Student columns, death threats, and silent vigils in Corvallis
Corvallis, Ore. – Shortly after Danish newspapers published cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed (in various lights) in early 2006, the world erupted in debate and riot.
Dozens of small town reactions, however, were overlooked by major media. One occurred right here in Corvallis, when a student column published in Oregon State University’s newspaper prompted calls for apologies and campus vigils.
“Bluntly put, we expect Muslims to behave barbarously,” wrote microbiology student Nathanael Blake in the Daily Barometer. His article, entitled “The Islamic Double Standard,” included a characterization of the worldwide riots as “savagery.”
The sizeable Muslim population in Corvallis was outraged. Nada Mohamed, vice president of the Muslim Students’ Association, says tears were streaming down her face before she even finished the column.
“It was amazing to me that [the campus newspaper was] allowed to publish this kind of stuff,” she told the Corvallis Gazette-Times. “Tears were flowing out of my eyes as I was reading. I felt like somebody was ripping my heart out.”
Several Muslim and Arab students handed out flyers urging the campus to stand defiantly against the column – the issue was not one of free speech, they said, but rather one of depiction. The Muslim community felt they had been more than slighted, and by a student who seemed to know little about their faith.
Yesterday, on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan, a time for fasting, prayer, and forgiveness, I called Nada (she is in Seattle with her family, who just returned to the States from Egypt) to find out what has happened in the eight months since Nathanael’s column ran. Nada says she has received numerous death threats – and that people have written hate mail from around the world.
Nada became so fearful that she enlisted her brother Aly Mohamed as her chaperone on campus. Aly even fired back with an op-ed piece of his own, entitled, “Whose double standard? A response on Islam, Muslims.”
“It is quite sad to see the Daily Barometer follow our less-than-civil European media outlets,” Mohamed wrote. “There is a lack of distinction between orthodox Islamic values and the actions of a minority of Muslims…. Unfortunately when it comes to reporting Islam, a lack of understanding, quoting sources out of context, and ethnocentric viewpoints seem to be trademarks.”
Meanwhile, in the same issue, Daily Barometer editor DD Bixby published a piece defending Nathanael’s column and the paper’s decision to publish it. “For me,” she wrote, “it would be journalistically irresponsible to only print columns with which no one disagreed.”
Tensions continue to mount between Muslims and non-Muslims on campuses across the country and the world. Just last week the Pope made the unusual move of apologizing for a comment he made at a German university, quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus as saying Mohammed spread Islam “by the sword.”
In the US, Muslim students are becoming more vocal about name-calling and racial profiling in their communities. One group of students at the University of Minnesota recently launched a website selling T-shirts, in part to show pride in their religion and in part to poke a little fun at this recent swelling of sensitivity.
We spoke with LoErna and Jim Simpson, retired professors of textiles and math, respectively, in their home in Corvallis late last night, shortly after LoErna returned from the daily vigil she attends in front of the courthouse with the international group Women in Black.
The couple, avowed Christians, sport bumper stickers on the back of their car with such lines as “God is not a Republican – or a Democrat.” They have three grandchildren who are Muslims living in Egypt, and they both teared up when asked about the way Muslims are treated in this country.
LoErna considers Corvallis an open-minded community, one that responded quite supportively to the Muslim population after Nathanael’s column offended so many. But she also admitted that she may never know the extent to which they are actually harassed and stigmatized.
We were unable to chat with Nathanael, who has since relocated to Washington, DC, but I am emailing him this post in the hopes that he will include his own point of view in addition to those I interviewed above.
Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 | Email This PostThis entry was posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 at 1:52 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
10 Responses to “Student columns, death threats, and silent vigils in Corvallis”
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September 21st, 2006 at 5:01 pm
One wonders if it will ultimately be our common humanity, and not our divergent religiosity, that will serve as the basis for dialogue. Never has such a strong case for secularism been made as the one presented by the most devout among us. It is good to see the human side of this big, flashy and often overblown clash of political and religious ideologies. What I see here is a plea to at least keep mindful of the physical implications of our metaphysical musings.
September 28th, 2006 at 9:12 am
I wonder how Blake feels now. Has he moderated his views?
September 28th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Nathanael Blake sent me the following email as his response to the story:
I recant nothing. Eight months after the “shitstorm” (to use my editor’s crude but accurate term) I provoked with my column The Islamic Double Standard, I am more convinced than ever that what I wrote was true and needed to be said.
The main thesis of my piece was confirmed by the response to my column. Had I written a piece attacking Christianity, there would have been nothing significant in the reaction. I know this, because another Barometer columnist, Jim Smith, wrote viciously about Christianity regularly during his time at OSU. There were no agonized debates over whether those should have been published, no protests, no new student groups formed, etc…
Broader proof comes on a regular basis, seen most recently in the vile response to Pope Benedict XVI’s comments. Consider the response of the Pope’s critics in the West. They have generally said that he shouldn’t have made the comments he did, because they were insensitive and provocative. Implicit in this is acceptance that it could reasonably be predicted that the Pope quoting a centuries-old condemnation of Islam would lead to things like a nun being shot in the back and killed.
