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Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week II has begun, following up on October's nationwide campus initiative with a new drive to bring a small bit of equal time to campuses. Last night I spoke at Stanford University.
It was a good evening: I was honored to be introduced by and have some give-and-take with Daniel Pipes, and to stay in a hotel that had the good sense to stand up for our threatened culture and pipe music including John Coltrane's "Vilia" and Thelonious Monk's "Crepuscule with Nellie" over the lobby sound system. After a conference in New York tomorrow, I'm off to Virginia, to the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary and Christendom College next week. And it's the same old story: I spoke last night under heavy guard, which turned out not to be necessary, as the Leftist and jihadist goons were not in evidence, but it is telling that such guard is ever needed on any American campus today. And on a related front, one of the organizers of the event sent me a series of emails he received in response to his announcement that I would be speaking, showing that character assassination, smears and libels are still the favored weapons of the intellectually bankrupt and inveterately thuggish when they are confronted with arguments they can't answer on the basis of evidence. Everywhere I go, I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible -- so goes the old song. But one thing I never get, and the anti-jihadists in general never get, is actually refuted.
And we will never give up.
"Islamo-Fascism Discussed on 100 Campuses," from FrontPage:
The Islamo Fascism Awareness Week II got under way yesterday at universities across the nation in what amounted to a two front offensive against the unholy alliance between radical and pro-jihad groups. By focusing on a Declaration Against Genocide, IFA Week speakers encouraged students to repudiate the genocidal threats against America and Israel issued by terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as their rogue-state sponsors in Iran. At the same time, they encouraged campus groups to condemn Islamic terror and to spotlight those groups -- particularly the Muslim Student Association, a group with chapters on more than 600 campuses nationwide – which have pointedly refused to do so.Robert Spencer, one of the IFAW Week's key speakers, noted that the campaign provides a perspective seldom-heard in today's academic world: "Islamo Fascism Awareness Week gives college students an opportunity to hear an alternate view to the leftist propaganda that passes for academic discourse on all too many campuses these days. With the Middle East Studies Association appearing completely uninterested in allowing for viewpoints that go against the dominant mainstream, Islamo Fascism Awareness Week provides a small bit of equal time. What's more, this time around, with our call to denounce the genocidal statements of Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, and others, we are providing a platform for moderate Muslims and others who have the courage to speak out against the barbarity and madness -- a platform they will most likely not otherwise find on their campuses."
One reason for the one-sidedness of the campus debate is the influence of groups like the Muslim Student Association and their effectiveness in silencing any debate over Islamic extremism. Founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian terrorist organization, the group retains troubling ties to militant Muslim groups. For instance, the MSA has sought donations from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Islamic charity shut down by the U.S. government for providing financial backing to the terrorist group Hamas. (The Islamo Fascism Awareness campaign has produced a booklet, The Muslim Student Association and the Jihad Network, which documents this organization’s role in the radical Islamists’ “stealth jihad” which aims to sabotage American culture and institutions.)"As the FBI has documented, this group was formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, godfather of the international jihad," said David Horowitz, organizer of Islamo Fascism Awareness Week. "It seeks to be is treated on campus like a religious or cultural group, but it is political to its core. All of its efforts are calculated to advance the cause of Muslim extremism and weaken America. It stands for subversion, not education, and it is a travesty that MSA chapters on campuses across America are receiving student government money, which means public funds in many cases, to pursue its agenda."
Indeed, the Muslim Student Association is often better funded than other overtly political groups. At Columbia University, for instance, College Republicans receive $1600 a year in student funds, while the MSA receives $15,000. At the University of Pennsylvania, the campus Democrats and Republicans each receive no funding, while the MSA receives $50,000 a year in student funds.
Against this background, it is not surprising that the MSA has refused to support Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. Asked to condemn Hizbollah and Hamas and repudiate the saying of the prophet Mohammed that redemption will come only when Muslims kill Jews, the organization has instead maintained a deafening silence, refusing even to endorse a non-partisan declaration opposing genocide. Indeed, only two Muslim groups -- Muslims Against Sharia and the American Islamic forum For Democracy – have been willing to sign the Declaration Against Genocide and support to the current campaign.
The MSA and other Muslim groups may be unwilling to acknowledge the central contention of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week – that Islamist terror poses a clear and present danger to the United States and its allies – but those involved in the jihad, leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been less reluctant. "The accomplishment of a world without America and Israel,” the Iranian leader has said, “is both possible and feasible."
That Ahmadinejad nonetheless was invited to Columbia, and feted as a voice of reason by admiring faculty, only underscores how distorted the debate over radical Islam has become in academia. As Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week II unfolds over the next few days, students and faculty are hearing alternative voices to those which have drowned out one side in the argument about the crises America faces in an age of terror.
Below is a list of schools observing Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week:
Alabama
Asuza Pacific
Bloomsburg
Brown
Cal State Long Beach
Case Western Reserve
Central Michigan University
Christendom College
Columbia
Columbus State CC
CSU San Francisco
Dartmouth College
Drexel University
Duke University
Elon University
Emory
Eureka College
Evangel University
Florida Atlantic University
Florida State University
Furman University
George Mason
George Washington
Grove City College
Hampden-Sydney College
Hofstra University
Indiana State
John Carroll
King's College
Lawrence University
Liberty University
Miami University (Ohio)
Missouri Western
Montana State
New Jersey Institute of Technology
North Carolina A&T
North Georgia College
Ohio State
Oklahoma Wesleyan
Palomar CC
Penn State
Pepperdine University
Roger Williams University
St. Mary's College of California
Stanford
SUNY Binghamton
Temple
Texas - San Antonio
Texas A&M
Texas State
U Hawaii - Hilo
U Hawaii - Minoa
UC Berkeley
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
UC Santa Cruz
UCLA
UNC Chapel Hill
University of Arkansas
University of Central Arkansas
University of Colorado - Boulder
University of Denver
University of Georgia
University of Indiana
University of Maine-Farmington
University of Maryland - Baltimore
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
University of Michigan - Flint
University of Mississippi
University of Redlands
University of Rhode Island
University of South Florida
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin - Madison
UPENN
USC
Valparaiso University
Wake Forest
William & Mary
Babson College
Boston University
Brandeis University
Cornell
East Mississippi Community College, Mayhew Campus
Idaho State University
Johnson & Whales University – Charlotte
Michigan State
Millsaps College
Monmouth University
Pace Law School
Palm Beach Atlantic
Syracuse University
University of Central Florida
UMASS
University of Cincinnati
University of Southern Mississippi
Wayne State University
Wellesley College
Posted by Robert at April 9, 2008 8:12 AM
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I realize that the theme of this IFAW is focusing on genocide and Islamic terror threats, and not women's rights, as was the case in the first IFAW last fall, but I find it ironic that human rights is all of a sudden the rage with the Olympic protests. I have every sympathy for Tibetans, but where are all these passionate people when it comes to human rights for women living under the yoke of Islam? Selective outrage? No doubt.
Posted by: George Mc.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 9, 2008 8:45 AM
God Bless You Robert. Thank you for all that you do. I get a excellent perspective on what they are up to from your site. You provide a depth that is lacking from the "official" sources. Many, many thanks for being the voice in the wilderness!
Posted by: VAF158 at April 9, 2008 9:09 AM
I'd drop the "-Fascism" part because it's too distracting and deceptive. Fascism is one thing, Islam another. Yes, they both aim at total control of the individual and society, but otherwise they're very different. Fascism has yet to prove that it can survive military defeat and the loss of its "all-knowing" leader. Islam has done both. In fact, "who is the Leader of Islam?" has been its greatest problem. Fascism is fanatically nationalist, Islam internationalist. Fascism is modernizing (Italy) or at least modern (Germany) while Islam is intensely retrograde. People need to know that Islam is bad on its own (de)merits without evoking images of stiff-armed salutes and monster rallies.
Posted by: sceptico at April 9, 2008 9:22 AM
One campus that needs speakers on the subject of Islam (of the variety not recompensed with Prince Bandar's walking-around-money) is that greensward of neo-classical structures known as Capitol Hill.
