Cartoons hurting muslims

Submitted by Dale Harley (United States), Feb 14, 2006 at 15:57

I read with interest your cogent article about muslim separation from the west.

I am reminded of going to engineering school with 7 americans, 7 iranians and one syrian. We americans chalenged our fellows to assimilate with the class. When the professor would ask "Bob, what is the theory behind such and such process?" Bob might say "I believe XXX applies, would you agree Abdul?".

This went on for three years and with very limited success. But as americans we wanted fellow students to succeed. The muslims did not want to integrate. They mumbled amongst themselves and rumors surfaced that they were in effect cheating on testwork. On the last day, last exam before graduation, our Turkish instructor pulled an Iranian from class during the test. At the end of the exam, he announced that the student had failed for cheating that would not graduate with the class.

Following graduation, the muslims left while I still get christmas cards 30 years later from my other chums.

My point is, if they want to withdraw from civil society and enter that bottom of the bowl world, we can't stop them. Looking back to engineering school, we would have learned more about engineering had we not tried so darn hard to give the muslims a wider vantage point. It would not be hard for me to give up on muslims.

Dale Harley
Merritt Island, FL

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