alex chiang: web 6.0

I don’t really keep up much with my alma mater these days, so when I opened up Andrew Sullivan’s blog last week and read about two college editors getting suspended for publishing the infamous Danish cartoons, I was surprised when I found out it was two editors from the Daily Illini.

I had mixed feelings about this incident: proud that two editors at UIUC had the balls to publish the comics, and dismayal that they were suspended for doing so. The controversy specific to the DI is not merely the publication of the cartoons themselves, but moreso that the two editors supposedly did so without authorization from the rest of the editorial board. Who knows what the real story is…

Here are two links describing the brouhaha:

• Two editors suspended over cartoons
• Illinois Student Paper Prints Muslim Cartoons, and Reaction Is Swift

I wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Illini, but to date, it hasn’t been published. I’m not sure why, because I thought it was pretty good. :)

An open tripartite letter to the following:

Editors Gorton and Prochaska:

Thank you for taking the courage to do what the mainstream media
will not, by publishing satirical cartoons meant to illustrate
the sad state of free speech and thought in today’s world, where
an open society permits itself to by tyrannized by a violent,
vocal, and insistent minority who insist that we obey their
conventions, norms, and taboos.

offended Muslims of the world:

Welcome to our society where freedom of speech and thought are
not only permitted, but celebrated. Please understand that
“freedom of speech” also includes freedom to criticize, offend,
and insult. We set it up this way on purpose because the good
outweighs the bad. The marketplace of ideas can be a confusing
din at first, but you’ll soon get used to it, and then you’ll
wonder how anyone could live differently.

anyone interested in a free and open society:

Remember when Voltaire said, “I do not agree with what you have
to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”? Now
would be a good time to step up.

Alex Chiang
alumnus, college of engineering, 2002