Yesterday, there was a non-stop discussion by the faculty and students (well, everyone was a faculty member, no one was a student) at this Capitol Hill University, supposedly about Iraq and "the surge" and what constitutes "success," and no one -- not a single person -- ever mentioned the word "Islam" or the word "Jihad." No one asked what the point of being in Iraq was, of how it related to such things as the massacres of Christians in Indonesia or southern Sudan, no one asked a simplye question such as the following:
"General Petraeus, sir, I just watched a short film, "Fitna," in which I learned something about passages in the Qur'an that deeply disturb. As I understand it, General, those passages are considered by Muslim Believers to be the literal, and immutable, Word of God. And I also learned from that film a fact of which I had been unaware: that in 1960 there were about 1,500 Muslims in the Netherlands, the country from which the film-maker, Geert Wilders, comes, or rather, where he is a Member of Parliament under constant police guard for what he dares to say about Islam, and now there are a million Muslims in the Netherlands.
Now I know, General, that you have a lot on your plate. I know that "the surge" is supposed to be "working" so that Iraqis of various stripes and groups can somehow reconile, and this, we are told, will further our interests in the "war on terror." But "terror," General, is a tactic, seen by its practitioners merely as a version of qitaal, or combat. And there is a larger war, General Petraeus, of which Iraq is only a very small part. We can all understand, General, why those responsible for invading Iraq, and then in continuing to keep troops in Iraq -- not one of whom appears to think in broader terms about what is going on, all over the world, but only in the narrowest of terms, about a particular terror group, Al Qaeda, when there are so many, and their ranks so easily replenishable, and besides, terror is not the main instrument used by those who share the same ultimate goals and worldview of the members of Al Qaeda -- sorry, General, for the run-on sentence -- so let me get to the point.
General, why are we in Iraq? How does being in Iraq help us deal with those million Muslims in the Netherlands, the two million in Great Britain, the five-six million in France? How does any conceivable outcome that leaves Iraq intact, and even prosperous, because of the oil sales which, I note, the Iraqis themselves are hoarding, making American taxpayers, who have endured, already, seeing nearly two trillion dollars in present and future committed costs spent on this Iraq venture -- how does this fit into the world-wide campaign of self-defense against the Jihad, which proceeds, all over the world, through terror here, and deployment of the Money Weapon there, and campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest which, as it proceeds, is expressed in demands for changes in the legal and political institutiions, and social arrangements, in every Infidel nation-state?
How, General?
Make the connection for us. Explain to us how you connect what we call "success" in Iraq with this larger picture. Tell us why you think the 4,000 dead, the 60,000 wounded, the two trillion dollars spent or committed, the manic attention --just loook at this all-day forum today -- to Iraq, without any kind of attention, for example, to a propaganda war to weaken the hold of Islam on non-Arab Muslims, to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam by exploiting -- if not encouraging -- precisely the kind of sectarian fissures that you have been working so hard to tamp down, to end.
Why should we not welcome the fissures in Iraq? Why should we not wish the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, to worry more about Iran, and to be forced to send their own men, materiel, and above all, money -- to support their co-religionists? And why should not Iran be preoccupied with supporting its co-religionists next door in Iraq? Why not have the Muslims squander their money, their men, their materiel, in low-level hostilities, or high-level, that might go on forever? Was the Iran-Iraq War, General Petraeus, a good thing for Infidels, or a bad thing?
Tell us, General. Don't tell us the General Rules of Counter-Insurgency that you and your colleagues at Fort Leavenworth think have universal application. Don't tell us again such things as "in general, insurgencies last ten years." That would be as helpful as saying "in general, civil wars last 5.3 years" or "in general, wars last 4.6 years." It makes no senes.
General, what do you know about Islam? What do you know about the demographic facts in the Netherlands? What do you know about the Biafra War? About the expulsion of 400,000 Pandits from Kashmir by the Muslims? About the 1.8 million non-Muslims killed in the southern Sudan?
What do you know, General Petraeus -- or foer that matter any of my colleagues seated here today -- what have we decided we need to know, above all other things, about the doctrine of Jihad, about its various instruments and their effectiveness, and how do you, General Peraeus -- you are not, I take it, one of those gerneals who assumes that "war" is conducted only thourhg military means, and you by now must surely realilze that the world-wide Jihad does not, in the main, proceed by military means -- how do you connect the situation in Iraq with that world-wide effort of self-defense?"
Nothing like that was heard in the testimony and questions yesteday. Nothing like that will be heard today.
And that is why a "Jihad Awareness Week, Month, Year" needs to be declared, its seminars and private tutorials for Congressmen being offered, round the clock, four terms a year, on the biggest campus of all -- Capitol Hill University.
Posted by: Hugh at April 9, 2008 9:23 AM
Consistent - persistent - steadfastness is our weapon in exposing Islam in face of PC Leftwing opposition. If there is one thing the dhimmi libtards are not & do not have is a consistent backbone of honest convictions. They roll like tumbleweed with the latest knee jerk hysteria to try to keep their Utopian pipedreams current. Once the undeniable truth of the death cult is steadily held out there for all to see, watch em melt away into obscurity.
Never give up Robert, the only way for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing :)
God bless!
Posted by: SoteriA at April 9, 2008 9:35 AM
is there any chance of seeing this in the UK? We need Islamo Fascism Awareness Week urgently here, today in my uni I just saw a bench with a bunch of posters, muslims and 2 dhimmis with "free palestine" in english and arabian.
Posted by: Dr.CancerMan at April 9, 2008 9:54 AM
"Never, ever, ever, ever give up!"
- Sir Winston Churchill
at April 9, 2008 9:55 AM
is there any chance of seeing this in the UK? We need Islamo Fascism Awareness Week urgently here, today in my uni I just saw a bench with a bunch of posters, muslims and 2 dhimmis with "free palestine" in english and arabian.
Posted by: Dr.CancerMan at April 9, 2008 9:59 AM
Robert. Hugh. Marisol. Greg. Lights in the darkness. You have many friends in Canada. Press on. Press on. Support is there. The beast must be killed.
Posted by: hasvfidra at April 9, 2008 10:27 AM
...Two steps away from the county line-- Sing it, Bobby baby!
Posted by: John C at April 9, 2008 10:30 AM
is there any chance of seeing this in the UK? We need Islamo Fascism Awareness Week urgently here, today in my uni I just saw a bench with a bunch of posters, muslims and 2 dhimmis with "free palestine" in english and arabian.
Posted by: Dr.CancerMan at April 9, 2008 10:35 AM
'Free Palestine...ban Allah...'
IFAW2 is a great idea. The awareness extends to being aware of the leftist/muslim types who show up to make trouble. Their tantrums will be publicized, but rational people see them as just that 'tantrums'. That guards are required to protect speakers, speaks loudly about the nature of the leftist disrupter's.
The fact that guards are required to protect a variety of people from Islam, speaks loudly about the nature of Islam. In fact Islam, if you listen, speaks loudly about the nature of Islam. It's all in Allah's book. I don't think too many leftists have read the Quran, their main book, is the 'Book of Abject Stupidity'. They quote from it regularly.
The best way to deal with Islamic protesters is to out Quran them. The best way to deal with loud liberals is to remember their source material is from their book the, BOAS. Or BS for short. Just remember to protect yourself from hurled objects. Have a good escape route. Good luck and thank you for your consistence...Your work is appreciated..
at April 9, 2008 10:37 AM
sorry for the mutiple posts, my internet got stuck and I ended up sending mutiple posts...
hehehe oooooppss
at April 9, 2008 10:50 AM
It will be interesting to see what kind of media coverage (if any) will be given to Robert's presentation at Stanford University.
Posted by: urbanIIredux at April 9, 2008 10:52 AM
Mr. Spencer (or anyone else at JW)
Given my geographical location, I could attend lectures at either Miami University or Ohio State. Is there a site you can suggest to ascertain dates, times and building locations for IFAW lectures for either or both universities?
Thank you.
Posted by: omvi at April 9, 2008 10:58 AM
'And we will never give up'- Robert Spencer
I second that, Darcy, it's always great to hear.
And as Pigman's echo of Churchill:
'Never, Never, Never, Never Submit.'
Posted by: Bosch Fawstin at April 9, 2008 11:04 AM
It seems very shallow telling you to never give up Mr. Spencer, as I sit in my office making money in this the United States of America where I am free to do as I choose, worship The God I choose, to raise my chldren according to my values, and otherwise enjoy the hard, hard earned freedoms in this greatest Republic to ever exist.
