Necessary, unfortunately

In an environment that George Orwell

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

would have loved;

Where tax-supported tenured bureaucrats run rough-shod over the funders —

http://www.pirateballerina.com

Mr. Horowitz’s activities are as predictable as Thursday night ESPN beer blow-outs, Sunday morning hang-overs, and “hey, my score should be higher” whine.

Is it any different in Europe?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08...&en=88700f0893a7bd45&ei=5070

Nah. The U.S. just tries to more amused by the participants.

L.L., at 6:15 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Important question

A whole week! I sure hope they provide snacks and wine! If they don’t do this, I am going to devote this week to fasting and prayer! Besides, the foreign students have a really good film festival coming up. They have snacks, and European films have more wardrobe malfunctions.

Of course, Horowitz is getting pretty desperate if the only people he can recruit are the only Senator with a sex byproduct named after him and a rent-a-pundit.

LArry, at 8:00 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Please help reorient my field too, while you’re at it.

“Asked why he was making women’s studies a target... Horowitz said that he has been having students research the departments and that the sit-ins will take place at campuses where there are not women’s studies courses that focus on the treatment of women under Islam.”

None of my colleagues in the Illinois High Energy Physics group work on neutrino experiments. That doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in the subject, or that we deserve to be targeted for harassment because of this. But a couple of us do work on development of the International Linear Collider. I would encourage Dr. Horowitz to pester HEP groups at other universities that do not already share in this line of work. Clearly, their political orientations (most of them probably believe in the Rule of Law and so forth) are driving their research choices.

George Gollin, Professor of Physics at University of Illinois, at 8:10 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Larry — it heartens me greatly to hear such scholarship is being pursued. Thanks for the tip. I think my point was not clear though, you don’t see the ‘movement’ rallying behind these women publicly.

I bet I could get a march going for abortion rights on pretty much any campus without a problem. But if I started a march for women’s rights under Islam, I bet I’d get kicked off campus via catapult. Especially given the response to the fairly innocuous poster (the ‘never forget’ one).

I agree on the snacks though; with eating together comes understanding. Plus, the food is good!

Frank, at 8:55 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Irony 101

There is a certain delicious irony in this morning’s hand-wringing episode. Let’s see, you are terribly concerned about (a) Coulter, (b) Horowitz, and © mischaracterizations of Women’s Studies.

If the Left showed a shred of consistency in its reactions, perhaps such complaints would have credibility.

Al Franken routinely receives huge fees to deliver (very unfunny) monologues with various and sundry exaggerations and distortions about Republicans. He is received with open arms, and people who find him stupid and/or unfunny smile tolerantly.

Ann Coulter, Franken’s right wing counterpart (though vastly smarter and funnier, because she clearly doesn’t take herself as seriously as Franken takes himself) gets physically threatened, shouted down, and blocked.

Leftist writers evidently are more concerned with the dangers in Coulter’s humor than they are with the dangers in the threats she receives, or the frequent, sometimes successful attempts to shout her down.

The Left lives in abject fear that students might encounter a right wing idea without having a leftist interpreter nearby to tell them what to think.

Now (good grief!) we *must* be worried that *someone* might mischaracterize Women’s Studies! Oh, perish the thought!!A “discipline” that requires its students to read such ravings as “all men are potential rapists” is worried about hate speech and mischaracterization!! The idea that Women’s Studies is a highly politicized intellectual backwater is not novel. Read Daphne Patai’s “Professing Feminism.” Better yet, join WMST-L and try to say anything countercultural. You’ll be censored by the list “moderator.”

Islamo-Fascist students routinely threaten Jewish speakers with physical violence, and we are told we must be understanding. But when someone presents (perhaps hyperbolic and incorrect) opinions about Islam, we must wring our hands and be terribly concerned.

Oh, and by the way — where is the Men’s Studies program at your university. Where is the Men’s Student Center? Where is the Men’s Student Office? Who is investigating the gender disparity in the Nursing School?

JimInNashville, at 9:00 am EDT on October 9, 2007

feminists and islamofascism

Personal story:

We had a search for someone in Modern Middle East History. The Chair of the Search Committee was a famous feminist.Whenever any member of the faculty brought up the issue of the lack of rights of women under Islam to any of the candidates—one of whom dealt with gender issues; one of whom dealt with Saudi Arabia, where gender is totally imbricated with masculinity—what that faculty member got was a SCOWL. How dare we bring up such an impolite topic? Didn’t we understand that different cultures have a right to be different?

The best way for feminists to help Muslim women is publicly to protest their oppression. Put pressure on the hideous reactionaries who run these places. But multiculturalism trumps feminism all the time. Now , it appears, helping oppressed third-world women—including, for instance, protesting genital mutilation—is considered western cultural imperialism. And it’s SO “unsophisticated.”

