"Jihad" reference prompts complaint

SALEM, Ore. — A Portland Muslim leader is asking a pesticide-industry lobbyist to retract a statement in which she warned that Senate Democrats had declared "jihad" against Republicans over an environmental dispute.

Shahriar Ahmed, president of the Bilal Mosque in Beaverton, said use of the term in an e-mail dealing with a controversy over a pesticide-use reporting program perpetuates negative stereotypes about Muslims.

"The term 'jihad' here was used intentionally to aggravate the situation," Ahmed said during a news conference yesterday.

The word has been used by Muslim extremists to describe holy war, but Ahmed said mainstream Muslims use the Arabic word to describe a person's internal struggle to do good.

Ahmed went to the Capitol to criticize an e-mail sent by lobbyist Paulette Pyle of the pesticide-user group Oregonians for Food and Shelter.

In a July 15 e-mail to about 500 farmers and foresters, Pyle warned that "the Senate Democrats have declared 'JIHAD' against the Republicans because they are opposed to [Pesticide Use Reporting System] funding."

Pyle said she meant nothing derogatory about Muslims and only used the term in an e-mail to members and supporters of the pesticide group as a way to highlight the issue.

"When I wrote that e-mail, it was like, 'I've got to say something to get your attention,' " she said, referring to farmers who she said were busy with harvest.

Courtney Campbell, chair of the philosophy department at Oregon State University, said many Muslims would be offended by how the word is used in Pyle's e-mail because it has a deep meaning in their religion.

"It really is using a pretty central term in the religion in a completely inappropriate context," Campbell said. He compared it to the significance of the word Israel, which he said has a similar meaning to the Jewish faith.

Ahmed was joined at yesterday's news conference by Sen. Frank Shields, D-Portland, who said it appeared that the word was used in the e-mail in a "racist and religionist" way.

But Pyle said Shields is blowing the statement out of proportion.

"Good grief. Are you kidding? I never even thought about it in that context," she said.

Pyle's e-mail asked farmers and foresters to visit the Capitol and lobby against the reporting system, originally established in 1999, that is supposed to give Oregonians information about where and in what quantities pesticides are used.

The program has never been fully implemented because groups opposed to the program successfully lobbied to cut funding for it during tight budget years.

This year, Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature disagreed about how specific the geographic reporting should be.

Pyle's group and Republicans argued that large reporting areas are necessary to protect pesticide users from environmental sabotage.

But environmental groups and many Democrats said pesticide use should be reported according to township, range and section coordinates so that the information could be useful for researchers.

Legislative leaders announced yesterday that, as part of their budget deal, funding for the reporting system would be provided, but the reporting area would be by river basin, which is significantly larger than what environmental groups wanted.