The bellyaching over the Danish cartoons spreads faster than
swine flu, I swear. One of the Muhammad caricaturists, Kurt
Westergaard, is speaking today at the Clintons' alma mater and
the Yale Muslim Students Association is already
passing around the tissues.
The Yale Muslim Students Association said in a statement that
its members are “deeply hurt and offended” by the decision to
invite Westergaard to speak, but the group will not protest at
the event. MSA president Tariq Mahmoud ’11 said the group plans
on attending the event and asking “critical and probing
questions” during the question and answer session after the
talk.
“As an institution purportedly committed to making our campus
an educational environment where all students feel equally
comfortable, we feel that by hosting Kurt Westergaard Yale is
undermining its commitment to creating a nurturing learning
environment by failing to recognize the religious and racial
sensitivity of the issue,” the group said. “Certainly, it would
be unlikely for a white supremacist or a holocaust denier to be
a distinguished guest speaker at Yale; hosting individuals who
propagate hate is not only a disservice to the minorities that
hate is directed towards but to the campus community as a
whole.”
Lord, I'd prefer they burn a couple buildings down, hang a few
effigies, sew a flag upside down on the seat of their
pants...anything, really, but issue pathetic press releases over
how hurt their feelings are. Please. Where is the self-respect?
Are these students, already ensconced in the ivy tower cocoon,
really so weak they can only spar reluctantly with a cartoonist
after trying to get him shut up completely?
I wrote about the Danish cartoons
back in 'ought five.
