Resisting Horowitz-o-Fascism at Columbia
By Deena Guzder
David Horowitz spoke this Friday at Columbia University on-of all things-the alleged threat of "Islamo-Fascism." A cunning decoy, “Islamo-Facism” is simply a distraction from our country’s real problems: the ongoing pandemonium of the Iraq war, which has served as a cheap pretense for a broad assault on our civil liberties, including the violation of habeas corpus, condoning of torture, and rampant racism against Arabs and Muslims. Most disturbingly, the war has given into self-defeating pathologies of hatred and, according to a declaration from 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has made the world less safe and less free. The adoption of pejorative misnomers such as “Islamo-Facism” obscures these real issues as well as reduces Islam’s millions of adherents to stock caricatures.
Given the current climate of fear mongering where Islam is demonized in a knee-jerk fashion, Columbia students must vocally denounce Horowitz’s politically strategic campaign of misinformation. As the leader of the movement to strangle independent thought at US Universities, Horowitz’s use of the word "fascism" is Orwellian doublethink at its worst. Doublethink is a type of duplicitous manipulation of the mind that makes people accept dangerous contradictions. One such contradiction is Horowitz’s penchant for blacklisting and besmirching liberal intellectuals while haranguing his entourage about the dangers of “fascism.” Suppressing opposition to and criticism of the status quo is the real fascism that should worry Columbia students.
While I steadfastly believe in the rights of free speech, let us not forget the real threat posed by Horowitz’s agenda. Indeed, Horowitz has found his forte in manipulatively exploiting his audiences’ latent stereotypes but never resorting to overtly racist epithets, which is nothing more than a crafty tactic allowing him to conveniently discharge all accusations of bigotry as "reactionary." It is no surprise that Horowitz’s deceptively innocuously named "Center for the Study of Popular Culture" has received around $4 million in grants from the Bradley Foundation, which is known to subsidize pseudoscientific studies such as Charles Murray’s racially incendiary book, The Bell Curve. Nothing better reveals the implicit racism embedded in the scaffolding of Horowitz’s arguments than his own infamous Ad against slave reparations, which he sent to 73 college campuses across the nation during the year 2001. It is no surprise that both Columbia and Harvard rejected the ad, as did dozens of other Universities: The ad suggested African Americans actually benefited from slavery, "The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery" and, more disturbingly, suggested they were already compensated through welfare, " . . . trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits . . . If trillion dollar restitutions . . . for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a ‘healing,’ what will?" Horowitz strategically aided the metastasis of bigotry by spreading the patently false and deeply repulsive claim that African Americans benefited from slavery (presumably because they would wreak havoc if left to their own devises) and all African Americans are on welfare (ostensibly because they are a bunch of lazy guttersnipes predestined to leech off the State). Columbia students must carefully assess where they stand on these issues and voice their opinions loudly.
When Horowitz spoke at Columbia two years ago, his fondness for inflammatory statements was loudly on display when he made the ridiculous argument that Oprah Winfrey’s success empirically supports his theory that there is no racism against African Americans today. Horowitz, through a sloppy act of verbal-jujitsu, not only made a statement lacking any syllogism whatsoever but also, in a shifty job of triple alliteration, belittled the audience’s ensuing guffaws as the "snide snickers of affirmative-action loving lefties." Repeatedly referring to Oprah as "a fat, Black woman," Horowitz continued to argue that Oprah’s success in reaching the top of the socioeconomic ladder "proved" that African Americans are "obviously" no longer mistreated by Whites. The same logical fallacy would imply an affluent Muslim in India belies the claim of anti-Islamic sentiments amongst Hindu nationalist or a successful Jew in France is testament to a lack of anti-Semitism in Europe.
Part of Horowitz’s activism is a mass effort to pass his so-called "Academic Bill of Rights," which is part of a conservative backlash that aims to control what is written and taught at our academic institutions. It would establish outside oversight of curricula and teaching as well as stifle discussion of "controversial" topics. And his confederacy of student organizations, under the misnamed banner of "Students for Academic Freedom," encourages students to report on their professors. Can we say "McCarthyism" loud enough? According to David Horowitz, every liberal from Jimmy Carter to Rashid Khalidi to Bruce Springsteen to Barack Obama is ingeniously connected in a lethal leftwing conspiracy to none other than Osama bin Laden as delineated on his notorious website www.discoverthenetwork.org , which features unflattering mug shots of America’s most progressive pundits accompanied by scathing ad hominem critiques of their political views. In short, Horowitz’s website seeks to mount pre-emptive character assassinations against any individual with whom the reactionary political commentator disagrees.