The examples are endless. Rushdie had a bounty placed on his head; Dan Brown merely reaped a bounty from his blasphemy. Since there is no compulsion in religion, I’m sure Muslims the world over rose up in protest against the forced conversions of two kidnapped journalists; the media of the imperialistic Zionist crusaders here in the West just must not have covered those protests.
Everything I said was true. Mohammed did have a child bride when he was in his fifties. Islam did spread through wars of conquest, which began in Mohammed’s lifetime and were led by him. Islam doesn’t make any distinction between civil and religious authority – in much of the Muslim world, apostasy from Islam is a capital crime.
In the hubbub over my column, it was clear that my offense was to speak an unpleasant truth that those in progressive environments like Corvallis would rather forget. Their’s is a childish attitude, unbecoming of the search for truth that is supposed to mark a university. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” is a fool’s advice, because sometimes reality isn’t nice. To avoid any statements that might offend is to commit intellectual suicide, because it prevents real discussion and investigation. I care less whether my column was hurtful that I care about it being true.
I can only wonder at the provincialism of people who demand that nothing ever be written that may disturb their emotional equanimity by questioning, and yes, even attacking, their beliefs.
September 29th, 2006 at 11:03 am
What Nathanael Blake failed to realize is that the social standings of Muslims and Christians defer greatly in today’s society. Post 9/11, the Muslims have been misunderstood by many as a terrorist group and as such, also hated by all who thinks alike. Christians in the US today does not have to worry about discriminations, social profiling, and hate crimes. It saddens me that a fellow Beaver of the majority could fail to be apathetic toward the minority. The double standard is there to protect the innocent. Whether or not it was abused can not be pinned on the Muslim community as a whole. Only those who abused it. The secret to social harmony is apathy and the want to get along. Not by being nitpicky and creating stirs when the community is unstable as it is. I hope Nathanael would one day be more of a citizen of the world and not just an individual of his own world.
September 29th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Blake is a hack writer, with a disturbingly fundamentalist pseudo-Conservative view of the world. I liked to read his comments in the Barometer, simply to see what sort of silly logic he would use that week.
His “history lesson” with Islam… funny how it mirrors that of Christianity. Somehow he believes nobody would be upset if he wrote that kind of thing about Christianity… I believe he’s wrong.
About the only thing I agree with him on is that our society whines too much about perceived slights. Freedom of speech is dying in many ways, and the PC (not the computer) revolution is helping. It’s sad that one cannot speak his or her own mind without being attacked for those thoughts.
The only problem is… his writing is a poor example of this. It’s slanderous, one-sided, and full of holes.
A better example would be the reaction to the Muslims responding to Blake’s tripe. Some received threats of violence (and worse), and they were certainly not deserved. (I will say, some people that were 100% against Blake’s column went too far, and showed the same kind of ignorance, but threats of violence are never appropriate responses)
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I agree with Nick and Blake. Hack or not, both writers should have the same right to express their oppinion. And without fear of violence. To blame the violent actions of one person on the oppinions of another is both illogical and a cop-out. Responsibility for violence must rest solely on the shoulders of the violent.
October 17th, 2006 at 3:27 am
Mark’s quote “Responsibility for violence must rest solely on the shoulders of the violent. ” Do you believe that the responsibility for the violent war in Iraq and Afghanistan by US rest solely on the shoulders of US (the violent)?
November 16th, 2006 at 2:26 am
we are all related, we are one, one love, all we have is now, the past is gone, let’s move on
reincarnation means you were probably a different shade of skin in past lives and you probably will be in your next one (assuming you don’t ‘fall’)
jimi hedrix sang ‘there are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke’, don’t make this mistake, make the most of this precious oppourtunity
love, share with and help each another, tolerance, forbearance
January 19th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Nathaniel, you are absolutely right. Thank God above, you had the intestinal fortitude to stand up and write the editorial. I am no journalist and although I have written many letters to newspapers with the same arguments, none have been published. I write to some web sites and some are pulled. Amazing. Thank you for your efforts and it is nice to see someone being able to get a forum to get the truth out there.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Let me throw my two cents in,I feel that we are all God’s children,weather we call him Budda,Allah,God.All of the religions have a prevaling theme.That of one god,why in the world do we still have tofight amoungs ourselves in the name of reglion? Why do ther have to be bigiots that think that their way is the only way? Wake up world we are all on the same planet,and were placed here for a reason.This one should be PEACE NOT WARFARE!!!!
To those that don’t agree with me or don’t want to I say you have that right to disagree,you don’t have the right to try to kill me because I do not think as you do.
This globe we call earth would be a better place if we would ALL see the simularities in our reglions insteadof the differences. This is my story and I’m sticking to it.