Related link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/6384

Does being the President of some Islamic Society mean that he/she is a terrorist
sympathizer?  Will it be justfied to call someone a Jainal Hajari
sympathizer, (the notorious terrorist of Awami League), because he is an
urdent supporter of Awami League?  Of course not.  Why doesn't Mr Jamal Hasan apply
the same logic in case of Zayed Yasin?

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/157/metro/Speechmaker_aspiring_peacemaker+.shtml

Speechmaker, aspiring peacemaker

By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 6/6/2002

CAMBRIDGE - He has been called ''a fund-raiser for Hamas'' on national
television and a terrorist sympathizer on his own campus, alleged to be a
radical Muslim student who has duped Harvard University into letting him
mount a controversial defense of the word ''jihad'' from its most prominent
bully pulpit, the commencement dais.

Yet when senior Zayed Yasin delivers the prestigious undergraduate address
before the Harvard audience of 30,000 this morning, he hopes to set the
record straight about himself and his views.

The 22-year-old says he is neither a fund-raiser nor supporter of
Hamas-backed terrorists - an image that leaves his friends shaking their
heads when they think of the former Scituate High School drama-club techie
with leading-man good looks and courteous, mild manners. In the speech, he
plans to condemn the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11
in the name of ''jihad.'' He also plans to defend the word as a symbol for
peaceful struggle.

More broadly, Yasin hopes to narrow the divisions between the West and the
Muslim world by offering himself as a product of both cultures, someone who,
as a Harvard graduate, wants to devote his life to a ''jihad'' improving the
lives of the poor and oppressed.

''No one is paying attention to who I am or what I'm trying to say,'' he
said yesterday over breakfast, bracketed between appearances on CBS's ''The
Early Show'' and CNN. ''My speech on `jihad' has gotten more attention than
I ever imagined. But even so, I'm still trying to get people to really hear
me.''

Indeed, his critics plan to hand out 20,000 red, white, and blue lapel
ribbons for audience members to wear as a sign of protest. They also plan to
circulate fliers criticizing Yasin and including quotations about terrorism,
such as one by President George W. Bush: ''You're either with us or against
us in the fight against terror.'' And at least two Harvard seniors who lost
relatives in the World Trade Center plan to skip commencement because of
Yasin's speech, said Harvard senior Hilary Levey, who is helping to organize
the protest.

''We want him to realize that people are concerned about the speech and
taking it seriously,'' Levey said. ''The purpose of the speech was to get
people to think about the issues. People are thinking, and reacting.''
It is not the reaction that Yasin had hoped for. The son of a Bangladeshi
father and an Irish-American mother, Yasin speaks in a formal, clipped
style, and cautiously chooses his words. A biomedical engineering student,
he says he has a particular yen for public service, especially because he
can build things with his hands, and has done so as a volunteer on a theater
production, as a relief worker with the Red Cross in Boston, and with
humanitarian groups at refugee camps in Albania.

Yasin says he never gave much thought to Middle East politics when he was at
Scituate High, or to his Muslim faith, for that matter. But all of that
changed when he came to Harvard. There, he became enmeshed in a vibrant
campus life of ideas, debates, and diversity - a community that turned him
into a free thinker, but one that he now stands accused of roiling with
today's speech.

After a week of unceasing media attention, protests, and a death threat in
advance of his speech, he says he has come to some conclusions about all of
the furor. He is particularly disturbed that some students at Harvard are
demanding that he condemn all forms of violence committed under the banner
of jihad.

''It's not my job in this speech to apologize for the crimes of others,''
Yasin said. ''It seems like people are trying to fit me into their own
agendas.''

But Levey said she and like-minded students are not questioning Yasin's
right to give the speech, which was selected by a faculty committee.
Instead, the protesters want to underline the emotionally combustible nature
of his address.

Yasin says he never expected a controversy to erupt over the speech. But he
says the original title, ''American Jihad,'' was, in hindsight, too
provocative. While Harvard's president, Lawrence H. Summers, issued a
statement supporting Yasin's right to give the speech, Yasin himself
ultimately decided to change the title - but not the content - of the
speech.

''I knew it was a powerful word, but I had no idea how powerful,'' Yasin
said of ''jihad.'' ''People hear the word and just freeze up.''
A Harvard dean, Michael Shinagel, who helped select Yasin and worked on the
speech, yesterday took responsibility for some of the controversy, saying he
was the person who endorsed ''American Jihad'' as a pithy title while he and
Yasin were discussing some longer ones.

''I thought a shorter title would be more punchy,'' Shinagel said. ''I hoped
having a moderate Arab voice giving this speech could return the term to its
moderate and original meaning. But I miscalculated as to what a hot button
the word has become.''

Roxanne Euben, an associate professor of political science at Wellesley
College, said a speech with ''jihad'' in the title would inevitably stir ill
feelings on a diverse university campus, given the word's use by some
Muslims as a rallying cry for ''holy war.'' Yet Euben said she believes
Yasin's idea about redefining ''jihad'' is a powerful message.

''This is an extraordinary opportunity to pull the rug out from under the
feet of those who insist that `jihad' is synonymous with violence,'' Euben
said. ''These are precisely the kinds of opportunities to reclaim an
important word - which means `striving to be a good person' - that we need
to be pursuing.''

Yasin said he is comfortable with his new speech title, ''Of Faith and
Citizenship,'' which he and another adviser, Richard Thomas, selected at the
height of the controversy. He does not think the silent protests of ribbons
and fliers will rattle him, either.
''Once the speech is heard, anyone wearing ribbons will feel really silly, I
think,'' Yasin said.