At least 100 people are marching around the Oregonian‘s SW Broadway and Jefferson headquarters right now, protesting yesterday’s distributions of a DVD about “Radical Islam’s War Against The West.”
The march followed a slate of speakers, from Rev. Dr. Chuck Cooper to Sho Dozono and State Rep. Avel Gordly, headed up by Kayse Jama of the Center for Intercultural Organizing. Their overwhelming message? The Oregonian did a disservice to the community by accepting “hateful, racist” propaganda like this DVD, a situation Cooper deemed “hatred intersected with greed.” Other papers around the country turned down the DVD, including the Detroit Free Press and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Jama, pictured above, lambasted the O’s “decision to circulate this hate mongering and Muslim-bashing DVD.”
“The Oregonian has made the wrong choice,” Rev. Cooper said. “They’ve chosen to misinform the citizenry.”
Several speakers called on the Oregonian to make amends, offering ideas like donating the proceeds from the ad toward a Muslim or interfaith group, publishing a written apology in next Sunday’s paper, and creating a policy that “defines the quality of ads” the paper will publish.
Gordly called on people to send the DVDs back to the Oregonian, with a statement that reflects on Dr. Martin Luther King’s idea of “beloved community.” She suggested people note that “we… as a community embrace beloved community, and in that community there can be no fear.”
Another speaker, Hala Gores–president of the Arab American Cultural Center of Oregon–led the crowd in a boisterous chant of “say no to hatred, Fred!” directed at Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel. And Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, co-chair of the Interfaith Council of Greater Portland, noted the timing, at the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, in calling for unity.
“I pray to God there is no violence that comes from the incitement in this DVD,” Rabbi Hirschfield said.
Islam isn’t a race
Polo Catalani, the city’s Immigrant & Refugee Program Coordinator, spoke as well, and referred to the DVD as a program about “murderous Muslims… and mad brown men.”
So then who exactly would it be turning this into a racial issue?
I watched the video and about the only thing I can agree with was the quote; “All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” This is clearly a piece of propaganda, rolled out in time for the election. It cherry picks images and rhetoric with the intent to inflame and promote hate. Substitute Christian or Jew for Muslim and it could just as easily be a video about extreme fundamentalist Christians [Pastor Hagee “after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” Then Hagee says, of the hunters, “If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust — you can’t see that.”,] or post WWII Jewish terrorism against the British including the activities of Haganah, the Irgun, not to mention the gulags of Palestine or even Sarah Palin’s witch hunting pastor. There is enough hate to go around for every one.
Has Roger Ebert, Gene Shalit, or Leonard Maltin reviewed this film? I would be interested in their views.
What a surprise to find a movie in my paper. It was either a gift from the Oregonian or God (someone’s God anyway). Ironically, as I slipped the DVD into the player, I had to turn off the Sunday morning batch of evangelical Christians preaching on TV. No doubt they share some responsibility for the content. I am neither Christian nor Muslim and share equal disdain for fanatics on both sides. Hey, Michael Moore has a free movie too. At least he didn’t slip it in next to the funny papers.
Return your copies of this fear-mongering, lying video to the Oregonian. Don’t add them to the landfill. Tell Freddie Stickel to stopy lying about the Big O’s support of free speech. This paid for hate speech.
Veritas
Ol’ Avel Gordly has got to be the most annoying person around. I thought she was retiring, but she just doesn’t go away…
What is wrong with all of you attacking this movie? Are you deliberately pretending not to be aware that this movie warns only about the threat of radical extremists in the Muslim world and not about Muslims in general? Stop letting PC’ness blind you to reality. The extremists you’re defending would kill you as infidels. The only freedom they believe in is the freedom to submit to their worldview. (And contrary to the sign in the picture, Islam means “submission,” not “peace.”) As a gay man who has lived in Iran, I am terrified of extremist Islam. While extremist Christians scare me, at least they won’t be hanging me or chopping off my head for being gay. We need to stand up and oppose radical Islamic theocracy. I’m glad the Oregonian allowed this message to go out.
Rick, it depends on which extremist Christians you run into whether or not you lose your head… And the fact that some of them won’t chop of your head is little consolation to the people’s heads that they do chop off, (or McCain’s “Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran”.) Most extremists are scary, Muslim ones no more or less so than others.
Thank you rick.
‘Most extremists are scary, Muslim ones no more or less so than others.’ – because the Christians Jews and Buhddists will kill themselves to take you out? Right. Open your eyes.
Cheers to Fred Stickel for not being intimidated by self-appointed censors. The protesters don’t seem to understand what the First Amendment to the Constitution is all about. Because you don’t agree with a statement doesn ‘t mean it is wrong and should be suppressed.
Bob Van Leer
“because the Christians Jews and Buhddists will kill themselves to take you out?”
You’ve never heard of the LTTE, have you? Until we invaded Iraq, they had kill more people with suicide bombers than the rest of the organizations on the planet, put together. You should read up on them, but I’ll give you a hint: They aren’t Muslim.
“Right. Open your eyes.”
I have. Suicide bombing is a act of true desperation, only taken up by people that have very little to gain from traditional avenues of warfare. And it works. When an invading army takes over your land, rapes and kills your family and then starves you, you’ll probably be strapping explosives to your body yourself, as will I. It has very little to do with religion, look at kamikaze pilots in WWII, by the time it came to that, Japan was already losing very very badly…
If your have a disdain for Islam and Muslims, then that is your right. Spare us all the regurgitation of your hatred mantras.
When you bring up a culture war between Islam and the western world, then please remember that we’re the ones forcing slutty Brat dolls and other examples of poor morality onto THEIR shelves and disrespecting their culture.
Wake up foolios, when you were sleeping in class you might have missed some very important context as to why things have evolved into the ugly situations they are today.
Lose the circular logic sets and for fuck sake, the hubris.
I am embarrassed for you all of you haters and deeply ashamed to be of the same species.