America’s recent military withdrawal from Afghanistan “is a fantastic defeat for U.S. imperialism,” crowed Rutgers University professor of media studies Deepa Kumar during the Sept. 10 webinar “Twenty Years after 9/11: Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire.” With a penchant for impenetrable leftist jargon, she and her colleagues at New Jersey’s flagship public university engaged in an anti-American diatribe on the eve of 9/11’s 20th anniversary.
The anti-Semitic Rutgers University women’s and gender studies professor Jasbir Puar, a well-known extremist, opened the event, which highlighted a new edition of Kumar’s book Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, with baseless, and sometimes bizarre, cant. Thus, America’s Afghanistan campaign was a “war that was deliberately designed through its preemptive targeting never to end,” she said. She condemned “near-universal feminist approval” of American military responses to Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks as expressing the “Orientalism of gender studies,” which “by and large institutionalized veiling as a trope of women’s oppression.”
Women in Afghanistan and other Muslim-majority countries might well agree with this “trope,” but Puar dismissed such concerns as part of the “rationalized psyche of American imperialism” and its “thoroughly overdetermined questions.” This entails “liberal savior rhetoric” of “white men saving brown women from brown men, and its homo-nationalist corollary, white queers saving brown queers from brown cis-gendered, straight people,” she said.
Deranged as that is, she was only warming up. “Homo-capitalist forces of a purported secular queerness” meanwhile “produces coming out as a technology of Christian theological confession” as part of a worldview that “hypercritically demands reconciliation of Islam and sexuality.” Such vacuity is what passes for intellectual sophistication in academe.
Having previously compared American armed forces to Islamic State jihadists, Kumar likewise denigrated concern for gays and women under Islamic law as “liberal Islamophobia.” America’s Afghanistan war was the “white man’s burden dressed-up and packaged to be palatable in the twenty-first century,” she said. “By no means were women liberated,” she stated, for warlords merely succeeded the American-led overthrow of the Taliban, an assessment that neglected real advantages for Afghan women freed from the Taliban’s “gender apartheid.” In a classic straw man fallacy, she asserted that Americans believe Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq “are not prepared to enter the stage of democracy” and are therefore “uncivilized and barbaric.” Denying the validity of her own assertion as a “long-held Orientalist myth,” she simultaneously ignored the complicated reality of American-led efforts to promote democratization in Muslim lands.
As if Muslims had never been imperialistic, Kumar found fault only with Westerners, for through the centuries “Spanish, British, French and American imperialisms have all been important vehicles for the development of anti-Muslim racism.”
“Donald Trump’s presidency was the most Islamophobic in U.S. history,” she said, while American evangelicals are “extreme rabid racists”—an irredeemably racist generalization itself. Echoing traditional Islam’s denial of freedom of conscience, Kumar cast former Muslims in a “native informant role” who present Muslim countries as “terribly backward.” Similarly, free speech regarding Islam is nothing, she said, but a “cover to spout anti-Muslim racism, as we have seen in the various cartoon controversies in Europe.”
In this setting, Rutgers University assistant professor of Africana Studies Noura Erakat provoked no dissension with such vague statements as “racism better understood is racial capitalism.” She particularly gushed over “one of the most epic prison breaks of our time” recently in Israel, where imprisoned terrorists tunneled out of confinement. “Six prisoners overcame the only nuclear empire in the Middle East and global empire’s self-proclaimed unique ally with a set of spoons,” she rejoiced.
These killers are, for Erakat, perpetual victims, for “Israel has racialized Palestinians as always already guilty. Their crime is their existence and the threat they pose … to Zionist settler sovereignty.” In the face of Palestinian crimes, she equivocated that “terrorism has no juridical meaning in international law,” something she should tell the United Nations’ Office of Counterterrorism. Rather, she suggested that Israeli self-defense is the real terrorism, even as the Israeli military puts its own soldiers in mortal danger to protect Palestinian civilians. She snidely speculated “whether state actors can commit terrorism or instead if their casualties in combat are strictly collateral damage regardless of the carnage or the recklessness or the deliberate nature of their strikes.”
Erakat concluded falsely that terrorism “is restricted to a particular group of people rather than a set of behaviors.” Therefore, she said, “Palestinians remain the terrorists. This reflects a cornerstone of anti-Muslim racism in the context of imperial violence.” Meanwhile, “Arabs in the United States continue to benefit from probationary U.S. citizenship contingent on endless U.S. war-making in the Middle East,” she asserted incongruously, given her status as a Palestinian-American living peacefully in the land she loathes.
Such “Islamophobia” was decried by other panelists as part of a wider pattern of Western exploitation and racism throughout history. Among these was the feminist writer Naomi Klein, Rutgers’ inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies, who labeled as “agricultural violence” social transformations throughout history, such as the English enclosure movement, which privatized and settled communal lands. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a pro-LGBT African-American Studies professor from nearby Princeton University, described the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which 63 people died, as the “LA rebellion.” She also fantasized that “police were deified as soldiers” in the 1990s.
Simple decency dictates that every anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 innocent Americans should be a time of mourning. Yet the panelists twisted the sacred memory of the terrorists’ victims to portray them, and by extension, all Americans as deserving of the attacks. For these privileged academics, “Islamophobia”—a word coined to silence critics of Islam—demonstrates how the capitalist West, as once represented by the World Trade Center’s twin towers, is a cancer upon a largely nonwhite global proletariat.
Little will change until America’s tax- and tuition-paying public demand that universities stop supporting such radical chic, anti-American drivel.
Andrew E. Harrod, a Middle East Forum Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher, and writer, is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter: @AEHarrod. This article is cross-posted from JNS.org.
Ecosse1314 says
Mad bad and very dangerous to know. It might help their cause if they actually spoke in English( though i very much doubt it)
Doomer says
Strange that Naomi Klein,Jewish women’s rights activist, should agree with them.Why,in 2001 the leader of second-wave feminism,Gloria Steinem,also Jewish, plus the organization The Feminist Majority,was for the war against the Taliban.
The name Feminist Majority comes from a 1986 Newsweek/Gallup public opinion poll in which 56 percent of American women said they were feminists. The foundation was created in 1987 to promote women’s rights peacefully,however
it made an exception in the case of Afghanistan. You can’t fight Nazis peacefully.
gravenimage says
There are Jewish people–and Gentiles–who are foolish dhimmis.
And Afghanistan never extended equal rights to women. It was estimated that 75% of women in prison there were trying to escape a forced or abusive marriage, and shortly before the Taliban takeover *stoning* was put back on the books there.
mortimer says
What I read above is a festival of praise for Islam and the Taliban. How can academics prostitute themselves in such a way for this absurd and neo-Marxist agenda? Facts clearly have no place in academia for idiots like these. Real academics in the meantime cower in fear in their studies with their doors shut, lest they too be denounced for pointing out the many obvious improvements in Afghanistan during the NATO occupation.
It is beyond shameful to belittle the improvements in women’s rights in Afghanistan under NATO: many women sat in the parliament almost half the girls went to school, higher education for women was flourishing, and there were many women’s shelters where women at risk could fly oppressors. Shame on them for denying all these obvious changes for the better.
Now the cycle will repeat and the Taliban will recreate its former terrorist training camps. NATO will return again sooner or later at an enormous cost.
Johnny B says
Unfortunately the Christian ethos in America, which is not so different from the European one, has dictated that we’re basically all equal in the eyes of God” and that all cultures and religions are basically good and should be considered equal. It’s been a gross misinterpretation and twisting of scripture IMO and now we see the results of this type of relativism. Everything foreigners from far away came here (the West) for, particularly all the freedoms that we had, are now under such tremendous pressure we, ourselves, cannot even take them for granted any longer. I’m not trying to blame Christians, I am a Christian myself, but the Left never really had any opposition in this crucial matter as they have only become stronger and stronger while Christianity is only a shadow of its former self, it’s difficult to see how this can be turned around. The divisions within our societies are already beginning to make the foundations crack. How long can this go on?
mortimer says
No, Johnny, the idea of ‘equality’ does not mean that we consider all religions equally valid, but that people have EQUAL RIGHTS to practice their faith.
Jefferson said, “It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
That is the point of equal rights. If my neighbor on the other hand is a violent jihadist, then society has a duty to kick him back to Berzerkistan after he completes his prison term.
Johnny B says
Mortimer, I’m not really aware of Jefferson’s own religious preferences but I suspect his comments were primarily directed at the century-old conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, which undoubtedly was a real issue at the time. I don’t want to dismiss in any way, but what we’re facing today in relation to Islam is a completely different animal all together. I never had a good feeling about Islam to begin with, but my concern for the welfare of my country and the rest of the West is the very near future has only increased exponentially as if learned more and more about their scriptures and their history. I know it’s not realistic to ban or kick out all Muslims in the West, that’s not what I want. But we have to effectively stop the never ending immigration from those countries to our part of the world. Otherwise Islam WILL become the majority religion here within a single generation and then you can wave goodbye once and for all everything we know and love and take for granted today. That’s the choice we have to make.
gravenimage says
Equal rights does not mean that all cultures are equal.
mortimer says
Idiots: ““Donald Trump’s presidency was the most Islamophobic in U.S. history,” she said.
Well, no, he wasn’t. That honor must surely go to Teddy Roosevelt who put policies in place to keep Muslims from gaining entry.
gravenimage says
Or possibly John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or John Quincy Adams (son of John). All smart presidents who recognized the threat of Islam.
mortimer says
Fact-free RANTING and HATE THE ORANGE MAN CARNIVAL DAY at RUTGERS … a total travesty of what academia is for.
