Jihad Watch

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “They Simply Wanted Me to be Silenced”

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Ayaan Hirsi AliHere is an exceptionally strong statement from Ayaan Hirsi Ali about the cowardly capitulation of Brandeis University to the Islamic supremacist Hamas-linked thugs of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Note the university’s dishonesty in claiming it had consulted with her when it hadn’t, and her trenchant response to Brandeis’s hypocritical invitation to her to discuss these issues on their campus in the future. Lovers of freedom may hope that, given Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s high profile, as evidenced by the decision of the usually egregiously compromised Time Magazine to run this, this incident will be a turning point, and free people will start fighting back against the Leftist/Islamic supremacist war on free speech.

“Ayaan Hirsi Ali: ‘They Simply Wanted Me to be Silenced,’” from Time Magazine, April 9 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

On Tuesday, officials at Brandeis University backed off granting an honorary degree to Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Alian, a staunch women’s advocate and fierce critic of Islam, due to many faculty members’ requests and a large online petition. Here is Ali’s statement in response to the university’s actions:

Yesterday Brandeis University decided to withdraw an honorary degree they were to confer upon me next month during their Commencement exercises. I wish to dissociate myself from the university’s statement, which implies that I was in any way consulted about this decision. On the contrary, I was completely shocked when President Frederick Lawrence called me — just a few hours before issuing a public statement — to say that such a decision had been made.

When Brandeis approached me with the offer of an honorary degree, I accepted partly because of the institution’s distinguished history; it was founded in 1948, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, as a co-educational, nonsectarian university at a time when many American universities still imposed rigid admission quotas on Jewish students. I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin. For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings,” and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices. So I was not surprised when my usual critics, notably the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), protested against my being honored in this way.

What did surprise me was the behavior of Brandeis. Having spent many months planning for me to speak to its students at Commencement, the university yesterday announced that it could not “overlook certain of my past statements,” which it had not previously been aware of. Yet my critics have long specialized in selective quotation — lines from interviews taken out of context — designed to misrepresent me and my work. It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree.

What was initially intended as an honor has now devolved into a moment of shaming. Yet the slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles. The “spirit of free expression” referred to in the Brandeis statement has been stifled here, as my critics have achieved their objective of preventing me from addressing the graduating Class of 2014. Neither Brandeis nor my critics knew or even inquired as to what I might say. They simply wanted me to be silenced. I regret that very much.

Not content with a public disavowal, Brandeis has invited me “to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue about these important issues.” Sadly, in words and deeds, the university has already spoken its piece. I have no wish to “engage” in such one-sided dialogue. I can only wish the Class of 2014 the best of luck — and hope that they will go forth to be better advocates for free expression and free thought than their alma mater.

I take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported me and my work on behalf of oppressed woman and girls everywhere.

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Comments

  1. I wrote slightly longer remarks about needlessly drawing attention to intimidative fascism ( in the first posting at JW ) about Brandeis’s cancellation, but here we go again —

    HOW STUPID IS CAIR ???? ANSWER — VERY VERY.

    MS. ALI NOW HAS A HUNDREDFOLD MORE COVERAGE…

    Well, nobody I know ever accused fully-faithful Muslims (FFMs) of having IQs over 60.

    • How could one call a follower of that perverted prophet(pbuh) “intellectual?”

      • I am assuming that anyone posting a comment at Jihad Watch who adds the robotic “(pbuh)” after the name of Muhammad actually means Piss Be Upon Him, since he was a pedophiliac butcher.

    • Has Mrs. Ali (I think she’s married now) received any coverage from the enemedia?
      We have to remember that the counter-jihad websites are mostly unknown by the sheeple of any country.

      • Yes, she is married, to historian Niall Ferguson…and she is busy educating him, and he’s listening!

        She has also voted for the West with her womb: she and Niall have had a son, Thomas. She now has the challenge of bringing him up as a free, brave, intelligent, self-controlled **Western** warrior. I am sure, once he gets old enough, that she will be reading to him from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and Hans Christian Andersen, and all the other classic western civ children’s stories that she “discovered” in the school library in Kenya and which helped to liberate her mind from Islam by showing her a whole other world and way of being.

      • Defcon 4 wrote:

        Has Mrs. Ali (I think she’s married now) received any coverage from the enemedia?
        ………………………..