Nevertheless we are all called to our own battles, and you have chosen a sacred and mighty
one Mr. Spencer. This fight is as important or more than 1776, 1812, the Civil War....
God Bless You.
Montjoie
Godfrey Bullion
Posted by: Godfrey Boullion at April 9, 2008 11:05 AM
Hype:
Check out my latest post about The Infidel graphic novel, an image of the twins meant to convey Islamic Dualism. There's also a hidden image between the twin's faces, but you have to look from an angle.
A reminder: The Infidel's about twin brothers whose Muslim background comes to the forefront of their lives on 9/11. One responds by creating a counter-jihad superhero comic book called PIGMAN as the other surrenders to Islam and becomes a Born Again Muslim, following the faith to wherever it leads him.
To those asking where the hell the book is, I'm awaiting an interested publisher's response, who got back to me after I mentioned that I not only take on Jihad, but Islam itself, and wanted to read more. A good sign.
Posted by: Bosch Fawstin at April 9, 2008 11:15 AM
A letter to one's alma mater including the info above concerning the MSA and ties to the muslim brotherhood would be a good idea for every person interested in countering the islamic influence on our college campuses. We need to get close scrutiny of this duplicitous organization on every campus where they are located.
$50,000 for the msa at Penn, $15,000 at Columbia? What are they doing with that much money (gov't money, parents' money by the way)?
As an aside, are the speeches given at various campuses going to be available...perhaps from ITunes or some other method for easy download or as a CD/DVD set through Frontpage Magazine? I'd love to have a set of speeches compiling all the illustrious speakers.
(It'd also make the speeches available for others overseas...like Dr. Cancerman.)
at April 9, 2008 11:15 AM
Like omvi above, I'm interested in attending events at my local college, Pace Law School. I can't find any information as to dates, times, buildings, etc. Pace Law School's website mentions nothing, and the http://www.terrorismawareness.org Events link gives a "404 Not Found. The requested page was not found" error. Could anyone provide me with any information?
Posted by: JeffS at April 9, 2008 11:41 AM
" I spoke last night under heavy guard, which turned out not to be necessary"
Stay safe. One attack is one too many...
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at April 9, 2008 12:05 PM
I see that Michigan State is in the list. Following the debacle there last year, and the negative press that it brought down on the project, I hope there are mechanisms in place to prevent yahoo campus idiots from inviting any white supremacists along to speak at this year's event.
Posted by: Matamoros at April 9, 2008 12:15 PM
This is frustrating. I'm available to attend IFAW lectures at either Miami University or Ohio State and I can't find any information as to dates, times and locations for events. I've been to the Miami University and Ohio State websites and seached their "calendar of events". They make NO mention of any IFAW 2008 activites or lectures.
Frontpage gives no specific info on IFAW activities. Neither does terrorismawareness.org. Nor does Jihad Watch (except after the fact).
I would THINK somebody is responsible for getting word out on IFAW activities regarding dates, times, and locations. Am I wrong or did somebody drop the ball?
Lame. Very lame.
Posted by: omvi at April 9, 2008 12:50 PM
I'd drop the "-Fascism" part because it's too distracting and deceptive. Fascism is one thing, Islam another. Yes, they both aim at total control of the individual and society, but otherwise they're very different. Fascism has yet to prove that it can survive military defeat and the loss of its "all-knowing" leader. Islam has done both. In fact, "who is the Leader of Islam?" has been its greatest problem. Fascism is fanatically nationalist, Islam internationalist. Fascism is modernizing (Italy) or at least modern (Germany) while Islam is intensely retrograde. People need to know that Islam is bad on its own (de)merits without evoking images of stiff-armed salutes and monster rallies.In previous postings on this phrase, I've objected to the '-Fascism' part too, for the simple reason that it seems to implicitly imply that there is a non-Fascist version of Islam that's followed by a significant number of Muslims. However, sceptico's objections to the term are valid as well - by drawing this equivalence, it both highlights and misleads the import of the threat.
Posted by: sceptico
By comparison to Fascism/Nazism, it does let us know that this is a threat similar to pre-WWII. Of course, given that most people of today weren't around during that time, I wonder whether it really has the intended chilling effect. OTOH, for the reasons sceptico mentions, it also makes Islam look more benign than it actually is. After all, if one is prepared to shut off one's political consciousness in exchange for trains running on time, one's lifestyle isn't threatened, except of course for this one very important aspect of one's quality of life: this is what the case may be if Fascism took over. OTOH, if Islam took over, one would have to re-calibrate one's lifestyle to 7th century Arabia.
The only advantage that Islam offers over Nazism is with respect to Jews: whereas a Jew couldn't convert to Nazism even if (s)he wanted to, (s)he could convert to Islam to gain the same social advantages.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at April 9, 2008 1:18 PM
I celebrate Islamo-Freakshow Awareness Week every single day. Good work Robert, et al!
Posted by: champ at April 9, 2008 1:27 PM
Posted by: omvi at April 9, 2008 12:50 PM
It is purposeful. Be more diligent. Find an alternative.
Posted by: awake at April 9, 2008 1:27 PM
Thanks for your Bravery and work Robert Spencer.
We have cowards in most of our media whose failure to cover the threats on you in effect trashes our 1st Amendment.
Posted by: paulc37 at April 9, 2008 1:53 PM
I was very glad to see Wellesley College on the list. It's not a place I would have thought would agree to something like this.
Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at April 9, 2008 2:38 PM
sceptico,
You made a good point. I think another title like "Islamic Conspiracy week", or other title would be more to the point.
Posted by: rational at April 9, 2008 2:45 PM
Hi!
I go to UC Irvine. But I haven't seen or heard anything about this. Where can I find out about the events going on at UCI?
at April 9, 2008 4:52 PM
Supporting programme:
Liberal/Left intellectual bankruptcy exposure week.
Posted by: James at April 9, 2008 4:56 PM
This is an OT sorry if posted before, its nearly a week old story, but its omission from UK news sources is a disturbing fact in and of its self and I dont find it posted here on JW.
Palestenians desecrate Allied service men Graves in Gaza, blow up cemtary memorial.
http://iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/04/03/europe/OUKWD-UK-PALESTINIANS-GAZA-CEMETERY.php
at April 9, 2008 5:14 PM
Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, together on the same stage?
Dayyum!
That's like seeing Pink Floyd opening for Led Zeppelin!
Posted by: Kevin M at April 9, 2008 6:36 PM
Certainly from more than Daniel Pipes, from more than Christopher Hitchens, and even (alas) from more than the venerated Robert Spencer, I want to hear what Hugh has to say about the term islamo-fascism, as a concept, as a neologism, and as a propaganda device.
I agree with Diana West. I have collected a few of her comments:
DW - - "Islamofascism" is a made-up word that draws a politically correct curtain over mainstream, traditional Islam, in effect shielding the religion and its tenets from scrutiny when considering what drives our jihadist enemies--as they are the first to declare."
DW - - "'Islamist' and 'extremism' — like 'Islamofascism' and other euphemisms — are words that draw a PC curtain over mainstream Islam. They effectively shield the religion and its tenets from the scrutiny necessary to assess the ideology driving our jihadist enemies."
And referring to something Mark Steyn wrote: DW - - "If, as Mark writes--and I agree--'Islam itself is a profound challenge to any free society,' I believe it's imperative we focus our discussion on what it is about Islam that poses the challenge. For example, jihad doctrine poses a challenge. Sharia (Islamic law) poses a challenge. These are institutions of Islam itself--not some exceptional offshoot called 'Islamism,' or 'hyper-Islam,' or that other word currently in vogue, 'Islamofascism.' When we characterize such institutions of Islam as the 'pathologies of Islamism,' I think we are not just missing the point, but somehow wishing or pretending it isn't there."
To me, the term sounds juvenile, in addition to sounding like a psychological dodge. More profoundly, it is a gigantic semantic concession to those folks who defend mohammed-worship through the use of false distinctions.
Please Hugh.
at April 9, 2008 6:44 PM
>>To me, the term sounds juvenile," --Moonzoo
Try telling that to the persected-by-their-own-people Muslims in Algeria who coined the term "Islamofascism" in 1991.
