American Ideals Not Getting Through at Our CollegesCarol IannoneA Jewish writer who could pass for a Mideastern man infiltrated a closed meeting of the Muslim Student Association at Queensborough Community College in March 2003 and heard the following pronouncements from the speakers:
“We are not Americans,” he shouted. “We are Muslims. [The U.S.] is going to deport and attack us! It is us vs. them! Truth against falsehood! The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we will burn down the master’s house!” [Note the blending of the various modes–Islamic fundamentalism, quasi-Marxist anti-colonialism, and American black and feminist militancy.]
“We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don’t lobby Congress or protest because we don’t recognize Congress! The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!”
“The so-called terrorists are the only people who truly fear Allah …. We must join with these organizations. They are the only worthy causes, and the mighty superpower only fears them.”
The writer, Aaron Klein, chatted with the speakers afterward and discovered that they speak at many colleges throughout the New York area, mostly under the auspices of the Muslim Student Association. Klein ”wondered how students likely receiving federal aid to attend a public college can agree with speakers who promote the destruction of the very government that is educating them? Whether some of these students would consider joining the kinds of organizations that were being promoted? How such rhetoric can be accepted at an American university?”
How, indeed. Perhaps because America, supposedly defined entirely by her ideals, has been so fragmented by diversity, multiculturalism, and group entitlement that she has lost the cultural basis through which the ideas can be conveyed.