Free Speech Death Watch Alert from Pamela at Atlas Shrugs:
Apostate Nonie Darwish, author of "Cruel And Usual Punishment; The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law". and executive director, Former Muslims United, was scheduled to speak at Columbia University today and Princeton University tomorrow, and both events were canceled.Columbia, where Ahmadinejad was welcomed like a returning king.
Just hours before she was scheduled to speak, the groups (the Debate Society and Tigers of Israel) succumbed to student Muslim groups and canceled her speaking event. Nonie called me from her NY taxi, shocked that just weeks after an Islamic attack on a military base on US soil, the largest in US history, that activists who speak the truth about Islam are being shut down and marginalized.
There is much more. Read it all.
I'm not so sure its even worth descending into hell to preach to demons...Some of them throw pies...
This sucks. So much for that "free speech" business.
Here we have another example of the ongoing shutdown of freedom of speech and open debate of ideas at American Universities. I'm sorry that Ms. Darwish was not permitted to present her case. Personally I find her to be a very interesting person and excellent public speaker.
Following Geert Wilders' October, 2009, appearance at Temple University which, according to Christine Olley's report in the Philadelphia News, ended with Wilders leaving the stage as insults were yelled at him by members of the audience, I wrote a letter to the President of Temple University, Ann Weaver Hart. I cited Ms. Olley's report as the source of my information. The end and theme of my letter was thus:
"There is a much greater danger to our basic Western freedoms, including freedom of speech, from what those Temple University students did two nights ago than from anything that Geert Wilders has ever said.
Thank you, President Hart, for reading along with me here and I wish you well."
In November I received a personal letter from President Hart, denying that anything said from the audience attempted to abridge in any way Mr. Wilders' right to speak, but rather that Mr. Wilders left of his own accord when some members "expressed disagreement with his views...He freely chose to end the question and answer session and leave the event."
Further, President Hart excoriated me thusly:
"You do a terrible disservice to Temple University's sutdents when you make statements that accuse them of being a threat to freedom when they appropriately exercise their rights and do not interfere with the rights of others. Freedom of speech requires us to make room for all viewpoints, especially those with which we most fervently disagree."
Needless to say, Olley's report in the Philadelphia News and President Hart's account of the event are hoeplessly and irreconcilably in conflict.
I look for Columbia and Princeton administrations to similarly get out the brooms and start covering the tracks of what happened to Ms. Darwish.
The only thing those who now run American universiites now understand, or care about, is money, and the possibiilty of donations, or the withholding of donations. Let alumni be properly informed about this, let them be properly informed about the further scandal of MEALAC program at Columbia, with Joseph Massad (awarded, in violation of the university's own rules, tenure --about which the university will not publicly say a word), the PLO propagandist Rashid Khalidi, the deplorable Hamid Dabashi (author of the famous "Ode to Edward Said" which google) known to ironic Iranians in exile as "Hamid the Arab" (just imagine what Ms. Nafisi, in this country, or Abbas Kierostami, in Iran, think of the likes of Hamid Dabashi), and about Princeton too, where the decadence is more likely to be obvious not in the Middle Eastern program (where the restraining effect of Bernard Lewis kept things decent for a long time -- nothing like the Columbia situation could develop) but in other areas. The insensate haste and public gushing, when Cornel West was not only "snapped up" by Princeton (see the statements of its Provost at the time) but given, absurdly, a University Professorship, are the kinds of things that those who give should be made aware of, and should not only withhold contributions, but make clear to the Development Office, the beating heart of Columbia, Princeton, tutti quanti, that as long as such appointments are made, no money will be forthcoming.
It's the only way. Beat them down. Take the money away, do not replenish their endowments on which they took such foolish chances. Let the Presidents themselves of these places be replaced -- by those who come as close as possible to Jacques Barzun in their understanding of "Teaching in America." Don't put up with the massads and the dabashis, the rashid-khalidis and cornel-wests.
And tell the universities why the cancellation of perfectly acceptable talks by Nonie Darwish, because of Muslim pressure, is unacceptable, and is one more nail in the coffin of donations.
Cut off their money. And if the unoffending faculty are hurt? Too bad. Let them, too, see what is going on, and add their voices to the chorus of those enraged at the cravenness, the pusillanimity, the irresponsibility, of those who run these places, and in so doing, as we know all know, do so very well for themselves.
