This year's college graduates at Harvard University, one of this nation's most prestigious schools, are circulating a petition to prevent Zayed Yasin, a Muslim student, from speaking at their graduation. The reason? He isn't condemning terrorism. Yasin's speech, entitled "Of Faith and Citizenship: My American Jihad", has nothing to do with holy wars, or even politics for that matter. Jihad, in Arabic, means "struggle".
However, the peeved students won't rest until Yasin publicly condemns terrorism on the whole. They also claim that Yasin is no better than the terrorists, citing his donations to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The Holy Land Foundation has an impeccable reputation in aiding refugees not only in Palestine, but worldwide, but since September 11th, it has had its assets frozen by Bush under suspicion of aiding terrorists. However, that is a different story.
Yasin says that he donated to them because he saw the outcome of their work in 1999 in Albania first-hand, in which they supplied food and medical supplies to ailing areas.
Yasin, luckily, refuses to change his speech, and the president of the university, Lawrence Summers, stands solidly behind him.
"Especially in a university setting, it is important for people to keep open minds, listen carefully to one another and react to the totality of what each speaker has to say," Summers said in a statement Wednesday.
This did not at all change the minds of the adamant protesters, a number of whom are harassing Yasin because he won't change his speech.
What does this all mean? One of the most reputed schools in this nation is producing bigots who can't see past the fact that Yasin is Muslim, and thereby equate him with terrorists. This is the future ruling class of America, and it's not looking all too bright.
I, for one, understand what Yasin means when he calls his time here his "American Jihad". It has truly become a struggle for him, and probably for countless others, to be an American Muslim.
