Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, March 22, 2019

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
Erin White

FINNTAN STORER
Managing Editor

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Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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MAYA GOLDMAN
Editor in Chief
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA 
AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

T

he deadly attacks on two 
New Zealand mosques 
that 
massacred 
more 
than 50 people is a gruesome 
reminder that far-right terrorism 
is a rising threat. In light of the 
havoc that shook the world to 
its core, we are now mourning 
innocent lives that have been lost, 
once again carried out by a white 
supremacist aiming to extinguish 
immigrants — whom they refer to 
as the “invaders of the West.”
Just five months ago, in 
October 2018, another depraved 
white supremacist in Pittsburgh 
fired hate-fueled bullets on 11 Jews 
at the Tree of Life synagogue. This 
extremist violence is becoming 
increasingly common and to let 
the perpetrators monopolize the 
discussion surrounding the vile 
level of carnage would be a huge 
mistake. It is urgent to analyze 
the source of such violence.
The gunman of the New 
Zealand terror attack left a 
74-page online manifesto, titled 
“The 
Great 
Replacement,” 
highlighting xenophobic fantasies 
that describe Muslim immigrants 
as the “most despised group 
of invaders in the West.” The 
shooter also said his inspiration 
was the Norwegian terrorist 
who killed 77 people in 2011 and 
shared the same vitriolic agenda: 
to eliminate Muslim immigrants. 
The extremists’ hateful screed 
encapsulates 
the 
growth 
of 
Islamophobia.
We 
must 
recognize 
that 
vilification 
of 
the 
Muslim 
community 
has 
been 
standardized for a long time by 
various politicians around the 
world. Australian Sen. Fraser 
Anning is proof that far-right 
extremism can be validated by 
those seated in parliament. At 
the aftermath of the tragedy, as 
Muslims lay dead in mosques, 
he released a public statement 
justifying the mass murder of 
Muslims and replicating the 
virulent ideology of the terrorist. 
He wrote: “the real cause of 
bloodshed 
on 
New 
Zealand 
streets today is the immigration 
program which allowed Muslim 
fanatics to migrate to New 
Zealand in the first place.” If we 
extend powerful positions to such 
racist individuals, it should come 
as no surprise when hatred spills 
among ordinary citizens.
But Anning is not the only 
one who has made blatantly 
racist comments. In October 
2018, President Donald Trump 
tweeted the phrase “unknown 
Middle Easterners” to instill 
fear regarding the “caravan” of 
immigrants from Central America 
crossing the southern border. In 
an interview in 2016, Trump said, 
“I think Islam hates us. … We can’t 
allow people coming into this 
country who have this hatred for 
the United States.” When will we 
admit that such attitudes toward 
Muslims, who currently comprise 
1.1 percent of the American 
population, empowers far-right 
groups and fosters Islamophobia?
And let’s not dismiss the 
complicity of the international 
media 
for 
disproportionately 
reporting Muslim terror attacks 
with fallacious headlines, like 
“Violent 
Islam 
terror 
attack 
strikes …” Labelling an entire 
religion 
as 
“violent” 
is 
an 
undoubtedly racist generalization 
and frankly deserves criticism for 
its gross lack of empiricism. How 
can one surmise Islam breeds 
violence without examining the 
religious texts? While Trump 
is quick to blame Muslims for 
terrorism, he is much more 
lethargic when Muslims are 

actually the victims of Islamic 
terrorism.
In a study published in 
Justice Quarterly, researchers at 
Georgia State University and the 
University of Alabama found that 
terror attacks by Muslims receive 
an average of 357 percent more 
media coverage than those by 
other groups. The team studied 
136 terrorist attacks in the U.S. 
between 2006 and 2015 using the 
Global Terrorism Database and 
concluded that 12.5 percent of 
these incidents were committed 
by Muslims, yet they received half 
of all news coverage.
After 
the 
New 
Zealand 
shooting, many journalists have 
been examining the terrorist’s 
manifesto and tracing the genesis 
of far-right terrorism back to 
the words and actions of right-
wing leaders. But right-wing 
supporters 
on 
YouTube 
and 
Twitter are rather offended and 
suggest the “fake media” always 
misconstrues horrific events to 
attack right-wing U.S. politics. 
Yet, “blame the hammer, not 
the hand” is a narrative that has 
been instilled by the right wing 
themselves ever since the attacks.

