David Horowitz does not speak for Muslims. Nevertheless, he has taken it upon himself to decide what is good for Muslims around the world. In his appearance on campus Monday, as a part of his national “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” Mr. Horowitz made factually incorrect statements about Islamic concepts such as Sharia (Law), and also attempted to assess the religiosity of Muslims, even making the outrageous statement that Osama Bin Laden is “a good Muslim” and “follows the Quran.” In addition to assessing the religiosity of Muslims, Mr. Horowitz said that his appearance was for the Muslims. He also put a significant amount of blame on moderate Muslims for not speaking up. Despite this, Mr. Horowitz and his organization never made any attempts to reach out to the Muslim Students Association of Madison (MSA) about involvement with his event. Perhaps the reason Mr. Horowitz and the organizers of this event made no attempt to reach out to MSA is because Mr. Horowitz has long attempted to discredit groups such as MSA by perpetuating the myth that they are funded by Hamas. Such allegations are absurd, especially on this campus, and are a hindrance to the productive conversation Mr. Horowitz is claiming to promote. It goes without saying that the MSA does not have any connection to terrorist organizations. Yet those who did organize this event made three issues their primary focus: women in Islam, the current state of Muslim majority countries and support for Israel. However, neither Hillel, the main organizational Jewish group on campus, nor MSA, the main organizational Muslim voice on campus, co-sponsored his appearance. On the contrary, before Islamo-fascism week was even announced, the two aforementioned groups, along with the Lutheran Campus Center were actively engaged in building interfaith ties and promoting dialogue. On Tuesday, MSA, LCC, and Hillel cosponsored a panel discussion on contemporary Islam. Also, even before Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’s inception, MSA recruited speaker Jamal Badawi to come and speak next Thursday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. at 1100 Grainger, on the topic of Jihad, Holy War, and Terrorism. Every year the MSA has held panels and discussions revolving around important issues such as women in Islam. If Mr. Horowitz had made any sincere attempt at outreach, this campus would have realized far earlier that his presence would in fact be detrimental to the productive conversation these important issues deserve. Various groups make the claim that hosting Mr. Horowitz, despite his views, sparks conversation and promotes a diversity of ideas. While it is true that a diversity of ideas needs to be promoted, it also assumes that students on the UW campus are incapable of organically conversing about these important topics; it doesn’t take a multi-million dollar campaign to promote the sifting and winnowing of ideas, it takes a simple e-mail. Reaching out and working with campus groups is cheaper and exponentially more effective. Yet, no outreach attempt was made by Mr. Horowitz and those who sponsored him. We ask the campus community to engage in discussion and to work together for this university’s hallowed principle of sifting and winnowing to find truth. For this reason, MSA saw no use in being among the protesters at Mr. Horowitz’s talk. Finally, we believe that the best way to further a productive discussion is by reaching out, by creating bonds, by posing hard questions. We realize this student body demands of itself a higher standard than espoused by Mr. Horowitz, and we can achieve it without bringing in speakers who seek to divide rather than reach out. Safi Khaleel UW Senior, Journalism Muslim Student Association [email protected] Adam Sitte UW Senior, Arabic Communications Chair Muslim Student Association [email protected]