The anthem for Free Speech on university/college campuses.
"Na-na-naaaaa-na
na-na-naaaaa-na
Hey-ey-ey, goooodbye"
Nonie Darwish should not be shocked that this crypto-blatant suppression of free speech comes so soon after the Fort Hood variant on the traditional Islamic tactic of the razzia or ghazia, which my pre-PC MC English dictionary, the 1913 Webster's, defines as "a plundering and destructive raid", though more apropos here is its definition of the related Arabic word ghazi: "a fanatical slayer of Infidels" (interestingly, the online version of the 1913 Webster's does not have that entry; I had to squint through a magnifying lens to read it from the actual yellowed pages of my hard copy). It makes sense to engage the gears of denial and suppression and kick them into overdrive after such an event. Indeed, this has been the typical PC MC response all along: Every time a Muslim explodes or otherwise perpetrates or plans mayhem, the PC MCs redouble their Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace-and-the-vast-majority-of-Muslims-are-peaceful-people Paradigm.
The logic is simple and understandable here:
1. PC MCs do not want to broaden the problem from a small minority of extremists to the vast, teeming, wonderfully diverse and colorfully un-monolithic tapestry of the Diaspora of Muslim peoples.
2. However, Muslims aren't helping when they keep exploding or otherwise causing, and calling for, mayhem (not to mention demonstrating a broad-based popular support for various forms of anti-liberal fanaticism): We must help Muslims, therefore, goes the PC MC mind, and try to keep the lid on this genie's bottle -- for the only rational alternative which these Muslims by their vociferations and actions (and these pesky pests the Islamorealist pundits like Ms. Darwish calling attention to the Islam causing all these Muslim behaviors) are pressuring us to adopt is unthinkable: to widen out the problem not only to hundreds of millions of people hailing from all around the world including our own, but also charmingly ethnic peoples -- and we all know that to criticize, much less condemn, ethnic peoples (even single ethnic individuals, for that matter) is to enact the worst crime of all, worse than murder: racism. For, you see, saith the PC MC, Racism is our Shirk: it is our paramount crime whose avoidance we would rather die for than even appear to be perpetrating.
You're right, Hugh. Conservatives need to become active in Alumni and Endowment boards to exert financial pressure on universities to halt or reverse the Affirmative Action overreach that has resulted in flooding the academic system with the patently unqualified in the name of ethnic and multicultural diversity. University president hiring decisions are at least partly made according to how skilled a prospective candidate is likely to be in keeping the money flowing in. The Alumni and Endowment boards could play constructive roles in both public and private universities if they were to let the various Boards of Regents or Boards of Governors who actually make the final hiring decisions know that taxpayer and endowment funds will not be made available to any university that promotes social policies that are demonstrably harmful to society. Unfortunately, it will take a while to flush out and replace the current generation of university presidents and administrators, virtually all of who are of the Sixties and Seventies generations, and replace them with grown ups.
Of course Columbia University appeared to have very few problems inviting the Mullahocracy Monster,holocaust denier, and a man determined to obliterate Israel anyway he can, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September of 2007.. University President Bollinger wrote that Ahmadinejad was invited for a desire to create robust debate ( I have a bridge for sale) Of course what a crock that is coming from Bollinger.
Why is not such forum offered up to Nonie Darwish? The double standard is an amazing display of hypocrisy from Columbia University.
Please read these amazing comments put out by Bollinger to the media and school just a few days prior to Mahmoud Amadinejad's campus visit----please pull out your puke bag on this one as you think of Nonie Darwish.
Columbia University President Bollinger comments just a few days before the Amadinejad visit:
"I would like to add a few comments on the principles that underlie this event. Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas—to understand the world as it is and as it might be. To fulfill this mission we must respect and defend the rights of our schools, our deans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes. Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious. We trust our community, including our students, to be fully capable of dealing with these occasions, through the powers of dialogue and reason.
I would also like to invoke a major theme in the development of freedom of speech as a central value in our society. It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible.
That such a forum could not take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here. To commit oneself to a life—and a civil society—prepared to examine critically all ideas arises from a deep faith in the myriad benefits of a long-term process of meeting bad beliefs with better beliefs and hateful words with wiser words. That faith in freedom has always been and remains today our nation’s most potent weapon against repressive regimes everywhere in the world. This is America at its best."
