 Let's see, Islam, Islam. It turns out Islam in Minnesota is quite an issue, right? So a few weeks ago, I told you about the story about Hamelin College, where art history professor showed a painting of, a painting of Muhammad from, what is it, the 12th century or something, and Iranian, Persian. And Muslim students complained and the professor was fired, even though professor had given a warning, I told students he was gonna do this, even though this is an art history class, you're supposed to show the art in an art history class. Anyway, there's a huge outcry, I mean, quite amazing, the extent of the outcry, University of Minnesota came out against the university for firing Ham, and then it turned out even the faculty of Hamelin College actually voted to ask the president to resign because he had fired, he had fired this professor. So, you know, you can offend everybody pretty much. Well, not anymore, I guess you can offend the snowflakes, but you can offend many religions, except Islam, you cannot offend Islam, you cannot show the pictures of Muhammad in, at Hamelin College. Well, there was a somewhat, there was another controversy related to Islam, also in Minnesota, at a university called McAllister College, or McAllister University, I'm not sure, where there was an exhibit, an exhibit by an Iranian, an Iranian immigrant to the United States, an Iranian artist who describes herself as a feminist and she basically had an exhibit, if you will, in support of the women in Iran who are protesting, in support of the Iranian protests, which is super important. So, for example, one of the neon signs, this is kind of modern arts, it's collages in neon signs and some sculptures, but probably not very realistic, although it's hard to, they don't really show a lot of pictures in this article because I guess they don't want to offend. But anyway, so it's paintings, photographs, collages, and there's a neon sign saying women like freedom, which is of course the slogan of the Iranian protest. The exhibit also has women in hijabs, but with parts of their bodies exposed, or negligee exposed, or breast exposed. So, a commentary about a female body hijab, so obviously, you know, obviously a critique of what is going on in Iran and support for the protestors. So some sculptures and drawings in the exhibit depicted exposed bodies of Muslim women wearing hijabs, oni-cabs, and some Muslim students at the university were offended. So over the weekend, the university shut down the exhibit, it put all the paintings and all the sculptures behind, behind kind of a black material so you couldn't see it. They held meetings with students to, I guess for them to have an opportunity to express their feelings. Following the weekend, the university decided to its credit to keep the exhibit open. They took away all the covers and they opened up the exhibit. They did put glass on the door where you could look into the exhibit. They put in what you got, frosted glass, so you couldn't see what was inside. So it's not to expose the people just walking by to the artworks. They also put up a warning on the door saying, ooh, you might be offended, beware, don't go in if you're gonna be offended, but they also put up on the door a poster from the group objecting to this, asking for people to sign a petition to have the artworks removed, or at least some of the artworks removed, and they included that on the door, which is a little bizarre, right? Even though they've agreed to have this. So, Muslims in the United States, but really Muslims all over the world continue to be offended, continue to resist any kind of critique of Islam, any kind of questioning of the faith, any critique of the, some of which are pretty barbaric traditions, they offended by and they wanted silence. They do not want their religion critiqued or questioned and they do not want depictions of the Prophet Muhammad anyway. And Muslim students, particularly in Minnesota, it looks like are actively objecting to any attempt to depict their religion in ways that do not conform to their emotions, I guess. And of course, this is a worldwide movement. This goes back to Salman Rushdie, who we'll get to in a minute. This has to do with the Danish cartoons and Charlie Hebdo, and this is a continuing battle with the anti-liberal, anti-free speech, anti-open to criticism attitude of the Muslim world and the Islamists who are vocal within it. But these are probably not even Islamists, these are people who just don't want to be offended and but people offended by art all the time. Close your eyes, walk away. And of course, people have a right to boycott an exhibit. People have a right to demand that a private institution shut down an exhibit. That's not a violation of free speech. People have a right to demand that a professor be fired. The question is, are there objective standards for all of this and what are they? And their offense and the fact that their religion is being criticized are not objective standards that a university and academic institution should abide by. So good for this university for keeping the exhibit open. Good for the faculty of Hamelin College for calling for the president of Hamelin College to resign. I am glad to see some American institutions starting to push back against this kind of behavior by Muslims. I remember when we were showing them, I don't know if you guys remember that some of you might know this, but when the Danish cartoons came out in the demonstrations all over the world and American newspapers would not publish the cartoons, the Ironman Institute sponsored events all over the country at university campuses where we did panels on free speech, where we showed big posters of the cartoons. We showed big posters of the cartoons and we had a panel on free speech. At NYU at New York University, they wouldn't let us show the cartoons. So what we did was we put up the cartoons on stage, these big posters and we covered them with sheets which actually turned out to be more effective because you're not allowed to look, you're not mature enough, you might be offended. The powers to be won't let you see, won't let you think, won't let you hear, won't let you look at this because it's inappropriate. So this whole free speech debate around Islam is super important, it's important to emphasize the importance of free speech and I'm glad to see some institutions standing up to the hysteria about this. I wish they applied the same principle to other attempts to restrict free speech, to other attempts to restrict free speech. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. 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