This coming Monday, brace yourself for the excitement and thrills brought to you by the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” beginning Oct. 22 and ending Oct. 26.
This fun-filled week will feature an array of speakers, films, enlightening literature and the opportunity to participate in a sit-in. Student organizers can choose from a delightful list of speakers, including:
Mark Steyn, a man who calls himself a “culturalist” rather than a “racist” for finding Western culture preferable to Arab culture and who supports immigration with the condition of assimilation
Phyllis Chesler, a professor of women’s studies who wrote of the new anti-Semitism, which essentially encompasses anyone opposed to Israel’s policies
And, if you’re really lucky, like students at the University of Southern California, Ann Coulter, who once referred to Muslims as “ragheads” and is now apparently crusading for Muslim women’s rights.
The point of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is to spread the word about what Horowitz calls the two “Big lies of the left,” that President Bush created the War on Terror and that global warming is a bigger problem than the threat of terrorism to our national security. Horowitz, author of the Academic Bill of Rights and a proponent of bringing a “diversity” of viewpoints to the college campus, totes the week as one which will bring attention to suppression of women’s rights and Islamic attacks on Christians, Jewish peoples, gays and atheists. And of course, who better to discuss gay rights than suggested speaker Rick Santorum, who once compared consensual gay sex to polygamy and incest?
The Freedom Center will provide all materials necessary to any college student willing to host a week at their campus, including a pre-made petition – which unabashedly invites Muslim student associations to support the freedom of Americans from Muslim terrorists.
Horowitz warns that some college administrations, which he has criticized for years as supporting viewpoint discrimination in favor of liberal perspectives, might “refuse necessary permits or room reservations, and otherwise demonstrate their hypocrisy by failing to allow patriotic students a voice on campus.” Because as you can see, this is what it means to be patriotic, supporting the complete and utter insult on our intellect this conservative-think-tank-fueled week brings to us.
As I have expressed before, I am certainly a proponent of free speech and recognize Horowitz’s right as any other citizen of this country. However, I also believe in considering the source, and Horowitz’s ill-researched and often nonsensical tirades reflect the content of his Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. He and the speakers he suggests participate in this “consciousness-raising” event all have similar political agendas, and as far as I am concerned, those agendas resonate with intolerance and fear in order to perpetuate the dichotomy of those who love freedom and those who do not.
According to the Terrorism Awareness Project’s Web site, where you can download a guide to hosting the events, the University of Minnesota is a participating school. I hope that if this is the case, although I could not find a sponsor or event listed on any campus Web sites, students remain vigilant in their interpretations of the meaning behind the message.
Chelsey Perkins welcomes comments at [email protected].
