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Overlooking the Elephants in the Room
West Michigan became the scene of an imported brand of Middle Eastern conflict over politics and religion recently when Nonie Darwish, a member of the nonpartisan Young America's Foundation (YAF) speakers bureau, presented her view of the world at a lecture organized by the College Republicans in my town.
The YAF speakers bureau includes such colorful personalities as Patrick Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, Rick Santorum, John Ashcroft, Ward Connerly and Ted Nugent.
After September 11, Darwish, 59, an Egyptian-born author, activist and translator, decided to speak out against her own Islamic culture because she felt it perpetuated hate against the Jews in the Middle East.
"I learned that hate, vengeance and retaliation are important values to protect Islam and Arab honor," said Darwish, recalling her education as a young girl. "Self-criticism or questioning Arab teachings and leadership was forbidden and could only bring shame, dishonor and violence open those who dared try. Peace was never an option and never mentioned as a virtue."
In her speech, Darwish also railed against Arabs and radical Islam for causing Israeli-Palestinian tensions and pointed to verses in the Quran that invite Muslim violence against non-Muslims.
Darwish came to the United States 15 years ago. She is the daughter of Lt. Col. Mustafa Hafaz, an assassinated Egyptian guerrilla leader of the fedyadeen, a terrorist group that regularly raided Israel.
In addition to the 30 students who attended the lecture, Darwish drew another 15 - 20 peace activists from the local community who were there to protest her message. At first they were silent but as Darwish continued her 45-minute diatribe, they reacted to her with audible snickers and gasps of disgust.
The Q&A was even more surreal. Darwish ignored the students who were seated in the front half of the assembly room and instead turned her attention to the protesters in the back. She first called on two Pakistani Muslim men who argued with her over the details of Muslim life and religion. Then she called on two peace activists.
The students in the room remained largely silent and puzzled by what was transpiring before their eyes until Darwish finally called on one student who asked something on the order of Rodney King's plea: "Can't we all just get along?"
The organizers of the event were noticeably flummoxed by the response of the audience and struggled to know what to do. However, they had admirably adopted a free speech platform and maintained it, especially when two unarmed security guards suddenly appeared to calm down a couple vociferous peace activists who came very short of being thrown out.
After her speech, a small crowd surrounded Darwish to ask more questions, point more fingers and poke more holes in her arguments. The guards, at the prompting of the student organizers, eventually escorted Darwish out.
The evening's program had become one filled with fiery affect lacking in intellectual content and ending up quite a distance away from the intended forum for "enlightened thinking" the organizers attempted to provide.
An English major might characterize the scene as a post-modern drama complete with many obscure levels of context, irony, paradox and identity politics.
It was sad to see the peace activists forget their mission of nonviolence and react rudely to Darwish. They could have been more effective by simply maintaining a silent demonstration in protest to her message.
Equally troubling is the College Republicans' reliance on the YAF, which purports to furnish the aspiring conservatives with political savvy and organizational strategy. What it seems to do instead is to divide the world up into liberals and conservatives and to foment antagonism against liberals.
For example, according to the YAF website (www.yaf.org), the "nonpartisan" group provides conferences, internships and resources to promote the conservative agenda on college campuses and strategies for countering "leftist tactics against your speaker."
The YAF suggests ways students may "maximize funding from the university and private supporters" who would presumably be against them and their politics. It also has a program that teaches students how to fight "anti-military bias and misinformation" by leftists who "continue to belittle our armed forces and to prevent as many students as possible from participating in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and from speaking with military recruiters."
The YAF sponsors the "9/11: Never Forget Project," which it began in 2003 after it discovered that "most college campuses were either completely ignoring the anniversary of the terrorist attacks or scheduling a politically-correct activity instead."
Ronald Reagan is the group's standard bearer and his creed is "the centerpiece of the student programs." The YAF proudly touts its role in the preservation of the president's Western White House, Rancho del Cielo, as a "living monument to Reagan's lasting accomplishments."
Actually, what the student audience's nonplussed reaction to the event perhaps makes clear as we ramble along in this first decade of the twenty-first century is that arguing about religion and politics has become pointless, especially when we refuse to deal with the "elephants in the room" like $4 per gallon oil, two wars we won't end and can't win, global warming, food shortages and price hikes, unprecedented species extinction, sub-prime mortgage failures, crumbling infrastructure, violent weather patterns and destructive earthquakes.
It's time for all Americans to turn the page on the old politics and to start working on the new challenges we face in our world.
Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of social justice and religion. Her website is www.OlgaBonfiglio.com. Contact her at olgabonfiglio@yahoo.com.
15 Comments so far
Show AllEqually troubling is the College Republicans' reliance on the YAF, which purports to furnish the aspiring conservatives with political savvy and organizational strategy. What it seems to do instead is to divide the world up into liberals and conservatives and to foment antagonism against liberals.
Sounds a lot like class warfare to me. I thought 'conservatives' were opposed to that. I suppose it depends on which side is under attack. Or perhaps it's like U.S. military operations where all opposing defenders are 'illegal enemy combattants'.
