In the wake of recent attacks targeting Muslims on American college campuses and around the world, ASUNM unanimously passed a cautionary resolution at Wednesday’s meeting urging UNM administration to state their opposition to Islamophobia.Additional information at Pamela Geller's site, which as hacked again yesterday and was offline for at least five hours. Pamela reminds us that Nonie Darwish was made unwelcome at the University of New Mexico back in 2012.
Sen. Udell Calzadillas Chavez, who introduced Resolution 6S, said there is a widespread culture of fear and ignorance that perpetuates violence against Muslims. The purpose of the resolution is to provoke better understanding of Islam in the UNM community.
“This is a proactive approach to events in the United States and around the world,” he said.
Citing domestic attacks against Islam such as the February killing of three Muslim students at the University of North Carolina and a Molotov cocktail being thrown at the Albuquerque Islamic Center last year, as well as the continuing fight against ISIS in the Middle East, the legislation states that UNM “should stand strong in opposition of Islamophobia and related hate crimes.”
The document defined Islamophobia as “dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.”
Ihsan Wadud-Rodriguez, a senior Psychology major and Muslim student, said prejudice is often driven by inaccurate and uninformed presumptions about Muslims and the religion they practice.
“Islam has been unfairly confounded with cultural practices,” Wadud-Rodriguez said. “Those very cultural practices which are not supported by Americans are also not supported by Islam. There’s no contradiction: I don’t experience any self-discrepancy between my American values and Islamic values.”...