GW Students Refuse To Condemn Genocide

When George Washington University senior Sergio Gor tried to get campus student groups to sign a Declaration Against Genocide last week, he thought it would be a no-brainer. Who, after all, wouldn't support a statement endorsing such uncontroversial tenets as the "right of all people to live in freedom and dignity," the equal dignity of men and women, and the freedom of conscience?

All too many, as it turned out. Having approached all the largest student groups at the school to support the declaration, Gor, the president of the George Washington chapter of the Young America's Foundation, was refused time and again. For most students, the message of the declaration, which is a central component of the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, was simply too "controversial to support."

It is instructive to reflect on just what is now deemed excessively "controversial" on American campuses. For instance, the Declaration Against Genocide condemns an Islamic hadith (a narration about the life of the prophet Mohammed) that calls on Muslims to kill Jews. It also condemns terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has declared that "the accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible" – an unmistakable expression of genocidal intent toward the countries that Islamic radicals consider to be the "little Satan" and the "great Satan" respectively. There is nothing, in short, that can be considered even remotely objectionable.

Yet, at George Washington and countless other schools across the country, groups ranging from the Muslim Students Association to the College Democrats – to even the College Republicans – have been unwilling to condemn these and other affirmations of hatred when they concern Islamic militants. George Washington's Gor found that out the hard way: In a week of trying to promote the Declaration Against Genocide, what Gor heard most often was not outrage at the atrocities of Islamic terrorist groups or revulsion at their murderous anti-Semitism. What he heard most often were excuses.

Thus, the Black Student Union refused to sign the declaration because it didn't specifically mention the slave trade. Meanwhile, the College Democrats refused to sign the declaration because it singled out the following hadith from the prophet Muhammad: "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time [of judgment] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!" The College Democrats insisted that the quote was taken "out of context." They, too, would not sign.

Perhaps the most surprising rebuff came from the school's College Republicans chapter. Although some individual members expressed support for the declaration, the club as a whole would not support it. "It was a shock when the College Republicans said that [the declaration] was too 'controversial,'" Gor recalls. "They said they didn't want to offend anyone. But I thought, 'Who is going to be offended if you oppose genocide?'"

Less shocking, perhaps, is that Gor failed to garner the support of the Muslim Students Association. Founded by members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian forerunner of al-Qaeda, the group today has over 200 chapters on American college campuses and retains much of the political extremism of its parent organization. Some MSA chapters, for instance, have held an annual "Anti-Zionist Week" to denounce the state of Israel. When in 2005 a group called the Free Muslim Coalition Against terror held a rally in the nation's capital condemning terrorism and expressing support for Muslim democrats in the Middle East, the MSA conspicuously refused to take part. Considered against this background, it is not surprising that the group has refused to condemn Islamic terrorists and their ongoing war to destroy the Jewish state. On more than one occasion, it has been on their side.

Just as troubling as the MSA's silence is that no other student groups were willing to support the declaration at George Washington. Nor is this the first time that the school has shown itself to be intolerant of any and all debate about Islamic extremism. When the inaugural Islamo-Fascism Week was held last fall, radical students at the school plastered the campus with bigoted flyers – "Hate Muslims? So Do We!!!" the flyers proclaimed – to condemn the alleged bigotry of the campaign. The students later claimed that they put up the flyers in protest over "Islamophobic racism." Although it was never explained why it was "Islamophobic" to point out the demonstrable fact that Islamic terrorists justified their atrocities using the Muslim religion, let alone why doing so was "racist," the flyer incident acutely demonstrated the abject failure of many American universities to engage in a serious discussion about the threat of radical Islam. Terrorism fueled by religious extremism is a brutal reality in many parts of the world, but within the groves of American academia, a complicity of silence obtains.

Students like Sergio Gor despair at that reality. "On our campus the political correctness is at a new level," Gor observes. "Students are afraid to stand up for anything, and to offend anyone. We're just a few blocks from the White House, and these are groups that will protest the war [in Iraq] in a heartbeat. But when it comes to genocide, they won't take a stand."

FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, April 16, 2008
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=73CD9261-55C1-449A-8EB9-525D90D6DD46

Comments are welcome at redstatepatriot@hughes.net. Please include the title of the article as your subject line. Selected responses, in whole or part, may be published (appended to the article).
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Response from Red State Patriot:

SO THEN, WHAT DO THESE NE'ER-DO-WELLS STAND FOR?
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Response from Mark:

After a decade or more of PC speak, more accurately known as censorship, we come to this point when a very simple letter opposing genocide is not supported by college campus groups for a number of different reasons, but for the cowardly Republicans it was to not to offend anyone.

I blame the ACLU largely for this. For they have been fighting battles in court to remove religion in all its form from anyplace other then the home, and law suits against organizations such as The Boy Scouts of America, and for supporting only groups that promote their secular progressive agenda like NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association)in MA. Because the mere threat of an ACLU lawsuit has curbed the desire and will of the majority citizens in this country on so many subjects, we are starting to think and behave as the citizens in Orwell's 1984 where free, independent, intellectual, thought and discourse are no longer tolerated, let alone spoken. You can see this in Ben Steins new documentary called Expelled where the majority of scientist are shouting down, and ridiculing any theory other than Evolution / Darwinism. Hey it's only a Theory! It has not been proven beyond scientific doubt using the scientific method. For that matter neither has Global Warming as a result of man's presence on the planet. The same tactics used to promote only Evolution and shout down, and ridiculed any other theory is currently being conducted by the fanatics on the side that man is the cause of Global Warming, when in most likelihood it is a part of the regular cycle that the planet has been under since the beginning of time due largely to the sun.

How does that axiom go? Usually the right answer is the simplest answer. Hereto, the Earth is getting hotter or colder due directly to the increase or relative decrease in the temperature of the Sun. According to the self anointed God on this topic, Al Gore, there is no debate. The answer to the global warming theory has already been determined, not by scientific method, but by the majority of scientist saying it is so. Good thing Columbus did not listen to them in his day for if he did, we may still think the planet is flat.
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Response from David R.:

I don't blame the ACLU at all. Their power to influence anything is miniscule. They are a very small voice, usually of caution (living in the court system as I do, I now know for a fact how little influence any public interest legal group has). The real villain of this piece, and purveyor of New Speak, is the monolithic media and education unions. When the public discourse came to be controlled by graduates of "Schools of Journlism" and "Schools of Education", and quite possibly the rise of the "Film School", those gaurdians of the zeitgeist (always known to be vital to the integrity of the state, and therefore tightly controlled by government even in places like Britain), wholey fell into the hands of groups committed to their hatred of Western Civilization, patriarchy, family, and the United States. I am not exagerating when I propose that the schools of "Education" were quickly dominated by a matriarchy heavily seasoned with lesbians. "Film Schools" and "Theater Departments" are nearly universally dominated by homosexuals, and the "Schools of Journalism" are dominated and controlled by 60's radicals, inspired by their hatred of Nixon and the Viet Nam war. With these groups controlling eight tenths of the input into the developing minds of the populace, is it any wonder the influence of "New Speak". Every angle attacks the normal nuclear family, attacks the intelligence/authority/wisdom of any white male seen in popular media, and rails against the evils of western civilization while lauding any other backwater "culture" regardless of how pernicious or retrograde.

Why? Because those previously named groups, who are now the gatekeepers, to the industries that shape the zeitgeist, have personal, deep seated, resentment against the country, culture, and civilization they have felt rejected by, for their entire adult lives. They readily scream racism, sexism, or homophobia, so loudly at every turn, when it is they who live to promulgate the hatred they seethe with.
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Response from Len S.:

Many of today's "students" (and I use that term loosely) have apparently totally lost the faculty of critical judgment. Perhaps this stems from the pervasive influence of multiculturalism which eschews judging others. Perhaps it stems from political correctness which strives to take pressure off individuals to avoid the ramifications of judging others which could lead to your scrutiny by others ("He's a racist for saying that."). This extends to campus life which has changed from inquiring discourse and freedom to expand your horizons, to strict speech codes and know-nothing college administrators who won't stand up for academic freedom.

How ironic that a supposedly liberal atmosphere promised by the college environment has been muzzled and perverted by a new intolerant liberalism that numbs the mind. Do you think that such a Declaration taken in most American universities following World War 2 would have been refused like this one was?

Posted April 20, 2008 02:37 PM
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