We deem it a misfortune a reputable entity such as the Ohio University School of Media Arts and Studies decided to host last Wednesday Ms. Geller and Mr. Spencer, who can best be described as being on a professional anti-Muslim and anti-mosque mission throughout the United States on one of their bigoted trips throughout the country.
What even comes as a greater sadness is the lame excuse used by the organizers of the program to the effect that the photographer for the documentary is an alumnus of the school and approached them to host or sponsor the program, and they gladly obliged even though they hinted in the same breath that they considered the documentary to be in bad taste and that they did not share in the philosophy behind the documentary.
However, it is interesting that the organizers still thought it was a good idea to help propagate it. With the above contradictions, one can only wonder if the decision to sponsor the said program was not based on the fact that the documentary was against Islam and Muslims and so was not a big deal.
We wonder if the same decision would have been made if the documentary were against the existence and practices of another major faith in this country.
We are of the opinion that either the organizers shared in the worldview of Ms. Geller and Mr. Spencer or they were unfortunately misled into this hate campaign by a former student who shares in this worldview. Granted that the photographer for the hate documentary is an alumnus of the School of Media Arts and Studies, should his or her association with the said documentary not have stayed at the professional level?
What could have motivated this former student to transgress his or her professional limits to engage in advocacy for the propagation of this bigoted material for which we believe he was paid his due at the end of his contract? Or is finding viewers and sponsors for the documentary on college campuses also part of his or her contract?
We believe the good people of this community need some convincing that the organizers sponsored this bigoted documentary simply because it had the signature of a former student on it. We wonder if the excuse to sponsor the documentary was not just a cover for the promotion of religious intolerance in our peaceful and discerning community, because we are still trying to understand its academic benefit to justify its showing.
We are witnesses to efforts in Athens, the state of Ohio and the rest of the country of people of all faiths working tirelessly to promote mutual understanding among people of varied religious leanings for the mutual benefit of all. In our own small way, Muslims in Athens have been honoring invitations to various classes all throughout OU for religious and interfaith discussions and activities and also providing valuable resources to support the academic work of faculty and students.
Our worship and resource center — similar to what this documentary was opposing — receives hundreds of students from several OU departments, grade schools and colleges in Southeast Ohio and across the Ohio River in Parkersburg, W. Va., visiting the center for information and resources to support all kinds of activities.
We wish all of us, including the hosts and the propagandists, will take a minute to ponder on where all these groups would have gone for these valuable resources and answers to their questions if OU and the City of Athens had refused to host an Islamic Worship and Resource Center here?
We would like to put on record that our group does not subscribe to any form of hate propagation against any person or group of persons based on their social or religious orientation. We are just normal people facing and working our ways through regular daily challenges of life just like everybody else.
We fail to see any difference between the organization(s) of Ms. Geller and Mr. Spencer and those that subscribe to their hate propaganda and the much detested al-Qaida since they both thrive on the propagation of hatred against people and groups who do not believe what they believe.
It is groups such as those that serve al-Qaida and its affiliates the fodder they need to survive, and they both have the sole aim of destabilizing otherwise stable communities by creating and sustaining nonexistent bogeymen.
Muslim Students Association