Posted by: darcy at April 9, 2008 7:00 PM
Excuse the typo - "persecuted-by-their-own-people Muslims in Algeria in 1991. Who coined the term "Islamofascism."
Posted by: darcy at April 9, 2008 7:03 PM
"Try telling that to the persecuted-by-their-own-people Muslims in Algeria who coined the term "Islamofascism" in 1991."
Sure. Do you have their phone number?
And how do you think I should respond if they say: "Hey man! We were persecuted by our own people, so once we coin a phrase, back off!"
Should I say: "Please forgive me, had I known you phrase-coiners had been persecuted by your own people, I would not have dared to have my own personal reaction to your phrase"?
Or should I just apologize abjectly and assure them that my thoughts on the matter are completely invalid, that I am ashamed of myself, and in the future please notify me of any other phrases you coin so I can have the proper response?
Posted by: Moonzoo at April 9, 2008 7:21 PM
Algerian Muslims coined the term "Islamofascism?"
Says who, besides you?
Posted by: Kevin M at April 9, 2008 7:33 PM
Algerian Muslims coined the term "Islamofascism?"
Says who, besides you?
Posted by: Kevin M at April 9, 2008 7:33 PM
LOL! Look it up, why don't you? Ignorant.
And as for "moonzoo's" sarcasm - I pity your ignorance, too.
Posted by: darcy at April 9, 2008 8:00 PM
Re Iraq, I actually read an encouraging news item: That some Democrats wanted Iraq to pay for its own reconstruction out of its own oil revenues! They also demanded that Iraq resolve its own partisan squabbles.
What's curious, and also frustrating, is how some Republicans and some Democrats make sense sometimes. Now, if only those sensible pieces could all be extracted and put together into one party, we'd have a great government.
at April 9, 2008 8:20 PM
Darcy:
It's simple English.
If you can't quote your own sources, then I can only suspect you don't know.
Maybe YOU should look something up so you can answer a simple question without resorting to insults and cowardly inuendo.
Posted by: Kevin M at April 9, 2008 8:35 PM
Darcy:
From Wikipedia:
Islamofascism: "The term is included in the New Oxford American Dictionary, defining it as "a controversial term equating some modern Islamic movements with the European fascist movements of the early twentieth century".[1]
The origins of the term are uncertain. Earlier comparisons between fascism and Islam exist, such as Edgar Alexander's comparison of Nazism with 'Mohammedanism' in 1937,[2] and Manfred Halpern's 1963 comparison of "neo-Islamic totalitarian movements" with fascist movements.[3]
If you care to suggest a more authoritative source, by all means do so. Until then, learn some manners.
Posted by: Kevin M at April 9, 2008 8:38 PM
Some claim the word "islamofascism" possesses a rhetorical usefulness, a way to appeal especially to the uninformed young, but I find the term confusing and misleading, and too solicitous of Muslims in the way that it deflects direct criticism, and continues to prevent a perfectly straightforward, calm, unapologetic discussion of Islam. It presents the same problem as do all those attempts to modify, or dilute, the term "Islam," both fore and aft, from the adjectival -- "radical, extremist" placed fore -- to the suffixal, placed aft, in that peculiar coinage, no older than this decade, the meretricious word "islamism."
"Islam" was the term John Quincy Adams, Tocqueville, Churchill used. And the term used by Schacht, Snouck Hurgronje, Lammens, Zwemer, Jeffery, a hundred other scholars who wrote about Islam before the Great Inhibition set in. It is the term used by Wafa Sultan, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, by Ibn Warraq, by Magdi Allam. None of them writes about or deplores "Islamism" or "Islamo-fascism." They write about, they deplore, Islam. That is telling.
Posted by: Hugh at April 9, 2008 8:55 PM
To my fellow Infidels - I address particularly those who are not from the United States, but from other majority-Infidel states -
let us write, and keep on writing, to our heads of state and elected representatives, persistently requesting that certain well-informed individuals (for example, Mr Robert Spencer, Mme Bat Yeor, Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, [insert other names here as applicable - Mr Geert Wilders!]), should be invited - and paid! - to visit our countries and to address the following:
our assembled elected representatives at all levels
our 'press corps', with interviews conducted on our national broadcasters in prime time television and national radio
our university governing bodies
the faculty of our leading military training institutions; and our military top brass
the faculty and students of the training institutions of our non-Muslim religious bodies (e.g. in Australia, the Australian Catholic University, theological colleges, and Jewish theological/ rabbinical training centres).
How about those of us who are graduates of leading universities and/or students or faculty members of same, urge our alma mater/s to consider awarding honorary doctorates, in the name of honoring and upholding freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and also recognising solid achievement, to such persons as:
Kurt Westergaard, and the Persian lady who created 'Persepolis', for visual arts
Taslima Nasreen, Ayaan Hirsi Ali - doctorate of letters/ doctorate in womens studies
Bat Yeor, Andrew Bostom -history / jewish history/ islamic studies/ oriental studies
Robert Spencer - oriental studies (give him the doctorate in recognition of, in particular, 'The Truth About Muhammad', which brilliantly examines certain key points about the Muslim portrayal of Muhammad, and which is moreover a deliciously lucid work of classic old-fashioned rock-solid scholarship, and potentially a brilliant introductory teaching text for use in high schools and universities)
Magdi Cristiano Allam - honorary doctorate for service to journalism
Let's all do it and see what happens.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at April 9, 2008 9:06 PM
To 'DrCancerMan' in the UK:
if you are on a UK university campus - do you have friends who share your concerns?
If so: can you not organise an 'opposing' bench to the agitprop group that you described? Since you are non-religious - is there an 'atheists and agnostics' society on campus, devoted to freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, that could, for example, prepare leaflets with telling passages from Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim", or from Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan's or Ali Sina's critiques of Islam? Inform people about the sharia penalties for 'blasphemy' and 'apostasy' and that these are still very much alive not only in the Islamosphere but among Muslim colonies in non-Muslim lands.
If the focus on campus is specifically anti-Israel, you should remember that many Zionists were not 'religious' (revisit the kibbutz movement) and that the Jewish claim to Israel, in terms of historical presence, historic and familial and customary attachment, and other criteria by which 'native title' and 'land rights' (as we say in Australia) are determined, is at least as good as, if not better than, that of, say, the Welsh to Wales or the Irish to Ireland - or the English in England!
The 'Palestinians' have pulled off a sleight-of-hand whereby the heirs/ beneficiaries of violent foreign Arab (& Turk & Mamluk) Muslim invasion/ occupation/ colonisation/ imperial oppression, who have every intention of regaining their position of imperial/colonial dominance and perceived divine right to individually and collectively erase the human rights of non-arabs/ non-Muslims, are viewed as the Poor Persecuted Indigenous Aboriginals and the JEWS (and Samaritans), who descend from the ancient pre-Arab inhabitants, are viewed as Evil Invading Aliens.
Time to expose the Arab-Muslim Big Lie; to tell people that Jerusalem can only be called an 'Arab' city in the same way that Lhasa can be called a 'Chinese' city; that to grant Arabs/Islam the right to Jerusalem would require that one also cease protesting the Chinese invasion and occupation of Lhasa.
Use terms like 'decolonisation' to describe the Revolt of the Dhimmi, by which the Jewish state of Israel arose out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and British Empire. Tell people what the Dhimma meant - a nasty religion-based apartheid, far worse than S African race-based apartheid, whose ultimate aim is to entirely crush and erase the subjugated and exploited Other; and that the aim of the Arab/Muslim jihad against Israel is to restore Arab/Muslim supremacy over Jews who are viewed as untermenschen because they are 1. not Arab and 2. not Muslim.
Go for it!
By the way - this is for everyone - not so long ago I discovered that from 4th to 10th June this year the World Council of Churches is promoting a week of action entitled 'It's Time for Palestine'. So far as I can see this bids fair to become a virtual lynching of Israel - an attempt to sucker Christians into blindly supporting, even applauding, what Jacques Ellul warned was 'that [shoah] which the Muslims have prepared' (Ce Dieu Injuste? - p. 163).
Here are the three relevant links, culled from the WCC site:
The slogan – ‘It’s Time for Palestine’.