At Columbia University, as Andrew Sullivan has pointed out in outrage, the Queer Theorists actually and explicitly SUPPORTED Ahmedinejad on homosexuality: there are no homosexuals in Iran. it turns out that being homosexual as a solid identity is MORE western cultural imperialism—the imposition of a western style identity on third world polymorphous sexuality.

I wish I were making this up. A good place to start, aside from Andrew Sullivan’s outrage which you can find by googling, is Joseph Massad, “Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World” (2002). Here Massad attacks as western imperialists who wish to destroy an unchanging and authentic Muslim culture those western gays who wish to help the oppressed and heavily-closeted gays in the Muslim world, people who are threatened with constant death. He even creates “the Gay International,” not unlike “The Isreal Lobby.” That’s not surprising: Massad, like Hamid Dabashi, is one of the famous anti-semites in the Middle Eastern Studies program at Columbia University.

Only in America—or Britain.

I think it is a serious intellectual point that fashionable multiculturalism is leading important elements of the modern bien-pensant Left to coddle, protect and “understand” violent and grotesque religious reactionaries out of the seventh century A.D. I guess it’s the most powerful anti-Western game in town.

Ethan II, at 9:20 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Response to Larry

Larry, first of all, I spoke specifically of “speech that has the sole effect of promoting hatred of ethnic, racial, or religious groups". So nothing I might propose would impinge on your right to speak out against Nazis or terrorists. Second, I was not constructing a legalistic argument when I used the word “effect". Rather, I was making a case for prior restraint similar to that used in obscenity cases (i.e., hate speech has no redeeming value) and based, in the case of college speech rules, on the time-honored notion of “time, place, and manner” restrictions. Third, we can certainly decide for ourselves what to hate, but speech is an action and, unlike thought, is already subject to at least some regulation.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 10:20 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Sen. Santorum

Unapologetically Tenured, In obscenity cases there IS no prior restraint. (In fact, such a restraint is likely unconstitutional.) Instead, prosecution can only occur after the alledged obscenity has occurred, and prosecutor must prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) not only all elements of the statutory crime, but also (again beyond a reasonable doubt) that the obscenity doesn’t fall within the constitution’s protections. Secondly, the test for obscenity cases is more than just “no redeeming value”. The government would also need to prove that it appeals to the “prurient” interest. Moreover, since hatred and love drive politics, most speech asking people to hate someone or other is political in nature. So, put another way, in the US any restriction on an argument about who to hate is unconstitutional. But, this works both ways. Any restriction on an argument who to LIKE is also unconstitutional.

Randy, Communism ended over 15 years ago. I don’t think that your fears of communism are going to get much traction in today’s debate. (And, therefore, my argument about the differences between Marxism and communism will seem completely academic.) You also made a puzzling argument, when you said “In every Islamic state the death of women and minorities have been justified.” This is strange. While obviously people die, it is doubtful that such deaths need justifications. I read your argument a few times, and I still don’t get it: are you saying that the governments of Islamic countries kill women on a different basis then men? (Because in the US, women are subject to the death penalty, and people justify that all the time). Are you saying that there are improper justifications for the justification of the deaths of women? What? What? What?

I am also curious as to what you mean by “conservative” intellectuals that died. Intellectuals die all the time. Are you saying that there is political oppression in Muslim countries? If so, are you saying that this oppression is only aimed at one group of people? Are you saying that “conservative” maps neatly on to an American view of “liberal” and “conservative”? Are you saying that people are killing Muslim “intellectuals” that, say, favor lower taxes? Now you piqued my interest.

Ethan, “The best way for feminists to help Muslim women is publicly to protest their oppression.” Why is this? Public protests are snickered at. Do you really think that, say, the King of Saudi Arabia really cares whether a bunch of American girls are marching around Ithica with some signs demanding that women drive?

Finally, as to Senator Rick Santorum, I bet most of you know how this is going to go:

Moderator: Are there any questions from the floor? Audience Member: Yes, Senator Santorum {giggles} would you say that the Islamofascists are frothing at the mouth to destroy America? Sen. Santorum: Yes. They hate us.Audience Member: I am still not sure. Are they frothing?

{giggles}Moderator: Let’s move on

Audience Member: Senator Santorum, is there a certain mix of actions that will lubricate the peace process?{big laugh from audience}

Senator Santorum: We must be ever, vigilant in our efforts to combat Islamofacism via the peace process.

Auidence Member: What does Ms. Coulter think about the mix?

{bigger laugh}

LArry, at 10:50 am EDT on October 9, 2007

Too Bad! Let The Show Begin!

I love it when liberals get their undies all up in a bunch when the other side has its day in the sun. Muslims are extremists, let’s face it. I’ve never heard a single Muslim condemn anything Islamic extremists have done. If they don’t like it, they can leave the US.

Adele Franklin, at 1:00 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

UT, freedom of speech, “hate speech", and prior restraint

It looks to me as if UT wants to ban “hate speech” from campus.