Horowitz’s current activities are just as reprehensible and odious. In a recent book, "Hating Whitey," Horowitz attacks African American civil rights activists as being anti-white racists. Putting aside the transparent absurdity of such an inversion of reality, Horowitz’s book completely ignores the fact that there are more interracial friendships and relationships now than ever. There’s no better place to start such research than the same progressive US college campuses that Horowitz enjoys lambasting. I, for one, am fortunate to have a group of friends as heterogeneous as the United Nations’ General Assembly.
Perfecting the trite political art of self-victimology, Horowitz consistently plays the "I’m a silenced conservative" trump card; however, he never revealed that streams of tax-exempt money created and keep his center in business. In 1997 alone Popular Culture received over $1.2 million from the Scaife, Olin and Bradley Foundations, the core of the far right’s funding apparatus for its propaganda in the US.
While I am uncompromisingly committed to any individual’s right to express himself freely and the prerogative of student groups to bring speakers of any ideological stripe, Horowitz would do well to remember the words of George Orwell in Notes on Nationalism: "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." Columbia students should let him hear about these atrocities loudly and clearly during the remainder of “Islamo-fascism” week. And we students must tell Horowitz that “Islamo-Fascism” is nothing but a bogeyman distracting us from the real monster in our midst: the mind numbing loss of life in Iraq and wanton degradation of civil rights at home.
The author is a Columbia Graduate School of Journalism ’07, Columbia School of International & Public Affairs ’08, and organizing member of the Columbia Coalition Against War
Photo courtesy of AP
nice babbling rant!
Immature and rude name calling, dishonest smears & phony accusations against David Horowitz (and anyone who you disagree with) without any substance…
Why don’t you say it in 2 sentences & save all of us time! :>
“Due to political correctness (i.e. fear of retribution- violent & otherwise) it is verbotten to critique Islamist racsim and supremacism. However, feel free to smear Westerners, espeically Americans & even more so, Republicans as racists & supremacists.”
Yes, academic freedom & free speech to criticize anyone*.
*Except for Muslims.
“…rampant racism against Arabs and Muslims.”
Where?! Serious question: WHERE? America is perhaps the most non-discriminatory nation in the world, which is one reason hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of desparate people from foreign lands risk all each and every year to reach our shores and start new lives here.
Deena… if America were indeed the racist nation veering towards fascism you seem to believe it is, there would have been pograms against Muslims – official and unofficial – starting on 9/11/2001. Thousands, tens of thousands, with government involvement hundreds of thousand and perhaps millions would have been dragged kicking and screaming from their homes, places of work, and most definitely their Mosques, and beaten half to death – or worse – prior to being imprisioned or expelled.
“…the current climate of fear mongering where Islam is demonized in a knee-jerk fashion…”
Again… what the HECK are you rambling about? What alternate reality do you inhabit? (Oh, yeah… Columbia University… forgot.) (*GRIN*)
Seriously… just the opposite is true. The government, the media, and both public and private academia have done everything in their power to force home the message that “Islam is a religion of peace” and that by its nature the religion and its followers are no more violence prone, dangerous or hostile than followers of any other religion.
Anyway… David Horowitz is a big boy and can defend himself. My problem with your essay isn’t that you attack Horowitz, but rather, that you base much of your arguments on false premises.
BILL
good points Bill….typical Columbia student America-bashing…
wah
wah
i wanna be just like the 60’s rebels!
wah
wah
i wanna be like jerry rubin
:>
Deena: Great, well-written post! Thank you for putting this out there. Your points are dead-on… And you know they are because of the predictable, poorly reasoned backlash you received. It’s enraging for these folks to hear the truth spoken so convincingly.
Actually most of Deena’s “points” are disingenoous, sanctimonious and hypocrtical.
one quick example:
Deena writes:
Perfecting the trite political art of self-victimology, Horowitz consistently plays the “I’m a silenced conservative” trump card; however, he never revealed that streams of tax-exempt money created and keep his center in business. In 1997 alone Popular Culture received over $1.2 million from the Scaife, Olin and Bradley Foundations, the core of the far right’s funding apparatus for its propaganda in the US.
so if your’re a conservative who is being silenced you are “Perfecting the trite political art of self-victimology”
but if you’re an Islamist or an anti-American propogandist who also takes in US taxpayers money becuase you’ve established a non-profit, then you can whine about being silenced with impunity.
the hypocrisy on the left is sadly the reason for the dismal failure of the Iraq anti-war movement
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/625/widespread-negativity
Interesting.
