Column Rehashes Stereotypes of Islam

To the editors:

In the last few decades, as the Muslim population in America has grown, so too have the misconceptions and stereotypes of Islam and its adherents. As students at arguably one of the greatest institutions for understanding and thought in the world, we have the duty to ensure that untainted and unbiased truth be heard. This duty holds doubly true for the media through which this truth is expressed. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the column by Ebon Y. Lee ’04 (“Europe’s Immigration Problem,” Dec. 2), this duty is not always fulfilled.

Aside from the degrading portrayal of immigrants of any origin, the article vastly misconstrues the Muslim religion. It portrays Islam in the way it has been characterized in America for decades—as a violent, emotion-based, patriarchal, inhumane religion. One of the clearest examples of this mischaracterization appears in Lee’s example of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is waging a public battle against what he calls “a culture of forced marriages and sexual abuse in the Netherlands’ Muslim immigrant population…practices she unapologetically label[s] ‘backward.’” This sentence is erroneous in two ways; first, it refers to Islam as a culture. In reality, however, Islam is a religion composed of peoples from a rainbow of cultures and nationalities. To group religion and culture together is to refuse to acknowledge that many practices and customs are specific to culture and not necessarily religion.

This leads us to our second contention—the “backward” practices of forced marriages and sexual abuse are certainly not Islamic, though they are bigotedly associated with Islam. There are many nations under many creeds wherein the treatment of women is questionable. This is not an inherent trait of the Muslim religion. And portraying it as such is, in a word, prejudiced.

What we are trying to make clear are two things. First, Lee obviously has no clear understanding of the time, place or people of which he speaks. And secondly, it is one thing to hold a position on an issue. It is another to degrade and dehumanize an entire religion’s adherents. Lee’s article did nothing but contribute to the further discrimination of an already targeted population.

It is everyone’s responsibility to stop prejudice and to prevent ignorance. We not only hold Lee responsible for this article, but also the Crimson editors and the Harvard community at large. And we wonder why University President Lawrence H. Summers has not come out against this hate speech as he has anti-Semitic hate speech? We say this not as a justification for anti-Semitism, but rather as a plea that the University and those within its bounds fulfill the expectations of respect that even our own president holds so dear.

Priscilla J. Orta ’05

Nura A. Hossainzadeh ’06

Hebah M. Ismail ’06

Dec. 7, 2002