It looks to me as well that UT will reserve to UT the right to define what “hate speech” is—which, at the moment, looks to be the kind of speech to which UT has a political objection. This kind of political speech, with which UT disagrees, is then re-defined as “hate speech” and on those grounds is banned preemptively and by prior restraint from campus.

Wow. That’s an interesting principle, UT.

And from principles to specifics. UT—is it “hate speech” to condemn the terrorist murder of innocents specifically done, as the terrorists consistently proclaim, in the name of Islam? It is not Horowitz who is demonizing Islam. It is the terrorists who act in the name of Islam who are demonizing Islam. Do you wish to prevent this problem from even being spoken about?

Horowitz didn’t fly planes filled with screaming civilians into office buildings holding thousands of peaceful office workers—an act done specifically in the name of God. Horowitz didn’t rocket school yards filled with children at Sderot (inside the 1967 borders of Israel). Horowitz didn’t blow up 150 children in Beslan, Russia, in the name of God. Horowitz didn’t kill 200 partying Australians on Bali in the name of God. Horowitz didn’t try to blow up nightclubs in London, patronized by “immoral women,” in the name of God. And Horowitz didn’t murder 34,000 civilians in Iraq (UN estimate) in the name of God either. Do you want to prevent this problem from being pointed out on the campus for discussion?

If Christians were the ones committing terrorist atrocities on this scale all over the world, instead of Muslims, would UT want to ban from campus, as “hate speech", any discussion of the problem? (UT—answer honestly.)

ethan II, at 1:00 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Mr. Manley, It is indeed confusing to see Franken and Coulter compared. To me, they are very similar: they are both political entertainers. Both of them have trademark devices, which can be used very effectively. Whether either or both is smart or not is irrelevant. They structure their messages to appeal to certain audiences, and they choose what topics to talk about based on what they belief fits in with their image. (Coulter can be convinced that just about anything fits in with her image.)

Mr. Freas, There is nothing per se wrong with Americans wishing that other countries change their internal workings. Moreover, I was not making a foreign policy argument.

Indeed, I happen to think that oppressed Arab women (e.g. that can’t wear skimpy clothing, vote, blog, drink, and drive) really don’t know how oppressed they are. It may very well be that a woman would choose not to drive, but she should be given the opportunity to make that choice. But, whatever the case, I don’t think that it is particularly relevant to the very existence of gender studies programs.

Ms. Franklin, Nobody is having their “day in the sun” here. This is just a pretty normal political stunt by Horowitz, and I doubt that anyone see it as anything else.

Larry, at 1:55 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Islamo-Facist Week

First off, they don’t deserve a week. They deserve at least a semester. There is way too much hate in these wackos to cover in only one week.

But if it’s just one week, let’s end that week with a ceremonial beheading! That way, we can say we showed both sides.

Charlie Bravo, at 2:25 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

those cheating Islamo-Fascists!

I can’t resist observing the hysterical bathos of Mr. Albee’s triad—plotting terrorism (in incomprehensible languages!), text-messaging (probably in those same languages!) and, worst of all, cheating on exams! See Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_: “Or stain her honor, or her new brocade.” I hadn’t known that academic dishonesty was particularly rife among Islamo-Fascists. Perhaps someone should bring this to Mr. Horowitz’s attention.

More seriously, I am struck, like many others, by the “concern troll” tone of those sponsoring and supporting this event, happy to harangue us about topics they don’t know much about. For instance, they seem to have taken little time to educate themselves about the intricacies of the Islamic world, which I am myself just beginning to understand through reading and talking with _actual_ Muslims through my interfaith work. Or to have read any of the scholarship in women’s studies on these issues, which, to my understanding, displays a consciousness of the complexities involved and a more nuanced rhetorical stance than the self-serving jeremiads the other side is treating us to.

Steve Newman, Assistant Professor at Temple University, at 3:45 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Reply to Professor Freas

Sure, Professor Freas—Muslim women ENJOY knowing that their testimony counts only half that of a man in court (as in Afghanistan). They ENJOY knowing they can be beaten, arrested and/or fined if they are raped by a man, because it must be their fault (Pakistan). They ENJOY knowing that they can be beaten, arreted and/or finded if a male Guardian of the Faith descides they’re showing their hands and wrists too much (Tehran; Saudi Arabia). I guess that makes them feel SECURE?

Professor Freas exhibits here the worst kind of classic orientalism: the assumption is that there is an ancient, unchanging and “authentic” Islamic culture, not subject to development, in which all are happy in their assigned places of superiority and subordination, and any criticism of this culture from the West to encourage development towards modernity (or even to discourage the grossest and most obvious injustices) is cultural imperialism.

Ethan II, at 3:45 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Did you say fascisim?