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Robert.
Nonie Darwish spoke at the University of Toronto recently: http://tinyurl.com/yde8qac
I've read both of her books; they are excellent.
This is what is happening in this country: the Islamo-Nazi Storm Troopers and their lowly local Quisling collaborator-groupies are having the run of the country, taking over campusses, thugging, intimidating, suppressing freedom of speach, imposing tyranny. England, Norway, Sweden are far worse, but the United States is sinking down to their level. The clock is ticking out on Western civilization.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Blessings on Nonie Darwish's publishers, who took the risk and did that very nice little hardback edition of her book on sharia, 'Cruel and Usual Punishment'. I have one of those and it is exceedingly well-thumbed by now, and much underlined.
*All* publishers who publish works critical of Islam are, today, to be counted as heroes, and gratefully acknowledged.
Columbia and Princeton. What happened to all those "brave" professors speaking "truth to power"? Oh, you only stand up when there's no real risk, is that it?
Heroes they are. This week the student newspaper at NYU reported about a Muslim association protest over an opinion article written titled 'Going Muslim' by Tunku Varadarajan, a professor, article link:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html
Calls for censoring him have been rejected by the school.
Political figures have to make their views known. Just imagine if Barack Obama, sometime lecturer on American constitutional law, were to find out about how Nonie Darwish's speeches were cancelled because of two institutions, intimidated by the threat of disruption, of Stormtrooper-like behavior. If Obama himself were to call up Princeton and Columbia, or at least, in one of his many speeches, even if as an aside, to deplore this attack on free speech, it would be useful, it would be right, and it would -- would it not? -- be politically astute.
And if he won't do it, then someone else, or still better, several people in public office, present, past, or potential future, should both comment on the matter, and call up Dwight Bollinger, call up Shirley Tilghman, and express, calmly and intelligently, that this act did not escape their notice, and it fills them with dismay.
It need not be a politician, though a political figure would be welcome. It could be, for example, those who know something about the effects of allowing Stormtroopers to intimidate the public. Possibly Elie Wiesel. Or even Henry Kissinger. I suppose it's much too much to expect anyone in the current, debased American Civil Liberties Union to speak out about such censorship. But perhaps there are still one or two holdovers from the old days, or someone who might just surprise us.
Who's running for office in New York? Who's running for office in New Jersey?
We're all ears.
"Going Muslim" - an excellent article. Thanks for posting that link.
Back in the halcyon days of pre-9/11, before America submitted to the Mohammedan Barbarians, I visited a friend who was going to Princeton. I remember having a wonderful lunch in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room in the Nassau Inn, surrounded by portraits of famous Princeton alumni, and then walking around the campus and enjoying myself immensely.
Now, Princeton students have backed down to Barbarians. Were the students afraid that if they didn't a Muslim or two might "go Muslim?" A legitimate fear. I'm wondering if that fear could be a factor in the students' submission?
I believe that the Indian writer of the "Going Muslim" article has added "Going Muslim" to the lexicon. I know I'm going to use the phrase - it's appropriate as all-get-out.
Perhaps, someday, if they really try their best, Princeton and Columbia might attain the prestige of Al-Azhar. .
The biggest problem I see here isn't the attack on the first amendment it is the lack of critical thought on the part of the universities and the students.
Unless our youth are taught critical thought, they will never see anything wrong with silencing the opposition. The behavior of the BO administration is a good example of this type of thinking. The attack on Tea Partiers, Americans expressing disagreement at town hall meetings, BO himself telling us to shut up and get out of the way.
The group think is endemic and instead of people developing the ability to think for themselves, through discovery, research, and hard work.
We are producing good little brown shirted automatons with an exceptional ability to be persuaded and manipulated into patterns of behavior and beliefs by the progressive fascists in leadership.
What bothers me is that no more than 20 students actually chose to think for themselves and listen to Ms Darwish.
No one else was actually curious about what she had to say and wonder why, the Muslim student organization was so determined to prevent her from speaking.
Too bad for Muslim that the Internet is still free. Tell college students to learn Islam's real history online free from the Historyscoper and quit letting the older generation tell them what to think. http://go.to/islamhistory
I'm late reading this but whenever something like this happens, I write to them showing my disbelief at what they have done. If we all do this, things might change. It has worked in the past.