BILL
Sorry to say it, but I think if America is the most non-discriminatory nation in the world, it doesn’t say much for the world or for America. I think there’s a danger in falling into mythologies. We shouldn’t rest on any small laurels the nation has won in its progress. America continues to have racism in its institutions and systems–any statistics on prisons and poverty will show this. We should be sedulous in our efforts to make the land we live in more ideal. We have to be suspicious and critical of those who would obscure the progress that yet needs to be made to establish a just society. Anyone who would say that we don’t need to worry any more about racism is propogating a dangerous myth. Anyone who says that we don’t need to worry about discrimination against Arabs or Muslims, Jews, Indians, Latinos, blacks, conservatives, liberals, Columbia students (that last one was a joke) is propagating a dangerous myth. We have to worry about silencing voices. We have to be careful not to dismiss anything. But as much as we should not be dismissive, we should be discerning. Discerning, too, of ourselves, our immediate reactions to another’s opposite opinion, fight the impulse to ridicule and dismiss, and train ourselves to honestly engage, to seek the truth and what’s right, and again, to be truly sedulous about improving our nation, and what are the discourses that are effective, that move toward improvement, toward the ideal, and what are the ones that create division or degeneracy and perpetuate stagnancy.
Ari, you wrote, “I think if America is the most non-discriminatory nation in the world, it doesn’t say much for the world or for America.”
We agree. It doesn’t say much for the rest of the world. Furthermore, we agree that America is far from perfect. There… isn’t it wonderful when two people can find common ground? (*GRIN*)
“Mythologies?” “Small laurels?” You mean like (to reiterate) for example the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of desparate people from foreign lands who risk all each and every year to reach our shores and start new lives here?
Ari. Wake up and smell the coffee. (Fair trade I hope!) (*WINK*) Again… no one is saying that America is perfect; I simply note that in comparison to most of the world – even with all our faults – we’re a beacon of hope and role model to the world.
Are you a student? Undergrad… grad? I ask this because whatever your academic or career credentials, I hope to hell that when you operate in the real world you don’t rely upon strawmen rhetoric such as “America continues to have racism in its institutions and systems–any statistics on prisons and poverty will show this.”
If you wanna talk prison stats… we can change topics and do that… but the various stats and theories encompass a bit more than “it’s racism!” (*GRIN*) And as to poverty… throughout much of the world – perhaps most of the world – what we here in the United States consider “living at or below the poverty line” would be a vast improvement in terms of hundreds of millions of peoples daily lives.
You write, “We should be sedulous in our efforts to make the land we live in more ideal.” Well, Ari… after looking up the word “sedulous” I can tell you I heartily agree! (*SMILE*) That said… perhaps you and I might have some differences of opinion on what we consider “ideal.”
No one is saying we don’t have to worry about racism. That said, racism is a minor problem at most in modern American society. Hell, if I were a kid again applying for undergrad admission or grad school or going for my first corporate or government job… I’d sure as hell rather be able to check off “African American” on the application rather than “Caucasion” (and certainly more than “Asian!”) given all other factors being equal.
As to discrimination against Jews… you’re kidding… right? I don’t know if you’re of Arab descent or not, but either way, let me ask you… is it the position of the 2007 Left that a) Jews control the media, banking, blah, blah, blah… or, b) America is one step away from creating our own Nuremberg Laws? (Sorry if my tones sounds condescending… but you must see the irony of including American Jews with other minority groups.)
Indians? I frigg’n LOVE Indians! Some of my best friends are…
(O.K., enough kidding around. I’ll address you seriously.)
Sure, Americans get all bent when our warranty calls get routed to India… but com’on… in my neck of the woods Indians are the new Jews… the new Asians. What I’m saying – slightly tongue in cheek – is that the Indian kids are the ones the white middle class parents are pointing to saying, “why can’t you be more like Sanjay so you can get a scholarship to an Ivy League school some day,” when addressing their own iPod and texting addicted kids.
Arabs… (whom I’ll admit, many Americans seem to get confused with Sikhs)… yeah, no doubt, the average American is a bit wary of. But that’s human nature. Bottom line, the average American is worried about security vis a vis “terrorists” and yes, either consciously or unconsciously willing to “profile,” but when it comes right down to it…
Let me put it this way: Have you watched “Aliens In America” on the CW tv network? Yeah… it’s a tv show. Yeah… it’s a sitcom. But Ari… it’s also closer to what America really “is” at its heart than any “In The Heat of the Night” 1950’s era southern America version you still may believe is in play.
BILL