Who can oppose any one who is against fascism? Let there be a thousand antifascist groups that oppose every sort of fascism: Judeofascism, Christofascism, Hidufascism, etc, etc. Why limit the protest to just against one type of fascism? Let there be equal time for all, one week or one month for every group that opposes fascism. Let all the universities actively propose an antifascist year, even. Why not? Let there be an antifascist fest on every campus in the United States, Israel, and everywhere. May be the event can coincide with bringing American troops home from Iraq and other foreign lands, liberating all occupied territories in the world, and saying good-bye to imperialism for ever. Let the campuses everywhere proclaim an antifascist year, starting tomorrow. Why not?

Bob, at 5:00 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Thanks for asking LArry

LArry I hate to break it to you but communism is the political system which governs Cuba, China, Vietnam, and nominally a few other places. Marxism has always become communism when it became dominant.

There is an active practice of ‘honor killing’ in Islamic states, even moreso in sharia states. Women are most often the targets. They are killed by their male relatives for real or perceived dishonor to the family.

Many Philipinos and Koreans have been jailed and even killed in Saudi Arabia, publicly drug smuggling is often mentioned, in reality they have been caught in some kind of religious practice or proselytization.Yeah, I don’t toss around the ‘M’ word just for attention, but I guess I was using ‘death’ as a euphemism for Murder, pardon me.

You may recall the fatwah against Salman Rushdie, and in reality all Muslim terrorism is the result of officially issued fatwahs. These are well within the tolerable cultural diversity parameters of a religious faith, the results are murder bombings around the world. The Khmer Rouge murdered people who wore glasses, because they wore glasses, evidence of being intelligentsia.

The present oppression of monks in Myanmar is being tolerated by the communist government of China as an ‘internal affair’ of Myanmar. The most prominent murder there was of the Japanese reporter. Women are the indirect victims as men who protested are detained. Burmese women have been raped and murdered there for 50 years. The communist government of China wants to maintain business as usual.

Randy, at 9:25 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Erik Freas suggests Muslim women should speak for themselves. In a world where all things are equal. . .he may be correct. Despite the moral equivalence of such fantasies, we are not privileged with such circumstances. Only one unfamiliar with the effect of Sharia laws imposed upon muslim women would make such a statement. Just what ‘choice’ do you think a devout woman in Saudi Arabia has? How much choice can such a woman have when, for instance, the total number of books translated into Arabic from other languages since 1000 A.D. are fewer than the number of books translated by Spain in a single year? Why don’t you ask women like Aayan Hirsi Ali? Dr. Wafa Sultan? Perhaps Ali Sina, Ibn Waraq, or Walid Shoebat. ..each of them could explain this phenomenon to you. You’ll have opportunity at any one of the sponsored events to take advantage to explore and discuss this and so much more.

heroyalwhyness, at 9:55 pm EDT on October 9, 2007

Right Whine Buzzing

Lots of buzzing, like an annoying fly, but Horowitz never had any real content. Just disciples of Horowitz acting like the clumsy disciples of Mao. Horowitz still uses his Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution smear tactics he plagiarized in the 1960’s. His dim witted disciples are even worse. Let the clowns continue to make fools of themselves publically. Most students see right through his dog and pony show. Those that don’t haven’t the wits to see through his conjurer’s nonsense and sleight of mouth! Let his right wing Brown Shirts whine away. The worse they behave, the more they lie, the more his crooked but well funded cronies stumble along impotent and and are forced to look for new strategies to deceive! Our school just trashed and rejected his assinine “academic (lol) bill of rights. Our students saw right through his BS and despite the loud cries of brainless thugs, shouting, “Leftist professors have brainwashed you!” It went back to the sewer where Horowitz spawned it! It didn’t take Leftist professors, dim wits! It took real students examing the foundation of your right wing postering and witch hunting hysteria. It fell all by itself, just like the “Islamo-facism Week” will fall under the weight of its own stupidity and Horowitz and his employers will fall under the weight of their own hubris! But what do I know? Just like the right wing posters here discussing “panties in wads” and other such intellectual gems, I’m not an academic.

Diogenes, at 5:10 am EDT on October 10, 2007

Belated Responses

Unfortunately, I got caught up in the demands of my day job, so I missed the chance to respond to Larry and Frizbane earlier. As I feared, much of the discussion on this thread since then has devolved into simpleminded attacks against Islam. I suppose this is the level of argumentation we should anticipate when our campuses are treated to the thuggish performance art that is “Islamo-Fascism Week".

Anyway, now that things have calmed down a bit, some brief responses:

Larry, I’ll certainly take your word for it that I misunderstand the term “prior restraint". My point, however, was that the purpose of anti-obscenity laws is not primarily to punish offenders. Rather, it is to create a chilling effect and to discourage individuals from engaging in such expression in the first place. (I am also aware that the standard for proving obscenity goes beyond simply demonstrating a lack of redeeming social value; I was simply pointing out that we have, as a society, already agreed that some forms of expression may be legally banished from the marketplace of ideas based on public disapproval of their content.)