        Actually, this story has been covered fairly widely—and generally quite well—by FOXNews. Megyn Kelly has been especially impressive, exposing the thuggery of CAIR.

    • Extract from e-mail sent to:

      Fred Lawrence
      Email Address
      fmlreply@brandeis.edu

      Dear Mr Lawrence.

      It was with great sadness that I learned how your college has insulted Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The manner in which you withdrew the offer of an honorary degree has caused irreparable harm to the international reputation of Brandeis University. This despicable action betrays the fine non-sectarian principles on which your college was founded. You should be ashamed of yourself.

      Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of this worlds most respected people. She champions the basic rights and freedoms of women and girls, including security and control of their own bodies, access to an education, the ability to work outside the home and control their own income, freedom of expression and association, and the myriad other basic civil rights defined under the laws of Western democracies and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Her list of achievements speaks for itself. Yours, not so much.

  3. So….How long before this university receives a letter from CAIR insisting they remove pork from their cafeteria menu? Give an inch take a mile……….

    • a better question would be; How long before C.A.I.R. insists on removal of ALL JEWS from the university?

      • Doing that would be like taking the hate-driven viloent world takeover out of the Holy Ko-Ran: it would leave an empty husk.

        Congrats to Megan Kelly, she managed to affirm the existence of Islamic moderation and totally avoid any reference to the scriptures or Islamic thought in her worse than useless interview of Honest Ibe.

        Ali was little better when she was interviewed.

  4. She spoke truth with this, “It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree.”

    Of course Brandeis knew what Hirsi was all about. What Brandeis did was to cave, to acknowledge that the Shariah rules, at least at that campus.

    • Indeed. I just sent them a short unflattering e-mail. Not that it will matter; but perhaps we need to start putting pressure on people/ institutions just as the muslims do. We far outnumber them, but we way too often do nothing to fight back.

  5. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, may you never be silenced. I have learned so much from your writings and lectures. You are pure quality, intelligence, integrity, courage and beauty. Thank you for sharing your being!

  6. I’ve just emailed Brandeis to express my disgust at this cowardly retreat.
    Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a champion of women’s rights and freedom of speech.

  7. I am seriously ashamed to share a country with people like Frederick Lawrence who prefers to capitulate to the demands of groups like CAIR over our what is politically correct rather than what is morally and factually correct.

    Please consider contacting him at lawrence@brandeis.edu and (politely) express your disappointment with his decision to nix Ali’s honorary degree.

    • Mike
      I’m planning on doing that. I have no concerns emailing a college president or faculty member. I’m tempted to email the Brandeis newspaper or whatever it is called to get to the students…but there I’d worry a bit about some ROP person hacking my computer and making next few months of my life difficult…

      Short of going to snail mail, are there privacy/firewall/anonymization geeks in this forum who could advise a plan of digital defense??

      • @mikeyboy

        You could use a proxy server. There are some that are free. The recipient of the email would not know your true IP address. If you go w/a free proxy server make sure it’s trustworthy and recommended.

  8. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “They Simply Wanted Me to be Silenced”

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    CAIR and company can’t silence the Truth forever! …the truth is getting out there regardless of their efforts to stop it.

  9. Dear Brandeis University faculty, staff and student body:

    It saddens me to see this outstanding fighter for freedom denied her honorary degree. There are few people who have the courage in the face of continuous physical threats to speak up for the defenseless. As you know she could no longer live in Europe due to threats on her life from Islamists.

    This is indeed a sad day for academia when a great American institution does not have the courage to stand with people such as Ayaan. I have followed her for years now. She is not a promoter of hate or exaggeration. She merely speaks the truth about Islam.

    It is hard to believe that the university would pay attention to criticism from the MSA or CAIR, both of which are at their core Muslim Brotherhood front groups. This is well established fact from FBI documents introduced at the Holy Land Foundation trial. You must know that Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were Muslim Brotherhood members and that the organization was recently banned, again, in Egypt.

    Treating Ayaan this way is akin to silencing a modern Abraham Lincoln from campus because the KKK objects. I am shaking my head in disbelief.

  10. Hirsi Ali is eloquent and brave. By contrast, the powers that be at Brandeis University are not eloquent at all and cowardly.

