Protest Fascism, Not Muslims

Protest fascism, not Muslims The Daily Evergreen Ah, October. The time of year when the leaves are turning brighter colors, the skies are turning darker, and Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is held on college campuses. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of the last one. I-F Awareness Week (which is how we’ll refer to it for reasons explained below) is “the biggest conservative campus protest ever,” at least according to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is responsible for the week. Ostensibly, the week is designed to confront the “lies” the president created the current war on terror and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat. You may be wondering how this translates into “I-F Awareness Week.” We don’t really have an answer to that, and are tired of reprinting what the I-F Week guidebook says. Instead, we’re going to focus on the major problem with the week: The use of the Islamic faith as a scapegoat. The reason why we abbreviated the name was because the use of the Islamic faith in this context is not only unnecessary, but also amounts to hate-speech. The problem with terrorists and those countries that support them has far less to do with religion and almost entirely to do with fascism. For the purpose of this protest, we are assuming that fascism is taken to mean the repression of opposing ideas through terror and violence. This is a wonderful thing to protest against. We don’t support groups of people trying to force their views upon others through lies and obfuscations. If we were on the cusp of celebrating Fascism Awareness Week, you can rest assured this editorial would not exist. But we’re not celebrating Facsism Awareness Week. Instead, they’ve lumped in Muslims with fascists, thus ensuring that we all protest beliefs held by people of the Islamic faith. Refer to the petition that is encouraged to be passed around during the week, which states in part that “The Islamo-Fascist Jihad is a war against Gays ... [and] non-religious people.” If you’ll remember, 27 states have constitutional amendments barring gay marriage and there have been several attempts in recent years to adopt a national amendment doing the same. Additionally, when George H.W. Bush was campaigning for President in 1987, remarked “I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.” It seems clear the opposition is not in conjunction with the issues. Instead, the entire week seems to be an opportunity to Muslim-bash under the auspices of fighting terrorism. We support the right to free speech. The College Republicans have every right to go out and protest fascism in all its forms and support democracy and free speech. We just wish they would.