Horowitz's Latest Hate Campaign Heads for Campus

Spreading Awareness or Smearing a Religion? Horowitz's Latest Hate Campaign

Heads for Campus

By Gary Leupp

Created Oct 11 2007 - 9:19am

With much fanfare, a collection of far-right ideologues backed by right-wing

"think tank" money are proclaiming an "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" on

college campuses beginning Oct. 22. It is a calculated effort to vilify

Islam in general, place Muslim Student Associations on the defensive, and

generate support for further U.S. military action in the Islamic world.

Muslims constitute about a quarter of the world's population and around two

percent of the U.S. population. They include members of many ethnic groups.

Arabs are a minority in the Muslim world; the most populous Muslim countries

(Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh) are non-Arab. The Muslim world is complex

and divided, religiously (into Sunni, Shiite, and other groups) and

politically. There are Muslim absolute monarchies, constitutional

monarchies, secular states and Islamic republics. To understand this world,

one needs to dispassionately examine it, avoiding stereotypes.

But immediately after 9-11, the Bush administration, having no patience with

"nuance," set about trying to link the secular republic of Iraq with the

(mostly Saudi) al-Qaeda religious fanatics. It believe that having been

attacked by al-Qaeda most Americans would support an attack on the

completely unrelated target of Iraq. But what did al-Qaeda and Iraq have in

common? The former hated the latter for its suppression of Islamic religious

activism, and its tolerance for Christians and other religious minorities.

But somehow Bush was able to conflate the two, so that even today about a

third of Americans believe Saddam was involved in 9-11. Those on the

Christian right are most inclined to this view, and to embrace sentiments

like those expressed by right-wing extremist Ann Coulter in National Review

Sept. 13, 2001: "We should invade [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and

convert them to Christianity." But they're joined by secular

neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz who has called on Bush to bomb Iran,

which he calls "the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology."

Iran is another country with no ties to 9-11 or al-Qaeda, and indeed a

mortal enemy of the latter. But it is another Muslim state in the Bush

administration's crosshairs, along with Syria-yet another, very different,

Muslim country. It's in this context, and that of general disillusionment

with the Iraq War, that the radical neoconservatives are pushing this

"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." It's the brainchild of David Horowitz,

professional "former leftist" and Fox News commentator, proponent of the

Iraq War who called one antiwar demonstration in 2002 "100,000 Communists,"

and author of a book attacking college professors as "far left" in general.

He founded (as a non-student in his 60s) "Students for Academic Freedom"

which insists that conservative students are treated unfairly in academe.

Horowitz is known for his 1990s ads in student newspapers protesting calls

for reparations for slavery, stating that African-Americans should be

thankful that they're here. In 2003 he maligned Rachel Corrie, killed by an

Israeli military bulldozer while protesting a house demolition in Gaza, as a

"terrorist" supporter. He is not about spreading "awareness" but selectively

focusing on aspects of the Muslim world that might produce sympathy for more

U.S.-sponsored "regime change."

The "Islam-Fascism Awareness Week" strategy is apparently to focus on gender

inequality in the Muslim world. Participating students invite women's groups

and gaylesbian groups to get involved, hoping to build a united front of

general indignation at Islamic oppression of women and gays. Of course, in

the Muslim world the status of women varies; under Saddam's secular Iraqi

women were subject to no dress code, were among the best educated in the

Arab world, and served in government, while under U.S. occupation their

status (and that of gays) has plummeted. There is a big difference between

the status of women in Syria and in Saudi Arabia. Recall how Laura Bush made

a big deal about the burqa in Afghanistan, implying that the U.S. invasion

would somehow remove it? It's still worn by the great majority of Afghan

women. It was not invented by the Taliban and has not disappeared just

because the U.S. has installed a client regime.

The term "Islamofascism" itself---popularized by Eliot Cohen (Condi Rice's

deputy), Frank J. Gaffney and other neocon writers for the National Review,

and used by President Bush in saber-rattling speeches---is highly

problematic. It's defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as "a

controversial term equating some modern Islamic movements with the European

fascist movements of the early twentieth century." I teach every year

Japanese fascism in the 1930s and 40s. I discuss different definitions of

fascism, pointing out how some seem to fit the Japanese case, while others

don't, causing some scholars to even reject application of the term. But

there is precious little in any mainstream scholarly definition of fascism

that applies to the Islamic world in general or even specific countries.

What "ideology" links the disparate targets of this administration-the

al-Qaeda and Taliban Sunni fanatics, the Baathists of Iraq and Syria, the

Shiite mullocracy"guided democracy" of Iran---other than the common

denominator of Islam? But you can't in polite company attack Islam in

general, so you dub it "Islamofascism."

Those seeking to link contemporary Islam with European fascism emphasize

feelings of victimization and dreams of restoring lost glory. But where in

the Muslim world is the charismatic leader? Bin Laden? The Baathists and

Shiites hate him. Where's the mass-based party? Where's ultranationalism or

racism? Islam emphasizes the equality of peoples before God, while the

Qur'an explicitly states that righteous Christians and Jews will enter

Paradise.

The real intention here is to couple "Islam" with a powerful epithet, devoid

of analytical content, conjuring up images of a universally detested past.

Bush insists on comparing the constitutionally weak Iranian President

Ahmadinejad, leading a country that hasn't attacked another in hundreds of

years, with Hitler (as his father compared Saddam to Hitler). Similarly, the

proponents of the "Islamofascism" concept want to play upon emotions rather

than really spread "awareness." Their historical analogies are absurd, while

their planned week is more than an affront to Muslims. It is an insult to

everybody's intelligence.

(This post originally appeared in the Tufts Daily.)

_______

About author Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of

Comparative Religion, at Tufts University and author of numerous works on

Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu [1].

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson