Whatever Happened to “Don’t Trust Anybody Over 30?”
October 21, 2007 By President Susan Thistlethwaite
David Horowitz and his Freedom Center are trying to manufacture a campus movement to “raise awareness” on college campuses that Americans are “under siege” from radical Muslims “at home and abroad.” Is David a firebrand student leader? Well…he was, when he was a Marxist student leader in the 1960’s. Now, converted just as passionately to conservatism, this nearly 70 year-old-man is the driving force behind “Islamofascism Awareness Week”, a web-driven effort to convince college students to host events, using free films and speakers provided by Horowitz and company, in order to “expose” a grossly exaggerated “Islamic threat”.
This is an organized effort to actually try to create religious intolerance on college campuses. It’s truly an amazing thing to realize that while the rest of us are working as hard as we can to promote religious pluralism, increase tolerance, reduce threat and grow the conditions that make for peace, these folks are working so hard to go the other way.
I hope college students still believe you shouldn’t trust anybody over 30, because they need to passionately reject Horowitz and his destructive project of funding the growth of hatred. Now, I’m old too (though I’m a lot younger than Horowitz), and I’m old enough to have been a student leader in the anti-war movement at Smith College. I can tell you that if some old guy had come along in 1969 offering slick “guides” on how to run our anti-war protests, the Smith women would have run him out of Northampton. I think they still would.
The good news is that many of today’s students are no less savvy than Smith women in the 1960’s about what they want on their campuses and what they don’t want. Students at George Washington University are organizing against “Islamofascism Awareness Week” and there are dozens of other campuses following their lead. They don’t want the razzle-dazzle guides on how to create religious intolerance. They want religious pluralism
One of the things I particularly resent about the screaming “Terrorism Awareness” website is that a lot of it is cast as “oh, look how badly Muslims treat women!” On the homepage there is a link described as follows: “The booklet that you are about to read details some of the principal ways in which women suffer in the Islamic world – often with religious and cultural sanction. Many of these crimes against women, such as wife-beating, are ordained by the Qur’an itself; others, such as female genital mutilation and honor killing, are praised by Islamic clerics and hallowed by Islamic culture.”
We women can speak for ourselves, thank you very much. The irony here is that of course this man will lift up violence against women only when it serves a larger political and social agenda of preparing the country to accept yet another war. I’ve spent thirty years struggling with the Judeo-Christian sanctions of violence against women and David Horowitz has had no part in that struggle. You want to end violence against women, Mr. Horowitz? Justice for women, like all justice struggles, begins at home. Start at your house and your own religion and leave others alone to do the same.
What we learn from websites like “Terrorism Awareness” is that the evils of intolerance, hatred and finally the consummate demonic force of war don’t just happen. They actually have to be created and sustained through the infusion of time, money and genuine creativity in order to sabotage the forces of religious tolerance, community and the drive to build a more decent world.
When I use the word Satan, this is what I mean, I mean the marshalling of human energy in the service of destruction of all that is good, right and true.
Not all old dudes are bad, but consider that one of the words used for Satan is “the old serpent”. Think about it.
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October 23rd, 2007 at 6:22 am
“Honor” killings are believed to have their origins in misinterpretations of pre-Islamic Arab tribal codes. They pre-date Islam by centuries and, in fact, are un-Islamic.
Nonetheless, it is the case that, of the U.N.-estimated 5,000 “honor” killings globally per annum, the overwhelming majority occur in Arab/Muslim countries and in Arab/Muslim immigrant communities elsewhere. So there is a correlation, but no causality.
I recently conducted a nationwide attitude and opinion survey of “honor” killings in Jordan. One of my many findings is that over 20% of the people in my representative sample believe Islam tells them they must avenge affronts to family honor through murder. Islam says no such thing. But, obviously, there is an opportunity in the mosques and in the schools to correct this deadly misperception.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”
October 26th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Muslims Against Sharia congratulate David Horowitz FREEDOM CENTER and Mike Adams, Tammy Bruce, Phyllis Chesler, Ann Coulter, Nonie Darwish, Greg Davis, Stephen Gale, David Horowitz, Joe Kaufman, Michael Ledeen, Michael Medved, Alan Nathan, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Daphne Patai, Daniel Pipes, Dennis Prager, Luana Saghieh, Rick Santorum, Jonathan Schanzer, Christina Sommers, Robert Spencer, Brian Sussman, Ed Turzanski, Ibn Warraq and other speakers on the success of the Islamofascism Awareness Week.
Islamofascism (or Islamism) is the main threat facing modern civilization and ignorance about this threat is astounding. We hope that this event becomes regular and reaches every campus.
A great many Westerners do not see the clear distinction between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism). They need to understand that the difference between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism) is the same as the difference between Christianity and Christian Identity Movement (White Supremacy Movement).
Original post
October 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Man, my applause to the above two masterful comments, by ERS on the horror of honor killing prevalent in the Umma, and by Muslims Against Sharia on the apparently willful ignorance of the West concerning Islamism, which blow the nutty, equivocating, and derisive position of President Susan Thistlethwaite, out of the water. Susan, you may be a very educated academician, but concerning what the real dangers are to yours and everybody else’s freedom are you are really dumb. I think I figured out what it is that militant leftists and socialists find attractive in the Jihadist’s perverted notion of Islam: they both hate Christianity and seek to destroy it or at least totally compromise it. But, Susan, be careful after he consuming the Christian, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, i.e., Islamism, will devour you too. Susan, it is very worrisome that altered minds such as you are in positions of influence at schools such as the Chicago Theological Seminary. Your warped understanding of evil serves evil, misleading them into believing that what is black is white and, what is evil is good.