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/upcoming-events/ev/se/article/1722/international-church-acti-1.html
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/icappi-2008.html
Anyone affiliated with a church, or a Jewish or Christian student group on a university campus, should be gearing up NOW to find out if 'It's Time For Palestine' events are being staged by your church or on your campus, and if so, to organise something to challenge it.
at April 9, 2008 9:42 PM
If you care to suggest a more authoritative source, by all means do so. Until then, learn some manners.
Posted by: Kevin M at April 9, 2008 8:38 PM
Kevin M,
Stick around and learn a thing or two, that is, if you are not already adversely predisposed to do so.
Regarding Darcy's reference to the term Islamo-fascism, independent of Hugh's spot-on commentary of people that you have never even heard of, the "source" is best given here:
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=FDD13E54-41C7-4C89-A482-58159E9435A5
Regards,
awake
Posted by: awake at April 9, 2008 10:03 PM
A bit more on 'It's Time For Palestine':
AND HERE IS THE MANIFESTO ITSELF (it is so infuriating I have been led to insert a couple of comments, straight off): perhaps it should be posted at Dhimmiwatch for a more dhimmified statement I have never read). Note the various moral equivalences. Under its coating of sugar, this stuff is pure poison
IT'S TIME FOR PALESTINE [tr: DEATH TO ISRAEL!]
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/icappi-2008/action-week-message.html
- It’s time for Palestine. It’s time for peace.
- It's time for Palestine.
- It's time for Palestinians and Israelis to share a just peace [but which definition of 'justice' and of 'peace' are we using? The Muslim definition whereby 'justice' = Muslim domination and 'peace' = all non-Muslims dead, converted, or dhimmis?]
- It's time to respect human lives in the land called holy. [note they CANNOT bring themselves to say 'eretz Israel' or 'land of Israel].
- It's time for healing to begin in wounded souls.
- It's time to end 60 years of conflict, oppression and fear.
- It's time for freedom from occupation.
[we all know what THAT means, on the Arab/ Muslim street - it means - DEATH TO ISRAEL!]
- It's time for equal rights. [how about the dhimmi Christians of Gaza, eh? - somehow I suspect they are not what the framers of this Manifesto have in mind...]
- It's time to stop discrimination, segregation and restrictions on movement.
- It's time for those who put up walls and fences to build them on their own property [pure fudging: most of the drafters of this manifesto probably secretly agree with the Arab/Muslims that NOWHERE in Israel should be Jewish property]
- It's time to stop bulldozing one community's homes and building homes for the other community on land that is not theirs [note that these people deny the obvious fact that there is a reason why 'Judea' is called 'Judea' - I wonder when they will re-translate Matthew 2:1 and 3:1, or Luke 2: 4 and 3: 1, replacing 'Judea' with 'West Bank' or 'Palestine'?].
- It's time to do away with double standards. [yes: but I doubt very much that they mean the double standard whereby Gilad Shalit may be held for 2 years incommunicado and Human Rights bodies say nothing, while the same Human Rights bodies howl about the supposed mistreatment of 'Palestinian' Arab Muslims who can talk to the media from their jail cells in Israel, receive Red Cross visits, etc!]
- It's time for Israeli citizens to have security and secure borders agreed with their neighbours [lip service, lip service...]
- It's time for the international community to implement 60 years of United Nations resolutions [return Israel to 1947 'auschwitz' boundaries so the Ummah can go in for the kill...?]
- It's time for Israel's government to complete the bargain offered in the Arab Peace Initiative
[i.e. it's time for the Jews to surrender and submit to Muslim Arab domination and become good little dhimmis...? Khaybar all over again?]
- It's time for those who represent the Palestinian people to all be involved in making peace
[This can only mean that the WCC thinks it's time to recognise genocidal, murderous, Muslim supremacist Hamas as the legal government of the 'Palestinians'?]
- It's time for people who have been refugees for 60 years to regain their rights and a permanent home
[so the WCC supports the 'right' of all so-called 'Palestinians' to 'return' - in other words, as Martha Gellhorn put it: they are "nagging or bullying Israel to commit suicide by the admission of a fatal locust swarm of enemies".]
- It's time to assist settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to make their home in Israel [in other words: stage-one 'Palestine' (stage two being everything from the Jordan to the Mediterranean...) must be Judenrein]
- It's time for self-determination [tr: time for Muslims to dominate]
- It's time for foreigners to visit Bethlehem and other towns imprisoned by the wall.
- It's time to see settlements in their comfort and refugee camps in their despair
- It's time for people living 41 years under occupation to feel new solidarity from a watching world.
- It's time to name the shame of collective punishment and to end it in all its forms.
[somehow I don't think they mean to condemn Arab Muslim states for the 'collective punishment' meted out to Jewish dhimmi communities 1930s-1960s, for the heinous crime of being ethnically connected to those uppity Zionist Jews in the land of Israel...]
- It's time to be revolted by violence against civilians and for civilians on both sides to be safe [but do they mean to condemn Hamas for expecting Israelis to respect ITS 'human shields' whilst it would slaughter any Jewish 'human shields' without the smallest hesitation?]
- It's time for both sides to release their prisoners and give those justly accused a fair trial.
- It's time to reunite the people of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. [HOW – BY ELIMINATING THE JEWISH STATE IN BETWEEN THEM?]
- It's time for all parties to obey international humanitarian and human rights law [lip service, lip service]
- It's time to share Jerusalem as the capital of two nations and a city holy to three religions
[= time to give Jerusalem to the conquering Arab Muslims as a war trophy by which they may permanently gloat over, and humiliate, all Jews?]
(The 'leftist' Christians who wrote this Manifesto need to listen to Jacques Ellul:
"To talk about the “Holy City for the three religions” is a disarming superficiality. 'By not enduring that the Jews should be masters of Jerusalem, Christians and Moslems are profoundly in agreement, excluding them (by that same fact) from all equality with themselves, and condemning them to that exile from which the possession of Jerusalem had precisely as its aim to deliver them forever' (J Madaule).
" In fact, to deny Jerusalem to Israel is to negate in its totality the vocation and the existence of Israel. Nothing less than that. A thing that no Christian should be able to tolerate").
- It's time for Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities to be free to visit their holy sites. [BUT THEY ARE ALREADY! - AND MUSLIM MURDERERS CAN WALK INTO A JEWISH YESHIVA AND GUN DOWN UNARMED TEENAGERS IN A LIBRARY FULL OF TORAH SCROLLS]
- It's time in Palestine as in Israel for olive trees to flourish and grow old (tr: an allusion to the propaganda staple - the Evil Jooz are uprooting the olive trees of the Poor Palestinians [TM])
- It's time to honour all who have suffered, Palestinians and Israelis [so the WCC will 'honour' the 'martyr'-murderers as if they were the same as their Jewish civilian victims?]
- It's time to learn from past wrongs.
- It's time to understand pent-up anger and begin to set things right
[tr: time to agree that the Ummah is right to be angry with the Wicked Jews and that them Uppity Jews deserve to be punished by Muslims for the 'wickedness' of breaking the dhimma and daring to take back their ancestral land from the Muslim invader-occupiers...?]
- It's time for those with blood on their hands to acknowledge what they have done.
- It's time to seek forgiveness between communities and to repair a broken land together [pious nothings - don't these idiots know that in Islam there is no forgiveness, and no Golden Rule?]
- It's time to move forward as human beings who are all made in the image of God. [how do they propose to persuade the Muslims of this? - Muslims do not in fact teach that humans are made in the divine image].
- All who are able to speak truth to power must speak it [right - so the WCC are going to go into Gaza and demand that Christians there should be free to evangelise Muslims and run Christian bookshops, and that Muslims should be free to renounce Islam without getting killed?]
- All who would break the silence surrounding injustice must break it.
- All who have something to give for peace must give it [tr: the Jews of Israel must surrender totally, like the Jews of the Khaybar Oasis]
- For Palestine, for Israel and for a troubled world [tr: the WCC believes that if Israel is fed to the Jihad crocodile, the Jihad will stop...in Thailand? in Kashmir? in Chechnya? in Sinkiang? in Mindanao? in the Sudan? in N Nigeria?]
It's time for peace."
Would that Signora Fallaci and Monsieur Ellul (or, looking back further in time, Rev Parkes or Ms Martha Gellhorn) were alive to subject this sugar-coated monstrosity of disguised antisemitic incitement, to the merciless deconstruction that it deserves.
