an invitation to protest...

altho i've graduated from lums, i nonetheless check my bolan email regularly to keep abreast of wots new and check out any interesting notices. that and the still-unsolved matter of my grade change. yesterday i received only one email of note... "A Muslim Girl's Guide For Dealing With GuYs" (from peacenow@fastmail.fm), and this rather long-winded post has to do with that email, altho it is not a rebuttal to it (that's sumthin i'd like to take up with the author).
altho there are several (muslim) forums carrying a copy of the above text, i'm not going to link to any becoz i'm not a shit-peddler, and this is one of the biggest pieces of crap ever. even worse, it's written under the guise of one of the world's most popular and (paradoxically) misunderstood religions, islam, and so this is quite literally the shit that's hit the proverbial fan and is currently in the process of stinking up the whole damn place.
i haven't been able to trace the author of this travesty over the net, but the search continues. i don't even particularly care that she's written it and it's being distributed over the internet via muslim forums (altho i do believe that the forums' admins should keep in mind such documents' potential for damage to the already tenuous reputation islam and muslims enjoy in the western world). wot i care about is why it's being distributed to the entire lums community by JAMSHED H. KHAN (jamshed@lums.edu.pk), associate professor and associate dean at lums graduate school of business (which is entirely separate from the school of arts & sciences).
lums, last time i was there, did not present itself as a religious institution. there are no references to the quran, hadith, sunnah, or any other islamic/muslim beliefs/practices in the student handbook (over the last 4 years) [the FACT that there are fair provisions for non-muslim students at lums indicates to me a secular approach], nor are there any indications to an overtly or pre-dominantly muslim quality on the lums website, brochures, etc.
in fact, the only non-academic (i.e. morally or ethically based) violations at lums base on the failure to "adhere to accepted local social norms". i accept that we're living in pakistan, and unfortunately our accepted local social norms are integrated with islamic interpretation, but at the same time, the most immediate social reference to lums is lahore's defence area, where the locally accepted social norms are entirely different from and contradictory to the ideas proposed in jamshed's email forward (and traditional islamic society on the whole).
of course, there is the usual bullshit about dangerous faculty shifts towards conservative, muslim (the 2 are different but not exclusive) values. in this scenario, isn't it the dean's duty to maintain the balance? why is the faculty allowed to send emails reflecting their personal beliefs to everyone (particularly students not even enrolled in their depts/schools)? shouldn't jamshed be disciplined for his action? or is it suddenly lums policy to present a one-sided opinion to the world? is it fair to lums students and alumni to put up with an altered perception of lums (and trust me, that's exactly wots going to happen when word of this email gets out)? in fact, there is already a shift in society (from prospective students, as well as prospective employers, not to mention general social/business contacts) that lums is going from one extreme (leftist liberals) to the other (fundo "terrorist"-sponsoring extremists). i'm not a fan of either reputation, since they're both untrue (the lums community is quite a mixture when it comes to religious beliefs, social cliques, and moral values), but i do know that the perceived paradigm shift is doing past and present members of lums a lot of damage.
leave all that aside...we'll manage to fix those perceptions. it'll take time, and it'll take a lot of effort that we'd rather apply elsewhere, but we'll fix them... somehow.
right now i'm more interested in planning a full-scale protest at lums. this is an invitation. if ur not in lums, but can make some suggestions (arguments, debates, methods, etc.) then pls get in touch with me. if ur in lums and more interested in doing ur time and getting out before the place goes to the dogs entirely, then trust me, it's not that simple, ur lums experience will quite literally haunt u for a while, and it's better to nip this bullshit in the butt. spread the word, lemme know (comment, scrap, email, sms, wotever!) . i'm busy with work, but i'll gladly take out time to see this through.

-- nudy