This week, failed terrorist Adis Medunjanin was found guilty of attempting to blow up the New York City subway system. Medunjanin’s two cohorts, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay pled guilty and cooperated with the feds. According to the New York Post, “the trio planned to detonate would have caused significant destruction and death in a subway car.”
The story that goes untold is the one of the college that funded and facilitated the trio, while also ignoring the warnings of Islamic extremism on campus.
The three failed terrorists met at Flushing High School where they became friends. Both Medunjanin and Ahmedzay attended the Queens College; Medunjanin graduated while Ahmedzay dropped out.
It was during their time at Queens College between 2004 and 2009 that they joined the Muslim Student Association (MSA). It was also during that the two decided it would be their life’s mission to fight for the Taliban. The duo reconnected with Zazi who had since graduating high school had moved to Colorado. In 2008, the trio traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan where they would later go on to Waziristan and received training from Al Qaeda. The duo returned to Queens College to finish their degrees and Zazi traveled back to Colorado.
In the semester after the two had left school, I became the vice-president of the Queens College Republican club. In early November of that year, the Queens College Republicans decided to have showing of the film “Fitna” by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The short film discussed the radical transformation of Europe, which was becoming more Muslim and were losing their democratic values as a result.
It was during that viewing that forty - mostly female members of the MSA attended the small showing, which comprised of seventy in total. After the viewing ended, the members of the MSA began to pass out papers about the misleading information and how the Quran and Islam were part of the religion of peace. When a debate started between the College Republicans and the MSA, the conversation turned ugly.
One male member of the MSA named Muhammad-, who giggled during footage of the Twin Towers falling, stood up and announced that if he had enough money, he would become a suicide bomber. The other members of the club stated that despite his remarks that he was their “brother.” The female members shouted down the club’s then-President, a Jewish woman. They made a series of hateful statements including, “the Holocaust did not exist”, “9/11 was an inside job”, “the Jews are to blame for all the wars in the world”, “We should stone the Jews to death”, “you can not criticize the Quran” and “You can not be an American and a Muslim”. To be fair, one and only one member of the MSA said publicly that she did not agree with her “sisters” on the last statement.
After the viewing, the College Republicans filed a police report on Muhammad. As sitting vice president of the club, I delivered a letter regarding the concern over the MSA, that they clearly held what I believed to be “anti-American” beliefs and the club was a possible breading ground for terrorists to the office of the College President, James Muyskens. I also very carefully explained that in a public college funded by taxpayers should not be funding such an organization. My letter and concerns were flatly ignored.
Days after the video incident, the MSA invited a controversial Imam, Siraj Wahhaj to speak in an event called, “How Islam Perfected Thanksgiving” – which, I should note, was not in the Charlie Brown Special. Authorities called the Imam an un-indicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Mayor Bloomberg had previously discussed his regrets for bringing the Imam to speak at City Hall and yet Queens College and the MSA welcomed him with open arms.
I reported both the Queens College events to the New York Post, which covered the story. Facing bad press by a major national paper, the college administration blacklisted our organization, we were defunded, attacked in the school newspapers, and verbally assaulted and even higher members of the schools administration warned other clubs about being actively involved with members of our organization. We are called, “racists”, “bigots”, and “Islamaphobes”.
I became very well aware that the liberal college administration has a role to defend their ideology that diversity is always strength before they defended the best interests of the country.
Just weeks after the MSA brought the un-indicted coconspirator of a terrorist plot to speak on the college campus, the failed terrorist trio were arrested for their attempt to commit an act of terrorism. When The New York Times asked members of the MSA about the arrest of Medunjanin, he was described as “a really nice kid” and “a good guy.”
To this date the MSA is funded by New York City taxpayers and despite the College Republicans’ best efforts, we were defunded and disbanded as an organization. And despite being later proven correct in our intuitions, we were never apologized to by members of the college administration for blacklisting and public defamation of our characters. It is unknown if anyone previously reported suspicious activity by members of the MSA and after the public backlash against the College Republicans, it is doubtful that any people will in the future.
Queens College taught me one valuable lesson: diversity is our strength, unless it is diversity from the liberal administration.
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