We’ve been reading that 
ideology 
matters, 
which 
emphasizes the need to study how 
non-violent 
Islam 
supposedly 
harvests radicalism and violence. 
Conservatives have promoted the 
discourse that violence does not 
exist in some sort of a vacuum 
while largely ignoring statistics 
from the FBI that hate crimes 
against 
American 
Muslims 
sharply increased after the Sept. 
11 attacks. While the media 
generally views jihadist attacks 
more newsworthy, it is worth 
noting that the Anti-Defamation 
League, an internation Jewish 
non-governmental group, finds 
that 
“domestic 
right-wing 
extremism” 
was 
responsible 
for 73.3 percent of extremist-
related killings in the U.S. from 
2009 to 2018 whereas “Islamist 
extremism” accounted for 23.4 
percent.
But 
conservatives 
such 
as 
the 
incomparable 
Ben 
Shapiro condemn the media 
for “rushing” to express that 
radical Islamic terrorism has 
no connection to actual Islam. 
In a 2017 article, Mr. Shapiro 
wrote: “Imagine that a white 
supremacist had driven a truck 
onto a bike path filled with 
minority 
innocents. 
Imagine 
that the white supremacist had 
emerged from his truck carrying 
aloft a Confederate flag. Imagine 
that the media had leapt to 
the defense of those flying the 
Confederate 
flag, 
explaining 
that only a tiny minority of those 
who did so had engaged in any 
sort of racist violence. … Hard to 
imagine, isn’t it?”
Well Mr. Shapiro, it was 
hard to imagine when the media 
failed to properly report the fact 
that “the FBI and the Homeland 
Security warned in a 2017 
intelligence bulletin that white 
supremacist groups had carried 
out more attacks in the U.S. than 
any other domestic extremist 

over the past 16 years.” So, 
logically speaking, why isn’t Ben 
Shapiro connecting the recent 
New Zealand attack to right-
wing theories as he did with 
Islamic terrorism? Where are 
his “intelligent” tweets insisting 
that “Facts don’t care about your 
feelings” now?
Similarly, 
in 
2014, 
Ben 
Shapiro released a video to 
conclude that terrorists find 
“moral, financial and religious 
support from those who are 
not 
terrorists 
themselves.” 
If we follow his logic, we 
could conclude that the war-
mongering far-right gains its 
ideological assistance from those 
in the right wing who aren’t 
terrorists themselves, including 
conservative commentators, like 
Ben Shapiro. So it’s time for the 
right to be consistent with their 
own sayings and counter the 
“roots” of the surge in far-right 
terrorism.
In February 2019, a Coast 
Guard 
lieutenant 
and 
self-
described white nationalist was 
arrested in Maryland for plotting 
to kill a long list of prominent 
journalists 
and 
Democratic 
politicians, in an effort to 
eliminate leftists in general. So 
it’s time for the right to start 
re-evaluating what they stand 
for and why their ideologies are 
increasingly warped to wage 
violence against minorities. The 
president especially needs to 
address this challenge instead 
of downplaying the scale of 
the threat as “a small group of 
people” with “very, very serious 
problems.” Every Muslim’s act of 
violence is immediately framed 
as “violent Islamic terrorism” but 
as white males continue to wage 
terror, we report the atrocities 
as “hate crimes” caused by their 
“mental disorders.” This fact is 
the biggest double standard of 
international politics. It’s time to 
change this racist way of dealing 
with massacres.
We must understand that 
terrorism 
is 
generated 
by 
extremism and deconstruct the 
deceptive public perception that 
terrorism is inherently Islamic. 
In reality, right-wing extremism 
follows the same model as 
Islamic extremism. They are two 
sides of the same coin: the ethno-
nationalist clash of civilizations 
between the West and the 
Muslim world. In my lived 
reality, the Muslim community 
where I was raised fears Islamic 
terrorism as much as they fear 
rising 
right-wing 
terrorism. 
In 
what 
I’ve 
personally 
witnessed in the three years I 
have lived in the U.S., there is 
barely any difference between 
how a Muslim American acts 
compared to how a white 
American acts.
People have to stop hating 
each other and treating each 
other 
as 
enemies. 
Rather, 
we must work together in 
countering extremist violence of 
all kinds. We have to eradicate 
fear-mongering 
narratives 
that only serve to pit groups 
against each other. In other 
words, politicians and pundits, 
especially those on the right 
wing, ought to stop propagating 
anti-Muslim rhetoric — before 
more innocent people lose their 
lives. Journalists have been 
pushing for policy shifts to 
counter domestic terrorism and 
so it’s crucial that we all sustain 
the momentum.

