Serving Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and surrounding communities
By Nadia Maiwandi
It seems that Huntington Beach's Planning Commission chairman, Robert Dingwall, and the Vatican's Pope Benedict XVI have something in common -- and it's not piety.
Both publicly furthered highly inflammatory, erroneous, and condemning words about Muslims and Islam. And both are shirking responsibility.
The pope made his feelings known Sept. 12 at Germany's Regensburg University where he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who said Prophet Muhammad was “evil and inhuman,” and that Islam was “spread by the sword."
When the pope's actions were criticized as irresponsible and bigoted, he recanted by saying that he had only quoted the emperor, and refused to apologize to those he had offended.
Later that month and across the Atlantic, Dingwall's Islamophobia surfaced Sept. 22 via an email forward containing highly ignorant and racist comments by Professor Indrek Wichman of Michigan State University, who called the followers of Islam "dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems."
Dingwall posted the professor's remarks on the Southeast Huntington Beach Neighborhood Association listserver, or SEHBNA, which has 122 members. The forward also contained the words of an anonymous commentator who rallied behind the professor, and Dingwall offered no analysis nor did he take the time to clarify that the commentator's words were not his own.
In an interview with Orange County Voice, Dingwall refused to take responsibility for forwarding the hate-filled email and said he was only sending “information” and that “there's nothing to have to try to take responsibility for.”
The email began when Wichman, a mechanical engineering professor, became so incensed by the campus Muslim Students' Association's plan to use the now-infamous Danish cartoons controversy as an educational forum that he fired off an abusive tirade at the group of students.
“I am offended not by cartoons,” Wichman wrote the student group, “but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian churches … the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called 'whores' in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.”
The professor continued with a threatening tone: “This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile 'protests.' ”
The soft-spoken academic then resorted to the racist's too tired “Love it or leave it” mantra, instructing “most of you” Muslims in the U.S. to return to their ancestral lands. He further added: “If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st Amendment -- you are free to leave.” Interesting that he should claim First Amendment rights while trying to silence others. Apparently, Wichman feels that Muslims are not entitled to the same rights he reserves for himself.
Farhan Abdul Azeez, the president of the student group at the time of the incident in February, said the professor and subsequent media reports misunderstood the group's actions.
“We did not hold a protest,” but several educational forums to enlighten the larger community as to why the cartoons were offensive to Muslims, he said in an interview. “Members of the MSA were stationed (on campus) giving out free hot cocoa and informational pamphlets on the cartoons. … In the evening, we held an open question and answer session that was attended by students, faculty, and university administrators,” said Azeez, 20, who has since graduated from MSU and starts medical school next year.
Dingwall claimed that he had forwarded Wichman's email because the SEHBNA listserver had been discussing issues of Islam in recent days, but on further investigation no emails regarding Islam or Muslims even weeks before Dingwall's forward could be found.
When he was pressed, the commissioner denied Wichman's email was racist and said the professor had reason to be upset. He then summarized: “A group of students really ticked off this professor, and he's laying it out for everybody to read.”
“It seems as if he has a strong distaste for open dialogue to promote understanding,” Azeez said of Dingwall's comments. “To say we deserved what we got is equivalent to saying people who seek to promote understanding and dialogue between different communities deserve to be attacked -- because that is exactly what happened.
“Perhaps next time he should learn more about the situation and what the MSA did to become the victim of Dr. Wichman's hate before spreading that message of hate to others.”
Dingwall, who accused the Orange County Voice of being a “liberal, phony newspaper trying slander me for passing along some information,” shouldn't despair; there are plenty of likeminded folk for him right here in Orange County.
Shawn Steel, a former state Republican Party chairman, charged a Muslim city council candidate of Syrian descent with being “anti-American” for his work in an anti-war rally.
Posted on the politically conservative OC Blog and titled “Something Scary in Anaheim,” Steels levels accusations at Belal "Bill" Dalati, a U.S. citizen and fellow Republican, using Dalati's Syrian heritage to provoke bigotry and fear in order to sway voters.
