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Herald wrong to print ‘Jihad’ ad

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by Letters to the Editor

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I read the Herald today for the first time, and was surprisingly disappointed. Upon paging through the Herald, I came upon an advertisement that thoroughly disturbed me. It was titled "What Americans Need to Know About Jihad," and featured slogans such as "The goal of jihad is world domination," "Jihad's battle cry is 'Death to America,'" and "Jihad is a war against Women…[and] Gays." Not only is this information untrue, it is completely biased.

First of all, the literal definition of jihad is not holy war, it is "to struggle." Where the public has come to define jihad as holy war completely eludes me. According to Michael G. Knapp, "the word jihad has appeared widely in the Western news media following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but the true meaning of this term in the Islamic world is still not well understood by non-Muslims." How can this term be correctly understood by non-Muslims if advertisements like these are appearing in prestigious newspapers?

Second of all, I have no idea where the idea that jihad is a war against gays and women came from. Sure, Muslims may have different views on the rights of women and homosexuals, but that does not equate to war on women and homosexuals.

Whereas I understand that the Badger Herald does not necessarily endorse the ideas in the ad and that it was simply a paid advertisement, that doesn't mean that you had to put it in your newspaper. I don't understand why a newspaper as prestigious as yours can display such a biased piece. Whether the ideas of this advertisement are endorsed by your paper or not, it is unacceptable that a newspaper such as yours would present them. It is thanks to biased groups in the media such as the Terrorism Awareness Project that we, as Americans, have been set so far back in terms of true understanding in a global perspective.

Hannah Fox UW Freshman

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Anonymous (February 1, 2007 @ 11:15am):

Prestigious? It's a student newspaper at a university, not the New York Times. Quit complaining. Besides, your name is distinctly Anglo-Saxon. You're not a Muslim so you shouldn't care. End of story.

Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 2:53pm):

Fine, I can take out the word pretigious and it still proves the same point. As to your second comment, just because my name is Anglo-Saxon does not mean I am not a Muslim. I'm not, but just because I am a Christian it doesn't mean I have to be okay with printing misinformation about the Muslim religion, which is disrespectful. You don't have to be associated with something to care about it. For example, a lot of the people who voted pro-gay marriage were not, in fact, homosexual.

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