The Rensselaer student body president aptly noted that "it was hypocritical of Bilal to depict the stereotype he was condemning." Indeed, you can't have both.
"RPI suspends 'Virtual Jihadi'," by Marc Parry for the Albany Times Union:
TROY -- RPI has suspended a visiting artist's exhibition because of concerns it suggests violence against President Bush and may be based on the work of terrorists, a top administrator said Thursday.
The move capped a chain of events -- including claims the FBI was eyeing the artist -- that began last month when the College Republicans blasted the arts department as "a terrorist safe haven."
The work that provoked that attack is Wafaa Bilal's "Virtual Jihadi." It's the latest piece by a Chicago-based video artist who is testing the limits of academic freedom in a time of war at a Troy school that receives millions in Pentagon research funding.
"It feels like a military camp, not an educational institution," Bilal, 41, said Thursday night.
The origin of his work is a video game called "Quest for Saddam." The game, where players target the ex-Iraqi leader, prompted what RPI's Web site describes as an al-Qaida spin-off called "The Night of Bush Capturing."
Bilal hacked into that game and created a work that puts "his own more nuanced spin on this epic conflict," according to the arts department. In Bilal's version, unveiled at RPI Wednesday, the Iraqi-born artist casts himself as a suicide bomber who gets sent on a mission to assassinate President Bush.
Nuance.
You can kill the President in his game, Bilal said.
Bilal said his brother was killed in the conflict. His exhibit's stated intention is to highlight vulnerability to recruitment by groups like al-Qaida "because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq." It also criticizes "racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as 'Quest for Saddam."'[...]
The controversy intensified Wednesday, when Bilal was scheduled to give a lecture and unveil his exhibit.
That afternoon, RPI students in a class taught by media arts professor Branda Miller were interviewing Bilal when he was pulled out of the room by RPI officials.
"It was very unsettling for me and my students," Miller said. "It would be unfortunate if Wafaa Bilal's art exhibition remains closed. The whole point of art is to encourage dialogue."
The artist claimed that RPI officials, at Jackson's behest, questioned him about the game. He said they also told him that federal agencies, including the FBI, planned to attend his event.
RPI spokesman Jason Gorss would not comment on that claim, and Bilal said he was not questioned by law enforcement officials. Paul Holstein, chief counsel for the FBI's Albany division, could not say whether any agents attended Bilal's lecture.
Bilal's lecture was widely considered "stimulating and thought-provoking," RPI Vice President for Strategic Communications William Walker said in a statement e-mailed to the Times Union Thursday evening. But questions surfaced about the exhibit's "legality" and "consistency with the norms and policies of the institute."
"The university is considering various factors relating to the exhibition, and has suspended it pending a more complete review of its origin, content, and intent," he said. "Rensselaer fully supports academic and artistic freedom. The question under review regards the use of university resources to provide a platform for what may be a product of a terrorist organization or which suggests violence directed toward the President of the United States and his family."
Gorss, the RPI spokesman, said no one would be available to comment beyond the statement.
RPI student body president Julia Leusner argued that it was hypocritical of Bilal to depict the stereotype he was condemning.
"If Bilal was making a point about the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war, I failed to see it, as did every other student I spoke to," Leusner said.
That creeped me out - I went to RPI.
As a student who was languishing in 'religious studies' in nearby SUNY Albany in the 80's, where Muhammad was depicted as the Islamic equivalent of Jesus Christ, I recall gazing longingly at RPI across the river in Troy.
RPI was one of the best engineering colleges in the US. It probably still is. However, I fail to find the "value engineering" of hacking a game, to install a character as a suicide bomber who's objective is to kill the sitting US president, but hey, what do I know.
I am sure Bilal has some "mad hacking skillz", and he should be proud of that, but the smoking gun is....there is no forum for "art" at RPI, a premier engineering school located in upstate NY.
Nearly every other college in the country is better suited for that forum, than RPI.
Kudos to Julia Leusner for not caving in to liberalist PC pressure.
Wait, was he the one who fell down the stairs?
[Game Over]
"He said they also told him that federal agencies, including the FBI, planned to attend his event."
-from the article
The FBI is keeping an eye on potential terrorists. That's a pleasant surprise, given that they have been busy assuring Muslim groups that they view a crime of terrorism on the same level as a bank robbery.
