ACTION
ALERT SUCESSFUL- SUPPORT NORTHEASTERN PROFESSOR TODAY
ADCMA
Needs You To Take Action
Dear Friends,
Today,
Arab and Muslim American professors, businesses and community leaders
are
regularly attacked by right wing media organizations run
by individuals like Daniel Pipes
and organizations such as Campus
Watch. These attacks have a devastating impact.
In
Boston, these media smear campaigns are on the rise. The Islamic
Society of Boston
and the P Tech Corporation were the first
targets of vicious media campaigns. Northeastern
Professor M.
Shahid Alam, a well respected professor of 16 years, is the most
recent target.
We need you to take a stand. In late December
he experienced a rash of vicious emails,
some of which contained
explicit death threats against him and his family. The university
was also barraged with mail calling for his job termination.
Wednesday,
February 2, Bill O’ Reilly aired a misinformed segment featuring
Professor Alam,
portraying an inaccurate picture of him. The
ADCMA and Professor Alam are concerned that
a new wave of attacks
will begin immediately aimed at calling for his dismissal. It is
up to the
community to take a stand and defend academic freedom.
Please Act Now!
See
the bottom of this message for more details about the targeting
of Professor Alam. You
can read Professor Alam’s "America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels", and "Testing Free Speech
In America," by visiting www.counterpunch.org.
TAKE ACTION TODAY
Contact
The North Eastern President Richard Freeland, Provost Ahmed Abdelal,
and Dean
James Stellar. Print, sign and send the attached letters,
write your own, or call the offices.
The contact information
is in this message.
Contact
Prof. Alam by phone at (617) 373-2101 or FAX at (617)373-5015 to
let him know
he has support.
Contact
the ADCMA at info@adcma.org
so we can keep an accurate count of actions taken.
Circulate
this message widely.
President
Richard Freeland is available at:
Office of the President
Northeastern
University
110 Churchill Hall
360 Huntington Ave.
Boston,
MA 02115
or by fax at: (617) 373-5015
Emails
can be sent via the North Eastern website by visiting
http://155.33.227.141/president/letters.nclk
Provost and Senior VP for Academic Affairs:
Ahmed
Abdelal
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
112
Hayden Hall
(617) 373-4517
a.abdelal@neu.edu
Dean,
College of Arts and Sciences
James Stellar
100 Meserve Hall
Northeastern
University
360 Huntington Ave.
Boston ,MA 02115
ja.stellar@neu.edu
(617)
373-3980
Northeastern
University by phone at 1-617-373-2101 or FAX at 1617-373-5015.
------------
Fox
Prepares to Attack Me- M. Shahid Alam
I
published an essay, “America and Islam: Seeking Parallels,” in Counterpunch.Org
on
December 29, 2004. A day later, I began to receive nasty
and threatening emails, all at
once. These were orchestrated
by a www.littlegreenfootballs.com.
Shortly thereafter,
other right-wing websites got into act,
posting excerpts from the essay; these included
jihadwatch.org,
campuswatch.org, frontpagemag.com, freerepublic.com, etc. The
messages
posted on these websites were equally vicious, and some of them,
containing
explicit death threats, were ‘kindly’ forwarded to
me.
What did I say in this essay? I made two points. First,
that the 9-11 attacks were an
Islamist insurgency: the attackers
believe that they are fighting – as the Americans did,
in the
1770s – for their freedom and dignity against a foreign occupation/control
of their
lands. Secondly, I argue that these attacks were the
result of a massive political failure of
Muslims to resist their
tyrannies locally. It was a mistake to attack the US.
I
followed the first essay with a second one, “Testing Free Speech
in America,” where I
elaborate on the points I had made earlier.
This too was published in Counterpunch.Org
on Jan 1/2, 2005.
The
emails to me and the University continued for another two weeks,
eventually tapering
off. In the meanwhile, I was speaking to
people at the ACLU, Boston, and the ADC, Boston.
On the suggestion
of the ACLU, I contacted the campus police and the police in my
hometown
to let them know about the death threats posted against
me.
I
had a feeling this was not the end of the matter. So yesterday,
February 1, I received an
email from Fox News asking for a TV
interview; they were producing a program “on me.”
At this point,
I spoke to people at ACLU who advised me against going on the program.
I
received the same advice from other friends. I wrote back
to Fox saying I could not do the
interview but would be glad
to answer any questions. They did not take me up on my offer.
Clearly,
this would not help them in their designs against me.
It
appears that Bill O’Reilly is doing a series on ‘unAmerican’ professors
on US campuses.
Last night, my wife tells me, he did a piece
on Ward Churchill. Tonight will be my turn. I
expect he will
make all kinds of outlandish accusations that will resonate well
with the left-
and Muslim-hating members of his audience. This
will generate calls and emails to
Northeastern and to me – containing
threats, calls for firing me, and threats to withhold
donations.
I am not sure how well NU will stand up against this barrage.
If
we can generate a matching volume of emails, letters and call to
NU supporting my right
to free speech, it might be helpful.
Result: There was a large volume of letters sent to Northeastern from individuals around the country in support of Professor Alam and his right to free speech. Northeastern University released a very supportive statement reiterating its support for Professor Alam and his right to express himself as an academic and scholar.
