Boko Haram and the Death of Feminism

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under and the Times of Israel.}

Feminism is dead and multiculturalism killed it.

Almost a month ago Islamists broke into a Nigerian secondary school and kidnapped hundreds of young girls which, initially, they were planning to sell into slavery but, according to Reuters, they are now willing to trade for their comrades in Nigerian prisons.

{By the way, the very notion of "Nigerian prisons" will probably keep me from sleeping tonight.  I am thinking Midnight Express... except without the joy.}

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim apostate feminist scholar native to Somolia, tells us the following:

The kidnapping of the schoolgirls throws into bold relief a central part of what the jihadists are about: the oppression of women. Boko Haram sincerely believes that girls are better off enslaved than educated. The terrorists' mission is no different from that of the Taliban assassin who shot and nearly killed 15-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai—as she rode a school bus home in 2012—because she advocated girls' education. As I know from experience, nothing is more anathema to the jihadists than equal and educated women.

One would expect that given the outrageous violations of the rights of women among Islamist groups that western feminists would vehemently object to those violations, yet they do not.

Nor, of course, do they tend to stand with Israel which is the only country in the entire Middle East which stands with them.

If western feminists honestly objected to the abuse of women in other parts of the world - and if they honestly believed in universal human rights - then we would see some expression of that objection on places like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post.

Let us take a quick gander at

http://www.dailykos.com/tag/feminism.

Do you see any reference to Boko Haram in the last month?  No?  That is, of course, because there is none.

There are fifteen "diaries" under the Daily Kos tag "feminism" since the attack and not a single one of them is concerned with those hundreds of Jihadi captured girls in Nigeria.   One of those fifteen, entitled, The Hijab and the West,  dares to reference Islam, but only to imply that perhaps robbing women of identity and individuality might be perfectly in keeping with western feminism.

Surely the Huffington Post would do better considering that Arianna is in charge:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/feminism/

One of the very top articles is this:

Self-Described 'Feminist Fatty' Responds To 'Fat-Shaming Anti-Feminist Meme'

There is also an article about how Monica Lewinsky claims that she is not a feminist... which is important.

Although I do not know who Shailene Woodley is, apparently, unlike the editors of the Huffington Post feminism section, she Doesn't Understand What Feminism Means.

What you do not see, however, is any reference to hundreds of kidnapped Nigerian school girls by Islamist forces.  Will they be raped?  Will they be sold into slavery?, a little institution that remains alive and well in certain parts of the world.  Or, will they be traded for the release of murderers?

This, from the Huffington Post Feminism Section, must be my favorite:

25 Signs You're Truly a Girl's Girl.

Most women enjoy the company of other women. But there is a special strain of human female who finds the company of women wholly preferable. There are social conditions that can create a girl's girl -- an awkward youth in which athletic activities and dating were eschewed for sneaky "Sex And The City" marathons and Jane Austen paperbacks, a stint at women's college or a career in a female-heavy field. But ultimately, it is a choice of companionship every woman has the privilege to make. 

Does not the economic privilege just reek from the above paragraph by Amanda Duberman?

And what smug "privilege" do those kidnapped and enslaved, if not raped, Muslim girls get to enjoy?

And how many of them are going to turn up dead?

And how is it that the feminist left remains virtually silent in mainstream progressive-left venues?

That is the question.

So, when Phillys Chesler claims that feminism is dead she needs to be listened to.

She also has a new book entitled An American Bride in Kabul.

Take 10 minutes and give her a listen.

Sunday Column for the Elder

The Elder was kind enough to publish my latest Sunday column entitled, The Erasure and Confiscation of Jewish History.

Here is a snippet:

The question of language in propaganda should be of central concern to those of us who care about the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Obvious examples of the way that Jewish history is erased include the erasure of the ancient names of Judea and Samaria from the western lexicon in favor of the recent Jordanian term "West Bank." Another example is the relatively recent replacement of the word "Palestinian" to refer to Jews from that region with the word "Palestinian" to refer to Arabs. This bit of rhetorical, ahistorical ju-jitzu provides the basis of Arab claims to Jewish land. It is, in fact, part of the effort to simply replace the Jews with the small subsection of local Arabs who now claim to represent an ancient and distinct people persecuted by foreign Jewish invaders.

Much of this material is old hat, as they say, to readers familiar with Israel Thrives and the general thrust of my arguments around the never-ending Arab-Muslim conflict with the Jews.  This material, it also should be noted, is not original because I have already published it internally, but in the weeks and months going forward all my Sunday columns for the Elder will be entirely original and exclusive to that magazine.

Anti-Israel is the New Pro-Israel

Michael L.

The Rialto Disgrace

Michael L.

CBS reports:

RIALTO (CBSLA.com) — School district officials in Rialto (California - editor's note) have received death threats in connection to a class assignment instructing students to debate the veracity of the Holocaust, according to reports Monday.

Rialto Unified School District officials first responded last week to reports of the assignment, which asked students to compose a written debate over whether the Holocaust was “merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain.”

The controversial question in the assignment read: “…write an argumentative essay, based upon cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe this was an actual event in history or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth…”

The district initially defended the eighth-grade assignment – which was one part of an 18-piece essay – as an exercise to help students “evaluate the quality of evidence made by advocates or opponents of an issue.”

I have been pondering this story for the last few days and did, in fact, call down there to give the Rialto Unified School District a little piece of my mind.  Although teaching students, even 13 year olds, something about the nature of propaganda in political discourse is probably wise, I have come to the conclusion that Abraham H. Miller, emeritus professor of political science from the University of Cincinnati, has the right idea.

He writes:

I am sure we can even find some racists and we could use them, as the current assignment does, for those vital some people and substitute the words, “slavery in America”, for “Holocaust”.