Ramisa Rob can be reached at 

rfrob@umich.edu.

O

n 
Friday, 
March 
15, 
one 
week 
ago 
today, 
I 
participated 
in 
the 
Washtenaw County Climate Strike, 
one of more than 2,000 global 
climate strikes across more than 
125 countries with an estimated 1.4 
million people.
It was a day that touched every 
part of the emotional spectrum 
— 
eliciting 
hope, 
frustration, 
inspiration, anxiety, compassion and 
fear.
It was a day that started with 
more than 2,500 high schoolers, 
college students and community 
members walking out of their 
classes and obligations to demand 
real climate action for a livable 
future. These demonstrators stood 
in the rain and the cold, clinging to 
every word of nationally-known 
politicians like Abdul El-Sayed to 
12-year-old students from a local 
middle school.
The passion of the speakers was 
met unbroken and undimmed, even 
as the rain started. Demonstrators 
held umbrellas right along with 
signs reading, “My future is not 
for sale, why go to class when the 
world is burning?” and “Carbon 
neutrality by 2030.”
It was a day that brought the 
streets of downtown Ann Arbor 
to a halt as hundreds marched 
through them.
It was a day that packed the 
University of Michigan’s Fleming 
Administration 
Building 
with 
protesters 
demanding 
climate 
action and transparency.
And it was a day that ended 
with the arrests of 10 individuals, 
including two high school students, 
who sat peacefully in University 
President Mark Schlissel’s office, 
asking only for a public and 
unfiltered meeting between the 
president and his community.
Walking home at 10 p.m. after 
the walk-out, rally, march and sit-in, 
I realized that above all, it was a day 
of stark juxtaposition between the 
undeterred passion of everyone 
involved in the day-long event and 
the refusal of the administration 
to grant the simplest of requests. 
It was a split between the peaceful 
protests of brave individuals and 
the escalation to arrests by the 
administration. It was divided 
between the fury of the generation 
who will live their lives in a world 
forever altered by climate change 

and the disrespect and disinterest 
of the generation in power.
At 1:30 p.m., the sit-in began 
with the reading of our demands, 
which we had reduced to a single 
phrase: “a just transition to true 
carbon neutrality by 2030.” The 
request was ignored — Schlissel 
was “out of town,” something 
that I found out is not uncommon 
when his students are demanding 
change.
At 4 p.m., we presented 
our 
immediate 
ask 
to 
the 
administration: 
an 
agreement 
to schedule a public, one hour, 
unfiltered, 
student-moderated, 
open-to-the-press 
meeting 
between 
the 
community 
and 
Schlissel. We agreed to leave if we 
got it.
I thought we would be out by 
4:15 p.m., but the administration 
refused to commit to a meeting. 
They even refused to tell us 
whether or not Schlissel had been 
spoken to.
At 5 p.m., the building closed 
and we were threatened with 
arrest if we stayed.
At 7:45 p.m., after over six 
hours of peacefully sitting-in, a 
University police sergeant came in 
and threatened arrest to whoever 
remained inside the building at 8 
p.m.
As about 50 young people filed 
out of the office, a contingent of 10 
remained, standing silently.
At 8 p.m., the police arrested 
them, one by one, including two 
high school aged minors, whom 
the police detained and illegally 
questioned until their parents 
arrived.
Not willing to risk arrest, I 
walked down the stairs of the 
Administration 
Building 
and 
outside into the cold Friday night. 
I felt incredibly defeated.
If the University of Michigan 
— one of the top, most forward 
thinking and leading research 
universities in the world — cannot 
agree to a one-hour, transparent 
meeting to openly discuss its 
current climate policies, how will 
we ever fix our current climate 
crisis?
If the University of Michigan 
escalates to arrest when its 
students voice their opinion, how 
can we inspire action?
My sense of defeat began to 
recede, however, as I saw those 