In fact, this WCC Manifesto for the Destruction of Israel needs to be laid out side by side with the opening page of Ms Gellhorn's article which summarises the 'Arab [Muslim] narrative' as she had come to understand it in 1961 - a narrative which produced the many 'mad hatter' conversations she endured as she talked with 'Palestinian' Arab Muslims and dhimmified Arabised Christians.
One could also re-read Jacques Ellul's words on the World Council of Churches - which he dismisses as "inspired very little by theology and much by politics". Here is his analysis in 'Un Chretien Pour Israel', of a WCC pronouncement made at the time of the first Lebanon War:
"Un seul exemple, d’agressivite lors de la guerre du Liban: le Conseil oecumenique declare: “Nous condamnons l’invasion par Israel du territoire libanais. Nous reprouvons l’appel a la puissance militaire pour la resolution des conflits politiques. Nous invitons les Nations Unis a se consacrer d’urgence a la solution de la question palestinienne…”.
Jusque-la, rien que de tres normal dans sa banalite, mais aussitot après le Conseil declare reconnaitre “le droit a la creation d’un Etat palestinien souverain”.
- One example only, of aggressiveness at the time of the Lebanon War: the World Council of Churches declares: “We condemn Israel’s invasion of Lebanese territory. We disapprove of the appeal to military power to resolve political disputes. We invite the United Nations to urgently devote itself to solving the Palestinian Question…”. So far, everything is very normal in its banality, but straight afterward the Council declares that it recognises “the right to the creation of a sovereign State of Palestine”.
Ceci egalement est banal. Mais, ou bien les redacteurs de ce texte sont ignorants, ou bien les savent effectivement ce que parler veut dire.
Car dans la terminologie et la langage palestiniens ce “droit a un Etat souverain palestinien” implique ipso facto non pas la coexistence de deux Etats, selon le traite de 1948, mais bien la destruction de l’Etat d’Israel.
- This is equally commonplace. But either the drafters of this text are ignorant, or they know very well what they mean when they speak.
For in Palestinian language and terminology this “right to a sovereign Palestinian state” involves ipso facto not the co-existence of two States, according to the 1948 treaty [partition], but indeed the destruction of the State of Israel."
at April 9, 2008 10:27 PM
Since 9-11, not one MES dept in any US university has commissioned a single study on the theological exigencies of modern Jihad...even one of refutation. This fact is in itself irrefutable evidence of the extent to which the modern university has effectively abandoned its core mission - 'the disinterested pursuit of knowledge'.
Posted by: Cornelius at April 9, 2008 10:52 PM
@dumbledoresarmy
After reading through the statements as well as your comments I am hard pressed to figure who is more dangerous, not counting the jihad's.
Is it the do gooder false christian like faithers. Or the leftard PC multicultural head in the sand worrier of Gaia's warming. Notice, I am careful not to mention an political party because that would really caused the house to fall.
I am frankly at a loss because I have had dealings with them in the past. It was at a Bible study, believe it or not. We read a passage that had a little controversial statement in it. I spoke first and said it meant what is said. Were upon the most critical of the group turned and asked if everyone agreed with what I said. Like it was a poll and if everyone thought otherwise then that settled it. I was floored and could not think of a quick response. Subjective easy believism. I guess that is true for the faither and infidel when it comes to the truth about Israel and Islam.
I hope I stepped on enough toes to not leave anyone out 8^).
Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at April 9, 2008 11:52 PM
We don't need to worry about Palestine, or Hamas much longer. Jimmy Cahta, is making his way to Gaza to talk to Hamas leaders. Jimmy will square them away...
Posted by: duh_swami at April 10, 2008 12:09 AM
Subjective easy believism. I guess that is true for the faither and infidel when it comes to the truth about Israel and Islam.
I hope I stepped on enough toes to not leave anyone out 8^).
Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL!
You did not step on my toes. I like the term
'subjective easy believism', a lot. My spell checker doesn't like it, or 'faither'. But then my spell checker knows nothing about meanings. I'm going to lay that line on some local liberals and watch the confusion set in...thanx...
at April 10, 2008 12:39 AM
Some claim the word "islamofascism" possesses a rhetorical usefulness, a way to appeal especially to the uninformed young, but I find the term confusing and misleading, and too solicitous of MuslimsBut Mohammedans themselves seem to hate the term, perceiving that it tends to equate Islam with Fascism, although it does nothing of the sort. Given that it gets no brownie points with Mohammedans but just serves to confuse already ill informed Infidels, why not drop the term and simply go with 'Islam'?
As for the Algerian reference, I think Darcy & Moonzoo are talking at cross purposes. Even if Darcy is right about the origins, Moonzoo is right about the need to simply call it 'Islam'.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at April 10, 2008 1:34 AM
Keep preaching, Robert. Didn't William & Mary remove the cross from the old chapel?
How do you like the travelling? Do the hosts greet you and take you out for dinner and engaging conversation, etc.?
Posted by: Bingo at April 10, 2008 4:27 AM
more on this 'islamo-fascism' name.
like sceptico, i too dislike the 'fascist' name. Islam seeks the restoration of the Caliphate - an international Ummah. As far as i am aware of, there are no nationalistic goals.
Also, Shariah is a very statist, collectivist set of laws.
Hence a far more appropriate term would be 'Islamic socialism'.
However, not nearly as effective from a marketing perspective as inexplicably the label 'socialist' still has credibility (despite the destruction it has caused).
Posted by: pommygranate at April 10, 2008 7:43 AM
perhaps 'Islamic communism' is better.
Posted by: pommygranate at April 10, 2008 7:45 AM
Thanks, awake, "Kevin" is quite rude, a bully in fact, quite ill-mannered.
Uh Huh. Algerian Moderate Muslims in the early '90's coined the phrase "Islamofascism" after hundreds of thousands of them were slaughtered by radical Muslims, their own people.
Posted by: darcy at April 10, 2008 8:08 AM
"As a matter of fact, the term “Islamo-fascism” was coined by Algerian Muslims and ex-Muslims to describe the Islamic fanatics who slaughtered 150,000 fellow Algerian Muslims in the 1990s." --
Nonie Darwish, from her article below:
*
My Call to the Left at UC Berkeley
By Nonie Darwish
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, October 25, 2007
[The following is a speech given by Nonie Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel, at last night’s kickoff event at UC Berkeley for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. It is preceded by a short intro written by Nonie Darwish regarding her impressions of the events surrounding her speech.]
Intro:
The atmosphere required extensive security -- which made me feel that without it I would have been physically hurt at UC Berkeley. The first statement from the Al-Jazeera representative to me was: “You are the most hated woman in the Arab world.” The hatred was also felt from the far leftist American audience. My response to the Al-Jazeera statement was: “Arab media spread a hate campaign against me after my book came out. Egyptian media, without reading the book, called me a traitor to my father because I support Israel. I love my father and I believe that if he had lived he would have been part of the peace treaty that Sadat had singed with Israel.” I believe Arab media is trying to misrepresent my views in order to silence me.
A man was sitting in the audience with a black sheer bag covering his head to protest ‘Abu Greib’ when the discussion had nothing to do with Iraq. There were screams from the audience: "Fascist," then "racist" then "Osama Bin Laden is a CIA agent." The noise was getting louder and I could not speak any more. I felt that even in America I am being silenced. My response was: “Who will speak for women who are stoned and for Muslims terrorized in radical Muslim countries? It is sad that I left oppressive Sharia Muslim culture, where I had no freedom of speech, only to find myself silenced in America, by groups who claim they are for free speech.”
The sad thing about this whole event was the feeling that radical Muslims and their far Left supporters would rather never criticize Islamic culture than stand up against the culture that flogs, stones, beheads and amputates limbs. Not offending a religion has become more important to the far Left (unless it is Christianity or Judaism) than human rights of Muslims and victims of terror. Honor killing and female genital mutilation can be tolerated -- but noone better dare utter the word "Islamo-fascism."
American universities are becoming tyrannical when it comes to Conservative values and to Arab Americans who dare to speak out against the culture of jihad. It does not matter how many people in my early life in Egypt suffered from honor killing, female genital mutilation and oppression of women, I must shut up on American campuses.
