Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (109 mails)

["Bryen M. Yunashko" <suserocks@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 12:31 -0800, N B Day wrote:
> Over the weekend and as recently as early today, Tuesday 9 March, an
> individual has posted several messages in the opensuse-en list which
> have the following text appended to them as a tag line:
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> “The sword of Muhammad and the Qur'an are the most fatal enemies of 
> civilization, liberty and truth which the world has ever known - an 
> unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God's will.” 
> --Sir William Muir
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Message ID 4B91DFA$.4010402, 4B9327B7.6030506, 4B960398.90500
>
> The (far too kind, in my opinion) Wikipedia article on William Muir is
> here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Muir A quotation from Muir on
> Islam is pretty well analogous to a quotation from Karl Luegner on the
> Jews or George C. Wallace on the virtues of African-Americans.  Not
> likely to be fair and balanced.
>
> These sentiments borrowed from Muir were not germane to the topic
> underthe quotation of discussion, nor could they possibly be on a list
> devoted to helping English-speaking openSUSE users world wide use and
> enjoy this wonderful distribution.  
>
> I cannot imagine what purpose the poster might have had in posting no
> fewer than three copies of this appalling bit of 19th century bigotry
> other than to make people who follow Islam or come from Islamic cultures
> feel discriminated against and unwanted in opensuse-en.  It doesn't
> contribute anything, it doesn't inform, it didn't have anything to do
> with the topic; it's just a vile bit of slime which is designed to cause
> hurt to approximately one quarter of humankind.
>
> I complained to the list owner early on Sunday, my time.  I have had no
> response.  As I said above, the postings continue.
>
> I addressed this in the off-topic forum (where ad hominims are on-topic)
> and the consensus among participants there was that I am a stupid prig
> and should just shut up.  In the wake of this I have been favored by a
> large number of unsolicited private emails from some of the same people
> putting the point that I am a stupid prig even more forcefully.  Twit
> filtering is so easy now that I'm not really bothered by it; I am
> surprised at the number and vehemence of them.the quotation of
>
> I suggest a thought experiment for those here who may agree that I'm
> just a stupid prig:  substitute "Jesus and the Bible" or "Judah Maccabee
> and the Torah" for "Muhammad and Qur'an" in the above. 
>
> The final section of the OpenSUSE Guiding Principles reads in part as
> follows:
>
> "We believe that a diverse community based on mutual respect is the base
> for a creative and productive environment enabling the project to be
> truly successful. We don't tolerate social discrimination and aim at
> creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from
> offense."
>
> Complete text is here: http://en.opensuse.org/Guiding_Principles
>
> How is it that someone is allowed to post the paragraph quoted above
> repeatedly on the opensuse-en list without comment or objection from
> anyone?  How does permitting this comport with the Guiding Principles?
>
> Are they just a bunch of high-sounding empty words?
>  
>
>
> -- 
> N. B. Day
> 39° 28.3964' North, 119° 48.6346' West, 1403m up
> Aurelius up 3 days 0:56, 2 users, load average: 0.08, 0.03, 0.01
> Linux 2.6.31.12-0.1-desktop openSUSE 11.2 (x86_64) Gnome 2.28.2
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  From the preliminary
information I have received from others on this subject after your email
arrived, I too am deeply disturbed by what has transpired.

I will be requesting the Board review this matter and determine
appropriate action in the very near future.

Sincerely,
Bryen M Yunashko
openSUSE Board Member


-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx