Michael Lumish
I will be writing on the 8th Annual UC Berkeley Islamophobia Conference coming up this weekend for Campus Watch under the auspices of Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum.
The foremost questions that I have, vis-a-vis Islam and the West, are concerned with the compatibility of Sharia with Enlightenment liberalism.
That is, I fail to understand how a juridical-political system of patriarchal Islamic supremacism can possibly be consistent with the Constitution of the United States or fundamental notions of universal human rights as found, for example, within western feminism.
I also called the cops and the mayor's office in that town because they seem to have lost the plot.
I doubt that I will run into trouble because American Islamism is not the same as progressive-left fascism, but just look at this mess:
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, PhD, proprietor. (mike.lumish@gmail.com)
A conference on "Islamophobia?" And the 8th annual one at that! What bunch of bullshit. How did Islam become so persecuted so quickly and famously? I seem to remember having never heard of it for about 4/5's of my liifetime, and yet now it's all the rage, besides being all rage and no hat. It's just another front used to control people for the purpose of gaining political power for some very unsavory elements. I think Pat Connell would refer to it as "cultural terrorism." Morons believe it's an urgent matter for social justice, but iy'all really warped and warmed over version of Christianity they can't even acknowledge. Has UC Berkeley ever even had a 1st annual conference on antisemitism no less an 8th one? How about one on the rape, torture, enslavement and murder of Yasidis at the hands of "the persecuted?" Or maybe just one about the butchery and so on committed by various manifestations of Islamic empires, as in Imperialism, over the past 1400 years?
ReplyDeleteI was referring of course to Pat Condell, not Pat Connell (whoever that is).
DeleteAs for "iy'all" I have absolutely no idea what that was. :0)
Mike, please let us know when your piece is online.
I need to go in with an open mind.
Delete"Has UC Berkeley ever even had a 1st annual conference on antisemitism no less an 8th one? "
DeleteProgressives and Democrats keep giving the Jewish people a giant middle finger, and we just refuse to see it.
Jacob,
DeleteMy point is that prejudice against Jews has been going on forever, and Islamophobia is the new, trendy kid on the block. Jews are more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate crimes. Yet, no one thinks to examine this oldest of hatreds, which can only mean they are either insincere or at minimum have their heads up their butts in their desire to eradicate xenophobic prejudice, i.e., "phobia."
Mike,
By all means, go in with an open mind. I would expect nothing less from you. I'm just stating my opinion of the cuff that I think that this is just one of many symptoms of some pretty dangerous stuff being incubated in our educational system.
right, they need a "conference on 'Islamophobia'." They have them everyday: whenever their ME studies courses meet, or you could also say any liberal arts course meets given the post-Colonial worldview LA profs nearly all have.
ReplyDeleteIslamophobia is an imaginary construct designed to defeat the natural defense mechanisms of the West/Infidels. Think Soviet propaganda or the Nazis big lie and you are in the right neighbourhood.
ReplyDelete"Andrew Cummins once said, in a quote often misattributed to Christopher Hitchens, that Islamophobia is “a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.”
https://thehumanist.com/commentary/fascists-cowards-and-morons-combating-anti-muslim-bigotry-while-maintaining-free-speech
Is he right? Well the word was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood so......
Interesting point from the above link: "it’s a curious thing that I’ve yet to see that damning suffix attached to any other faith name: that critics of Christianity (of which there are many on the left) are not ever called Christophobic, that Jewish critics are not called Judaiphobes, that Karl Marx, hero of the left, has never been called a capitalistophobe. Submit your ideology of choice and we could play this game forever."
Phobias are based on irrational thinking. Is criticizing or fearing Islam irrational for Westerners/Infidels? Not on your life;especially if you are a Jew (or increasingly a Christian in many Mideast countries)Of course it IS irrational for those steeped in the belief that Islam is perfect etc.....ie. Muslims.
As to your "foremost questions," Mike, think "taqiyya." And remember that it depends on open minds; not that I think someone of your intellect is gonna fall for it even trying to keep an open mind. Anyway, I look forward to your article!