The Speech:
As an American woman of Muslim Arab origin, I cherish the freedoms America has given me; a right all too scarce in the Middle East where speaking for human rights, women’s rights, democracy and even peace with Israel, is a taboo with serious consequences.
In America, I learned that no ideology or religion is beyond questioning. Ideologies that don’t answer the hard questions will face intellectual bankruptcy. I would like to stress that this is not a discussion about the good and peace loving Muslims, but about an ideology of violence and hatred that has brought oppression, unrest, violence and terror to the Middle East and has now spread to the rest of the world. Radicals have made the slightest criticism, critical thinking and free inquiry an insult to Islam. Arab feminists, reformers and intellectuals are intimidated, threatened or killed. Even the late Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was stabbed in Cairo in 1994 by a radical Muslim who claimed he insulted Islam. That is why we all must welcome an open discussion. The best weapon in the war on terror and Islamo-Fascism is the truth.
I’d like to start with my background. I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt and the Gaza Strip; a time when President Nasser was committed to unify the Arab world and destroy Israel. In the 50’s, my father headed the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and started the Fedayeen, which means ‘armed resistance and self sacrifice’. They made cross-border attacks into Israel and caused death, damage and destruction. There were assassination attempts on my father in response to the terror.
One night Israel sent commandos to our heavily guarded home, but my father was not home. All the Israeli soldiers found were us, women and children. The Israeli soldiers left us unharmed.
I attended Gaza elementary schools. It is there that we learned hatred vengeance and retaliation; peace was never an option; but a sign of defeat and weakness. Jews were portrayed as less than human; I was told ‘don’t take candy or fruit from a stranger, it could be a Jew trying to poison you’. They filled our hears with fear of Jews; that made hatred come easy and terrorism acceptable, even honorable.
After two years of intense Fedayeen operations, my father was killed in the first targeted assassination in Gaza in 1956. I was 8 years old. In Nasser's famous speech to nationalize the Suez Canal, he hailed my father as a national hero, a Shahid. President Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge and made no mention of the heavy toll of death and destruction brought upon Israel by the Fedayeen. My siblings and I were asked by top government officials "which one of you will avenge your father's blood by killing Jews." I felt very uncomfortable with a question. We were speechless.
After my father’s death, my mother had to face life alone with five children in a culture that gave respect only to families headed by a man. In the 50’s few women drove cars and she was criticized and called names for buying a car to take us to school. Arab women are expected to sacrifice their family by giving up their husbands and sons to martyrdom, but are given little respect to live their life with freedom and dignity.
I lived for 30 years in oppressive dictatorships and police states. I witnessed honor killing of girls (our maid), oppression of women and female genital mutilation. We regularly heard the cursing of non-Muslims from the pulpits of mosques. As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during the Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers. We heard "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We also heard the worshipers respond "Amen". I heard ‘cursing prayers’ all my life from the pulpits of mosques -- and believe it or not if you grow up with cursing prayers, it can feel and sound normal. My Christian friend looked scared, and I was ashamed. That was when I first realized that something was very wrong in the way my religion was taught and practiced.
I moved to the US in 1978. In my first visit to a mosque in America, we were told not to assimilate in America and that Islam is here to become the dominant religion. I was told to cover up in Islamic clothes; but how can I do that when I have never worn Islamic clothes in Egypt? Women in Egypt until the 1980’s did not wear Islamic clothes.
In August 2001, I visited my birthplace, Cairo, Egypt. I was stunned to see how radical Islam had taken over. The level of anger and hate speech was alarming. I saw extreme poverty, pollution, hazardous material and garbage along the Nile. There was high unemployment, inflation and widespread corruption. But when I read Arab media, all I saw was Israel and America bashing. Citizens were unaware of Muslim against Muslim atrocities in Iraq, Algeria, Sudan etc. As a matter of fact, the term “Islamo-fascism” was coined by Algerian Muslims and ex-Muslims to describe the Islamic fanatics who slaughtered 150,000 fellow Algerian Muslims in the 1990s. Arab media have failed human rights of the ordinary Arab citiznes. They have no understanding of their role in defending the interest of the public; this mentality was created from an Islamo-Fascist environment that rejects change.Western media was also under-reporting the threat.
I was happy to return to the US on the evening of Sept. 10th. 2001. The next morning I saw the second airplane hit the twin towers, I knew ‘Jihad has come to America.’ Muhammad Attah was from Cairo, the same city I came from.
I called several friends in Cairo, they were all in denial and said ‘How dare you say that Arabs did this? Don’t you know this is a Jewish conspiracy?'
These were not radicals, but ordinary Egyptians who otherwise are very nice people. I hung up the phone and felt alone and disconnected from my culture of origin. Once again, my people are accusing the Jewish people of something we know very well, we Arabs have done ourselves. In any religion this is considered a sin, but in the eyes of radial Islam, Jews do not deserve the truth, justice or mercy. The Jews that we describe in our mosques, Arab textbooks and media don't exist. We, Arabs are fighting an imaginary Jew of our own creation. Israel is not perfect; no society is; but the way the Jews and minorities are treated by my people is tragic and a disgrace.
The global war we are fighting against Islamo-fascism and jihad is not just about bombs and hijacked planes; It’s also about tyranny and oppression of women. Oppression of women and support of terror are two facets of the same fundamentalist mentality. Islamic law – Sharia – that terrorists are fighting to impose upon the world, would create a global state of gender apartheid.
Under criminal Sharia, punishment could be flogging, stoning, beheading and amputation of limbs. Cruel and unusual punishment by Western and humane standards. Leaving Islam is punishable by death. If the State fails to kill an apostate, his death is guaranteed at the hands of a street mob. That makes Islam more than a religion; it is a one party state; and also an elaborate legal system, called Sharia, that can put you to death if you leave Islam. Sharia must guarantee there is no defection from the Berlin Wall of the Muslim State. Amazingly, the majority of Muslim countries don’t practice criminal Sharia because they cannot stomach it.
I have lived under Family Sharia for 30 years of my life. This is practiced in all Muslim countries; it allows only men the right to an easy divorce, having up to 4 wives, allows wife beating, half the inheritance of a man to a woman and her testimony in court is only half valid. She is respected only when she shields her body, face and even her identity. As many as seventy-five percent of women in Pakistani prison are behind bars for the crime of having been raped. Sharia codified into permanent Law a 7th century Arabian Peninsula tribal culture for every Muslim in any culture for ever.
Under Sharia, the Muslim Khalifa or Amir, meaning leader, is exempt from being punished under Sharia. Islamic Sharia law is a dictator’s dream handed to him by Allah.
Polygamy has a devastating effect on family dynamics, husband/wife relationship and women relationships. Many Moslem men only have one wife, but the damage to wife/husband relationship has already been done in the Muslim marriage contract itself; where a man does not pledge loyalty to his wife and the wife cannot expect his loyalty. The marriage contract has 3 more spaces to be filled out by other women if the man wishes. That is why a good Muslim woman must accept her destiny under Sharia Law for one simple reason, challenging Allah’s Law is like challenging Allah himself.
In the latest Bin Laden tape, the terror guru was calling on Muslims in the West to increase their numbers through converting as many Americans to Islam and through immigration in order to accomplish, what he called, jihad from within. That is why Islamists in the West are pushing the envelope to see how far the West can take it. Some demand Sharia Law and even claim that Sharia is comparable with democracy.
In a Muslim parade in New York this September, right before the 6th anniversary of 9/11, Muslims carried signs saying “Muslims against Democracy and Western Values”, “the Holocaust is a hoax” and “Ban the Talmud”. They were selling books on jihad with an AK 47s on the cover. This comes from people who are complaining of Islamo-phobia. Do they think this will bring them sympathy and understanding?
A Muslim woman in Florida insists on covering her face for a driver’s license, cab drivers in Minnesota refuse to take passengers carrying wine from the duty-free shop, the 6 flying Imams who scared everyone on the airplane and are now suing. And lately demands for special faucets at the level of the feet in American schools for Muslim kids to Wada “wash” before praying.
I have lived in the Middle East for 30 years and have never seen special faucets for Wada in schools or universities, except in mosques. This only exists in Saudi Arabia. The deception is phenomenal. Islamists are pushing Wahabi Saudi values in America; values that I have never even seen in Egypt.
I have not come to America to become a Wahabi Saudi.