You are, of course, correct that political speech receives—and deserves—more protection than, say, hard core pornography. I would take issue, however, with the notion that all expressions of hatred are imbued with political content and must therefore be defended. Expression intended to intimidate, for example, remains unprotected, which why the Supreme Court generally upheld the Virginia law against cross burning. And, of course, the Court came damn close to allowing states to ban flag-burning, which would be an entirely content-based prohibition of free expression.

In any event, by ultimately restricting my argument to university campuses, I was attempting to narrow the scope of the discussion somewhat. Specifically, I was suggesting that the the college campus is not the equivalent of the public square. Whether such an argument would be ratified by the courts is another matter entirely.

Which brings me to Frizbane Manley’s response. First, Frizbane, you are quite correct that universities are much more than “institutions created for the purpose of passing on knowledge". Blame my haste in firing off a quick message before getting back to work. Absolutely, to paraphrase you, the formulation, questioning, debate, and revision of ideas “is clearly the equal of dissemination of information in higher education".

The question, then, involves how we might best create an atmosphere conducive to these goals. At the very least, I would argue, we accomplish our mission most effectively when we keep intimidation and personal abuse to a minimum. Of course we must have a vigorous discussion of ideas, and, as I’ve pointed out previously, nobody has the right to feel ideologically smug or comfortable in the classroom or even on the quad. But I do think I might draw the line at purely bigoted expression.

I know some people would suggest that victims of bigotry simply need to grow a thicker skin. It’s a big bad world out there, after all, and they need to get used to it. While all that may be true, we are primarily dealing with teenagers and very young adults here, many of whom are interacting on the level of ideas for the very first time in their lives. That alone can be a very scary experience, and I think we do have a responsibility to provide the best possible environment for them to do so. The real world can take care of itself.

So let’s start at the fringes. I would be perfectly comfortable with banning the KKK from meeting on my campus. I would likewise instruct any student flying a Nazi flag from an on-campus dorm room to take it down. If you disagree with me, I can certainly respect your absolutist belief in free speech, though I may not share it. If you agree with me, then we are no longer talking about whether colleges can ban certain types of expression, but rather, where to set the limits.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 5:15 am EDT on October 10, 2007

How Horowitz hurts real introspection

Mr. Memon raises a number of good points. But here is the problem: People like Horowitz et al. have driven the dialogue down so far, that the “dialogue” is really nothing more than a PR stunt. In this climate, it is doubtful that even an introspective Muslim is going to want to do any serious philosophizing when some (but not all) of the results might make his religion look bad. Maybe, some day, when Horowitz gets bored (or his funding dries up), there can be serious religious introspection. So, they best they can hope to do is tasty snacks.

Randy, First of all, “Marxism” is not communism. One can easily see that Marxist assumptions about the nature of politics or humanity are a proper baseline for political, economic, or legal analysis, yet at the same time understand that they are players in a capitalist system. Secondly, you seem to have expanded the definition of “conservative intellectual” to “missionary.” I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting this. While, of course, I think people should be free to proselytize as it is part and parcel of free religious exercise, many countries do not take this position. Also, since these Asians in Saudi Arabia are executed pursuant to a state’s legal process, they are not “murdered.” They are simply executed much in the way the US executed killers. Whether someone is lying about the presence of drugs or not is a matter of proof. So, in the end, you have still not established that conservative intellectuals are being murdered. Now, in no way am I supporting Saudi Arabia, but I think you are confusing a lot of your concepts to make a political point.

Third, “Fatwas” as I understand them are generally not issued by governments. To my knowledge, there has never been a Marxist “Fatwa.” Fourth, while the “oppression” of Monks in Burma is regrettable, China isn’t the only county to take a hands-off approach. Thailand is as well. In fact, I suspect that in the near country no country will take serious action regarding Burma, simply because there isn’t an alternative to the current government.

Larry, at 5:15 am EDT on October 10, 2007

Islamo-fascism

The intentional imposition by violence of an all-encompassing and state-enforced way of life which determines every action of every person according to a strict religious belief—well, that sure sounds like fascism to me.

In fact, the term originated in the 1960s in respectable academia, and later was originally employed by the LEFT to describe Islamic movements. Now that Bush has used it, the left recoils in horror.

1, A leading textbook of the 1960s Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (1963) by the late Princeton professor Manfred Halpern included the thesis that the neo Islamic totalitarian movements are essentially fascist movements. They concentrated on mobilizing passion and violence to enlarge the power of their charismatic leader and the solidarity of the movement. Halpern pointed especially to the totalitarian and fascist elements in the ideology and the practice of the Muslim Brotherhood (ancestor of Hamas) with its branches in various Arab countries. At the time Halpern wrote, the Brotherhood had been weakened by repression by Nasser. But with the fall of Nasser and the breakdown of Arab nationalism and communism the Brotherhood, and Islamism, had its revival.

