Brandeis University recently redefined the notion of integrity and withdrew their conferral of an honorary degree on behalf of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ms. Ali is an outspoken critic of Islam and so has incurred the wrath of Islamacists, who have engaged in a remarkable campaign to silence her. I should add, a successful campaign.
Brandeis University president Frederick Lawrence issued a statement after withdrawing their honors, saying, “She’s a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.”
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) made a statement, too. He said, “It is unconscionable that such a prestigious university would honor someone with such openly hateful views.” We should think about this for a moment.
Other notable Moslems followed suit. Sarah Fahmy, a member of the Moslem Student Association stated that the university’s planned conferral was, “ ... a real slap in the face to Muslim students. But it’s not just the Muslim community that is upset, but students and faculty of all religious beliefs. A university that prides itself on social justice and equality should not hold up someone who is an outright Islamophobe.” Note: terms such as “social justice” and “equality” are words commonly employed by communist ideologues.
I can’t say whether Ms. Ali is an Islamophobe, but if she fears Islam, we can at least understand why. Born to a Moslem family in Mogadishu, Somalia, Ms. Ali was subjected to numerous examples of abuse for most of her early, formative life, including the sexual abuse associated with female genital mutilation.
I can’t say whether Ms. Ali is an Islamophobe, but if she fears Islam, we can at least understand why. Born to a Moslem family in Mogadishu, Somalia, Ms. Ali was subjected to numerous examples of abuse for most of her early, formative life, including the sexual abuse associated with female genital mutilation.
Still, one wonders what Ms. Ali has done to cause so much screeching from the monkey house. It is that she has been very critical of the position of women in Islamic society and the punishments demanded by Islamic scholars for homosexuality and adultery. In several interviews, Ms. Ali has characterized Islam as “the new fascism,” not unlike the kind of totalitarian control over people exhibited by Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Such statements have not pleased the fascists themselves, and of course deny the things she is saying about Islam.
Actually, I find the Moslem reaction to Ms. Ali bizarre, and were the implications of this not so serious, almost laughable. As Moslem spokespersons such as Ibrahim Hooper deny the things that Ms. Ali is saying about Islamic society, as he demands that her views be silenced, and as he orchestrates a rigorous campaign to pressure Brandeis University to withdraw their honors, it is apparently lost on these fools that Ali is proving her point. No matter what methodologies the Moslem community employs to silence Ayaan, the effects are the same: a demonstration of fascism.
Actually, I find the Moslem reaction to Ms. Ali bizarre, and were the implications of this not so serious, almost laughable. As Moslem spokespersons such as Ibrahim Hooper deny the things that Ms. Ali is saying about Islamic society, as he demands that her views be silenced, and as he orchestrates a rigorous campaign to pressure Brandeis University to withdraw their honors, it is apparently lost on these fools that Ali is proving her point. No matter what methodologies the Moslem community employs to silence Ayaan, the effects are the same: a demonstration of fascism.
Are any of the facts that Ayaan Hirsi Ali cites false?
ReplyDeleteThe reality: when female genital mutilations are performed they are performed in the name of Allah.
For some years, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been saying negative things about Islam. How is it that Brandeis didn't know the history of her statements? I think that Brandeis knew all along -- but backed down when challenged by a few Moslems.
Let us keep in mind that membership in CAIR is quite low. The last count that I had was less than 4000 Moslems -- a figure that is a very low percentage of Moslems in the United States.
If things continue as they are, voluntary dhimmitude will destroy Western Civilization.
Mark Steyn has written a brilliant piece that goes along with this:
ReplyDeleteThe Slow Death of Free Speech
The only upside to the leftwing speech code fascists getting the upper hand is that their obscurantism will eventually blind and weaken them... if they don't strangle our nation first.
Silverfiddle,
DeleteThanks for that link.
One more link before I head out to run errands: Devout Muslim in Pakistan rapes a 7-Year-old girl in mosque.
ReplyDeleteNext we'll have an article explaining that Christians don't rape children?
DeletePlease don't forget that because of the machinations of so-called liberals -- particularly the Feminazis -- the definition of "rape" has been watered down to include all sorts of things in one un his right mind would ever have imagined before the SICK-sties. In earlier times it was perfectly proper to marry off a girl immediately after she started to menstruate. That could in many cases be as low as age 12 or 14. It is ALWAYS foolish and wring-headed to try to impose OUR CONTEMPORARY standards on the PAST -- and on OTHER cultures in the present-day world.
DeleteWell, FT, their YOUR friends!
DeleteThose with power reward their friends and punish their enemies.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lesson to be taken away from this. Through their actions, the "nature" of the powerful at Brandeis University has been revealed. Acta non Verba!.
I get a charge out of this being called a speech issue. Nothing is stopping her from speaking.
ReplyDeleteI especially puzzle at the way this is compared to the granting of an honorary degree to Tony Kushner despite his criticism of Israel. Now mind you, Kushner never called for Israel to be "defeated" but Ali has called for Islam (not radical Islam) to be "defeated".
There is an undertone of violence there not far from the surface.
So she gets a lot of publicity after practically disappearing from everything but ultra right wing blogs and she starts lining her pockets with contributions for her non existent advocacy work.
She's running a pretty nifty grift.
American Universities are seats of intolerance and narrow-mindedness.
DeleteIntellectual obscurantism will ossify and eventually cripple the American left.
Yeah? Izzat so?
DeleteWell, if so, I could tell you very easily where and from whim she learned that particular tactic, but I've said too much already.
Silver Fiddle is right. What's wrong with the Moral, Intellectual and Spiritual Climate of major" American Universities is as plain as a bad case of Small Pox -- or Genital Warts.
DeleteDucky, you seem to think there is some difference between radical Islam, and Islam. If there is a difference, it is only this: the proponents of radical Islam are in your face about what they believe and who must suffer the consequences for a refusal to believe. Proponents of non-radical Islam work for the incorporation of Sharia law inconspicuously. They are the termites one never sees until the roof collapses.
ReplyDeleteIslam cannot be defeated unless or until its ideas are defeated, so in this Ms. Ali is quite right. There is nothing about Islam even remotely resembling such notions as peace, love, and harmony. It is exclusively about submitting, or paying the price for steadfast refusal to do so.
What I find most amazing about this subject is that a man of your considerable intelligence is too simpleminded to see the truth of Islam.
Sam,
DeleteWhat I find most amazing about this subject is that a man of your considerable intelligence is too simpleminded to see the truth of Islam.
Duck ain't alone on that one.
Also, as a side note, we should allow no more immigration from Muslim lands until they stop persecuting Christians. Once above 25%, Christians are now less than 10% of the Middle East population.
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303630904579417482632439814
Muslims thrive in Christian countries, and in Israel, far better than in the benighted lands they hail from. Contrast this with how religious and sexual minorities are treated in muslim countries.
Anyone else notice the difference besides me?
OUI! OUI! Vous avez raison, Vous etes toutes correct, Monsieur Violon d'Argent. Vous etes tres sage.
DeleteWell maybe that's my flaw, Sam.
ReplyDeleteI don't see absolutes. I see a lot of ambiguity ad in this case I do think it is a huge mistake to see Islam as monolithic.
If I have an absolute position here it would be that ALL fundamentalism or any doctrine that inhibits intellectual growth is dangerous.
I agree, Ducky, and I am equally suspicious and resentful of ANY "movement" that claims to be a Panacea or possess the ability to Show The Way to Paradise for ALL people. Nevertheless, common sense, which Alas! seems to be increasingly rare, tells us in the words of Kipling that "fire will burn you and water will make you wet."
DeleteAnd yet there are ever-so many who have a fervent desire to argue vociferously AGAINST such obvious truths. The notion that certain limitations do not "necessarily" obtain is very popular with devotees of Magical Thinking, and those who long to shirk their responsibilities, and so in every generation we've had myriad children and poor deluded fools led down The Garden Path by "Pied Pipers" of various and sundry sorts.
The results have always been tragic.
"When will they ever learn?" INDEED!
I do think that there are absolutes. But there certainly is veracity in this comment that Duck made:
DeleteIf I have an absolute position here it would be that ALL fundamentalism or any doctrine that inhibits intellectual growth is dangerous.
FT,
DeleteYou typed in the following:
I am equally suspicious and resentful of ANY "movement" that claims to be a Panacea or possess the ability to Show The Way to Paradise for ALL people.
Believing so in one's heart is one thing, and acting upon that belief is an entirely different matter. The West learned this upon the separation of the established church and the state.
I, for one, believe that believing upon Jesus as the propitiation for our sins is the only way to eternal life. But I don't go around forcing others to believe the same.
My faith is personal and strong -- an absolute. But I don't ENFORCE my faith upon others!
I can certainly be judgmental -- in my heart and not overtly.
My father (1911-1998) was right: "I have enough problem taking care of my own soul. It is your business to take care of your soul."
DeleteMy father was a Dunkard, BTW.
@ Ducky: ALL fundamentalism or any doctrine that inhibits intellectual growth is dangerous.
DeleteYet you persist in your leftwing progressive dogma that stifles open debate.
"THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED!"
The irony of all ironies here is that Justice Brandeis was JEWISH, and the university that bears his name is primarily-though-not-exclusively a JEWISH University. Jewish intellectuals who did all but INVENT the modern Leftist Mentality out of whole cloth [Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Sigmund Freud, Trotsky, Samuel Gompers, The Frankfurt School, Saul Alinsky, The New School for Social Research, "The New York Intellectuals," HOLLYWOOD, The New York Times (Ochs-Sulzberger), The Washington Post (Kay Graham née Meyer) CBS (William Paley), William Kunstler, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin of the Chicago Seven and the Yippies, Morris Seligman Dees (Southern Poverty Law Center), Betty Friedan, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Greg Pallast and on and on and on.