Perhaps if Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik's neighbour had not been concerned with being called an islamophobe, 14 people would still be alive today.
ReplyDeleteA phobia is an irrational fear, like the fear of the color orange. This is neither a fear nor is is irrational. It's more along the lines of being fed.up.to.**here** with them complaining about it. I deeply and truly do not give a fuck what they think, do, need, want or feel. At all
ReplyDeleteThat's the point. They use the "phobia" suffix as a slur against those who question or criticize anything that could possibly be termed Islam. It is most often a term of harassment against people who are, e.g., "fed up to here."
DeleteIn New York City (and probably many other places) 16-year-old Pakistani girls are forced to return to Pakistan, where they are often forced to marry Muslim men who are twice their age.
ReplyDeleteThis was mentioned around 10 or 15 years ago in one of New York City’s smallest newspapers, and since then, the so-called new-media has never mentioned this.
When will the Liberal-dominated news-media report this true story?
Why Muslims Hate Jews:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/12/guest-post-why-muslims-hate-jews.html
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/03/guest-post-famous-last-words.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/guest-post-forgotten-oppression.html
How to Convict the New York Times
of Unfair Bias Against Israel:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-how-to-convict-new-york-times.html
If we wish to be fair we must draw a line between people born into the Islamic faith, and who therefore self-identify as Islamic, and those who wish to spread Sharia.
ReplyDeleteI spent much of the day, today, at the Islamophobia conference that Professor Bazian put together. It seems to me that they fail in a similar way to us when it comes to the legacy of Islam. That is, they refuse to acknowledge Islamic malice and imperial expansion and we sometimes forget that not all Muslims are Jihadis.
As victims of Islamic Supremacism Jews tend, of course, to focus on how Islam historically fucked the Jews and continues to seek the Traditional Jew Fucking policy. From what I can tell, most politically-active Muslims honestly don't care about antisemitism.
Thus, neither they nor we, actually draw the necessary distinction between Muslims as people and Jihadis as ideologues.
We need to do that in order to avoid bigotry. They need to do if they ever wish to bring about the kind of reforms that Christians and Jews went through during the period of the European Enlightenment.
But this will not happen so long as western Muslim intellectual elites continue to ignore the fact of the "lesser" Jihad and the ruining of innocent lives in western capitals.
"From what I can tell, most politically-active Muslims honestly don't care about antisemitism."
DeleteI am being sincere when I say I don't understand what you are saying here. Do you mean they refuse to discuss the Jew hatred rife within Muslim societies?
I draw the distinction between Muslims as people and Jihadis as ideologues. I think most people do. Not all, but most.
Why is there a conference (conferences) on "Islamophobia" as opposed to, say, pretty much anything else? Who is denying Muslims their basic rights? Are they being denied educational opportunities or employment? How bad is it? And as the famous song title says, "How long has this been going on?" Inquiring minds want to know. What are the basic concerns of your run-of-mill "Islamophobe?"
I have another question (rhetorical). Have there been mass rallies across western universities denouncing Islam, Islamic countries and their "policies"? How unwelcome do Muslims feel at UC Berkeley and why? Are there any apartheid weeks singling out Islam or any Islamic country going on at a campus near you? How is discrimination worse against Muslims than blacks, jews, hispanics, Chinese, or other minority groups, and why?
DeleteWhat, exactly, gives rise and legitimacy to their concerns? What world events? And how are they dealing with those?
Or is this just another game of "blame whitey?"
Bigotry is inevitable when dealing with those who wish to destroy a culture and its people. Unfortunate but necessary. War is Hell.
DeleteYes, they do not really much care about antisemitism, but how much do we honestly care about anti-Muslim bigotry? As for the "why" of it, there is a general feeling of grievance among those who see themselves as victims of western imperialism. There is a profound gap between their sense of victimhood and their actual privilege as university professors.
DeleteThey are victims mostly of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
DeleteMike,
DeleteDefinitions are in order: What exactly is anti-Muslim bigotry, who defines that, is it a reasonable definition, and who is "we?"