2. The distinguished French Middle East expert Maxime Rodinson in 1978, and the British writer Malise Ruthven in 1990, both employed the term in respectable scholarly contexts. In 1978 in a polemic against some of his leftwing friends such as Foucault who welcomed the revolution in Tehran as a great progressive achievement. Rodinson wrote in Le Monde that far from being left wing in any meaningful sense, movements such as the one headed by Khomeini and the Muslim Brotherhood were predominantly fascist, or to be precise constituted a form of “archaic fascism”. This comparison was picked up on later occasions by several other students of Iran sympathizing with the Iranian opposition, but the Iranian president Khatami also warned of the danger of fascism in his country in a speech in 2001 even though he did not use the term Islamic fascism.

Malise Ruthven, the godson of the famous traveler Freya Stark, wrote in an article in the London Daily Independent in 1990 that unlike other non Western religions Islam has found it impossible to institutionalize political divergences: “authoritarian government, not to say Islamic fascism, is the rule rather than the exception from Morocco to Palestine”. Ruthven followed up his comments in a number of books on Islamic fundamentalism in later years.

Neither Rodinson nor Ruthven could be possibly charged with lack of sympathy for Islam and the Arab world to which they had devoted their life’s work. Both were outspoken anti Zionists and critics of Israeli politics. Rodinson, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia was a Marxist and for many years a member of the Communist party.

3. In recent years, there has been much research showing a connection between the themes in Nazi propaganda beamed to the Middle East, especially by Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and close friend of Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann, and the later themes adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The most important book to read on the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Nazis has, unfortunately, not yet been translated into English. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers’ Halbmond und Hakenkreuz. Das “Dritte Reich", die Araber und Palästina, translated Crescent Moon and Swastika: The Third Reich, the Arabs, and Palestine was published September, 2006.

4. For those of you who don’t read German, I suggest you google-image “Hezbollah + salute", and take a look at all those Islamist terrorist soldiers giving the Nazi salute.

ethan II, at 10:10 am EDT on October 10, 2007

Islamofascism addendum— on hypocrisy

Given what turns out to be the respectable intellectual lineage of the actual term “Islamofascism,” and given the campus Left’s own very loose employment of the term fascist—as in “Bush is a fascist” or “Horowitz is a fascist"—it is also the height of hypocrisy for the campus Left now to recoil in intellectual horror at the alleged “lack of rigor” in the employment of this term in regard to totalitarian Islamic movements.

It is, I fear, another example of the campus Left’s coddling and “understanding” of Muslim fanaticism.

(Note: In my previous post just above, as well as here, I am distinguishing between Islam in general and Islamofascist movements. I suggest that everyone do so. It makes things much clearer.)

Ethan II, at 10:30 am EDT on October 10, 2007

For twenty years before I called him up and shamed him into inviting me, Maurice Isserman taught about the Sixties, no doubt attended academic symposia on the Sixties and never assigned my books or extended an invitation to me to participate or suggested to his colleagues that someone who wrote the first New Left book of the era, was an editor of its first journal, was the editor of its largest magazine, and became its chief critic be included in any academic discussions of what happened. I pointed this out in a phone call that I initiated and shamed him into inviting me. The rest of the facts in this stupid dispute which has inspired Isserman to smear me as a liar on half a dozen occasions in multiple venues are on my website Frontpagemag.com in “Replies to Critics” (or here: http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/16301.html) Now Isserman has come up with another gutter charge to fling at me. Sure I called Zarqawi and al Sadr and Osama Bin Laden and the other savages beheading American citizens and slaughtering Iraqis who want their freedom “rag heads.” What of it? Isserman’s obsessive attempts to find a “gotcha” moment to defame me without a single substantive issue discussed is the pathetic behavior I have come to expect from the academic left. Defending the Islamo-Fascists is also something predictable and equally pathetic.

david horowitz, at 11:30 am EDT on October 10, 2007

Normal life in academia, without “Islamo-fascism Awareness Week”

A friend of mine at McGill writes to me:

“When I have more time, I’ll write you about a paper that I sat through yesterday—a “social history of Hizbellah” that aimed to consider only the economic and social conditions that gave rise to the movement, without talking at all about the political context, the political agenda, and so forth. So, we heard a lot about social justice and hospitals, but nothing about failed states, anti-semetism, terrorism, etc. Imagine if someone wanted to come onto a university campus and give a talk on the social history of Nazism—you know, the good stuff about trains and factories, without dealing with all that, you know, NASTY stuff.”

