The Article

First Response

I think the UNC student body president said it best: "If you're not prepared to read ideas that are not your own and that you might disagree with, you do not belong at an institution of higher learning."


The only argument any opposition to this assignment ever had was that it was a mandatory reading of a religious nature at a public institution, which would technically - if one wanted to argue it - violate separation of church and state statutes. Now that the reading is no longer mandatory, they haven't a legal leg to stand on.



To argue that learning about another culture is seditious or somehow harmful is the worst kind of bigoted ignorance. Bill O'Reilly and Rev. Graham's comments on "our enemy's religion" and the "evil" of Islam are disgusting. Osama bin Laden's religion is no more representative of Islam, with its many different sects and variations of belief, as a whole, than a priest who participated in the Inquisition is of all Catholicism, or a Hindu extremist who destroys a Muslim temple in Kashmir is of all Hinduism.



I will be deeply saddened if the conservative extremists and anti-intellectual isolationist fraidy-cats win their case, and it will be one more blow against this country's already frail education system and our already shaky global image.

Would you feel the same, one wonders, if it was the christian bible? Or would you be complaining about the christian coalition then too?

Second Response

If it was non-mandatory - which UNC has adjusted the assignment to be - then no, I'd have no problem with that. I would probably be far less interested in reading the Bible, since I'm very familiar with it (Catholic) and would therefore not be expanding my cultural knowledge. The assignment on the Quar'an has the additional benefit of being not only an exercise in culture studies, but also of being relevant to current events and a major multinational foreign policy crisis.


The great detriment in both Rev. Graham and Bill O'Reilly's remarks is not their espousal of their religion over another's (which, as annoying as I find that, is generally to be expected from strongly religious people, whatever their religion is), but two things:



1) their attempt to dictate policy to an institution that they have no affiliation with in any size, shape, or form, based on their perceived moral superiority.



2) their bigoted belief in the inherent evil of a multi-faceted, multi-cultural religion, and their perpetuation of an all-too-common human fallacy, the "us vs. them" knee-jerk response - which is that, that which is not "us" (in their case, white, conservative, Christian and Western) is something Else, something Different, something to be feared and destroyed. The belief that if we are good people anyone who is not us is therefore by definition (by not being "us") not good.



I experienced a similar frustration over a Newsweek cover from late last year, I believe, that showed a picture of a young Arab child next to the headline "Why Do They Hate Us?" It was catering to the populace's worst fears of some amorphous, threatening, "they", somewhere out there threatening the American way of life, which is insulting to those of us who know better, and degrading to the news institution as a whole, which ought to know better. The actions of a few are not representative of the whole. Just as I refuse to demonize everyday Jordanians, Persians, Malaysians, Indians, Kashmiris, Egyptians, Iranians, Iraquis, Pakistanis and Afghanis based on the actions of Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and Palestinian suicide bombers, I would hate for people to think that Rev. Graham is representative of all Christians, or all Americans.



I'm sorry for the essay-long answer to your query, but I wanted to make plain that my ire was not directed against a group, a person, a religion, or an institution, but against a shameful attitude, and the attempts of that attitude to perpetuate itself. It is my staunch belief that ignorance and arrogance in combination are the cause of all the man-made ills of this world, and I like to think that I try to seek it out and fight it in myself as much as I speak against it in others. I hope.