"While they said they are concerned about the threat from "homegrown terror" perpetuated by second-generation Muslim immigrants, the officials assured the Muslim audience they are no more concerned about such homegrown attacks than they are "about bank robberies," and are not targeting the Muslim community for special surveillance."
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58258
What is a 41-yr old Iraqi doing at Rensellear in the first place? What there weren't enough bright 18 yr old citizens to go there?
Did "Bilal" get preference admissions from another of the cockamamie we-have-to-make-sure-other-nations-like-us programs that got the Taliban spokesman a spot at Yale?
We as a nation/culture/people etc need to get over the indoctrination that all nations/cultures/people are the same.
"We as a nation/culture/people etc need to get over the indoctrination that all nations/cultures/people are the same."
That's hard to do when the ready answer is always: we are a nation of immigrants.
Islam amazes in its capacity to weaponize anything and everything. In their capable hands, Muslims turn cell phones, diplomas from American universities, airline tickets, box cutters, and even abstract things like our laws and freedom of expression and tolerance into weapons to harm us. They parasitized our civil rights movement to claim victimhood when they are the ultimate rapists and murderers and bigots and victimizers. They pillage the best aspects of our society -- our splendid infrastructure, our laws, our rights and privileges, our wealth -- Muslims pervert these things and overturn their best purposes to further their hideous "religion" of filth and hatred.
The origin of his work is a video game called "Quest for Saddam."
Honey, that's so passe!
"Bilal hacked into that game and created a work that puts "his own more nuanced spin on this epic conflict," according to the arts department."
Screwing with someone else's work isn't exactly art. What's next, Wafaa? Gonna steal the Venus de Milo, and plaster some arms onto her?
"You can kill the President in his game, Bilal said."
It isn't your game. It's your graffiti on someone else's wall. Dork.
"But questions surfaced about the exhibit's "legality"..."
Questions about copyright infringement, perhaps?
""If Bilal was making a point about the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war, I failed to see it, as did every other student I spoke to," Leusner said."
But at least the lecture was "stimulating and thought provoking", right?
PMK said
... who do not follow a religion that teaches that it is mandatory to seek out everyone who is not a member of the religion and either forcibly convert them, subjugate them, or kill them, everywhere in the universe, for all time.
That's the part they leave off.
Bilal's next piece is a work of performance art. Entitled, "Kill The Unbelievers Wherever You Find Them", it involves handling out AK-47's and scimitars at local mosques around the nation, with instructions to kill the unbelievers wherever you find them. Don't listen to the critics who charge that it's incitement; it's insightful. It's very retro-avant-garde, almost primitive in its power; very cutting edge.
"Iraqi-born artist"
But aren't the Iraqis our "friends?' Aren't they all grateful that we freed them from that horrible monster Saddam Hussein?
How far will you trust an Iraqi?
I remember one, right here in the U.S., working on classified aircraft systems for a government contractor, whom (the Iraqi) I would trust as far as I could toss a log cut from a 500-year-old Sequoia* (that's a big, big, big tree).
What kept me from even attempting to try and toss him was that he brought a revolver to work with him every day, in his lunch box. Although there were armed guards at the gates into the plant, there were no metal detectors.
Now, don't get me wrong, not "all Iraqis are bad."
All Iraqis who are Moslems, however, no matter how much they smile, will not pass the Sequoia-throwing test I have proposed above.
___________________
*Sequoia
The giant sequoia or big tree (Sequoia gigantea) occupies a limited area in California and is said to be the oldest and most massive of all living things. The leaves are evergreen, scalelike, and overlapping on the branches. In height sequoia is a close second to the redwood (300–330 ft or 90–100 m) but the trunk is more massive. Sequoia trees may be 27–30 ft (8–9 m) in diameter 10 ft (3 m) from the ground. The stump of one tree showed 3400 annual rings. The red-brown bark is 1–2 ft (0.3– 0.6 m) thick and spongy. Vertical grooves in the trunk give it a fluted appearance. The heartwood is dull purplish-brown and lighter and more brittle than that of the redwood. The wood and bark contain much tannin, which is probably the cause of the great resistance to insect and fungus attack. The most magnificent trees are within the General Grant and Sequoia National Parks. See also Pinales; Redwood.
--Sci-Tech Encyclopedia
http://www.answers.com/sequoia&r=67
"[They, FBI] are not targeting the Muslim community for special surveillance."
