Penn College Republicans associate with hate group…to inform about terrorism? Yeah, right.
October 22, 2007 – 3:59 pm —
Even though the Republican Party did its best to try and move voters away from supporting Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections, Americans finally saw through the thin veneer of scare tactics and voted them out of power almost a year ago. Given that it didn’t work then, the far right wing has resorted to trying to scare people even more this time around. The ridiculously-named Terrorism Awareness Project is an organization fronted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Its namesake is one of the foremost contributors to the conservative movement that began back with Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, and the organization itself (under its previous name, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) is listed by the Southern Law and Poverty Center as a hate group:
David Horowitz, a former leftist born again as a right-wing conservative, founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in 1989, and is also the editor of the Net publication FrontPageMagazine.com.Although he makes much of his past working for civil rights for blacks and others, he more recently has blamed slavery on “black Africans … abetted by dark-skinned Arabs” — a selective rewriting of history. He also claims that “there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians — Englishmen and Americans — created one.” That, of course, is false. Critics note that Horowitz is ignoring everything from the slave revolt led by Spartacus against the Romans and Moses’ rebellion against the Pharaoh to the role of American blacks in the abolition movement.He has attacked minority “demands for special treatment” as “only necessary because some blacks can’t seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,” rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism.
With the far right generally venting xenophobic, racist screeds against Islam and its practitioners in general for several years, it’s not a surprise that someone like Horowitz would come up with the idea of something titled Islamofascism Awareness Week. Its mission?
The purpose of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is as simple as it is critical: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the “war on terror” and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than global jihad and Islamic supremacism.
What becomes plain and simple - aside from an excuse to broadly paint Islam as the religion of terrorists - is that Horowitz and his like are more interested in promoting a political agenda against ‘the political left’. The thinly veiled shot at Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Al Gore with the reference to global warming makes it abundant that ‘Islamofascism Awareness Week’ is not meant to be a serious conversation about the threats of global terrorism today, but a chance to push the same old political scare tactics. The hatred coming forth from the website, though, is disconcerting: the front page itself declares former president Jimmy Carter (also a Nobel Peace Prize winner) waging a ‘war against Jews’; and it states that the Muslim holy book, the Qu’ran, advocates wife beating - a verse that appears to be open to wide interpretation, depending on the translation. In addition, students holding these events are encouraged to show the discredited ABC documentary The Path to 9/11. It’s clear that this organization is not interested in facts or impartiality.What’s the connection to Penn? Islamofascism Awareness Week happens to be this week, and the University of Pennsylvania happens to be one of the campuses where this weeklong ‘protest’ is occurring. It’s being renamed ‘Terrorism Awareness Week’ to make it more politically palatable on campus, but it probably wouldn’t be around if the posters at the aforementioned link were to be posted on Locust Walk.And who’s sponsoring the event? None other than the Penn College Republicans, who decided to come out of extended hiding to host this event throughout the week (apparently, though, they can’t be bothered to update their website with this information). They’ll be holding two events: a panel discussion with Daniel Pipes, Dr. Stephen Gale, and Ed Turzanski, and a speech by former Sen. Rick Santorum. One should not be deceived by the ‘panel discussion’ as a true debate between noted experts. Daniel Pipes is an associate of David Horowitz, an advisor to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign and has been called America’s leading Islamophobe. Dr. Stephen Gale hails from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an organization based at Penn that has an activist agenda that has supported America’s ‘democratization project’ in Iraq. Ed Turzanski, despite being called a ‘terrorism expert’, is nothing more than a partisan hack (Edit: Turzanski is no longer scheduled to appear and has been replaced by Poli Sci professor Ian Lustick). And there’s no need to introduce Santorum, a politician who suffered the worst defeat in a senatorial election by a Republican in state history (losing by 18 percentage points to Bob Casey).It’s not exactly a star cast that’s been put together, but they’ll be on campus to spread lies and disinformation this week about Islam and terrorism. If you’d like to attend these events, the ‘panel discussion’ will be in Huntsman Hall this evening, while Santorum will be making a speech Wednesday evening in the Hillel building. It’s sure to be interesting, but undoubtedly far from the truth.
5 Comments
The term “Islamofascism” is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who knows anything about fascism knows that fascism necessarily requires the presence of a state, while the terrorists labeled as “Islamofascists” are basically stateless. My theory is that the ones who popularized the term (i.e. Bush & Co.) did so in order to have a monopoly on the term “fascism” and in turn avoid having it (arguably legitimately) applied to themselves by others.
Dear Asuka:
You know, you’re right.
I mean, if you discount the slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team in 1972,
and the Achille Lauro hijacking,
and the 1993 bombings at the World Trade Center,
and Sept. 11, 2001,
and the Entebbe hijacking in 1976,
and the USS Cole bombing,
and the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya,
and the nightclub bombings in Indonesia,
and the European riots over the Muhammad cartoons,
and the Islamic youth riots in France,
and the Iran Hostage Crisis,
and the bombing of the airliner over Lockerbee,
and the murder of Daniel Pearl in Iraq,
and the angry mob of Somalis dragging the corpses of US servicemen through the streets of Mogaduishu,
and the Spanish train bombings,
and the London Subway bombings,
and the flaming car driven into the airport terminal in Glasgow,
we have absolutely NOTHING to fear from Muslims!
Thanks for setting me straight. How could I have drawn such a ridiculous and uniformed conclusion equating Muslims with terrorism?
Boy, am I a sap!
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
F. Valente,
Islamic religious fundamentalists were associated with those terrorist attacks. However, that does not mean all Muslims should be thought of in the same manner. It also suggests that because these attacks continue (and keep going due to the occupation of Iraq), we should be trying a different approach to dealing with terrorism instead of the same thing over and over again.
Muslims Against Sharia,
I find it hard to congratulate Horowitz and Co. when so many of the speakers can be easily discredited. Take a look at their website, and it becomes clear that the goal is not to have an honest discussion about terrorism (or even radical Islam); the goal is to demonize Islam as a whole. The whole ‘project’ is hard to see as anything else.