To paraphrase Mitchell Cohen in the autumn issue of Dissent: The fact must be faced that there are parts of the academic left that apologize for Islamic extremism in ways reminiscent of how an earlier leftist generation apologized for Stalinism, and who believe that Islamic extremists are part of a “liberating” multitude because they are against imperialism, etc. What we see here is yet another reinvention of tiers-mondisme, a failed left-wing doctrine that provided numerous grotesque illusions to intellectuals for 30 years but was not much help for the difficult, painful problems of the real third world.

ethan II, at 6:55 pm EDT on October 10, 2007

I am an American female Muslim law student, and I frequently travel to my country of origin Pakistan. My female friends and family there — who include two Fulbright scholars, lawyers, doctors, and professors — would find Horowitz’s attempt to “free” them hilarious if they cared to know who he was. Muslim women are well-aware, and well-equipped, to deal with any problems they face and certainly dont need the likes of Horowitz to rescue them by disturbing Women’s Studies departments.

Further, if Horowitz wants to help Muslim women, he should support the women in American universities who are already engaged in the task — and there are plenty. To wit:

“...the reality is that the American universities are some of the staunchest supporters of the rights of Muslim women. It was at a university where I met Riffat Hassan, the well-known anti-honor killing activist from the University of Louisville. It was at a university where I met Amina Wadud, the Quran scholar, who was the first woman to lead a mixed-congregation prayer in recent Muslim history and quite courageously challenged Muslim patriarchy. It was at a university where I met Abdullahi An-Naim, the Sudanese Islamic scholar whose message calls for the equality of men and women in and whose teacher was executed in 1983 for such ideas. It was a university where I met Rafia Zakaria, the feminist activist whose commentary on issues affecting Muslim women is published in Pakistan and India. It was at a university where I heard of Laleh Bakhtiar who has now published a feminist translation of the Quran (and we know how important translations of the Quran are in the fight against extremism). It was at a university where I encountered the work of Ziba Mir-Hosseini, the Iranian activist whose speciality is Muslim divorce law, with a focus on women’s rights.

It is these universities that the organizers of this initiative are calling “enablers and abettors” of terrorism...”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali...laughing-at-islamofasci_b_67565.html

Ofcourse logic might not appeal to Mr. Horowitz, and I have given his antics more time than they deserve by posting this comment.

Saliha, at 7:55 am EDT on October 11, 2007

Dear JiminNashville,

I assure you that nobody more than Muslim women themselves are aware of the conditions and problems they face. Is there a mountain of impediments to overcome before a solution to their problems is found? Absolutely. But I posit that the root many of the problems they face — poverty, illiteracy — are not gender-specific at all.

There is nothing Horowitz can bring to light that isnt known to us, and his antics are counter-productive because they hamper the work of some people who actually do more than stage sit-ins.

Further, my point was not to recount mere anecdotes, but to bring to the table the fact that Muslim women are not helpless damsels in distress waiting for Horowitz or anyone else to rescue them. I am currently in the Arab world on a law-school paid fellowship, and the amount of strength, energy, and intelligence of the average Muslim woman I see here is surprising even to me.

Saliha, at 2:35 pm EDT on October 11, 2007

Dear EthanII,

I have no doubt that the anecdotes you have posted are representative of a huge sample, every one of which is horrific to say the least. There is a critical need to change attitudes, but it would be a mistake to think that nothing is happening on the ground to help the victims. Reform is happening in the Muslim world, slowly but surely. Here are some examples:

1) NYTimes Magazine on Sept 23, 2007 carried an article entitled “A Dishonorable Affair,” about the “honor” killing of young Zahra al-Azzo in Syria, and how it galvanized the public to decry the crime over TV programs and newspapers like never before. Syrian activists plan to use the facts of the case to change the law that protects the murderer (which, incidentally, stems not from Islamic law but Napoleanic codes). The Grand Mufti of Syria has decried the law in unequivocal terms. Although there is opposing pressure from more conservative elements, women’s activists on the ground hope to keep the pressure sustained, and the Grand Mufti expects the Parliament to get rid of the law in a few months.

2) Another (successful) reform effort was the passage of Women’s Protection Bill in Pakistan, protecting rape victims, earlier this year — details here: http://archive.eteraz.org/story/2006/11/25/94826/058)

3) Yet another story about the rising push in Egypt to curtail Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/20/africa/20girls.php?page=1

Ofcourse getting rid of misogynist laws is just one piece of the puzzle (albeit an important one). Changing conservative attitudes is the real battle. To what extent Western efforts can help, or hinder, these efforts is a complex issue. Certainly the West can provide help by providing training to lawyers and judges who deal with cases affecting Muslim women day in and day out — to my knowledge, the American Bar Association has internships/fellowships to work in Jordan and Morrocco doing precisely that. So does the Freedom House organization based in DC. And the last time I checked, Human Rights Watch was recruiting a researcher who would study and report on human rights abuses against women justified on religious grounds. To the extent that these western efforts help reformers on the ground, and shine the world’s spotlight on the issue in a CONSTRUCTIVE manner, they are welcome and needed. This is certainly not what Horowitz and his ilk are doing, or even interested in doing.

