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Indybay Feature

Hatred and Ignorance on Display for "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"

by ~Bradley (bradley [at] riseup.net)
This report is published to raise awareness and as a call out for people to counteract the messages of hate, ignorance and bias on display at UC Santa Cruz and other college campuses.

Three young men sat behind a table in the Baytree Plaza at UC Santa Cruz on October 22nd as part of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." The men and their table of hate-charged literature denouncing Islam were largely ignored for the hour they sat in the plaza. The table had a black, green and red sign for "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," glossy booklets and a petition about "Islamo-Fascist Jihad."

A student disgusted with the table looked at the literature, read some quotes out-loud and then asked the people behind the table if they believed the statements made in the booklets they were hoping to hand out. The people behind the table were not in agreement with each other about the influence of the United States and Israel in Islamic Jihad. They also said that they did not really support or agree with a lot of what the booklets were saying.

The people behind the table said that on Wednesday, October 24, they would be showing a film called "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West." The screening is said to take place at 7pm at UCSC's College 8, room 240. I know that people are busy with life, school or skool and activist organizing, but it might be worth the time and effort to attend the film screening and counteract the intolerance advocated by David Horrowitz and several other hate-peddlers.
hate-table_10-22-07.jpg
The booklets were all a publication of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the titles and authors are as follows:
  • The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism and Islamic Jihad by David Meir-Levi
  • The Islamic Mein Kampf
  • What Americans Need to Know About Jihad by Robert Spencer
  • The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam by Robert Spencer and Phyllis Chesler
"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" (IFAW) is taking place at other campuses. You can see a flyer on Indybay by the College Republicans at San Francisco State University (SFSU) for "Terrorism Awareness Week". The National Project to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia has called for people to expose and defeat this reactionary offensive. Protests to expose and oppose IFAW are being organized at SFSU, UC Berkeley, UCLA and elsewhere.

This report is published to raise awareness and as a call out for people to counteract the messages of hate, ignorance and bias on display at UC Santa Cruz and other college campuses.
§Hate Literature
by ~Bradley
hate-literature_10-22-07.jpg
§Hate Petition
by ~Bradley
hate-petition_10-22-07.jpg
§Oppose IFAW
by ~Bradley
oppose-ifaw.pdf_600_.jpg
dct-mission.pdf_600_.jpg
Text of the Mission Statement
http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/About/page16/index.html

The National Project to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia
http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by yeah.
These folks are getting awfully loose with their self-entitled sense that they have the right to display swastikas in public...
by Adam Smith
It is a sad day for the left when they no longer stand for women’s rights, liberty, and sexual freedom.

Some of us are committed to those things, and will be taking part in Islamic Fascism awareness week.
by baffled
What is wrong with displaying swastikas in public? Don't you think context matters?
Burning a cross on someone yard is different than showing a series of photos of cross burnings, for example. Is it meant to demonize? Is it meant to intimidate? Is it meant to shock?
by An anarchist
I'm really tired of anarchists and leftists standing up time and time again to defend Islam, whose holy book, like the Bible, is one of the most violent and patriarchal "Holy" books of any religion. I don't understand how people who are on the lookout for the slightest bit of sexism in the US can ignore passages like this one:

YUSUFALI: Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).
PICKTHAL: Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.
SHAKIR: Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.

004.035

Fuck Islam and fuck organized religion. And fuck David Horowitz.
by Not Religion
"I'm really tired of anarchists and leftists standing up time and time again to defend Islam..." Organized religion may suck, but IFAW is only attacking Islam and Islamic people. We should all be standing up for people in our community and around the world who are being attacked based on their religion and beliefs. IFAW is spreading hateful messages and trying to isolate certain people. We should absolutely take a stand against the hateful intolerance of IFAW.
by another anarchist
I'm really tired of anarchists and leftists standing up time and time again to defend Islam..." Organized religion may suck, but IFAW is only attacking Islam and Islamic people.

So it would be better is they attacked everyone?

I see this as a message against fundementalism not against the religion as a whole.

IFAW is spreading hateful messages and trying to isolate certain people.

I haven't seen anything hateful yet- can you give us particular passages that were hateful?
You can't condemn truth- and Islam sucks for women and gays. And the Palestinian leadership in the 1940's collaborated with Hitler- the grand Mufti trained Bosnian SS troops.
by David Levy
This idiot claims to have been "born into a stalinist family", as a way of explaining why he was calling himself a "leftist" (not a moderate one either) for FORTY FIVE YEARS OF HIS LIFE.

He thinks college kids are stupid, like he was and they don't understand what they're talking about. He wants to "rescue" them from falling into leftist traps like he did.

He has no respect for college students and patronizes them for being too naive. He then engages in vicious Mccarthyism complete with publishing people's names with arrows connecting them to Bin Ladin, trying to get professors fired and others silenced through fascist intimidation.
by not the all purpose insult
Fundementalist islam is a problem, as is fundemntalist Christianity.
The best defense against people speaking crap is people speaking truth.
People having tantrums in public just doesn't cut it.
Plus, it gives them ammunition to use AGAINST us.
by scmoderate
"These people insult Islam and have thus forfeited their right to free speech. We are permitted to use any means theat we feel like to stop them from speaking."

Sorry, this is America, not the Sudan. We have freedom of speech here, including the discussion of Islam and Christianity, warts and all.

I don't like Horowitz and find his delivery ineffective, though much of his message is true. Either way, the man has as much right to speak as you do, even if you find his opinions abhorrent.
by Cesar
When gangs of masked people show up to prevent the exercise of free speech THATS FACISM!
by cp
Yes, Horowitz is the dummy. The vast majority of activists, and students (who often aren't active) were smart enough to avoid his mistakes.

His main story is that he worked with some people who called themselves black panthers in Oakland in the 70s. They weren't the main group, but a branch who were heavily involved in drug use and corruption. People there at the time say that *everyone* else saw this for what it was, and didn't associate with them, and instead participated in a broad variety of other efforts (in the same sense that barely anyone joined the Symbionese liberation army of Berkeley). Basically, you had to have something wrong with your judgment to stay with his little branch of the 'panthers' until the year he was.

But now he goes around claiming that he understands the true soul of the left (that it's maoist??), and he says he can authoritatively report what liberal students are thinking. Really, barely anyone made or makes the same mistakes as he did in his life of adopting an authoritarian viewpoint. Not to criticize anyone who accepts the commonsense economic observations that can be found in Marx, but there are so few students who join communist groups each year. Meanwhile, there are hundreds who are members of a variety of other progressive groups doing good work on issues.
by David Levy
Please look at this IFW response kit. It has excellent information.

http://www.campusprogress.org/page/community/post/Annika/CHnx
by Cesar
My English is pretty good when you remember that its not my first language. And I have seen these things before and thats why I talk
by cp
that's a straw man. Nobody is stopping anyone from speaking. Where in the above story is anyone stopping anyone from talking.
The real question to ask is why does Horowitz get to silence everyone else as he speaks? If someone else wishes to step up to debate the issues he brought up, they squeal that they are being censored. (I'm not exaggerating here. This is precisely what happened at a Horowitz event I went to. The college republicans made all sorts of threats that no one would be allowed to say anything during his talk, and no one did, and then he stomped off after the 2nd question during Q&A is a ridiculous fashion. We asked Tim Wise to debate him on the slavery issue, and Horowitz refused. By the way, Steve Sexton writing here is a right wing Washington Times reporter, and even he couldn't apologize for Horowitz's tantrum http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=4979 ).
by Your english.....
Fascism is from the Italian. In fact, it is spelled the same in espan~ol: fascismo

according to http://babelfish.altavista.com

...as in "Solo es nuestro deseo: acabar con el fascismo!"

...buddy.
by Adam
... Fascism Awareness Week.


No, make that Fascism Awareness Month!

Let's get some pamphlets out on David Horrowitz and the whole cult and culture of reactionary nationalism, corporatism and imperialist white supremacy that spawned him.
by putting the "whore" in horowitz
"don't get it
by baffled
Tuesday Oct 23rd, 2007 7:17 AM
What is wrong with displaying swastikas in public? Don't you think context matters?
Burning a cross on someone yard is different than showing a series of photos of cross burnings, for example. Is it meant to demonize? Is it meant to intimidate? Is it meant to shock?"

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