Making A Full Assessment of Our Effort to Expose and Defeat David Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week."
Friends and Colleagues,
We have only begun to get a full picture of the overall impact of our efforts - and those of many others - to expose, oppose, and politically defeat David Horowitz's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW). But our initial sense is that a great deal was accomplished by those who came forward to challenge the agenda behind the call for IFAW.
We urge everyone receiving this as an email to visit www.defendcriticalthinking.org and become familiar with what we've been able to compile so far about the response to IFAW, including:
· thoughtful articles by Barbara Ehrenreich in the Nation; by Gary Leupp, Sunsara Taylor and Yifat Susskind at Counterpunch; two important pieces at The Huffington Post; Maureen Dowd’s Op Ed piece in the 10/17 issue of the New York Times, and many others;
· while our press spokespeople were underutilized overall, Chris Hedges and Sunsara Taylor were interviewed by both WBAI in NYC and WORT in Madison, WI. The U. of Washington Daily interviewed Reggie Dylan and Michael Medved and put the comments head to head in a piece the day MM was speaking there. This led to Larry Everest appearing for an hour on Michael Medved’s radio show hours before MM’s speech;
· resolutions, statements, and numerous articles in campus newspapers, including thoughtful letters from students to the Columbia Spectator and other campus papers, and petitions such as the one from UC Irvine - "Islamo Fascism Awareness is Week is a Cover for Politicized Attacks on the Foundations of Academic Freedom at UCI and Across the Nation;" and from New Orleans protesting Ann Coulter’s appearance at Tulane;
· reports of forums organized in opposition to IFAW, including three that we helped to organize at UCLA (with Peter McLaren, Juan Gomez-Quinones, and author Larry Everest, moderated by Reggie Dylan); at UC Berkeley (with Larry Everest and a UC Berkeley grad student and lecturer); and at DePaul (with DePaul political scientists Scott Hibbard and Dr. Khalil Marrar, John K Wilson, and Raymond Lotta);
· protests at the speaking events sponsored by the Young Republicans, and more.
We've heard that "The Hypocrisy of 'Newly Minted Feminists'…And David Horowitz' Dangerous Agenda" by T. Redtree that appeared in Revolution newspaper and is available at our site and at www.revcom.us was widely circulated on campuses around the country, and contributed to deepening the debate.
And the publisher of Susan Falludi's new book The Terror Dream allowed us to post a segment of the book at our website. In the segment the author exposes the way that the Bush regime manipulated the concerns of the women's movement about the treatment of women under Islamic rule to win its support for the invasion of Afghanistan, only to drop any pretense of seeking to overcome this oppression the moment the war was launched.
We know there is much more to learn about what took place this week, and this is crucial to being about to fully evaluate what was accomplished; learn from and build on the whole experience; and find the ways for the National Project to work with the many new forces, among faculty and students, who stepped forward.
We’re asking everyone reading this to join in this effort:
· Send reports through our site, or directly to criticalxthinking@yahoo.com about activities you helped to organize and / or took part in, or know about;
· send us the way to link to important articles, letters, statements and petitions that appeared in print and at on-line magazines, websites and blogs, as well as other media coverage, that we missed;
· share your thoughts about the forums we organized, and write us about others we aren't aware of;
· send your impressions of the events that were held by IFAW organizers that you were able to attend and the way they were politically challenged;
· let us know how well we did at making www.defendcriticalthinking.org the resource and organizing center it needed to be, and what more is needed;
· And most importantly - let us know your impressions, thoughts, and analysis of what took place and what was accomplished – by IFAW; and by our efforts to oppose it.
The National Project to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia tried to focus our efforts on bringing forward an informed opposition that would be able to respond to IFAW with facts and the truth. We had an understanding that there were both strategic as well as more immediate objectives for why Horowitz organized IFAW – strategically to further intimidate and chill dissent and critical thinking on the campuses by equating any opposition to what the U.S. has done and is preparing to do in the name of its "war on terror" as support for terrorism, and bringing forward a social base for this view. And more immediately, IFAW was intended to prepare public opinion and mobilize a base of support for a possible attack on Iran.
As with any concentrated, national provocation like this, IFAW brought forth a whole range of activities and responses, organized and carried out by a whole range of forces.
One sign at the campus protest before Ann Coulter's appearance at USC read, "Thank you, Ann, for uniting Jews, Christians and Muslims." (LA Times, 10/25/07)
Of course people like Ann Coulter and David Horowitz were met with protests. They are despised for their aggressive support for the Bush regime's worst crimes, and for their vicious attacks against anyone who dares to express opposition to them. And of course Horowitz is now crying "foul" because of the way students and others at Emory University in Atlanta stood up and turned their backs on him.
In "Leftist Brown Shirts Shut Down Horowitz Speech at Emory" (10/26/07) Frontpagemag.com says "The National Project to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia…was present in full force at Emory" and describes fl˙yers that were apparently downloaded from our website. And it reports that "a statement by Students for Critical Thinking at Emory University" said "Ignoring his appearance on campus will not stop the spread of Islamophobia in the country and will continue to allow for dissent and critical thinking to be equated with treason."
We're still trying to learn more about what took place at Emory, have received letters both condemning it and upholding it, and we welcome the debate taking place at the campus paper the Emory Wheel, and now at Insidehighered. But we recommend that no one accept David Horowitz's summation, or let that set the terms of the debate. Horowitz’s M.O. of portraying himself as David battling the Goliath of the "tenured left" was unavoidable, and started weeks before IFAW even began.
IFAW represented a real and dangerous challenge, which could not be allowed to go forward unopposed. Our initial sense is that we are in a stronger position for having challenged it. And that the efforts of The National Project contributed to exposing Horowitz's attack on critical thinking, dissent and academic freedom by raising people's understanding of what he represents.
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