A general feeling of grievance among those who see themselves as victims of western imperialism in Berkeley? Moo!
DeleteJeff,
DeleteThe general understanding within the academic community as represened by this Berkeley conference is that Islamophobia (no quotes) is the function of western imperialism and colonization.
Just as Ruth Wisse insists that antisemitism is political, so these scholars insist the same concerning anti-Muslim bigotry.
The first guy that spoke was simultaneously among the most boring and among the most interesting.
Farid Hafez said that there are 3 trends in the scholarship approaching Islamophobia including theories of racial prejudice, Post-Colonial Studies, and Decolonial Studies.
The conference was focused on the last of these.
The difference between the last two is that post-colonial theory places racism within the context of western colonialism while decolonial theory places racism within the context of how to rid the world of racist, white, western colonialism.
I have to tell you, tho, man, this was a very big conference. It went on for 3 days and included 13 separate panels of 3 to 5 scholars each and they were all either professors or graduate students.
The big blind spot, from what I can tell, is the absolute disinterest in acknowledging the rise of political Islam or the immigration crisis in Europe as a possible factor in western anti-Muslim bigotry.
Victims of Western Imperialism? How about beneficiaries? Truth be known.
ReplyDeleteAn important read:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theaugeanstables.com/2017/04/23/who-will-defend-western-civilization-not-its-social-justice-warriors/
I don't think this is OT.
There is no greater colonialism than that of Islam. I'm not talking about all their land grabs but of their colonialism of Judaism and Christianity.
ReplyDeleteI know. What can I tell ya? They simply do not see it that way. I caught only a relatively small portion of the 13 panels over 3 days, but there was virtually no recognition of the historical fact of Muslim imperialism. It amazes me that people who get paid to study and write about this material at the university level simply refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the living room and almost no one calls them on it.
DeleteI see no way around it, tho.
I do not recall anyone saying it directly, but they seem to think of terrorism as a righteous form of resistance against white western racist colonialism.
Well, Muslim imperialism does not exist as such in their eyes. It's a mandate from Allah to convert the infidel. Kinda like Soviet imperialism. The hypocrisy never appeared to them because they were doing God's (Communism's) work.
DeleteNo one calls them on it because that would be racist, right? And, they are comrades in the fight to destroy Western culture; a defining attribute of most non-hard science academics since they 70's. (altho now, even many hard science guys are caught up in the fun and games)It's the long march, man, and the enemy of my enemy and all that.
There IS a way around it but it's not pretty. And it will get one labelled something really nasty. And it's probably really dangerous. Few in the ivory towers would ever have the guts.
They don't see it that way? Of course not! It's up to the rest of us to point it out in no uncertain terms. Why the f___ should they admit it. No gravy train there.
DeleteThe thing of it is, they are not lying to themselves or to us.
DeleteThey’re working within an ideological model grounded in the post-colonial (and, now, apparently, “de-colonial” ) worldview that emphasizes the ongoing oppression, suppression, humiliation, and subordination of domesticated “brown bodies” according to the requirements of the racist, hegemonic white imperialist system… which ultimately must be tamed or obliterated.
Bazian is an interesting guy and the Berkeley professor responsible – or partly responsible - for this yearly series of Islamophobia conferences.
They also see themselves as opposed to anti-Jewish racism, but view Zionism as a major contemporary force behind current antisemitism and therefore encourage young Jewish people to oppose Zionism in order to oppose antisemitism.
It’s fascinating… vaguely nauseating, maybe… but fascinating.
How are they not lying to themselves?
Deletehttps://youtu.be/vn_PSJsl0LQ
"It amazes me that people who get paid to study and write about this material at the university level simply refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the living room and almost no one calls them on it."
ReplyDeleteWell, academic freedom, is often highly over touted IMO opinion and experience. And it's getting worse with the inmates (snowflakes, and their fellow travelers) in charge of the asylum.
I get the feeling that this guy was not at the conference:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.prageru.com/courses/political-science/where-are-moderate-muslims