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Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

The art of survey is a very tricky measure to grasp and its interpretation is certainly even more challenging to establish. The poll brought to us by the Sweet Briar Voice about what the people thought of Congressman Goode’s letter (Volume 5, No.5) caught my attention and made me think about the dangers of drawing conclusions from surveys. May I please remind you the results of the poll that came out with these conclusions:

Sixteen percent of the Sweet Briar students believed that Muslim/Middle Eastern immigration poses a security threat to Americans. Seven percent believed we should restrict Muslim immigration to the United States, and eleven percent of students felt that Muslims pose a cultural threat to American life.

The first impression I get from the questions asked is that they seem to reflect the intentions of the interviewers. In fact, the types of questions asked were xenophobic, for all of them seem to be geared at getting the students to say that indeed, Muslims are a threat to the U.S.

Generalizing the point of view of thirteen people on campus to the rest of the community on touchy issues such as this one is far from being professional. Indeed, in a world where religion has certainly become a hot-button issue, people should be more cautious when writing about faiths and beliefs that are different from theirs.

Cultural relativism should be a more important part of our daily lives and we should definitely depart from stereotypes that do not only offend other people but that do far more harm than one might think. In a college like ours that praises freedom of speech, we should also bear mind that how we present our ideas on paper does have an impact on the readers who pay attention to what is being published within their own community.

This is the reason why I thought it was important to draw awareness on the implications of our writings and how they might affect every single member of the Sweet Briar community, including the Muslim students living among us. If surveys have to be done in the future concerning such touchy issues, I suggest that more significant data be collected and random sampling performed before ascertaining that eleven percent of students feel that Muslims pose a cultural threat to American life

Marieme Diop ‘07

Dear Editor,

An article published in the last issue of the Voice recently came to my attention. The article began by talking about how Congressman Virgil Goode was facing a storm after his statements opposing another Minnesota congressman. The article ended up in a very surprising way with a questionable survey, and I am still shocked by its results and insinuations.

I need to explain some points here in order to enlighten our small community here in Sweet Briar and am sure that what I will explain will be understood with the open minds and hearts that I have seen so far from the majority of good and real Americans.

In his statement, Goode called to stop legal immigrations of Muslims to the states so that after many years he doesn’t wake up to a whole office filled up with Muslim officials. But the brain twisting part about this is that Keith Ellison is a native African American. Neither he nor his parents immigrated, and he is of African roots. In this present moment, he is 100 % an American citizen with full rights to be elected, even for the presidency. So, it seems that Goode is either not aware of Ellison’s background, or that he is simply a racist.

Then Goode proceeded to declare that he won’t put the Quran on his wall for whatever reasons, but that’s not an issue at all—putting the Quran on his wall or not won’t change any of the legitimacy or the importance of Quran as a holy book. But for me as a Muslim, I do respect the holy Bible as much as the holy Quran. In my Islamic dogma we believe in all the prophets and holy people sent to us from God, as well as all the holy books related to them.

Goode expresses irritation of the “diversity visas policy pushed hard by president Clinton,” and this line totally astonished me. I thought that America is an open country— that was the main reason it was created—as an open country for all nations, religions and opinions to have a new start and a new life.

His fear of more immigrating Muslims lacks some important information; Islam is not in the Middle East alone. There are Muslims all over the world; it is a growing religion by itself inside the states without Muslims of the Middle East coming to spread it.

Now for Goode’s opposing Ellison’s swearing on the Quran. We as humans swear on the book that holds us liable in front of almighty God, but if Ellison swore on the holy Bible, technically he is not liable in front of God or any other party to hold him responsible. So, what would Goode prefer? For Ellison to become a liar, or to swear on the book that will hold him liable for his actions? Or does Goode think that American Muslims should never be elected at all?

And although it is a small percentage who expressed their fear of the Islamic religion in the Voice’s poll, I want to ask, what do they really know about Islam? Haven’t they seen different Muslim ladies on campus that might have given them different ideas of what Islam is, who Arabs are, and how Middle Easterners think?

Another topic related to this issue is that I have sensed that there is a mixing up of terms used. There is a huge difference between Islam, Arabs and Middle East. Islam is a religion not allocated to a specific area, Arabs are an ethnic group composed of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others, and finally the Middle East is just a geographical term to refer to the location in regard to other nations of the world.

For me, no matter how negative an idea I have about a nation, country, religion or an ethnic group, as soon as I start coming across people from this background, I change my ideas about them and open a door for a second opinion and a diverse point of view.

Finally, I hope that even if Goode has the right to express his opinion, which appears to be full of hatred, ignorance, and lacks knowledge of civil rights, we here in Sweet Briar, should not advertise such extreme points of view. My advise to the student writer is that if she wants to write an article about such a subject, she could have done much better by approaching the other side, who are offended here, and tried to know their point of view and publish it in the same article. By this, she would have presented a multi-angled point of view for the whole matter and avoided a lot of the trouble that might come from tackling such a sensitive issue.

All what I have written here does not mean that I judge all Americans and put them in one side of the scale, but even if there is a minority with a mistaken idea, it should be corrected and a space for another opinion should be heard.

Thanks & regards,

Hafssa Zaghmout