Anyone attending the events of “Know Radical Islam Week” got an official warning.
Huge signs posted on the doors of every event read, “The university’s policy on the disruption of meetings applies to all activities of recognized campus groups including this event.” The message constituted official recognition of the potentially explosive nature of the controversial lecture series, which is being held by campus Zionist group Betar-Tagar all this week.
Betar-Tagar is staging the talks to raise awareness of the dangers of radical forms of Islam, which the group describes as “a geo-political ideology of oppression affecting the entire world” and used by some to “harness the power of religious devotion to oppress human and civil rights.” The U of T Objectivist Club and the Secular Alliance are helping with the events, which are being sponsored by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. No Muslim student groups are involved.
The Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) released a statement denying that it was boycotting “Know Radical Islam Week,” but indicated that the event might be upsetting for Muslim students.
“MSA urges its membership to exercise restraint and dignity at a time when students may feel that their faith is being threatened,” the statement said.
Patrick Adler, co-chair of Wednesday’s events entitled “Media in the Service of Radical-Islam,” doesn’t see the lack of Muslim participation as a problem. “We have lots of Muslims coming to these events,” he said. “Half our speakers are moderate Muslims. The optimal response is when we’re not preaching to the choir, when we have people with divergent opinions.”
Adler admits however, that the students in attendance have so far raised few objections to the Tagar agenda.
“One of the problematic parts of the criticism so far is [that] it’s not of the content so much, it’s of trivial things like the title,” he said. “We’ve encouraged more response to the content.”
If there were dissenting opinions at the lectures, they largely decided to remain silent. After attending a lecture called “Oppressed Pride-Being Gay in the Middle East,” Nader Fahat expressed his reluctance to speak out against the majority of the crowd. “This has opened my eyes to another point of view,” he said as the room emptied. “But as a Muslim myself…this particular lecture didn’t offer anything on Islam. It offered a lot on Arabic culture, on the problems with that…but it had nothing to do with the religion.”
Hussain, a third-year political science student who also remained silent during a lecture called “Canadian Media and Radical Islam,” said afterwards, “It was fair on some points. On some points it was biased.”
Other students disagreed. When asked if he thought events like “Know Radical Islam Week” promoted positive dialogue on campus, Patrick, a third-year student in attendance, said, “Yes, definitely.”
Allan Herman, a U of T alumnus who’s been attending all week, had a similar take.
“I think this is good for the campus because it’s so trendy to be anti-Israel…and I don’t feel there’s often a chance to discuss the Israeli point of view. So far I’ve been very impressed,” he said.
One of the most alarming lectures this week was last night’s “Sesame Street for Suicide Bombers,” which featured Barbara Cook of Palestinian Media Watch. Cook showed footage of Palestinian TV shows aimed at children and glorifying suicide bombers. According to polls, she said, 70-80 per cent of children in Palestine aspire to Shahada, or martydom.
“An entire generation has been brought up…with a radical view of Islam,” she said, “that hatred, violence, and death are things to be aspired to. It will take us many, many years to undo that damage.”
Sam Rahimi, a student who attended the lecture, said he thought that Cook didn’t present a fair picture of Palestinians.
“I would have preferred an academic, balanced presentation. What concerns me is I don’t think events like this do anything to advance the peace process,” he said. “I’d like to see more events done jointly between Jews and Arabs.”