However, the West (i.e. America) suffers from a huge credibility problem when it comes to the Muslim world. Our blundering foreign policy has cast anything we do, even if done with right intentions, in a bad light. You’ll notice in the NYTimes article about honor killings in Syria that Syrian activists are at pains to separate themselves from anything remotely “Western” lest they lose credibility.

Our approach has to be nuanced enough to recognize when we are doing more harm than good, and back off when needed, recognizing that there are reformers on the ground who are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs waiting for the Western white knights to save them. They are intelligent, capable, and passionate about their work, and have more to gain from their success than the West.

Saliha, at 5:10 am EDT on October 12, 2007

representative of a huge sample—Saliha

Thank you for your very serious reply, Saliha. If indeed the examples of conduct of which I wrote are representative of a huge sample of Muslim culture (but certainly not of all Muslim culture), as you courageously say, then this severely misogynist culture, often violent towards women, remains a huge problem for women in the Muslim world, for women in the world in general, and it remains a legitimate human rights issue for everyone to be concerned about. This is not only because of the violence towards women. It is also because this violence towards women is part of a larger pattern of violence by religious reactionaries, which includes everything from the massacre of innocent civilians in the name of Jihad to the hanging of gays in Iran in the name of God.

Your argument that the West should (sometimes) “back off” was an argument said to the West be many leftist intellectuals when other Western intellectuals were publicly and strongly backing Soviet dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s—that Western backing would only hurt them within their own societies, and with their own governments, and that we should therefore be quiet, etc. Those who made that argument turned out to be incorrect. I am not saying this is an exact parallel. But I would suggest to you that the existence of strong outside pressure and explicit public disapproval for reactionary customs is not a small thing, and is an advantage to the reformers which silence would not be. And if silence WOULD be an advantage, that says something quite unpleasant about the severe narrowness and intense paranoia of the general society which the reformers are attempting to reform. (Of course, the intensity here varies over the wide variety of societies in the Muslim world, but I hope you see my point.)

Another anecdote: the Dean of Washington Cathedral in D.C., Samuel T. Lloyd III, is a famous and very very forceful spokesman for gay rights. Yet when Mohammed Khatami the former President of Iran—a representative of a government that had HUNG hundreds of gays, some in their teens—came to speak at Washington Cathedral 18 months ago, Dean Lloyd kept his mouth totally shut. Was this good for gays in Iran? Was it good for Dean Lloyd himself?

I see nothing wrong with public criticism of a ruthless and reactionary jihadism which is causing so much mayhem around the world. I assure you that if it were Christians who were murdering innocent civilians by the hundreds and the thousands in the name of Christ, the campuses would be rife with open discussion and criticism. The “pass” instead given on campus to the reactionary version of islam out of which jihadism is spreading is, as Mitchell Cohen says in the recent Dissent, a new version of the same old apologias once heard for Stalinism from the left, combined now with a revived and increasingly fashionable tiers-mondisme, according to which the same standards of behavior are not expected of third world people that is expected of others. I am sure you can see that such an attitude from the intellectual centers of the West will *not* help reformers in the Muslim world.

Ethan II, at 9:05 am EDT on October 12, 2007

Ethan II

When I say “huge sample,” I do not mean to overstate the case. I want to reiterate again the strength of the average Muslim woman in the Muslim world, and I also want to emphasize that the vast majority of Muslim men are not misogynists bent on their subjugation. At the same time, I do not wish to sugar-coat the problems that do exist, because that would be dishonest.

I agree that the existence of outside pressure is often beneficial, as in the case of Mukhtaran Mai’s rape in Pakistan and the attention that Nicholas Kristoff brought to bear on the issue. Her case would probably have disappeared from the public conscience quicker if not for his advocacy and the international spotlight.

But WHO shines the spotlight, and how, is very important. People like Horowitz drive the discourse between Islam and the West down to the point where Muslims are put on the defensive, and no intelligent collaboration on real reform can take place. I assure you that Muslim themselves are not sitting idly by when terror is committed in their name, despite the going caricatures of us as cowering while thugs run amok. There is much internal discussion about the causes of and possible solution to the violent streak among our midst. Right-minded people on both the Left and the Right (because neither side has a monopoly on being humane) can help Muslims combat extremism through activities like the ones I outlined in my previous post. What does NOT help is telling Muslims their religion is inherently violent, and expecting them to agree.

As for the Egyptian FGM story, changing a centuries old custom requires people to admit that what they and their forefathers have been doing is inherently wrong. This is no easy task. Still, if you notice in the story, there are Egyptian men also are working to eradicate this practice. Again, it matters WHO is doing the pushing — western intellectuals can say what they wish, but hearing it opposed from their local imam will go a much longer way to change people’s attitudes.

Saliha, at 10:40 am EDT on October 12, 2007