It's funny that these people talk about the violence of Muslims, while backing a Christian country with the most violent foreign policy in the world, which has been the case for decades. Sure, there are wonderful platitudes to justify it ("communism", "war on terror", etc), just like the USSR was ALWAYS protecting workers democracy while they were usually putting those workers under their boot. In the end, Europeans and their offshoots are a violent people who are in no position to lecture others on the subject, and their religion has been used just as much to justify that violence. America's religion isn't Christianity, it is consumerism and greed, and it's actions emerge out of this.
What would the wonderful peace activists have to say about King Leopold of Belgium, responsible for about 10 million deaths in the Congo? Here's what he said to CHRISTIAN missionaries in 1883, as those missionaries worked with the private and state corporations to kill & maim innocent people, while stealing every resource they could get their hands on, the proceeds of which largely built up Belgium society). Again, this man was responsible for possibly 10 million innocent people's death:
"Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots:"
"The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. You will go certainly to evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgium interests. Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already… Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world… For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. To avoid that they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you…Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like "Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven" and, "It's very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God." You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us… The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience… Evangelize the niggers so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists… And make sure that niggers never become rich. Sing every day that it's impossible for the rich to enter heaven."
"Enlightened thinking" seems to be missing in places other than the forum at WMU.
This is another form of rightist violence. No guns, knives or clubs . . . just that corrosive, explosive reactionary anger and resentment that leads someone like Coulter (the Leni Riefenstahl of the American far right) to call John Edwards a faggot; or leads George Wanker Bush to unleash "Shock and Awe" upon the hapless Iraqis. The thrill of violence is equal to primitive acquisitiveness for these ideological, street brawling thugs. GOP does not stand for Grand Old Party; it stands for Gangsters On Parade.
YAF (formerly "Young Americans for Freedom") is about as non-partisan as Fox News or Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Also about as legitimately grass-roots. Like Voltaire, they would be willing to point out that the (presumably even-handed)law prohibits rich and poor alike from sleeping under the bridges of Paris. Unlike Voltaire, they have no sense of irony.
So Nonie is another AIPAC-backed female....So now Irshad and Ali-Hirshi has more company. Islam bashing is ok....Israel bahing is a big no-no..(ask Finklestein and Mckinney)
There's a word for Darwish. It's "Quisling."
The other night I handed an anti-war missive to a skinny teenager wearing a black tee-shirt with that photo of Che Guevera on the front. He just sneered at me while balling it up. I stopped another kid who was wearing a "Slippery Rock" tee-shirt, and told him that a friend of mine used to work at that university. He had no idea what Slippery Rock was, and that someone had given him the shirt. They wear WVU tee-shirts around here, and when you ask them which year they graduated or what was their major, they just look at you and say "huh?"
Maybe another elephant in the room should be national stupidity.
There's a word for Darwish and it is propaganda. She could have said exactly the same things about Christian or Jewish fundamentalism and been just as right. Anything as out of balance as this address is clear propaganda. Best ignored.
It is not surprising to read that YAF is up to its' old tricks. After all, it was founded by William Buckley and pursued an aggressive pro-conservative on campus agenda. One of their ploys was to disrupt rival groups meetings, then deny it but snidely add, "I would buy them lunch," when a student newspaper would ask them about it. What is truly scary is that these clowns have wormed their way into academia. The head of YAF during my time at the University of Southern California, Wayne Bowen, is now a history professor. Google him and be scared.
"It was sad to see the peace activists forget their mission of nonviolence and react rudely to Darwish."
Oh puulleease! Ms. Bonifilgio is making the classic, middle-class liberal mistake of confusing pacifism with passivity.
But yes, it is laughable that positive values in US society, like "vengence" (AKA "justice" or "self defense") and "honor" somehow are turned sinister when applied to Arabs. This is classic racist orientalism, and Ms. Darwish is a self-hating Arab.
Good point, rjmart01 (3:43PM).
Self-debasing confessionals, whether under the auspices of an early-20th century minstrel show ("yass suh, we wuz awways lookin' fer white wimmen") or the very partisan YAF, demean and dehumanize both speaker and listener.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are faulted enough without having to resort to distortions. But, then, as miftin's (6:53 PM) anecdote so eloquently points out, this is very much becoming a nation of dumbed-down, Foxed-over zombies.
http://www.minimovie.com/film-128295-Welcome%20Back,%20Clinton
"I learned that hate, vengeance and retaliation are important values to protect Islam and Arab honor," said Darwish, recalling her education as a young girl. "Self-criticism or questioning Arab teachings and leadership was forbidden and could only bring shame, dishonor and violence open those who dared try. Peace was never an option and never mentioned as a virtue."
WELCOME TO BIBLE COUNTRY!
At the core of it all: The sole, historic Jewish nation, Israel,is a tiny bit of land in the midst of vast Arab nations. They previously ceded a good portion of that land, and the response was only to demand yet another chunk of Israel. So, 10% for the Jews, 90% for the Arabs. Normally, Americans, and especially the more progressive among us, would be calling for the support and protection of any minority nation facing such extreme odds, one step away from being obliterated by a far bigger, richer enemy. But not this time. The complaint is that the Jews displaced the Palestinian Arabs (who had displaced the Jews before that). I really don't understand the anti-Israel line of reasoning. How much land should the Israelis give to the Arab nations? Then, where should the Israeli Jews go?