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U of M Professor Speaks Out on Muslim Protests
August 16, 2006

The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named Indrek Wichman (at right).

Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were "hate speech." Enter Professor Wichman. In his e-mail, he said the following:


Dear Moslem Association:

One of the Jihad-inspiring cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed

As a professor of Mechanical engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest.

I am offended not by cartoons, 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 continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, 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.

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."

If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st Amendment -- you are 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 instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially,

I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering


The Michigan State University Statesman, replied with this Editorial:

Poor choice, professor

MSU professor sends student religious organization offensive letter, tells Muslims to get out of U.S.; bad move on his part

Shame on you, Indrek Wichman.

Come on, you didn't really send an offensive e-mail to a prominent student organization with the notion that it was going to be kept private — did you?

Well, you're saying you did, but that was a pretty irresponsible move for an MSU professor.

Seriously.

The Muslim Students' Association received an e-mail Feb. 28 sent from your university account in which you blatantly verbally attacked the organization and basically told them if they don't like Western ways, to leave the United States.

That's quite a thing to say.

But as disturbing as that might be, what is arguably worse is the e-mail The State News received from you in which you appear to have decided maybe you should have actually thought this one through before typing out a ranting, accusatory e-mail.

You're singing a different tune stating, "A communication that I thought was private was subsequently made public, much to my chagrin. That is troubling, and I regret this entire incident."

Experts estimate Muqtada al-Sadr commands the loyalty of some 3 million to 5 million Shiites across the country; a following that has swelled with each confrontation with the United States. Many of his supporters live in Sadr City, a vast Baghdad slum of 2 million previously called Saddam City and renamed for the senior Sadr after Saddam's fall. Sadr also has strong support in Najaf, the holy city where the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, Ali ibn Abi Talib, is buried.

Although he lacks the religious education required under Shia law to be a cleric, he has set himself up as a major force in the country's Shiite community by radical rhetoric and control of the al-Mahdi militia.

If you're going to have the audacity to label a whole group of people, you better at least be able to back up your claims if need be.

But instead you hid behind regret.

There's no denying that you have the right to harbor the idiotic opinion about Muslims that you do, but using your MSU e-mail account and introducing yourself as a professor of mechanical engineering in the first sentence is unfairly looping the university in with your claims.

Although you're intolerant, apparently you're lucky too. Even if most people don't agree with your statements, the university can't and shouldn't punish you for exercising your freedom of speech.

Until your words become harassment, meaning relentless and widespread actions, they don't fall under the university's antidiscrimination policy.

But what MSU, the Muslim Students' Association and other members of the community who oppose your hateful message need to do is simple.

The only way to contradict a perspective as disagreeable as yours is to talk out against it with positive speech.

Muslim students are welcome at MSU and in East Lansing and they deserve to feel comfortable both on and off campus.

Your e-mail is another specific incident which reaffirms that MSU should insist upon diversity and sensitivity training, not only for students, but throughout the entire university.

In fact, they should probably start with you.

-

Their Editorial Board:

MSU STATESMAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Nick Mrozowski
Lindsey Poisson
Rebecca McNulty
Tina Reed
Fredricka Paul
Vanessa Notman

   
 

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