Editor:
Professor Carl Ernst is to speak today at NAU about "Islamic Ethics". He
appears to be another Islamic apologist who criticizes the media for creating
"dehumanizing stereotypes of Muslims as people who are always violent". This
specious argument blames the messenger rather than examine the actual people
involved in this behavior.
In the same issue of your newspaper that you discussed Prof.Ernst, you had an
AP story about an Iranian grad student at UNC who ran his SUV into a crowd of
students "to avenge deaths or murders of Muslims around the world". You ran
another AP story about the al Qaida leader Al Zawahiri railing against the
Jews. Are these stories media exaggerations to inflame the public? I don't
think so. They show that many Muslims are not peaceful.
Last week a hundred Christians were killed by Nigerian Muslims because they
were outrahged by the Muhammad cartoons. Peaceful? The Muslim President of
Iran calls for the destruction of Israel and Arab newspapers continually run
cartoons demeaning and stereotyping Jews, but they want us to believe that
they are peaceful.
The Koran says "fight against them until there is no dissension and the
religion is for Allah"(Surah 2:193) but people like Prof.Ernst want to make us
believe that it is all our fault and that we are either provoking them or
falsely stereotyping them. Most Americans can see through this blame the
victim argument.
My God tells me to love my enemies and turn the other cheek when offended.
Stephen Yulish