Across the country this week, concerned college students on over 100 campuses took part in the largest conservative student protest in history. The Terrorism Awareness project, founded by prominent conservative activist David Horowitz, organized workshops, film screenings and protests as part of the group’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.
The event spurred useful dialogue concerning the extreme threat that militant Islam poses to our nation. Conservative campus groups and liberal student activists alike attended IFAW events to engage in well reasoned, peaceful, intellectual debate about the merits of the Terrorism Awareness’ message.
Conservative student activists saw Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week as an opportunity to present a historical analysis of terrorism perpetuated against the West by radical terrorists — who happen to be Muslims. Their goal was to shed some light on conservatism’s national defense policy. IFAW organizers used workshops to defend their use of the term Islamic Fascism; conservative speakers, like Horowitz and Dennis Prager, attempted to make speeches explaining the dangers of appeasement in American foreign policy.
Liberal student groups saw Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week as an opportunity to showcase their ability to scream really loud, disrupt events and throw temper tantrums. Their goal was to bully and silence their ideological opponents; you know, those racist fascists on the Right.
This week at Emory University, Horowitz was escorted off the stage by police after only half and hour of speaking because chaos erupted in the auditorium; additional police units were called in after officers on the scene could no longer control the rowdy liberals. Leftist organizations, like Amnesty International, Veterans for Peace, the Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and the National Project to Defend Dissent & Critical Thinking in Academia — pause for irony — used “loud chants, sign-waving and disruptive gestures” to effectively silence and censor the conservative viewpoint.
Emory’s Prof. Mark Bauerlein saw the disruptive protests as counter productive to dialogue: “Even the students who did not agree with David Horowitz did not get a chance to speak their minds because of the protesters’ disruptive actions … No one was able to listen to the lecture or to speak themselves — pro or con — everyone was shut down.”
Tossing around slews of obscenities trumped intellectual debate at Emory.
Sadly, for campus conservatives, censorship is nothing new.
In the past, liberal “intellectuals” have thrown pies at conservative speakers, like Ann Coulter ’84 and Horowitz, as they delivered speeches to packed auditoriums.
Last year, police officers had to escort Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist out of a Columbia University auditorium after a large group of liberal protesters stormed the stage during his speech.
Liberals have replaced engaging in intellectual debate with name calling. The issue at hand could range anywhere from immigration to switching to the gold standard and liberals could still find a way to condemn the conservative position as racist, bigoted, anything-phobic and fascist (shortly before violently removing the conservative from the debate).
Not one argument has been made that logically challenges IFAW’s comparison of the fascist and jihadist ideologies. Liberal criticism of the Terrorism Awareness Project has been rooted in emotion, rather than logic. While liberals are quick to denounce the Religious Right in America as fascist, they criticize the term “Islamofascism” because it applies the title to only one religion. They see the term as an indictment of the Muslim religion.
But an event like IFAW could do more to harness a greater understanding between Americans and Muslims. The moderate Muslims that I hear so much about — but rarely see — should embrace, rather than protest, IFAW. Doing so would put a greater distance between mainstream Islam and Islamofascism, by severing any connection to such a hateful ideology.
The IFAW does not endorse a racial claim that all Muslims are terrorists. Practically speaking, however, all terrorists that have visited violence upon the West since the early 1980’s — Timothy McVeigh is a notable exception — have been Muslims. Since the U.S. embassy in Iran was seized in 1979, over 20 violent terrorist attacks have been visited upon the United States alone. IFAW’s goal is to expose the true roots of this particular brand of terrorism.
Islamofascism is a term that applies to the violent and (truly) hateful ideology that has been embraced by radical Islamic militants; there is no term more appropriate.
Fascism is defined as “a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.”
Islamic extremists’ primary aim is the creation of a global state ruled by one Caliphate; any challenge to the ruler of the world would be met with extreme suppression. Under this state, all people would be forced to convert to Islam or live in a state of even lower subordination. Radical Islamists also embrace racial hatred, inherent in the fascist ideology. Practitioners of heathen religions, like Hinduism and Judaism, are considered unworthy of life by these religious fanatics.
Islamic terrorists have wholeheartedly embraced what Christopher Hitchens has called “Fascism with an Islamic Face,” in their fight against the West. It is not, as liberal academics, like Ward Churchill have asserted, an “anti-colonial” struggle. To confuse these two ideologies is a most fatal mistake; it is the same mistake that the CIA made when they aided Osama bin Laden in his fight against the Soviet Union. Islamofascists do not just want the United States out of the Middle East; they want our brand of liberalism replaced with their brand of fascist domination.
The United States finds itself in a similar position as the free world of 1939; we are fighting an ideological battle that can only result in the death of liberalism or the eradication of Islamofascism. The Terrorism Awareness Project’s goal was to remind people of this fact; it is too bad no one could hear them over all the irrational yelling.
Bill McMorris is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at bmcmorris@cornellsun.com [1]. Heartless, Not Stupid appears alternate Wednesdays.
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[1] mailto:bmcmorris@cornellsun.com