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Stephen Lawrence is refusing to bow to intimidation. Would that we had 300 million more people like him in America. "Criticism of Saudi students sparks protest at Wilkes: Students object to a letter in the Times Leader portraying Saudi students as a potential danger," from the Times Leader:
WILKES-BARRE – A letter to the editor in Sunday’s Times Leader blasting Saudi Arabia and criticizing the paper’s decision to run a story about Saudi Arabian international students at Wilkes University sparked a protest at the college Wednesday.Nearly 300 students attended the hour-and-a-half exposition outside the Henry Student Center Wednesday afternoon to protest the letter written by Forty Fort dentist Stephen M. Lawrence referencing 9/11, honor killings and the treatment of women and Christians in Muslim states.
“It is said we are having a clash of civilizations, but as we can plainly see, only one side is civilized,” he wrote. “Wake up Americans. We are letting the barbarians in and we must be diligent.”
The letter responded to an April 9 story that followed 15 Saudi Arabian students’ acclimation into an American university.
Interviewed Wednesday, Lawrence stood by his views, calling the religion of Islam “a political and religious system that is against everything that Western values stand for.”
Salman Punekar, 19, a business major at Wilkes University and a naturalized American citizen of Saudi Arabian decent, organized the peaceful protest that drew out many students on the final day of classes. He said he learned about the letter earlier this week and began circulating e-mails to fellow students.
“His statements undermine American values,” Punekar said of Lawrence. “I’m a naturalized citizen now and there’s no difference between me and anybody else. We came out here so that he (Lawrence) knows there’s a strong opposition to his views. He’s exercising his freedom of speech and so are we.”
Fair enough. But I wish Punekar would expand on his statement that "there's no difference between me and anybody else." If he is trying to tar Lawrence as a racist, and making a counter-racist statement, his assertion must be accepted as true while his implication about Lawrence's remarks must be rejected as false. For Lawrence plainly spoke about the teachings that Saudi students may have imbibed in Saudi mosques, not about their race. And his questions deserve answers. No attempt is made to determine what Muslim students studying in the U.S. believe about jihad, Sharia, and Islamic supremacy. Since Khaled Sheikh Muhammad and so many other jihadists have studied here, is that really wise?
Or does Punekar mean that he accepts American values of pluralism, and the indefinite peaceful coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims as equals? If so, he should regard the ways in which jihad terrorists behave as just as abhorrent as Lawrence does, and he should say so plainly and stand with Lawrence against this barbarism, recognizing that it is not unreasonable to ask whether Saudi students hold such views.
Punekar and friends also circulated a petition questioning Lawrence’s statements and the Times Leader’s decision to run his letter. Punekar said he received 350 signatures by 1 p.m. He plans to send copies of the signed petitions to Lawrence and the paper....Lawrence said he pulls much of his information about Islamic societies from the Internet and books written about the Quran. He wrote that 14 of the 19 suicide bombers in the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia and many of them came to this country on student visas. He sees a risk in other extremists falling through the system’s cracks again....
Communications studies professor Evene Estwick, a former international student from Barbados, is one of several Wilkes faculty members who oversee the university’s international student program. She said that while many of the items cited in Lawrence’s letters might be facts of life in some Islamic states, they don’t represent the majority population of Muslims and people from Saudi Arabia.
“In the way you can’t blame individuals for actions of an entire group, you cannot judge an entire country based on the actions of several people,” she said. “Just be mindful. We’re all different.”
Sure we are, Evene. But what about the ideology? Does the fact that we are all different, and each wonderful in his or her own way, somehow make a totalitarian, genocidal, supremacist, expansionist ideology disappear?
Posted by Robert at May 4, 2006 8:07 AM
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"Evene Estwick said that while many of the items cited in Lawrence’s letters might be facts of life in some Islamic states, they don’t represent the majority population of Muslims and people from Saudi Arabia."
How the hell does SHE know? Is she guessing? Hoping? Just becasue they're not of European descent doesn't make them innocent...
Posted by: Know Your Enemy![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 4, 2006 8:29 AM
“In the way you can’t blame individuals for actions of an entire group, you cannot judge an entire country based on the actions of several people,” she said. “Just be mindful. We’re all different.”
Oh, so we should have let Germany get on with it back in '39 and not declared war. Then what would have happened? This silly woman fails to see that it IS the group ideology that's poisonous. If individuals are members of that group then you MUST blame them. They are accountable and responsible for the atrocities even if they are not the actual perpetrators. They commit them by proxy.
Posted by: samson at May 4, 2006 8:30 AM
Potential, of course...look at the student in Chandler, AZ and Chapel Hill. One day they're fine and the next day they're terrorists.
All the students have to do is prove this man wrong. By their actions. Not by their words. Always be good students, don't say anything against America, and for God's sake, stay out of the mosques.
at May 4, 2006 8:31 AM
"Salman Punekar, 19, a business major at Wilkes University and a naturalized American citizen of Saudi Arabian decent"
Punekar may not be a Saudi citizen much less an Arab. His surname suggests he hails from Maharashtra in western India like me. Salman Punekar translates as Salman from the city of Pune(in western India) just like my JW handle translates as Vikrant from the town of Camberley. Last heard KSA didnt hand out citizenships to South Asians. Yet another case of an Indian Muslim faking Arab decent?
Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at May 4, 2006 11:27 AM
If he is, as you persuasively suggest, an Indian Muslim who ended up in Saudi Arabia and is now passing himself off as a "Saudi Arabian" then the next logical step in the transformatoin would be a name change: "Sayeed Punekar." And why stop there? Why not, after that, "Sayeed al-Quraishi."
Posted by: Hugh at May 4, 2006 12:29 PM
The comments by Evene Estwick in the article "In the way you can't blame individuals for actions of an entire group, you cannot judge an entire country based on the actions of several people."
That is fine when she says that about the west, it seems righteous. But what happens when Islam applies that to say....Isreal, or against India, Budhist, Christians.
I guess she is right to say "Just be mindful. We are all different". We are all different, but we no longer need to be mindful, that will be the death of us. The PC operative word "mindful".
Posted by: alaskan1000 at May 4, 2006 1:02 PM
“I’m a naturalized citizen now and there’s no differenc
between me and anybody else".
Then,there was no need to gather his buddies together to march. His actions speak louder than his words. Another muslim revealing himself to be what he really is. What else is new?
at May 4, 2006 2:19 PM
Equal voting rights is a very real reason to bar Muslims coming to the US from the Middle East from becoming US citizens. I think of all the women in this country who now have their votes cancelled out by barbarians from the Middle Ages.
It sickens me to imagine some man, who keeps his wife a slave under her veil, having any say at all as to how our country functions. And if the man is "enlightened" he should be in the Middle East trying to change things.
Posted by: former liberal WF at May 4, 2006 6:56 PM
Until Muslims allow women full rights, and other minority religions, and allow those Churchs in countries like Saudi Arabia, l would bar any one coming into the country,and going toUS/Cdn, schools. we dont need their oil, the US can drill on their own coastlines.
Posted by: Lulu at May 4, 2006 9:24 PM
'“His statements undermine American values,” Punekar said of Lawrence. '
On the contrary, Dr Lawrence's statements embody American values: good treatment of women, a justice system as contrasted with "vigilante justice", open discourse, open debate in the media.
'“I’m a naturalized citizen now and there’s no difference between me and anybody else...."'
There certainly is. Punekar is either ignorant or dissimulating or both. That he got ticked off enough by a "letter to the editor" to organize a protest is proof enough. Everyone in the US is equal (and even here there are many exceptions) only under the law and theoretically in opportunity. But just as someone with an IQ of 90 will never be a brain surgeon, nor someone 5'3" a pro basketball player, everyone in the US is not "equal" in all respects, not even to open their big mouths. It is amazing how hotheads and provocateurs constantly get people worked up over this blatant nonsense. But it works (!!)
"We came out here so that he (Lawrence) knows there’s a strong opposition to his views. He’s exercising his freedom of speech and so are we.”
I think they're exercising their freedom to try to intimidate and destroy the values of open debate which characterize America. This one definitely needs a counter-protest with ridicule--I'd say balloons, cartoons, people dressed up as the Statue of Liberty and Donald Duck--an American icon. Just as the American justice system has guards against "frivolous" lawsuits, we need guards against "frivolous" demonstrations and ways to deflate them.
Posted by: HaMalach at May 4, 2006 9:56 PM
Punekar may not be a Saudi citizen much less an Arab. His surname suggests he hails from Maharashtra in western India like me. Salman Punekar translates as Salman from the city of Pune(in western India) just like my JW handle translates as Vikrant from the town of Camberley. Last heard KSA didnt hand out citizenships to South Asians. Yet another case of an Indian Muslim faking Arab decent? Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar
I'm so glad that you post here, your knowledge and insight is most helpful.
However according to Arab News A million ex patriates to "benefit" from new Saudi Citizenship Law. Except, that the law specifically excludes Palestinians, which as we know are used as a distraction and a foil by the Muslims. Can't be making them citizens (they are refused citizenship in Lebanon too) although most are 2nd and 3rd or 4th Generation Saudis or Lebanonese.
Posted by: Nariz at May 4, 2006 10:35 PM
may not be a Saudi citizen much less an Arab. His surname suggests he hails from Maharashtra in western India like me. Posted by Vikrant
It's hard to believe anyone would go to such great lengths to impersonate a Saudi, the manifest scum of the earth, an honor shared with the Palestinians.
There just aren't enough derogatory adjectives and expletives to describe them. Imagine, Saudi's are "high society" muslims! That's hilarious.
Posted by: Susanp at May 4, 2006 11:29 PM
"I’m a naturalized citizen now and there’s no difference between me and anybody else...."
-- from a statement by a Muslim student
Yes, there is. For if one identifies oneself as a Muslim, and by that gives every sign of meaning that one accepts, one follows, the belief-system of Islam, which in every conceivable way flatly contradicts the rights guaranteed by the American Constitution, including freedom of speech (not freedom of speech except as to being critical of Muhammad or other aspects of Islam), freedom of conscience (including the right to leave Islam without being threatened with death or any other penalty), full legal equality of the sexes (denied by Islam and especially by its inheritance and marriage and divorce laws), equal treatment of religions (impossible, unacceptable, in the belief-system of Islam). These are not minor or tangential matters. Nor is the belief that government exists because of the conseent of the governed, and not because some government accords with the Shari'a or Holy Law of Islam, or indeed any of the requirements of Islam.
This man, and other Muslim "naturalized" citizens, or for that matter Muslims born in this country, may think they are in fact identical to non-Muslims. But they are not. They cannot conceivably pledge loyalty, to the American (and Western) political institutions, to Infidel laws, and above all to the Constitution, and mean it. It is the belief-system of Islam, or the Constitution, but not both.
Some would prefer not to recognize or understand this question. But more Americans should -- the future of their own country depends on it. There is a very big difference between this man and "anybody else" -- if that "anybody else" does not share the belief-system of Islam.
Posted by: Hugh at May 4, 2006 11:43 PM
Jehovah's Witnesses also have a belief system which renders them psychologically incapable of being loyal to any nation -- including the USA. Their belief system considers all earthly nations to be in thrall to Satan, and considers the only good polity to be the eschatological one after Christ returns to end history. This is not merely a bizarre quirk of this quaint 19th-century heresy, but logically flows from orthodox Christianity (though the latter has had the wisdom to work out theological and psychological rapprochements with the indefinite Mystery of History not coming to an End).
One key reason why Jehovah's Witnesses are not, unlike Muslims, a security problem, is because their belief system has a built-in guarantee to separate Church and State: the separation of Eschaton and Immanence: Jehovah's Witnesses are taught to be content with the structures of this life and to wait patiently and non-violently (in accord with Christ-like behavior) for the Eschaton. Though some members at times have become a bit over-enthusiastic about thinking they knew when the End would arrive, it never resulted in any mass violence which Muslims have exhibited innumerable times over similar, or often far more theologically trivial, reasons. And part of the principle of the Jehovah's Witness Separation of Eschaton and Immanence (shared by orthodox Christianity as well) is letting God, not armies of men, be in charge of History's movement toward its End.