The same assignment would then read, For example, some people claim that slavery in America is not an actual historical event, but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain. Based upon your research on this issue, write an argumentative essay, utilizing cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe that slavery in America was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain(sic).

I seriously doubt if Martinez would run his fingers over his keyboard to defend any of that idiocy as being part of the assignment worthy of his school district. But Holocaust denial, that is a different story. Why? Because Martinez probably believes the existence of the Holocaust is controversial, and a controversial issue is suitable for that kind of debate

Here are some other topics that also would never make it to the assignment list in the Rialto School District: Is modern-day Islamic culture steeped in obscene violence? Write an essay, using critical thinking skills, defending or rejecting this proposition. Draw on explicit events such as the civil war in Syria, the riots in Cairo, and the recent kidnapping of female school children in Nigeria.

You think that one would get beyond interim superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam’s red pencil or that Sayeda Jafri, the district’s spokesperson, would be standing before the cameras defending it?

It could hardly be more obvious and Professor Miller is absolutely correct.  If the Rialto California Unified School District taught children to interpret the slavery of the Africans in the United States as perhaps a propaganda coup on the part of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. - "discuss among yourselves" - then I feel reasonably certain that not only would the African-American community have a major knipshin fit, but heads would role throughout the school district.

And if the district were to assign the question concerning Islam... anything could happen... including real rolling heads.

Just ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

By the way, beneath the CBS article is a mere 1,982 comments.

The very first one is this:

dontlethemfoolyou • 11 hours ago

In a land where there is freedom of speech. Everything should be debatable those who know the truth would not be afraid of a debate and would not call in death threats. Those who are afraid to debate are those who are afraid that something hidden might come out.

This gentleman seems to think that the reason that Jews oppose Holocaust Denial is because we have an insidious and hidden agenda with Jewish skeletons in the Holocaust's closet.

As readers of this blog know, virtually the entire side of my father's family was slaughtered by the Nazis in the Ukrainian town of Medzhybizh in 1942.

Did it actually happen or is it a matter of nefarious Zionist propaganda?

{Discuss among yourselves.}

The Fizziks Ostrich

Michael L.

One of the obvious things about the current political moment is that western anti-Semitic anti-Zionism and BDS primarily come out of the progressive-left.  There is nothing the least bit controversial about acknowledging this obvious fact.

Democrats, as a group, are considerably less supportive of Israel than are Republicans... and I say this despite the fact that I am very much not a Republican.  I do not have much against Republicans, I suppose, I simply do not happen to be one and I very much question their domestic policies.

In truth, I have been a life-long Democrat until I was pushed out of the party by progressive-left Democratic anti-Zionists.

But that does not change the fact that the progressive-left in the United States, and the grassroots-netroots of the Democratic Party, has betrayed its Jewish constituency through the acceptance of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger movement.

What amazes me is the inability of intelligent progressive-left Jews to acknowledge the obvious.

There is a well-meaning and intelligent young man, here in northern California, who goes under the moniker of "fizziks."   Fizziks, if I am not mistaken, is a student of physics at one of the prominent northern California universities, perhaps UCAL Berkeley.

He is also a good-hearted liberal and Democrat who simply cannot bring himself to face the very clear fact that his own political movement has betrayed not only himself, but the Jewish people more generally; and not just the Jews, but women, Gay people, and all non-Muslims throughout the Middle East.

The progressive-left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party, have failed to meaningfully acknowledge the rise of political Islam.

The progressive-left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party, whip up hatred toward Jews who live where neither Barack Obama, nor Mahmoud Abbas, want them to live.

The progressive-left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party, erase Jewish history through failing to acknowledge that Judea and Samaria are historically Jewish land.

Fizziks is a commenter at John Haber's Divest This! blog.

In a recent exchange between himself and a commenter who goes under the name charles Bane, Jr. we read this:

charles Bane, Jr.
April 4, 2014 at 3:33 pm # 

Also, it must be faced squarely— and I have never seen it done so in any media outlet— that BDS is fast becoming a part of “progressive” orthodoxy. No prominent Democrats condemn it, which is like permitting a healthy patient to be injected with cancer. 

To which fizziks replied:

fizziks
April 6, 2014 at 3:42 pm #  

That’s BS. Almost every prominent Democrat condemns BDS. Who do you think controls the Maryland and New York State legislatures, who have passed or are about to pass the most vociferous anti-BDS measures?

It boggles the mind that at this late date intelligent Jewish Democrats can still not bring themselves to recognize that the primary challenge facing the Jewish people today is anti-Zionism and that anti-Zionism in the west is primarily expressed through the progressive-left movement and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party.

For reasons of their own, far too many progressive-left Jewish Israel supporters simply cannot bring themselves to face what is before their very eyes.  Why this is the case we can debate, but that it is the case is simply beyond question.

Jewish progressives like "fizziks" are seeking to deny that which is undeniable.  Almost all the significant organizations and venues and magazines and blogs, in the west, that are associated with anti-Zionism and hatred toward the Jewish state of Israel are also associated with the progressive left.  This includes, among many other places, Daily Kos and the Huffington Post and the UK Guardian and the Obama Administration and minor, insignificant organizations like the European Union.

Both the Obama Administration and the European Union are whipping up hatred for the tiny Jewish State of Israel.  Obama did it through blaming the Jews of the Middle East for majoritarian Arab hatred toward us and the EU does likewise and both are essentially left-wing organizations.

Fizziks, like many Jewish Democrats and "progressives," for ideological reasons simply cannot bring himself to acknowledge the obvious.

It is not just sad and wrong-headed, but dangerous to the well-being of the Jewish people.

Needless to say, of course, fizziks is not alone.