Letters

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "Too many Dartmouth alums perceive the issue of the'Dartmouth Indian' as one of rampant,exaggerated political correctness." UNAI MONTES-IRUESTE '98

Native American Students

CATHERINE FAUROT'S "NATIVE Voices" [May/June] is one of the most important articles ever written for DAM.

Too many Dartmouth alums perceive the issue of the "Dartmouth Indian" as one of rampant, exaggerated political correctness—hence they wear Indian symbol T-shirts or carry Indian head canes.

It is my most sincere hope that those who hold this view will one day understand that to reduce an entire people to a mascot or symbol is an act of dehumanization, not of reverence. Individuals with names, experiences, dignity and worth are not honored by a commercialized caricature.

We (the stewards of College history, and U.S. and world history as well) are obligated to respect indigenous philosophies, languages, cultures and personspast, present and future.

Camarillo, California

WHAT A SURPRISE TO READ "NATIVE Voices." I appreciated the range of the subject matter presented. However, as a Sicangu Lakota, I read the letters printed in the same issue—about American Indian mascots being a non-issue and concern about them written off as politically correct overreactions—with both disgust and laughter.

Non-Indians say their imitation or use of American Indian garb, heads and symbols is a sign of respect for the culture. But no uncle, aunt, grandfather or grandmother of mine told any non-Indian to dress up in a buckskin outfit, put on fake braids, war paint and feathers, stick a flaming spear in the ground, then do back flips on a sports field to show respect. None of my relatives looked like Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians. There is no dance such as the one performed by the University of Illinois' former mascot. I am not a Fighting Sioux, a French mispronunciation of a name a neighboring tribe gave my Dakota, Nakota and Lakota ancestors.

When Indians say you are mocking their culture, believe it and leave it alone. Give respect as you would like to receive it.

Amarillo, Texas

Balancing Act

AS AYOUNG FEMALE ALUM I READ 'A Different Kind of Homeland Security" [May/june] with great interest. I am not too young to recognize that raising children will be my life's greatest accomplishment, and that the balance between kids and career is a tenuous, and personal, choice we all make.

However, as I prepare to attend medical school on the back of substantial student loans, I would like to read about women who have come up with other innovative ways to balance family and career. As I forge my path I know of no better place to look for inspiration than to Dartmouth's countless female alumnae who have undoubtedly come to different compromises on this issue.

Brookline, Massachusetts

Words Hurt, Too

Dartmouth is not alone in using this term to discourage victims from pressing charges with the police, steering them toward "college disciplinary procedures" completely inappropriate for dealing with such matters.

Instead of (merely) tinkering with a fraternity system that provides the context for most rape at Dartmouth, the College should drop the term "date rape" and show real leadership by declaring zero tolerance for rape at our school and pledging support for victims to ensure rapists are punished to the full extent of the law.

Bombay, India

Differing with D'Souza

DINESH D'SOUZA'S "RADICAL ISLAM: What We Think We Know—And Why It's All Wrong" [Mar/Apr] correctly posits that America is not fighting a war against terrorism but fizzles because it fails to identify the enemy. The enemy is Islam.

As for D'Souza's suggestion that a solution lies in befriending traditional Muslims, one need only look around the world to see that radical Muslims have no compunction about brutalizing and murdering those of their own faith. For that reason, traditional Muslims who might be inclined to criticize the behavior of their fellows remain silent and are ineffectual.

When D'Souza opines that Islam is compatible with democracy, and that a majority of the worlds Muslims today live under democratic governments, he is at the very least misleading. There are 22 Arab nations and numerous other Islamicdominated countries. All of them are dictatorships, autocracies, despotic kingdoms or controlled by the military. Even Turkey, which perhaps comes closest to a democratic society, as we define it, exists as such only at the behest of its military.

Islamic leaders have made clear their intention to defeat and destroy Western civilization, and to replace it with the faith of Allah. These are not empty threats. Great Britain, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Holland, among others, are in an irreversible process of becoming "Islamicized."

Nor are we here in the United States immune from this scourge. We have been spared another 9/11, but at the cost of eroding civil liberties. One need only observe the search process and security measures at our airports to realize that Islam has already impacted our lives.

Is there hope? Centuries ago Christianity was a religion of violence. It has changed. Perhaps Islam can change, too. This will come about only if it is confronted, challenged and resisted at every opportunity, by every means available, political, diplomatic, economic and military.

Swampscott, Massachusetts

AS A RETIRED U.S. DIPLOMAT I Sympathize with D'Souza's perspective but consider it flawed. It far overstates the potential compatibility between Islamic orthodoxy and Western secularists.There is a centuries-wide gap between these two cultures. Our ideal would be that modernizing Arab secularists (not D'Souza's "friendly" mullahs) might win contemporary Arab culture wars, but let's not kid ourselves. They have an uphill struggle and a less-than-even chance in the current generation.

D'Souzas hoped-for friendly Islamic regimes are not the answer either. They would not only be disdainful of the West based on their dismay of Western secularism but on scriptural grounds, since they could never excuse the alienation from the "Muslim family" of Israel, which they view as a Western colonial or Crusader imposition on the Islamic world.

Until the United States rids itself of the albatross of the Israeli question (ideally by finding a permanent solution upon which both Israelis and Palestinians can agree) it will not make much headway in the Middle East. And even if we should find an answer to that question, there is no guarantee that the fundamental cultural disjunction between the West and the Islamic world will not continue for a long time to come.

Washington, D.C.

AS A PERSON FROM A MUSLIM Background who was disturbed by the horror of September 11 and now the ongoing Iraq war, I agree with D'Souzas idea that the "war on terror" conflates issues that are not strictly Al Qaeda; that's okay as long as the core idea that violence should not be used to achieve political ends is upheld. The problem is that a military expedition such as the Iraq war is also an example of violence used to achieve political ends; launching the Iraq war undermined the core idea of nonviolence.

D'Souza says Islamic radicals like science and typically do not have religious backgrounds. Violent radicals are almost certainly very devout, very serious about their beliefs in heaven and hell and god. Do they really understand science? It is an approach at determining the nature of reality by constructing mathematical models of reality using experimental observations. In science one is encouraged to question past assumptions. The violent radicals might consider it unacceptable for people to question the reality of their firmly held beliefs.

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

AFTER READING MOST OF SAM HARRIS' The End of Faith, I read the articles on Islam with great interest. I was surprised D'Souza failed to cite Harris' relentless examination of Islam and other faithseven as suggested additional reading.

D'Souza is correct, of course, in stating that we can't be "at war" with a heterogeneous array of Islamists, but he fails to confront the reality that that very fact makes it difficult, if not impossible, to find a path to reconciliation. It's all discouraging and depressing.

Los Angeles, California

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