    Shame on Brandeis for this. Deep shame. Profound shame.

    I would add here that in the fight against what Islam intends for the West, if only Islam can be given its way (e.g., the utter destruction of any real meaning of the First Amendment to the American Constitution), that as awful as the political elites have been as an “ally” of Islam, the academic elites have arguably been even worse——as exampled by this article.

    The West faces a double whammy against the best of what it has accomplished, which would include, among other things, real freedom and true equality under the law. This double whammy comes, of course, from the extraordinarily deficient religion which goes by the name of “Islam” and from the present Western elites who continue, for whatever silly and disgusting insupportable reasons, to shill for a religion which is an ideology about as much at variance with Western Civilization as are the ideologies of Marxism and Nazism.

    As much as I despise Islam, I find myself many times despising the current crop of Western elites even more. After all, as I and many others have noted several times here at JW, makind’s excuses for evil is actually worse than evil itself because, without these excuses, evil could be eradicated so much the earlier. Thus, the sin upon your collective head, Western elites, a la the Archbishop of Canterbury’s indictment of himself, if wrong, in Shakespeare’s Henry V.

  12. From the Brandeis official statement of betrayal:

    “Commencement is about celebrating and honoring our extraordinary students and their accomplishments, and we are committed to providing an atmosphere that allows our community’s focus to be squarely on our students.”
    http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2014/april/commencementupdate.html

    Translation: They are too dishonest to admit it. They fear a loud, threatening, obnoxious group of Islamist and far-leftist activists disrupting the ceremonies and ruining it for everyone, as such fanatical activist groups are wont to do. And perhaps more than that, they have a realistic fear of people being injured or killed, and perhaps Hirsi Ali’s ever-present security team are not sufficient to meet the University’s fears. Not wanting to admit this, they then claim this is some kind of principled stand against some or other of Hirsi Ali’s statements, all conveniently unspecified.

    Disgraceful. Dishonest. Irresponsible. Cowardly.

  13. Shameful. Disgraceful. Cowardly.

    I wonder if Brandeis University’s namesake would behave in such a shameful, cowardly fashion.

    • I am deeply ashamed of Brandeis, and i can bet it’s namesake would not be happy today.

  14. Clearly, Ms. Ali is smarter than the entire Brandeis faculty put together. She knows a poltroon when she sees one — and in this case she’s dealing with an infestation of poltroons swarming over one campus. Can any university properly be called an institution of “higher learning” when it is the hands of a clutch of milksops and jellyfish such as these?

      • When I suggested to a highly educated, ignorant liberal that her hero the zero was a POS for pressuring Israel to release convicted muslime murderers the conversation ended. It’s interesting that in her delusional mind the fact he went to Harvard was supposed to impress me and imply he had a godlike intellect.

  15. Winston Churchill will forever be remembered as a “big” man compared to Neville Chamberlain who will forever be remembered for the policy of appeasement.

    Is this what Louis Brandeis meant by the “curse of bigness”?

  17. Meghan Kelly had her on her show this evening and both of them were wonderful. this was right after Meghan let Ibrahim Hooper have it when he was whining about how all these groups who are against Muslim hate are so hateful. Meghan has been bashing CAIR for over a week now and even picked it up again after the 2nd Ft. Hood shooting took place. It is brilliant and wonderful and what I’ve been waiting to see on prime time news for years.

  18. The dhimmi Jews at Brandeis disgust me. I know their whole shtick with its power-is-sin mantra, disguised as human rights. Go back to the ghetto where you belong, you shameful cowards!

  19. There is a quiet storm sweeping across the barren desert of deception.
    Prepare for a brand new morning.
    Muslims wake up.

  20. Dear Fred,

    Mikhal Bulgakov said that “cowardice is the worst of vices.”

    Fred, you are a craven, sniveling, trembling coward.

    Bulgakov risked his life to write a scathing novel about “the other Hitler,” namely Stalin, of course, at the height of the Great Terror in the Soviet Union.

    Ayan Hirsi Ali risks her life every single day, year after year, in order to expose the growing danger of another version of totalitarianism – not National Socialism, not Soviet Communism, but instead radical Islam, with its explicit – and very credible!! – aim for world domination.

    Your decision to award Ayan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree was laudable.

