[WCUSP] Beware: "Islamo-Fascism Week"

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” is still three weeks away, but the event and 
 a similar campaign from Young America’s Foundation are already setting off  
campus controversies and debates about tolerance and free speech. 
Organizers — who are planning events at dozens of campuses — say that they  
are just trying to make students aware of the threats posed by radical Islam 
to  the United States. Speeches are being scheduled on multiple campuses by 
such  luminaries of the right as David Horowitz (chief proponent of the week), 
Ann  Coulter, and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. More intellectual takes will 
come  from such neoconservative icons of Middle East policy as Michael Ledeen 
and  Daniel Pipes. The in-your-face approach of publicity for the events (not 
to  mention some of the speakers) is already setting off campus debates over 
whether  the campaign being orchestrated is about informing students or 
intimidating  Muslim students and selected targets of the right (such as women’s 
studies  programs). 
Already charges are flying from organizers about posters being torn down and  
colleges blocking access for events. And critics are firing back, questioning 
 the motives of the efforts. With the Middle East already dividing many 
campus  groups, October could be a month of additional tensions. 
For a sign of how easily rhetoric about the Middle East can escalate,  
consider George Washington University, where authorities discovered hundreds of  
posters Monday that said: “Hate Muslims? So do we!” A “typical Muslim” is then  
portrayed, with features identified such as “venom from mouth” and “suicide  
vest.” University police removed the posters and are investigating who put 
them  up. 
The posters claimed to be from the campus chapter of Young America’s  
Foundation, which immediately issued a statement condemning the posters as “hate  
speech” that had never been authorized by the group. The statement said that YAF  
has a system for approving posters, and that no one ever submitted such a 
poster  for approval. The YAF at George Washington said it was promoting events 
later  this month to condemn terrorism and violence — and that one part of its 
efforts  would include bringing Horowitz to campus. Steven Knapp, president of 
the  university, also released a statement, calling the posters “reprehensible
” and  stating that “there is no place for expressions of hatred on our 
campus.” 
Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination  
Committee, said her group has been writing to colleges identified as planning  
events with Islamo-Fascism Week, asking them why they were doing so. She said  
that while there are “serious and legitimate problems in the Arab and Muslim  
worlds,” Horowitz’s “obsessive focus” on Arabs and Muslims encouraged the 
view  that people could “with impunity” say anything they want about members of 
those  groups — and that encourages events like the the plastering of George 
Washington  with offensive posters. 



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