ReplyDeleteA unifying characteristic among all these leftist Jews has been their singular devotion to the incessant QUESTIONING, CRITICISM, and DEFAMATION of Christianity and thus traditional American values, mores and principles.
This persistent attack -- dubbed “Critical Theory” by the infamous Frankfurt School began “The Long March Through the Culture” that has caused the DISCREDITING, UNDERMINING and near-DESTRUCTION of the country into which I was born, and which the vast majority of Americans knew and loved a scant sixty years ago.
These virulent intellectual insurgents would rather bring about their OWN Ultimate Demise than support the very freedoms that have made it possible for them to do their worst virtually unimpeded. If they cannot RULE, they prefer to KILL in the stealthy, crafty, long, slow, ever-so subtle methods which we, as decent people, are not supposed even to NOTICE much less openly discuss and criticize.
The MUSLIMS would rejoice at seeing ALL of the JEWS DEAD, but because the Islamists want all of US dead too, these intellectual morons SUPPORT these terroristic barbarians, while they DISHONOR and DEFAME the detractors of Islam -- and all under the cloak of their typically smug, aggressive, captious, ostentatiously self-righteous aura of pseudo-Intellectual Integrity and Moral Superiority.
FT,
Deletesingular devotion to the incessant QUESTIONING, CRITICISM, and DEFAMATION of Christianity and thus traditional American values, mores and principles
Not only among Jews -- that's for sure. Indeed, this criticism and defamation have come to pervade Western society as a whole.
The supposed "open criticism" doctrine has been twisted so that it is now primarily criticism of Christianity. I regularly see this in history textbooks designed for elementary school and all the way up the ladder throughout graduate school (particularly in the Humanities). I see the active promotion of "Christian guilt." No longer is the guilt meme restricted to "white guilt."
And on we go in the plunge into the abyss.
"Not only among Jews -- that's for sure. Indeed, this criticism and defamation have come to pervade Western society as a whole."
DeleteYes, of course, and certainly not ALL Jews have perpetrated this treachery on the West any more than ALL Muslims want to make human WMD of their children and sever the heads of every "infidel" (i.e. non-Muslim). HOWEVER, the ROOT, the SOURCE the BEGINNING of this current passion for self-destructive thinking among an ever-growing number DID come from Jewish Intellectuals. THEY were the ones who surreptitiously, insidiously, -- and I think VICIOUSLY -- INFECTED the culture with this CANCER of the INTELLECT we call Socialism, Liberalism, Progressivism, Statism et al. THEY planted the SEEDS that are rapidly leading to our dissolution. In other words THEY built a BANDWAGON that too many have been eager to jump on.
Of course, it's complex, because The Oligarchs -- do I have to explain who they are AGAIN? -- have USED these ideologues and the havoc they'e wrought tomthe OLIGARCH'S distinct advantage, so it's,the OLIGARCHS we need most to fear and hopefully unseat some day. The Jews have been USED like so many others. In this regard they've outsmarted themselves, but STILL the harm they've done to our culture and ways of thinking is incalculable.
The Oligarchs come in all stripes and pervade everything in our culture now.
DeleteAt some point, everything will stop. This situation cannot go on forever.
In the meantime, we try to ride out the storm.
Or maybe just report something like this
ReplyDeleteAlso happens in Texas, I imagine.
Duck,
DeletePlease explain what you mean by Also happens in Texas, I imagine.
As to the link you posted, I've heard about what happened. A good thing! But certainly not the trend nor the norm in Iran.
Excellent post. It is hard to understand on one hand, and yet typical as we have seen time after time. It galls me that so many useful idiots follow CAIR's lead.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
Sure Berg, just ask Cardinal Law.
ReplyDeleteBuy a vowel.
"Buy a vowel."
ReplyDelete?
JonBerg,
ReplyDeleteI'll help you out, since The Beantown Quacker loves talking in obscure, vinegar-laces snark.
Cardinal Bernard Law knew all about the pedophilia going on in his diocese and shuffled the criminal perverts around instead of seeing them prosecuted. He should be rotting in jail, imho. Instead of punishing him by throwing him in a Vatican dungeon, the Pope put him in charge of Sta Maria Maggiore, one of the four principle basilicas of Rome.
Now, having clarified, I now draw a distinction. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever in Roman Catholicism that countenances the discrimination against or subservience of women. Despite recent reports of lurid crimes by a minuscule percentage of the clergy (by many estimates, homosexual child abuse occurs in that cohort in no greater percentage than any other), Roman Catholicism does not have the record of sexual abuse of minors that Islam does.