who chose not to get arrested 
standing in the cold Friday night 
air and cheering in support until 
every individual was released. 
The longer I watched this group 
of strangers waiting in solidarity 
outside 
the 
Administration 
Building with undimmed and 
infinite optimism and compassion, 
the more my sense of defeat yielded 
to stronger feelings of hope, vigor 
and renewed energy.
It 
was 
inspiring 
being 
surrounded by those willing to risk 
the repercussions of walking out of 
class and work, by those willing 
to give up their day and night to 
sit in the president’s office for six 
and a half hours and by those were 
willing to put their bodies, their 
safety and their futures on the line 
to demonstrate their frustration 
with the utter inadequacy of the 
University’s climate action.
It was inspiring to join a long 
history of sit-ins and direct action, 
particularly by indigenous people 
and people of color.
If you feel defeated, inspired, 
invigorated or scared, please reach 
out to me and see how you can get 
involved. We need everyone.
We are the generation that will 
live with the detrimental effects 
of climate change. We are the 
generation that will have to tell our 
kids what coral reefs used to look 
like and explain that many of the 
animals seen in children’s books 
have disappeared. We will be the 
generation who will see the already-
existing 
systems 
of 
inequality 
exacerbated by climate change. 
We are the generation that will see 
the cities we’ve grown up in slowly 
washed away by the rising seas.
We are also the generation that 
will not sit quietly and wait until 
this future becomes the present. 
We will fight with the compassion, 
the perseverance, the solidarity, 
the love and the desire that carried 
us through this entire day. We will 
continue to sit in the president’s 
office until we ensure that the 
University does its part in creating a 
clean and just future for all. Join us.

Time to confront far-right terrorism

Julian Hansen is a member of the 

Climate Action Movement at the 

University of Michigan, and part of the 

organizing team for the Washtenaw 

County Climate Strike. He can be 

reached at hansju@umich.edu.

RAMISA ROB | COLUMN

A day of juxtapositon 

JULIAN HANSEN | OP-ED

ABBIE BERRINGER | COLUMN

Keeping up with politics

Extremists’ 
hateful screed 
encapsulates 
the growth of 
Islamophobia

H

ow many of you can 
name the winner of this 
year’s “The Bachelor”? 
How many of you are aware who 
the 
next 
“Bachelorette” 
will 
be? Who can give an in-depth 
analysis of the Jordyn Woods 
and Tristan Thompson cheating 
scandal that has yet again thrust 
the Kardashians and their endless 
drama to the top of our social media 
timelines? I know all of my friends 
can answer these three questions, 
as well as many questions related to 
pop culture and the entertainment 
industry. Yet while the world 
obsesses over whether Bradley 
Cooper and Lady Gaga are falling 
in love, we are seemingly asleep 
at the wheel when it comes to the 
major political issues of the day.
How many of you know who 
has announced their candidacies 
for a presidential run in 2020? 
How many of you can name both 
of your state’s senators or the 
elected representative from your 
district? While many college-aged 
youths are plugged into the latest 
political scandals or tragedies via 
the news on smartphones and via 
social media, it seems that other 
important aspects of politics are 
slipping through the cracks. While 
college may be a time when some 
become more politically active, it 
is also a time of infinite busyness 
and distraction. Between the hours 
of studying, extracurriculars and 
attempting to make time for a social 
life, it often seems understandable 
to not want to fill one’s few free 
hours a week with the latest report 
on the more mundane aspects 
of politics. But what if much like 
showering, eating or sleeping, 
keeping up to date on politics was 
viewed as an integral part of one’s 
weekly routine?
Apathy is a dangerous thing. 
Even those of us who do not 
find enjoyment or interest in the 
political realm have a responsibility 
to remain aware and civically 
active. This isn’t a new sentiment 
either. Most have probably heard 
it at one time or another, yet it still 
seems to fall on deaf ears. However, 