On Arab TV, I once saw a Muslim preacher telling little children that lying is not allowed except under three conditions 1- Lying to non-Muslims when it is in the best interest of Islam. 2- Lying to Muslims if it will end conflict between them. And 3rd: Lying to one’s wife to improve the relationship.
Lying thus has become an obligation in international relationships, Muslim relationships and family relationships. Any wonder why Muslims were silent after 9/11? Those who expose the lying game are considered traitors. By allowing lying, Muslims have created a culture unable to distinguish between lies from truth; truth has become a convoluted game of saving face for the best interest of Islam.
The Times of London reported that Muslim students in Britain are being taught to despise non-Muslims as ‘filth’. The Arabic word for this is ‘Nagas.’ That is why many Arabs believe that the existence of non-Muslims on Muslim land is a desecration or occupation.
US soldiers, at the request of Saudi Arabia, sacrificed their lives to protect it from Saddam. Under normal conditions that could have been met with appreciation, but instead, the Arab street reaction was “how dare the infidels desecrate Muslim land.” That is why America’s defense of the Muslims against the Serbs, the Afghani Muslims against the Soviet Union, feeding the Somali Muslims starved by their own leadership, all did not get the US any credit in the Muslim world; just the opposite, the more America tries to help stabilize the region, the more it is despised. Arab-Muslims do not want to be rescued by infidels. This is a proud culture that is easily shamed by feelings of dependency on the non-Muslims. This is the psychology of the Arab Street.
That is how the West is perceived. In the Judeo Christian culture they say: “we are all sinners” -- but in the Muslim culture “they are all sinners; but we are Muslims”. Non-Muslim are “Cafir”, non-Muslims are not innocent; they are viewed as sinners who need Islam and Islamists have given themselves the role of Allah to force Islam on the world, against their will, through the principle of Jihad.
Moslem clergy are constantly looking for the ideal Muslim State and cannot find it. They have failed miserably in stabilizing their society. Instead of being a source of comfort, stability and wisdom, they have become a source of hate, rage and subversion. To them, the solution is always an intifada, uprising, a coup d’etat, an assassination or violence on the streets. They have no respect for the legitimacy of any government and no government is Muslim enough for them; not even Saudi Arabia.
In this dynamic only tyrannical governments can survive. Leaders who want peace, modernity and reforms are assassinated, like Sadat. Every Muslim country is suffering from underground radical Muslim groups who are trying to overturn the government and the constitution, in their pursuit for the perfect Muslim state. That is why the Muslim world is in a constant turmoil, stagnation and conflict. Islamo-fascism is the end result.
America is very concerned since all of this is spilling to the rest of the world. In 1998 the same attitude was expressed by a Muslim leader who asked Muslims in America not to assimilate and said we are here to make the Koran the law of the land in America. What Arab leaders are suffering from is now moving to America and if that will continue our freedoms will erode. Islamo-fascist unrest, turmoil, destructive mentality and hatred of order and the rule of law is now here.
Arab governments have access to build mosques in the West, but give Americans no access to build churches or synagogues in Muslim countries. They finance Muslim and Middle East studies departments on American Universities -- but there is not one University in any of the 52 Muslim countries that have a Christian or Judaism Studies Department. They freely preach Islam all around the world, but imprison and kill Christian missionaries.
If this trend continues Bin Laden’s dreams of internal jihad within America will come true. If that happens America will never be the same again. We could see a large Muslim population congregate in London, Paris or Detroit demanding Sharia or else. If their demands are denied then they will demand a separatist movement; Chechnya can happen in the West. Islamic separatist movements are alive and well in Chechnya, the Philippines and other parts of the world. It caused India to split Pakistan away and give it to Muslims, but Islamic terrorism inside India has not stopped.
And now Islamists have caught the West in a time of political correctness and multiculturalism. By tolerating hatred and violence, the West is not doing Muslims or Islam a favor. Tolerating intolerance is not a sign of compassion; it is gross negligence.
To conclude: Religion, any religion, must adapt to the universal concept of Human Rights, freedom of choice of one’s religion, equal rights of women and minorities. As Arab Americans what are we going to do about it? Are we going to remain silent and defensive? We owe America honest answers. We need to inspire true reform in our culture of origin. There are 7 women in Iran right now awaiting death by stoning -- are we going to stand by them or are we going to fail them? Muslim converts out of Islam are in hiding; are we going to allow them to get killed under the name of Islam? Are we going to see the Egyptian Christian population continue to suffer discrimination?
If Islam is a religion of peace then we must demand better from our religious leaders. We’ve had it with the self-anointed intolerant Ayatollahs, Mullahs and Sheikhs who act like Allah and silence speech by issuing Fatwas of death. I ask the support of the American Left. You should be our natural allies because we are the reformers and defenders of freedoms in the Middle East.
Western feminists must embrace a single standard for both the West and Muslim society. Feminists and everyone else concerned with human freedom must support Muslim dissidents, both male and female, who are risking their lives in a battle for women’s rights under Islam. I ask the support of the American left. You should be our natural allies because we are the reformers and defenders of freedoms in the Middle East.
Thank You.
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Nonie Darwish is an American of Arab/Moslem origin. A freelance writer and public speaker, she runs the website www.ArabsForIsrael.com.
at April 10, 2008 8:36 AM
"On Arab TV, I once saw a Muslim preacher telling little children that lying is not allowed except under three conditions 1- Lying to non-Muslims when it is in the best interest of Islam. 2- Lying to Muslims if it will end conflict between them. And 3rd: Lying to one’s wife to improve the relationship."
-- from a posting above
This is standard Islamic doctrine: the three cases when lying is justified. The one that is of concern to Infidels is, of course, #1. "War is deception," said Muhammad. And Muhammad is described in the Qur'an as "uswa hasana" -- the Model of Conduct. He is al-insan al-kamil -- the Perfect Man. And he is the one who says that war must be conducted against Infidels, as long as they continue to preserve any obstacle -- and the American Constitution is certainly an obstacle, as is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights --to the spread, and dominance, of Islam.
Posted by: Hugh at April 10, 2008 12:31 PM
and my college, Lehigh University was not on the list. Bad show!
Posted by: winta at April 10, 2008 1:55 PM
Hugh, thank you so much for responding. As usual, perfectly put (which is why I asked).
This is a war of ideas. And it is consequently so important to use very carefully considered language.
The phrase "islamo-fascism" is ill-considered.
I truly wish Hugh Fitzgerald and Robert Spencer, for both similar and dissimilar reasons, were consulted by Western governments and universities in a systematic and significant way.
Posted by: Moonzoo at April 10, 2008 5:46 PM
"That is why we all must welcome an open discussion. The best weapon in the war on terror and Islamo-Fascism is the truth." --Nonie Darwish,
from her article I printed, above.
If Nonie Darwish approves of the term Islamofascism (and she should know), then, that's it for me. And thank you, Hugh, for also quoting from Ms. Darwish's article.
To the above poster, I don't see how Hugh "responded" to you concerning the term "Islamofascism." Rather, he quoted from Ms. Darwish's article on "taqiyya." Kindly explain how his comment refers to the term Islamofascism.
at April 10, 2008 6:42 PM
Thanks darcy for re-posting the Nonie Darwish speech - it's magnificent.
I have copied it and tucked it away for future use. Each time I give someone a disk of 'Fitna' I will also give them a printout of the near-perfect companion piece - Nonie Darwish's speech, sometimes reinforced by a copy of Magdi Cristiano Allam's account of his journey out of Islam.
at April 10, 2008 7:22 PM
You're welcome, dumbledores. It is an amazing piece of writing - and those Leftist dhimbulbs at Berkeley were too brainwashed by political correctness to appreciate it's brilliance:
"Not offending a religion has become more important to the far Left (unless it is Christianity or Judaism) than human rights of Muslims and victims of terror. Honor killing and female genital mutilation can be tolerated -- but noone better dare utter the word "Islamo-fascism."
Nonie Darwish was wasted on the PC Zombies at Berkeley. Actually, I don't think she even finished her speech, but was shouted down by the bullies and thugs that call themselves "students" at Berkeley.
Posted by: darcy at April 10, 2008 10:38 PM
Is it true when they say honor killing and FGM are remnants of pre-islamic culture in africa/middle east?
Posted by: thenorth at April 13, 2008 11:55 AM
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