“I am concerned when a candidate just weeks ago support (sic) an anti-American rally. … Extreme groups participating were A.N.S.W.E.R., CAIR, Muslim Student Association and a host of zany left wing groups. … Dalati would be a poor choice, who focuses on American's (sic) enemies in the Middle East,” Steel wrote.
The letter was posted by former state Sen. John Lewis, a consultant to Dalati's opponent, Councilman Bob Hernandez, in the Anaheim race.
Steel, who has previously called Islam a “diseased” religion, was obviously looking to deflect calls of racism when he likened the anti-war rally attended by Dalati to “a Ku Klux Klan rally or a neo-Nazi rally” in an Associated Press story. “Those groups and their anti-American rhetoric are the same,” the AP quoted Steel, who is white, saying.
The absurdity of a white American politician attaching this country's history of racial prejudice and white supremacy to a Muslim immigrant may be a new all-time low - even in politics.
But Steel and his associates shouldn't be so quick to snub the groups that may provide the fan base they seek. The unbridled hate expressed by Wichman, the MSU professor, has made him somewhat of a hero on Web sites and blogs. Neo-Nazi and Aryan Nation bloggers praise him and back up his claims of Muslim inferiority on sites that carry “white pride, world wide” slogans and say “obliterating Islam” is the only way to world peace.
Azeez of the student group said that they are still receiving hate mail from those rallying for the professor due to many of these sites.
The neo-Nazis seem to share Wichman's ignorance to the “aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading” history of the West and Christianity, and have apparently not caught a news broadcast covering the U.S.'s atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan and detention camps in the last five years, where murder, rapes and torture have been routine.
From world leaders to local public figures, it seems Muslims are fair game. Robert Dingwall said he “passed (the email) on as food for thought and to rattle a couple cages a bit,” clearly conceding that the writings were offensive in nature. A recent AP poll showed that 25 percent of Americans have “anti-Muslim views,” and media outlets and public figures rely on this type of prejudice to turn a buck - or even just to get attention - without a thought to the reality of the situation or the detriment to Muslims.
'Food for thought' lacks balance and leaves bad taste
sehbna@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 12:26:17 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
Subject: [sehbna] Subject: MICHIGAN STATE PROFESSOR SPEAKS OUT
Subject: MICHIGAN STATE PROFESSOR SPEAKS OUT
-----Hooray for Michigan State University
(The Spartans) and Professor Wichman!
Well, what do we have here. Looks like a small case of some
people beingable
to dish it out, but not take it. Let's start at the top. The
story beginsat
Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering
professor namedIndrek
Wichman.
Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The
e-mailwas
in response to the
students' protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the
ProphetMuhammad
as a terrorist. The
group had complained the cartoons were "hate speech."
EnterProfessor
Wichman. In his e-mail, he said the following:
Dear Moslem Association:
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to
protestyour
protest.
I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like
beheadingsof civilians,
cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders
ofCatholic priests
(the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian churches, the
continuedpersecution
of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law
onnon-Muslims, the
rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called "whores" in
yourculture),
the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and
looting inParis
France.
This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and
many,many, many
of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive,
brutal, anduncivilized
slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed
with yourinfantile
"protests."
If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st
Amendment -- youare
free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose
that option.Please
return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves
insteadof troubling
Americans.
Cordially, I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
As you can imagine, the Muslim group at the university didn't
like thistoo
well. They're demanding that Wichman be reprimanded and
mandatorydiversity
training for faculty and a seminar on hate and discrimination
forfreshman. Now
the Michigan chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray. CAIR, the
Councilon American-Islamic
Relations, apparently doesn't believe that the good professor
had theright
to express his opinion.
For its part, the university is standing its ground They say the
e-mailwas private,
and they don't intend to publicly condemn his remarks. That will
probablychange.
Wichman says he never intended the e-mail to be made public, and
wouldn'thave
used the same strong language if he'd known it was going to
getout.
How's the left going to handle this one? If you're in favor of
thefreedom
of speech, as in the case of Ward Churchill, will the same
protections bedemanded
for Indrek Wichman? I doubt it.
Hey folks, send this to your friends, and ask them to do the
same. Tellthem to
keep passing it around until the whole country gets it. We are
in a war.This political
correctness crap is getting old!
Dingwall's Email