I have had an exchange with someone identifying herself as “Andrea22072” on the thread “Northeastern Prof Shahid Alam slimes Jihad Watch, LGF again” that I thought was worth making into a post of its own, since it deals with many of the issues being bandied about in connection to the controversies surrounding Alam and Ward Churchill — chiefly, “academic freedom.”
Andrea22072 began by posting this as a comment there:
After learning of the focus on Professor Alam by FOX News, and reading the statement by Bill O’Reilly regarding the Professor’s work, I stumbled upon the jihadwatch.org website.
Saying that I am appalled at the strangulation of academic freedom, the smearing of those who do not hold to specific ideologies, as well as the outright twisting of those individual’s works that dare seek out socio-political truths that deviate from “accepted” patterns of that search.
While I am unsure if this post will be “approved” by the site and posted along with other comments I wish to convey my disappointment and outrage at this attack on Professor Alam and to inform those that frequent this site, as well as the site owner, that those individuals who hold to the notion of academic freedom, in research, writing, and thought, will not submit to attempts to defame those who have the courage to speak the truth in the face of mass propaganda and fear.
I thank you for this website as it enabled me to obtain information on other individuals, like Professor Alam, who are critically focusing on these issues in order that I may lend my support to them. I hope that those who read of the statements made regarding Professor Alam actually reads his work and does not simply rely on others to interpret the works for them and draw conclusions based on others views.
I replied:
Andrea22072:
It is Shahid Alam who has defamed me, not the other way around.
He has suggested I orchestrated death threats against him. I expect he knows that this is false.
I challenge you to produce one statement I have made about Shahid Alam or his “academic work” that is false.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Her further reply:
Mr. Spencer,
Thank you for your reply to my recent post; I sincerely appreciate the opportunity you have provided for dialogue.I appreciate your statement regarding the suggestion of your orchestrating death threats as I have no evidence to the contrary and hope the views you express would be defended in the course of discussion and not simply in actions that would be considered reactionary. Likewise, I would hope that you appreciate the fact that there are many individuals that choose a reactionary method of response to his work regardless of where they arise (again, not stating that you have initiated these methods).
I never accused you of “falsifying” Mr. Alam’s work; my statements indicate a misrepresentation of his ideas. After reading many of the Professor’s works (only after becoming aware of the controversy) I was struck by the lack of focus on the thesis of his work by those that argue against it. In Mr. Alam’s article, “America and Islam” he raises fundamental and important questions to those Muslim extremists that I have yet seen raised by those who adamantly argue against his work. Your statement regarding those who use personal attacks against those whose ideology does not match their own is well founded; I would be eager to hear responses based on Mr. Alam’s actual premises and thesis instead of a few selectively chosen passages that have not been taken within the context of his argument. I have not, as of yet, found any argument against the Professor’s work that critically discusses the propositions contained within his work as opposed to the mere repeating of selected passages that could be viewed as inflammatory.
It appears (from your response to Alam’s article) that you rely on a “moral compass” to direct your research and writings. I am interested in this statement and would ask how you define “moral compass”. Your response misses the fundamental argument raised in Alam’s work — that the ideologies of the dispersion of “freedom” promulgated by the US and the ideology of Muslim extremists are more similar than different in their purpose to free their people of tyranny. I am in no way defending Sharia law just as I am not defending the US ideology based on specific premises. I am simply attempting to go outside both to examine the impact of Western actions on current situations and how Western actions, in large part, negatively impact the very situations that are trying to be remedied (by negative impact I mean by actually serving to exacerbate terror and further alienate those extremists who then pose a greater threat to Western ideals).
Aside from the specific controversy of Mr. Alam I am increasingly concerned at the attempts to silence those who are critical of current Western policies, especially within settings of academia. I do understand that it is very easy to sink to personal attacks, derogatory statements that do not address the issues raised, and threats of physical harm and it is this reason that misrepresentations are important. I am not proposing that you have been the source of these reactionary responses only that a selective focus on small portions of the works, while choosing not to discuss the premise and thesis contained in those works, serves to undermine discussion and discourse on the issues proposed.
Again, I appreciate your reply and your willingness to engage on these issues. I look forward to your thoughts.
And my last:
Dear Andrea22072,
I think it is much more likely that those who would “choose a reactionary method of response” are those who oppose my work, not Shahid Alam’s. Shahid Alam knows this to be true; that is, for example, why I do not publish my address or whereabouts, while his are readily available even now, after he has received these putative threats.
I respectfully disagree with your contention that I missed “the fundamental argument raised in Alam’s work — that the ideologies of the dispersion of ‘freedom’ promulgated by the US and the ideology of Muslim extremists are more similar than different in their purpose to free their people of tyranny.” I confronted that argument head-on in one of the pieces about Alam that I wrote — and you clearly have read it, since it is also the one in which I refer to a moral compass. But here it is, for your convenience: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16537
In any case, as for a moral compass, I believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 9/11 hijackers, insofar as they believed in Sharia, did not. (For a precise elucidation of the differences between Sharia and the Declaration, cf. the Sufi Sheikh Tabandeh’s critique of the Universal Declaration). Whatever you wish to say about how the West is, in your view, exacerbating terror, the Sharia is still the Sharia. To say that its adherents are trying to free people from tyranny is true from their own perspective; it is objectively false, however, insofar as the Sharia itself is tyrannical, and destructive. (Please pardon the reference if you do not believe in objective truth.)
As for trying to “silence” the professor, this charge is beyond ridiculous. Shahid Alams fill American universities and reign virtually unchallenged as they fill American youth with their ideas. If anyone has been silenced, it is the noble (yes) Orientalists of the past — Jeffrey, Margoliouth, Muir, Schacht, Wansbrough, and others — who did real academic work on Islam and Middle Eastern issues, in sharp contrast to the dreary politicized Saidist lockstep that reigns supreme today and of which Shahid Alam is but one of many, many representatives.
Cordially
Robert Spencer