Rutgers = Critical-thought-free zone. Leave brain at the door.
gregbeetham says
I think the so called lefty feminists in some universities have graduated from hypocritical morons to full blown idiots spouting unintelligible gibberish.
IQ al Rassooli says
Before commenting, I looked up their backgrounds so that I should be fair in my comments.
These so called ‘professors’ are actually anti American, seditious, treasonous cretins who should never have been allowed to indoctrinate future generations of Americans to leftist, fascist anti American group think.
It should be obvious that they know bull crap about Islam and terrorism because Muhammad’s Quran is perfectly clear that Allah’s Sharia must rule over every human being on Earth. That none Muslims have only TWO choices: Submit to Islamic Sharia or be EXTERMINATED.
It is mandated by Allah that every Sharia compliant Muslim must be a Jihadi. Meaning, every single Sharia compliant Muslim must be the Eternal and Mortal ENEMY of every none Muslim on the planet; currently 80% of humanity
Is there anyone reading my statements who would like to prove me WRONG based entirely on Quranic verses?
gravenimage says
You are right.
charvak says
I have seen this Red-Green alliance at work in my alma mater, Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of the topmost institutions of higher learning in India. I used to wonder then, as I continue to wonder a decade afterwards, as to what is the point of wasting taxpayers money on certain useless disciplines of Social Sciences. Apart from a play of jargons and relentless propaganda in the service of a subversive ideology, they hardly have any utility in real life.
Infidel says
‘Universities’ or ‘colleges’ like Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Milia University, Aligarh Muslim University et al should be disbanded and banned, and new ones established in their place. The first one enshrines communism, and the latter two islam. You’re right: those ‘social sciences’ don’t belong to be taught in such schools at all. It should be left to religious institutions – temples, churches, gurudwaras, synagogues, et al to teach those aspects of life, if the family doesn’t wanna be the ones to teach them
gravenimage says
Not all Social Sciences are useless–but as they are taught by civilization-hating leftists, they are worse than useless.
livingengine says
CAIR Does 911
20th Anniversary Edition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTHJQSqeB-E
Infidel says
Did they have Comrade Illan Abdullahi on this time?
livingengine says
No, not this time. I don’t know how they missed that opportunity, but they are in close contact, believe you me. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaRx7MLTq8
Walter Sieruk says
A sentence in this above jihadwatch article reads “Simple decency dictates that every anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 innocent Americans should be a time of mourning.”
Another view is every anniversary of those murderous and destructive jihad attacks which occurred on September 11, 2001 should be a significant momentous memory and a time of renewed resolve to further keep on exposing the truth about Islam and it’s violent brutal ,bloody and deadly jihad with its Muslim terrorists who are still scheming future Islamic terror attacks ‘
We, as Americans , must not grow tired but keep vigilance and diligence knowledgeable , wise and active in this “War of Ideas” since 9/11.
livingengine says
The 1993 Philadelphia Meeting should be taught in public schools – https://youtu.be/UudrdvEetMs?t=797
gravenimage says
Hear, hear!
Infidel says
They did? I thought that they were busy assaulting Hinduism by focusing the anniversary on Hindus to deflect from the fact that it was muslims who were the ‘some people’ who ‘did something’. When did they find time to assault America as well?
Anyway, I do hope that colleges and universities go the way of the dodo
Derek says
The straight face that these leftists can lie and mislead is amazing. This event is an example of the deep penetration and cooperation of Jihadists and leftists that has weakened the will to fight jihad.
The relentless violence of Islam unleashed on the whole world is not even mildly averred to.
The left ideology is as totalitarian as the ideologies of Islam – with the main aim of destroying any semblance of order in the existing order and culture of the entire world – that their unholy alliance is based on.
SKA says
If only this were a report about something outlandish or out of the norm. Sadly this virulent anti-American cant and mindless embrace of Islam are both prevalent in US campuses today.
OLD GUY says
This is what the Saudi Arabian donations to our schools of higher education has bought in America. WE have sold our higher education system to the foreign governments who donate huge amounts of cash and then demand teaching of their propaganda to our youth. BIG PROBLEM.
gravenimage says
Rutgers professors mark 20th anniversary of 9/11 by assaulting America
……………….
Just appalling–these Lefists all hate the civlized West, and give the savagery of Islam a pass.
tgusa says
Our universities are staffed with quite a number of people who come from cultures that never built a one room school house. When I was a young man the only places you might hear this sort of mindless verbal diarrhea was around skid row or from someone in a mental institution. Wacademia is the new normal.
They don’t need to worry about me I’m a white male non liberal who has no interest in saving any of them from anything. And they earned that.