume from the response of much of the audience, for I am not a scholar on Islamic law, that many of the faults pointed out were taken out of context and poorly sourced. Nevertheless, I assure you, this was not the intended oration topic.

I hope, however, that out of this provocative event, the UC community can grow stronger, continuing to question everything, and more importantly, seeking a solution for peace, not just within the Middle East, but also throughout the entire world.

As a believer of the Jewish faith and a student of the University of Cincinnati, I offer my apologies to the Muslim community and anyone else who was hurt by the words delivered in the presentation. I hope you will accept my words of remorse, so that we, the diverse UC community, can convene regardless of race, religion, ethnicity and beliefs and agree on the notion of peace.