in a world of big government and 
globalization, almost every aspect 
of our lives is touched by politics 
whether we like it or not.
For example, the access of our 
search histories and social media 
profiles that corporations and the 
government have is something that 
affects nearly every single one of 
us. It is something that, if asked, 
I’m sure most would have some 
opinion on — but how many of us 
remain aware of the government 
regulations 
surrounding 
this 
issue? Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing 
may have been meme-worthy on 
Twitter, but I do not know many 
people who actually watched it in 
its entirety.
Or what about government 
regulations 
surrounding 
trade, 
tariffs and subsidies? While the 
mere mention of these words may 
make some want to fall asleep, these 
issues affect the price of almost 
every good available to us daily. 
From the prices of our produce 
to the price of gas, the way our 
government handles international 
trade affects us intimately.
There are so many issues 
affecting our nation’s people as 
well as the rest of the world every 
day that most think little about 
and may have never even heard 
of. Here are just a few examples. 
There are currently about 437,500 
children in foster care in the U.S., 
living their lives within a broken 
system that shifts them from home 
to home with minimal protection 
from mistreatment and abuse. On 
average, 130 Americans die every 
day from opioid overdoses, and 
the number of yearly opioid deaths 
was six times higher in 2017 than 
in 1999. The largest agricultural 
corporation in the U.S., Monsanto 
(which was recently bought out 
by Bayer, providing a timely name 
change in light of negative press), 
was responsible for the creation 
of Agent Orange, many genetically 
modified seed strains, as well as 
the common herbicide Roundup. 
Monsanto was recently sued on 
a claim that Roundup may have 
active chemicals that can be linked 

to cancer.
There are endless examples 
such as these, some with higher 
stakes than others, yet it seems 
that only the most clickbait-
worthy, 
scandalous 
or 
tragic 
political stories garner any sort 
of mainstream media buzz and 
catch the eye of the general public. 
If I were to ask my friends if they 
want our country and world to be 
a better place and if they think we 
have room to improve, they would 
undoubtedly all say yes. Yet how 
are we supposed to improve our 
world when we are more obsessed 
with 
immediate 
entertainment 
value than issues that truly impact 
us on a daily basis? It is not enough 
to simply say one will plug into 
politics when they are older. We 
will never again have more time 
on our hands to enact substantive 
change as activists, intellectuals 
and young people full of the sort 
of hope and vigor for life that 
fades over time. Now is the time 
in our lives when we can dedicate 
ourselves to enacting change. We 
don’t have mortgages, careers or 
families yet. We may have classes 
and social lives but these are small 
fish compared to all that will take 
up our time in the near future.
The task may seem daunting, but 
it is really as simple as closing out of 
the latest article about Kylie Jenner 
and opening up a tab to one of this 
nation’s many news outlets, most of 
which provide at least some level 
of free access. Even 15 minutes a 
day of research on a new issue that 
is affecting our state, country or 
world may open your eyes to an 
issue that profoundly impacts the 
way you view the world or inspires 
you to try and enact change. We 
will not create a better future for 
our children by “Keeping Up with 
the Kardashians.” We will create a 
better future for them by keeping 
up with the world of politics and 
current events in a proactive and 
responsible fashion.

Abbie Berringer can be reached at 

abbierbe@umich.edu.