Whew! That's good to know. I was always most afraid that the FBI might do just that: "target our [beloved] Muslim community for special surveillance."
Worse than any Moslem jihadist attack we can imagine would be if we lose our American ideals of "tolerance and unequivocal unbigoted treatment of our enemies--actual, potential, and incipient."
jsla!
Thank you for your succinct analysis of "Islam in Idiot* Land (the USA)"
____________________
*Sorry for the slam. You and I--we--are not all idiots, of course. But a large part of our government and,sad to say, our population acts as if they were. Letting hyenas in among a bunch of cud-chewing, grazing, domestic animals is not a good idea, is it?
PMK and special_guest,
re your:
...we are a nation of immigrants...
... who do not follow a religion that teaches that it is mandatory to seek out everyone who is not a member of the religion and either forcibly convert them, subjugate them, or kill them, everywhere in the universe, for all time.
I can add: Remember what George Washington said about immigrants:
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
--George Washington*
"if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment," is what divides the freedom-seeking immigrant from the Islamic one.
The followers of Mohammed fail on both counts: "decency and propriety of conduct"
_______________________
*The Writings of George Washington (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1938), ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 27, p. 254 (capitalization and spelling in the original).
from Immigration and Individual Rights by Craig Biddle
By the way, I DO NOT agree with many points in the the Immigration and Individual Rights article cited above.
"Letting hyenas in among a bunch of cud-chewing, grazing, domestic animals is not a good idea, is it?"
Now, if we had more lions in our ranks . . . things would not go as well with the mewling hyenas.
. . . but then, even the famous "Lion of Judah," over there, in Jerusalem, is meowing like a puddycat-- although sometimes it shakes its moth-eaten mane and then strikes out, clawing and tearing apart some the slavering beasts that are laughing at it and its bloodied, dead cubs.
Have no fear - a nearby "urt gallery" ("The Sanctuary for Independent Media") has stepped in to provide a new venue for the repressed controversial artiste.
Controversial RPI exhibit finds new home
First published: Saturday, March 8, 2008
TROY -- The Sanctuary for Independent Media on Monday will display an exhibition dropped by RPI over concerns it might be based on the work of terrorists.
The university suspended Wafaa Bilal's "Virtual Jihadi." In it, Bilal portrays himself as a suicide bomber sent on a mission to assassinate President Bush. Bilal hacked into an al-Qaida online game called "The Night of Bush Capturing" for his exhibit. The game was created as a reaction to a similar online game, called "Quest for Saddam," where players targeted the late Iraqi dictator.
Bilal told the Times Union Thursday that his exhibit's intent was to highlight how the Iraq war has increased the vulnerability of people to be recruited as suicide bombers.
The Sanctuary for Independent Media will hold an opening reception featuring Wafaa Bilal from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday at 3361 6th Ave. in Troy.
-- Staff reports
Isn't there some law or other, here in these United states, about suggesting--or inciting-the assassination of a President of the United States?
Ah yes! Here we go
What Constitutes a "Threat?"
According to this law -- 18 USC Sec. 871 -- which reads, in part:
"...Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
That covers a lot of deeds and statements. It gives the Secret Service a lot of latitude when conducting an investigation. There is a very good reason for this. Few jobs are more dangerous than President of the United States.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa040398.htm
That would appear to cover anyone who--even via a game--makes a threat against the life of the President of the United States. It appears to give sufficient latitude to stretch and entangle the game-boy (man actually, no college boy he).
Aren't there any Secret Service dudes about? Perhaps some read the above post and take action against the Iraqi ingrate.
The link to the law dealing with threatening to assassinate the President of the United States that I gave in my last comment leads to some crapola site. Sorry.
Here are valid links that deal with the law:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/41/sections/section_871.html
http://law.onecle.com/uscode/18/871.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000871----000-.html
"The whole point of art is to encourage dialogue."
After I've finished my 45 minutes of heaving convulsions over the toilet, I might begin to sort out everything that is wrong with that asinine statement. Good God, what a dipshit.
Plagiarism.
Copyright theft.
Terroristic threats against the President.
"The whole purpose of art is to encourage dialogue." [retch]
Sounds like Bilal needs to be dialogued about his immigrant status.
Iraq needs its artists, too.
Airfare for Bilal, back!
The art department of an esteemed northeastern polytechnical institute gets its fifteen minutes of fame. How? And what was that guys name again?
Ah, never mind. Best just to forget it, move on.