Opinions on the extremely anti-Islam guy who came to our school yesterday?
Though I did not attend the presentation, I read one of his pamphlets. It appeared to me to be incredibly biased and mostly unfounded, as you can't really argue or prove a point from a single quote from the Quran or one isolated incident.
I suppose that I can't condemn the man for what he honestly believes, but what is the line between insensitivity or disrespect and sharing what you feel to be right?
Anonymous
06:31:00 PM
9 comments:
Crazy as he is, any fault would probably lie with the man that invited him.
Although everyone I've heard that's complained has been someone who "did not attend the presentation," but did "read one of his pamphlets."
Where are the people that were actually so scarred and angered by such a presentation?
I really have no idea what to think, as I didn't attend or see the pamphlets. I'd say people need to be exposed to religious crazies but it needs to be done in a somewhat...respectful manner?
I don't really know what happened, anyone who went want to tell us specifically?
Two people in newspaper class actually went to the presentation (along with one muslim girl, from what I can gather) and basically he was radically anti-Islam. He wasn't angry or mean, they described him as a "cute little Egyptian guy" who just "said awful things."
Anyway, I agree, the fault is with Esco. We plan on writing about it and offering him a chance to respond.
it is in the opinion of this person that many of his statements were founded on fact, while many argue that he took certain scripture out of context i just dont see what they mean...i looked up many of the same scripture online on different versions of the qu'ran and they say what he said
Not sure if this is what you're asking about or not, but you cannot pull one sentence out of the whole entire Koran and make a point about the whole religion. I am not entirely certain about how "correct" or "incorrect" his arguments were (because different people practice Islam in different ways), but he did not provide the neccessary "proof" with a few quotes.
It's like picking up a large book and pulling out a few sentences from it to generalize the whole thing, if that made any sense.
As someone who has Mr. E for a class, and as someone who attended the lecture by the speaker mentioned in this topic, I feel I should post.
The gentleman who gave the lecture began by distributing the aforementioned pamphlets, and refered to them throughout his presentation. Some were directed at the guys, others directed at the girls, focusing on different topic, esp. concerning behavior in marriage.
The focus of the lecture varied between describing the torture and trials he went through as a Christian in Egypt and lambasting Islam as a religion of violence and intolerance.
I won't use this post to actually argue the merits of his discussion, but I'll voice my opinion.
I think that the man giving the talk was indeed biased and slanted. However, he provided a perspective that is seldom seen in our sheltered microcosm at Enloe: prejudice. He showed us the conviction of his beliefs, and gave us the perspective of one who has endured things and experienced a world many of us will likely never face. If anything, it was an invaluable glimpse of life outside the fishbowl, so to speak.
Also, the free speech thing. No one was forced to stay in the room; anybody could leave if they so chose (a couple did during 8th period, when I was in attendance). Additionally, it wasn't as though the speaker was snuck into the school through any sort of subversion -- current school policy allows faculty to invite speakers without explicit approval of the administration.
Anyway, that's my two cents, so to speak. Basically, I'm hoping that there's no serious fallout from this speaker/presentation, though it's been dramatically hyped and overblown by both students and faculty.
^That was not what I was told, BoxBox. I was told you guys were not offered another option explicitly.
I'm more concerned about how a radical such as this managed to pass through administration like this.
What's next, the Imperial Wizard?
To preface my remarks, I was not in attendance at the lecture and I did not read the pamphlets.
It's terrible that someone can think that way, but from what I hear, it doesn't sound like he changed many minds. I feel sorry for this man, to have seen such an ugly side a religion and to have been brutally tortured, and I can't begrudge him his opinion based on his experiences. Still, his hate has no power if the students of Enloe don't act on it. Just as we shouldn't react to his lectures with a wave of violence against the Muslim students at Enloe, we shouldn't react with scores of angry letters defaming this man. It only gives him attention.
To clarify, I guess, here’s more my reasons for posting, or why I reacted, or something? At lunch, I first got one of the brochures from a friend who is in one of the classes of Mr. Escamilla. The typical “What the heck is this!?”, anger at some of the arguments and prejudices, and indignant reactions all occurred among my friends. After a while, I calmed down a bit and began to realize that I was a bit hasty in getting so upset over it; people will be prejudiced and biased in the world no matter what. (And this man did have reasons to be upset with the Muslims that had tortured him, whether or not he should have applied those generalizations to the whole religion.) My main problem after that occurred when I saw one of the Muslim girls in my class and her reaction to the brochure. She was genuinely upset and was made uncomfortable by some of the, according to her, untrue statements made about her religion. I think that I was reacting more to the way that it upset her than at the man, who I don’t agree with but was still within his rights to say what he believed.
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