    Your subsequent decision to withdraw your offer under pressure from Islamic extremists and their deluded enablers in the West is despicable, revolting, and a permanent smear on the reputation of Brandeis University.

    Fred, if you cannot do better, you should resign from your position as Brandeis president.

    You have just taught your students an important lesson: stand up for democracy, human rights, and free speech – UNLESS it is inconvenient, or you feel intimidated or inconvenienced.

    Then back down, SUBMIT, make sure that the totalitarians know they are in charge, and that institutions like Brandeis will under no circumstances resist them.

    If you do not correct this grotesque act of cowardice and surrender, you are basically announcing to the world:

    “The Islamists are in charge here. Brandeis is a Dhimmi institution.”

    At crucial moments in history, there has been doubt about whether a totalitarian force would prevail.

    At such moments, the acts of courageous individuals make a difference.

    Fred, this is such a moment.

    Show us what you are made of.

    Sincerely,
    Ian Pepper PhD

  21. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of this worlds most valued people. Totally truthful and trust worthy. Beautiful inside and out. Treating her like this is disgusting and not just a personal insult to her but to everyone who shares her values.

    I have always held Brandeis University in high esteem due to it’s founding principles, similar in part to the Morehouse College of Atlanta. But it has obviously taken a nose dive and betrayed it’s lofty ideals. I’m disgusted!

  22. It’s a crying shame that a Jewish-funded university like Brandeis has gone along with a radical front like CAIR, humiliating and ostracizing a woman of the calibre of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This woman has forged a large support amongst people who have read or seen her. Brandeis should hang its collective head in shame!

    • I can only imagine the fear she has to deal w/on a daily basis.

      I used to know someone who knew Wafa Sultan, he said she would get death
      threats from islam0nazis, by telephone, on a regular basis, right here in the USA. He said at one point she didn’t live w/her family, because she didn’t want to risk them being murdered by islam0nazis.

  25. The Kelly File interviewed Hooper as well as Ali. Hooper was his usual whiny, hostile, taqiyya laden self. He makes it clear, that he and CAIR would like to eliminate free speech when it comes to exposing the evils of Islam. Why cowardly kuffar go along with this is a mystery to me, unless the answer is cowardice.
    Kelly let this creepy guy rant too long in my estimation, but other than that, she handled his hostility very well.

  26. This is just the beginning for us in the US. We have empowered groups like CAIR and others to bring anarchy to our home. May the memory of what America once was have enough power to propel us to defend her with our determination and strength before it is too late.

  27. Yes I saw the interview this morning of Hooper and Ali and I was very pleasantry surprised how Kelly did this!!!
    This Hooper should be ashamed and the way he carried on totally shamefull, but this is what you can expect from muslims even during the dicussions regarding ground zero mosque, muslim are liars and cry babies using our system to destroy us and they are good at that fro we allow this to happen, and Obama is a staunch supporter of islam, and does not care that hundreds of thousands Christians are yearly murdered by Islam, they hate Jews and Christians and any dare to speak out against their barbaric actions and ideology !!
    Hersi conducted herself like a lady and I support her in her efforts and I do the same for Kelly…. the Brandeis university should be ashamed of their cave in to islamist and this I hope will raise the question. Are we allowed to speak the truth about islam, about the killing of innocent, the lies they use and the infiltration in our society for the reason of total destruction !! Brandeis has has shown a disregard for the freedom of speech and has done so in a very, very un-academic way a shame to this Institution.
    Islam I cannot regard as a religion but only as a evil political movement that will destroy every democratic nation in the west because we let them do so….
    People wake up for islam is evil in every sense ……

    • Excellent point Voeg.

      Obviously, islam0nazism trumps lieberal race politics as well.

  30. Oh well, Brandies University don’t know what they are missing. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Gem, I just read her book Nomad few days ago, anyone should read this book. She is very intelligent lady with a beautiful face. She shouldn’t worry about that University, you deserve better.

  31. I can not think of a more upright, intellectually honest and respecful person than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

    Shame on Brandeis University for banning her appearance.

  32. Ms. Ali,

    This is a moment of shame – for Brandeis University. They cravenly caved in to those who want to silence any criticism of Islam. And a sad day it is, as they as sacrificed their founding principles on the altar of political correctness and cowardice.

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