Protest 'Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week' at UW 'BEYOND OCCUPATION' With Dahr Jamail & Suheir Hammad- Sunday, November 4, 2007, 5:00 PM

digest note: this outrage is part of a national agenda which must be exposed and opposed: the ST's use of 'religion reporter' masks the fascist political nature of the events to whip up racist reaction in the service of the U.S. terror war agenda:

Local Muslims upset by UW campus event By Janet I. Tu Seattle Times religion reporter

A controversial week of events, billed as Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, launches at the University of Washington and some 100 other colleges next week - drawing condemnations from Muslim groups here and across the country.

The UW College Republicans, organizer of the local events, say the week is intended to foster awareness of the terrorist threat posed by a small number of extremists within Islam.

But some local Muslims say the week fosters Islamophobia and racism and attempts to paint all Muslims as terrorists.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, launched this year by a recent graduate of Duke University and sponsored by the Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, is intended to "confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat," according to its Web site.

The Web site includes suggested campus activities such as holding sit-ins outside women's studies departments to protest "the silence of feminists over the oppression of women in Islam" and holding a memorial service for the "victims of Islamo-Fascist violence around the world."

The UW week won't include all those elements.

"What we're going to be focusing more on specifically is the terrorist threat," said Auggie Eck, vice president of UW College Republicans. Beginning Monday, the group plans to hand out information sheets describing what the week's activities are all about. And it's hosting two events open to the public: a showing of "Suicide Killers," a documentary about suicide bombers, at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Smith Hall, and a talk by conservative author and talk-show host Michael Medved at 7 p.m. Thursday in Kane Hall.

Tom Walker, president of UW College Republicans, says they're not saying that all of Islam is dangerous. "Our main point is raising awareness of what we feel is an extreme brand of Islam that is spreading rapidly around the world and posing a threat to America and the Western world," he said.

Amin Odeh, a board member with the local Arab American Community Coalition, said he agrees that "radical anything is dangerous - radical Muslims, radical Christians, radical Jews. Education is needed." But Odeh says Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week makes too general a link between extremism and Islam, and that the term "Islamo-fascism" links fascism with an entire religion. "Unfortunately, when people hear the term they don't think of only a small group of extremists, but of Islam in general," he said.

Hala Dillsi, a member of the UW Muslim Student Association, believes Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week promotes fear and intolerance. She is distributing green armbands and encouraging people to wear T-shirts that are green - traditionally the color associated with Islam - on Wednesday in solidarity with local Arabs and Muslims.

The student group also is organizing a forum Oct. 29 in which professors and local Muslims discuss and answer questions about Islam.

Members of the Muslim Student Association, along with other organizations, also plan to hold protests outside Wednesday and Thursday evening's Awareness Week events.

Assistant Chief Ray Wittmier with the UW Police Department said his department is meeting with student organizers on all sides "to make sure everybody stays safe."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

***

From: Amin Odeh <odehamin@yahoo.com>
Subject: [AACC- Seattle] "BEYONDOCCUPATION" With Dahr Jamail & Suheir Hammad- Sunday, November 4, 2007, 5:00 PM

The 24th Annual Olympia Film Festival Presents
“BEYOND OCCUPATION”
With Dahr Jamail & Suheir Hammad
Sunday, November 4, 2007, 5:00 PM
Capitol Theater, Olympia
$10 general, $7 students & members
Tickets available at buyolympia.com <http://buyolympia.com/> and Rainy Day Records

Two masters of the written and spoken word come together, bearing witness to the violences of war and occupation in Iraq and Palestine .

Dahr Jamail will be speaking from his new book, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. He is described by Howard Zinn as “a superb journalist,” whose reporting “takes us past the lies of our political leaders, past the cowardice of the mainstream press, into the streets, the homes, the lives of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation.”

Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian spoken word Hip-Hop artist, best known for her award-winning performance in Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway (2003). She has published three collections: Born Palestinian, Born Black; Drops of This Story; and Zaatar Diva. Her passionate performance captures cultural resistance to war, occupation, prisons, racism, dispossession, and gender inequality, while demonstrating the amazing ability to survive, to love, and to maintain hope through times of struggle.

This event is a benefit for The Rachel Corrie Foundation( www.rachelcorriefoundation.org <http://www.rachelcorriefoundation.org/> ) and the kick-off of our Advocating Activism documentary series in the Olympia Film Festival.   Sponsors include The Rachel Corrie Foundation, SPSCC’s BRICK, and Evergreen’s SESAME.

note: the Palestinian people resisting genocidal oppression by US-ISRAEL are the real heroes -- and and genuine allies: regardless of the good intentions of many, the Rachel Corrie campaign makes a white, jewish american pacifist the hero / recipient of 'benefits' is an insult to the Palestinian nation and serves the U.S.* "strategic non-violence" project to undermine just armed liberation movements. The only genuine support for Palestinian liberation is support for their revolutionary anti-imperialist-anti-zionist struggle for national liberation.
* For more info. see http://www.burbankdigest.com/

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.