Conversely, one key reason why Muslims are a security problem is because they are taught explicitly and vehemently not to separate, but rather to positively fuse Eschaton and Immanence: for the Muslim mentality, the World has been ending for the past 1450 years, ever since Mohammed first set out for Medina -- and the only thing that has been stopping the world from ending the way it is supposed to end (with global victory for Islam) is the resistance of Infidels and their leader, Satan.
After the psychological, sociological and institutional disarray and dislocation which the last 300 years of spectacular (Western) Infidel dominance over the entire globe has caused the Muslim psyche, Islam is once again coalescing into its original aim: to end the World for Allah and begin the post-apocalyptic, post-Armageddon Caliphate which will blend into the Eternity of Paradise.
Posted by: Television at May 5, 2006 2:22 AM
Television, I would rather open my front door to a Jehovah's witness than a muslim ANY old day. Jehovah's usually aren't violent. They are just aggravating.
Posted by: freewoman at May 5, 2006 11:19 AM
freewoman,
I heartily agree with you -- which should have been evident from what I said in my post.
Posted by: Television at May 5, 2006 11:44 AM
It is interesting to see people attack a person that they do not know, and make countless assumptions on the basis of a name or what it sounds like. Perhaps it is not even his real name, perhaps it is a her, perhaps you should get some concrete information before making illogical conclusions and assumptions. It is also interesting how you take the words of the reporter and claim that they are accurate in describing the person you so name. No one claimed to be a Saudi citizen or claimed anything of the sort, who even said he was Muslim? Does a foreign sounding name that is common amongst Muslims automatically make one a Muslim? I leave you with the following advice: make sound judgements, assumptions and conclusions that are founded in nature, rather than being inherently flawed. Such an approach will lead you closer to the truth and to an understanding which you will surely appreciate if you are willing.
Posted by: truthfulreasoning at May 5, 2006 4:04 PM
Welcoming thousands of Saudi students was a dopey Bush/State Department scheme to snuggle up to The Kingdom. Apparently nobody in Washington thinks Americans should have any say about whether possible terrorists attend the local college.
Saudi Students Coming to a College Near You
As it happens, not everyone in Saudi was doing cartwheels over the idea either, given the undeniable culture clash.
Watch Out for Saudi Charm Offensive
at May 5, 2006 4:50 PM
I'm so glad that you post here, your knowledge and insight is most helpful.
However according to Arab News A million ex patriates to "benefit" from new Saudi Citizenship Law. Except, that the law specifically excludes Palestinians, which as we know are used as a distraction and a foil by the Muslims. Can't be making them citizens (they are refused citizenship in Lebanon too) although most are 2nd and 3rd or 4th Generation Saudis or Lebanonese.
Well i know about this 2004 amended citizenship law but then again since this guy is a naturalised American citizen he couldnt have possibly been a KSA citizen at any rate since this Saudi citizenship law was passed in 2004.
I havent myself lived in India that much but i know enough to recongise an Indian and Maharashtrian surnames. Ironically these "-kar" surnames are typical of Bene Israelis or the Indian Jews who've lived in Maharashtra for over past 1800 years.
Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at May 6, 2006 1:28 AM
Vikrant
I lived in Pune between 1985-1991. I never came across anybody named Punekar. The practice of people being named after where they came from was probably generations ago, but the names linger on. We had Bhandarkars, Kirloskars, Kelkars,... - a gazillion last names ending in kar, but I don't know of corresponding places in Maharashtra or elsewhere. I've heard the term Mumbaikar used to describe Mumbai residents after the city changed its name, but somehow, I don't recall Punekar being used in a similar way. But then again, picking up languages has never been a strong point of mine - while I can follow an overheard Marathi conversation, I can't speak it.
I think truthfulreasoning above has a point when he implies that the reporter might have been inaccurate in reporting this, either by the person's name, or his statements.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 6, 2006 4:43 AM
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