Editor,
Yay for freedom of speech for revealing yet another bigot. And hurrah that our constitutional rights trump any University-wide resolution. I wonder: does Mr. Ryu’s letter in Friday’s paper qualify legally as hate speech?
It certainly defames, mischaracterizes and slanders an entire religious community of millions of adherents. You could argue it threatens, too. It does not provide any support for the contention that the recent University resolution is a bad idea. Although I am not familiar with the specific wording in the resolution, my understanding is that, in the face of a real or perceived threat, students should be protected on a university campus in terms of their right to exercise their religious freedom in a safe and non-hostile environment.
It is letters such as Mr. Ryu’s that make the resolution a necessity. The environment in the United States is one laden with fear and hostility towards Islam which, in the United States, is a minority faith. Muslim students, just like any other students, should not have to deal with this.
I wonder what happened to Mr. Ryu to inspire such a letter. Did he grow up as part of a persecuted minority in a small community where he was deprived of practicing his religion, or was he routinely belittled and harassed in public school simply as a result of belonging to a particular ethnicity?
His arguments make little sense. Why, for example, does he choose the Bukharan Hadithist in particular? What led him to that? You could pretty much take a few verses out of context out of many holy books and make an unfair and derogatory characterization. And, just to clarify, ijtihad is legal reasoning (see the Encyclopedia of Islam). Islam is not a monolithic religion and it is a misnomer to characterize it this way.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to the prophet Muhammad in a revelation at the beginning of the seventh century CE, he instructed him, “Iqra’,” or recite (read). Education is a fundamental value and that is the foundation of the Qur’an. Muhammad then proceeded to reform many aspects of his community, and led a persecuted minority in a different form of organization and belief.
Whether you are a believer or not does not matter: What does matter is the mischaracterizations and slander in Mr. Ryu’s letter that spread hate and misinformation.
The bottom line is that, in a climate that is hostile and fearful, students should be protected from ignorant and destructive acts.
What is the fear? I am thinking Columbine, Virginia Tech, a shooting in a movie theater, a Molotov cocktail thrown at a place of religious worship — a mosque — in Albuquerque. None of those acts were perpetrated by Muslims.
I am thinking the U.S. government paying Wahhabis to fight against their Soviet enemies and then turning on them, supporting the rise to power of an autocratic dictator who gassed Iraqi Kurdish communities with poison gas that smelled like apples, and then invaded his country based on the false accusation that he possessed nuclear weapons. I am thinking we really do have a lot to be fearful about, given the way our government has gotten on in the past. More hate does not solve anything.
There is an Arabic expression that says ‘whoever sows thorns does not reap good fruit.’ You are sowing thornbushes here, Mr. Ryu.
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Am I proud to be an American? You bet. Do I condone the many heinous acts my government has performed? Never. Am I awake? Definitely. Wake up, Mr. Ryu.
Sincerely,
Rachel Hertzman
UNM student
