POST SCRIPTS

freely in the country, simply because he has converted to Christianity and supports this country's policies towards Israel. We call upon the FBI and DHW to investigate the claims regarding Shoebat's violent past and to see whether he disclosed this information when applying for his citizenship.

We also condemn the intentionally Islamophobic and erroneous association of Islam and violence that will result from the fear-mongering employed in the event's advertisements. We ask fellow students and community members to study the facts about Islam and reject hate-speech and propaganda."

The Mission of the MSA at UC Davis is to create an avenue for Muslim students to meet, exchange ideas, clarify misconceptions about Islam. The MSA hosts various events throughout the year." Shazeb Qadir, President End of statement.

When I was talking with the Muslim students one thing was clear, they all "said" they felt the same way as Shazeb, but when asked individually to articulate their grievances with Shoebat, about half of those I spoke with really didn't know much about the man and the others were just restating the position noted above. You have consider these kids were probably under a lot of peer pressure, which seems to be the case all over the Arab world so I can't say they were all being forthcoming about their true feelings. Individual dissent goes against the way they've been raised. The only answer that made any sense to them was that Shoebat must be an opportunist, exploiting his alleged ties to radical Muslims for big money. In their minds what else could it be? They knew Islam couldn't be as evil as he claimed, so he must be a fraud, they even doubted he ever had such ties to terrorism.

When asked why they doubted Shoebats terrorist ties, they couldn't give me a good answerI, but I felt it was mostly because they just didn't like what Shoebat said about Muslims and I can understand that, Shoebat was pretty rough on Muslims and they couldn't accept the criticism as being truthful. This was a denial pattern I've seen in a lot of protest groups where emotion often trumps facts. However, what was very positive about these students was their overall demeanor which conveyed a lot of sincerity about being non-violent. They wanted to be as open and communicative about their religion as it was culturally possible and I felt that was a good sign.

Their numbers outside Freeborn Hall were probably about 50 by the time event let out. As people exited the students followed a fairly well orchestrated plan that appeared to be led by an older middle eastern appearing male. I suspected he was an Imam when I saw him a few minutes earlier hold what looked like a prayer for the students that circled around him.

When I was wrapping up my conversations with the Muslim students, the consensus answer was, they were all still feeling the heat from 9-11 and in that sense they felt like victims of racial profiling. I said, "Isn't that the whole point of terrorism, to create suspicions and divisions among a population?" They all agreed to that point and the President of their group, Shazeb Qadir, said this is exactly why they want to keep communications open between their group and others in the community. At one point a Muslim male student said, "If the USA was attacked I would defend this country and other people (other Americans) don't get this!"

For the students to actually admit there was a threat to the USA by some Muslims radicals seems a breakthrough, given the sort of denial we've come to expect from the Muslim world. But, then this is a very moderate and mostly American born Muslim group.

The sad part is these students were good kids. They were about to launch themselves into mainstream American society as college graduates and here they were putting themselves at odds with Shoebat, a man that most other Americans seem think of as a sort of "truth" hero giving the ultimate insight into fanatical Muslim terrorism. For these students, here and at other college campus's, to take on Walid Shoebat and not also go on the offensive against terrorists other than Shoebat, makes their grievances against him appear disingenuous, even though I do not believe this is the case. I can appreciate in some small way the anger and resentment these young Muslims must feel towards the man, since Shoebat rails against the brutality he experienced that was passed off as fundamentalist doctrine. Worse yet, he does it as a former Muslim who has converted to becoming a Christian, which according to Sharia law is a crime of apostasy which often carries a death sentence.

It's hard to wrap your head around a death sentence for anyone over his/her religious beliefs... if you have a western mind or even an open mind in the 21st century. But, to put this in some sense of cultural context, imagine how you might feel if you were a very devout Catholic and a former Catholic Priest became a Pentecostal and went on to publicly say how rotten Catholicism was and what evil it fostered. Then imagine that he went on a popular public speaking tour denouncing all Catholics as a bunch of child molesters and published two books on the subject. You'd be pretty mad too and not likely too open to hearing what he had to say about your religion. This is the situation the Muslims students are caught up in, only its even worse for them because of their strict culture.

The clear way out of this conflict, where they might be thought of as potential terrorists when protesting Shoebat, is to acknowledge that radical fundamentalist philosophies do create hatred, bigotry and violence. But, do it publicly, not necessarily like Shoebat, but perhaps in some sort of context that they could live with it and yet not feel like they are selling out their religion. That's a real tough road for these students. They are caught in the middle between two cultures and no matter what they do, they won't satisfy either side. Fundamentalist Islamic terrorism is one big loser for them, their families and their religion...but, this day they can't come right out and say it in any sort of convincing way that's on par with their anger toward a guy like Shoebat. Maybe some day they will, but not this day.