Defending Free Speech Against Fundamentalist Islam?

[struggle4progress]

Eboo Patel
Posted: May 11, 2010 02:12 PM

A few days back, small groups of college students at Northwestern, Illinois and Wisconsin -- angry that Comedy Central had been intimidated into censoring a South Park episode depicting the Prophet Muhammad -- chalked their quads with stick figures and labeled these drawings "Prophet Muhammad" ...

Muslim Students Associations (MSA) on all three campuses said they believed in free speech and were opposed to fringe groups who threaten violence, too ...

It seems to me that there's another dangerous sleight of hand going on here -- a pretense that by chalking Muhammad you are bravely taking on the Dragon Threatening Civilization when in fact you are just hurting your Muslim classmates. It's a little like sticking your chest out and claiming you beat up the school bully, when all you really did was pick on the little kid on the playground. The former may make you a hero. The latter makes you a jerk. Doing the latter while claiming the former, that just makes you a joke ...

If there are heroes in this situation, it's the Muslim student leaders who are not only keeping their heads but trying to use this situation to advance understanding and cooperation on their campuses. Omar Fareedi, in his letter responding to the actions by the AAF group, didn't threaten violence and didn't demean secularists. He lifted up the higher value of pluralism, cast a light on the overlapping principles shared by secular humanists and Muslims, and suggested that they join together to do something useful for the broader society ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eboo-patel/free-speech-vs-fundamenta_b_571459.html