RPI College Republicans

On February 22, this blog published a post titled "The RPI Arts Department: A Terrorist Safehaven". That post has since been retitled. It was the decision of the author that the broad potential interpretations of that title, particularly the term "terrorist safehaven" warrant revision.

The term was used with the intent of demonstrating that the presentation represented the wrong message in the wrong venue at the wrong time by using the broadest interpretation of the label. There was no intent to suggest that the Arts Department was harboring terrorists or actively working in league with them, and any conclusions that have been drawn to that effect are regrettable.

According to Wafaa Bilal's biography, there were Turkish soldiers in Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War. Really. Read for yourself:

Wafaa was sent to a refugee camp on the Kuwaiti border. In the camp, people laughed when rather than accept life in a tent he began forming brick that he dried in the sun and fashioned into a home. The adobe served a practical purpose, for it provided relative safety from abduction by Kuwaiti soldiers who sneaked into tents in the middle of the night to kidnap young people for sale to Iraqi soldiers who tortured, raped and executed them or the Turkish soldiers themselves would rape and kill them. [emphasis added]

Actually, it looks like a typo, but it's important for two reasons. One, it means that Wafaa Bilal didn't proofread his own biography, which means he's pretty sloppy. Perhaps he's even sloppy enough to make a videogame with outrageous content and try to present it in the wrong venue. Second, it means that the hooligans who posted his biography elsewhere did so without verifying any of the facts contained therein. Were they perhaps so enamored with the idea of a videogame about killing the President (with al-Qaeda, to boot!) that they didn't care? For all they know, Bilal could have been claiming to be Eliot Spitzer's pimp. Whatever happened to that infallible peer review process that global warming believers are always raving about?

Traditionally, people who are rejected by RPI end up going to Clarkson. The artist who developed "Virtual Jihadi" has chosen to follow a different path, instead moving his exhibit to the Sanctuary for Independent Media. As most of you are already aware, the Sanctuary is a front group for the thugs who thought student radio station WRPI belonged to them and spent years pushing aside RPI students who wanted to participate in the organization. Their eagerness to embrace the ideas behind "Virtual Jihadi" is further vindication for the WRPI members who worked tirelessly to reclaim the club for students, and just goes to show how out of touch with the values of the RPI community--and reality--the people at the Sanctuary really are.

The letter below was one of several sent to President Shirley Ann Jackson, H&SS Dean John Harrington and Arts Department Chairwoman Kathy High.

As an alumni I am deeply disturbed by the Arts Department hosting of Wafaa Bilal later this week. I understand that Wafaa is a respected artist, and fully support the right of the Art's Department to host whomever they chose under the principal of academic freedom; however, so long as RPI sponsors these kinds of events, giving absolutely no consideration given to military alumnus, friends and family of the university, I will not contribute a dime to the school.

Insofar as the subject of Mr. Bilal's performance, "Showing the vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq" is absurd. Any justification of terrorist behavior, even under the guise of promoting understanding, is disgusting. Millions of people deal with anguish, loss, and circumstances beyond their control everyday without murdering innocent civilians - some groups so extreme they are willing to strap explosives on mentally handicapped women and herd them into crowds. It does not take performance art to understand the base, human desire for revenge, to act out, and to harm.

At the very least, the Arts department should issue a public apology to all those who are offended by this affront to both reason and morality. I fully support energetic and vocal criticism of America's policy in Iraq, civilian casualties in Iraq, and the veracity of our purpose, but not efforts to sympathize with what is essentially terrorism, whether or not it is carried out by the young, hurt and confused.

If Mr. Bilal truly "seeks to imbue his audiences with a sense of empowerment that comes from hope in the enduring potential of humanity" he would not ask us to look into the heart of a killer, and try to understand what drove him to atrocity. Hope and humanity are not equatable with murder.

Just when it seemed like the RPI Art Department sponsoring of "Virtual Jihadi" couldn't get any more outrageous, it turns out that the program is being funded in part by New York State taxpayers.