Jacob Schutz | Ideas instead of ideology

Today marks the second day of the Muslim Student Association's Islam Awareness Week on campus.

While I'm typically ambivalent toward awareness campaigns - there are so many that it seems difficult to focus energy on any one topic - I believe a campus dialogue about Islam is valuable. There seems to be a lot to discuss.

For one, Barack Hussein Obama is running for president. I'm proud that my country stands on the verge of electing a black man with a Muslim father; a man who was given an unfortunate middle name considering the course of history. I'm deeply concerned, however, when I see the e-mails circulating among people (relatives of mine included) that rely only on Obama's name and misconceptions of Islam to smear him.

But the issue isn't only a national one. There have been plenty of misconceptions at Penn.

Indeed, last year the College Republicans held Terrorism Awareness Week on campus. Their title of the week was a less offensive moniker for David Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," an event sponsored by a right-wing think tank.

I remember the shame I felt upon learning that an organization at my University had taken part in such a symbolic act of misrepresentation and intolerance.

It's one thing to discuss Islamic terrorism in an intellectually stimulating context. There are serious issues to be explored regarding terrorism, including the influence of religion. I have no qualms about any debate on the issue, including the specific role that Islamic teachings have on global terrorism.

Terrorism Awareness Week fell short of this goal. Not because of its programming but because of the larger message Horowitz's campaign sent. While the College Republicans may have had only a sincere desire to spark a dialogue about terrorism, they took part in a larger national offensive aimed at alienating Muslim students.

Horowitz's IFAW makes bizarre proclamations, such as the goal of this year's campaign: "to make the university community aware of the growing power of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and other campus groups that support the jihad against America, Israel and the West."

Which - in paranoid terminology - urges us to turn against our fellow Muslim students who must surely be aligned with the forces of anti-Americanism.

America has real enemies. Studying them requires an appreciation of complexity. Many of our enemies do call themselves Muslims. They often recruit from affluent families in the Middle East. Yet they also prey on the downtrodden. They promise a return to the glory days of the Islamic Empire. They are a hate-filled reaction to modernization and globalization. They are many things. We must discuss all these aspects and more.

But we can't automatically demonize those who have any similarity to terrorists. To do so is to usher in a new era of paranoia and mistrust, to forget the lessons of history and invite Joe McCarthy back into our lives. We cannot label friends as enemies because we do not have the intellectual courage to decide for ourselves what drives terrorism. Though today's breed is informed by perverted aspects of Islam, surely this does not cast suspicion on all 1 billion adherents of a peaceful faith.

Engineering sophomore Dara Elass, co-director of this year's Islam Awareness Week, told me she was surprised when she heard about "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week."

"You're not even supposed to kill a fly," she told me about Islam. Islamo-Fascism Awareness week "makes all those stereotypes people have [of Islam] sound true."

This year, the College Republicans held back from a full-out Terrorism Awareness Week of their own. College junior Zac Byer, president of Penn Republicans, said that an event last week with conservative commentator Dick Morris was funded in part by Horowitz's organization. He added that the event was hosted by the Penn College Conservatives - a newly formed group that works to bring conservative speakers to campus - not the College Republicans.

In the future, all groups should publicly distance themselves from Horowitz's campaign, as a sign that such blustering intolerance will not be accepted at Penn.

This week provides an incentive for students to discuss their own feelings about Islam, to ask questions and to learn. There's no reason for an us-versus-them discussion regarding Islam. What we need is an all-inclusive front against terrorism, not Islam.

Jacob Schutz is a College junior from Monument, Colo. His email is schutz@dailypennsylvanian.com. The MacGuffin appears every Monday.

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