I am comfortable with people expressing religious sentiments on publicly
funded discussion boards. An individual writer doesn't represent the point
of view of the government, which should be more concerned about protecting
freedom of expression and freedom of religion than about the remote
possibility that such personal expressions threaten us with establishment of
religion. In that department, American culture's many biases toward
Christianity, overt or not, deserve more attention than a post like
Ochieng's.

What interests me about Ochieng's post is its structure and the way readers
have interpreted it. The post starts with a greeting to Muslim students we
might have, and ends with a wish for fellow Muslims. Most readers seem to
have focused on the middle, which they've taken as information about
Ramadan. I think the middle could equally easily be read as exhortation to
Muslims to focus on the true meaning of the season and not be distracted by
the superficial aspects, so that the whole post could be seen as a message
to Muslims. As an informational message for non-Muslims, it might have
started at a more basic level, explaining the Ramadan fast and Eid
al-Fitr, the feast that ends it, as well as the events in Islam that
happened during Ramadan and the basis for fasting during this holy month.

I like this post a lot because it raises interesting points about styles of
expression and discourse. I'm not going to try to comment on those points
now because I am not much past the brainstorming stage and don't want to
overgeneralize, but I appreciate the post and discussion about it on the
list, and I look forward to more like this. And I want to wish Ochieng and
any other Muslims among us Ramadan Kariim.

Debbie Smith
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