More from the shut-uppers at CAIR.
Writers and producers of “Honor Diaries” are standing by the film they made about abuses women face around the world, despite criticism it received from the U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), reported the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
CAIR called the film, which showcases nine Muslim women who speak about their experiences with honor practices such as forced marriage at young ages, denial of education and female genital mutilation, “islamophobic.”
It’s also forced marriageophobic, child marriageophobic, denial of educationophobic, and FGMophobic. So the fuck what? Shut up, CAIR. You’re not the boss of everything.
The controversy began after CAIR convinced officials at University of Michigan to cancel a screening of the film last week and then confirmed a second cancellation of the film showing at the University of Illinois.
[breathing flames]
Clinical therapist and activist on global women’s rights Zainab Khan who appears in the film says the organization is “utilizing tactics of censorship.”
“It’s completely dangerous and shows their mode of operation: bullying, scapegoating, censoring, avoiding issues.”
It is and it does. This organization needs to be seen for what it is, and people on the left need to stop treating it as some kind of equivalent of the NAACP or the ADL.
CAIR officials said it wasn’t censorship and that the organization had only informed sponsors of the documentary showing that the issues presented in the film were done so unfairly.
“The screenings were not canceled by CAIR,” said spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
“They were canceled by the screening sponsors after they were informed of the hate agenda and Islamophobic history of the film’s producers. Replacement events dealings with this issue are now being planned with the screening sponsors and actual representatives of the American Muslim community.”
And of course “actual representatives of the American Muslim community” means “people who are completely uncritical of Islam and act as amateur public relations staff for it.”
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, human rights attorney Paula Kweskin, a writer and producer for the film, said it was clear that the Muslim advocacy group had not seen the film in its entirety.
…
Kweskin said the inspiration for the film stemmed from the Arab Spring in 2011 when women were at the front of a lot of the protests. While supporters hoped that it would result in greater equality for women in the Arab world, it has not been the case. Women and children are the greatest victims of the ongoing conflict and women in Egypt are regularly victimized for protesting.
This film needs to be seen. Universities need to stop jumping when CAIR says jump.
Another own goal by CAIR.
Paradoxically this bullying censorship will probably just encourage more people to seek out the film, (which will be on the web soon enough), and CAIR won’t be able to provide “balance”, which they could at a public screening. The same applies to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s planned speech at Brandeis.
Surprising that CAIR and other such groups haven’t thought this through, as there is undoubtedly a sura in the Quran that, with correct ‘interpretation’, predicted the internet and its effects 1400 years before Tim Berners-Lee.
The Islamic public bodies are pretty much disliked in the UK. Every time they open their gobs now, the most popular newspapers reflect their readers’ reactions – which is, WTF are they moaning about now? If any representative Muslim now writes a Comment is Free piece in The Guardian the threads underneath will be overwhelmingly hostile. I think a few years ago they would have got more of a hearing.
You just knew it would come to this.
Women attempting to engage in self-defense against the more flagrant forms of islamist predations and misogyny will now simply be classed as bigots.
Muslim women complaining of their theologically inspired oppression are the real racists.
Self-defense on the part of Muslim women against Islamist aggression, no matter how justified and rational that self-defense may be, is all just bigotry.
And so we need to get all righteous and put an immediate stop to any and all attempts at self-defense on the part of Muslim women.
Yep…
CAIR’s ties with various islamist radicals and groups needs to be exposed to the disinfecting properties of direct sunlight.
^ This. Hear ! Hear!
BTW. Why do so many object so strongly to the so-called Jewish lobby advocating for their side and totally overlook the far worse CAIR and what it stands for, demands and does again? Hypocrites!
@2. kbplayer :
Same applies in Australia and I think most of the non-Muslim world.
@5
They’ve kind of oversold their victimisation, haven’t they?
We should encourage them in that endevour until they look utterly ridiculous and discredited.
CAIR in particular seems to be quite blind to its own sullied public image.
CAIR seems not to realize that they are employing the same tactic AIPAC uses to repress definitive and complete discussion of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Anybody who does not support their position is ‘anti-Semitic’. Anyone who doesn’t support government endorsement of religion is ‘anti-Christian’. Bullies worldwide use the same tactics and their speech is always the same.
As an active and engaged progressive, it also bothers me that other progressives, blinded by their commitment to the resistance to Israel in Palestine, refuse to see the same problems inherent in so-called defenders of Islam. I don’t see how any anyone committed to fighting oppression of women can entertain, even for a moment, that equal treatment of other cultures trumps oppressive behavior.
I know I am a day late to this, so please be understanding.The problem with such organizations and people like Ibrahim Hooper or any western convert to islam is that they have no idea what the culture is really about in the real muslim and arabic worlds, afterall they somehow believe in a reality that never existed or will exist: this wonderful and peaceful religion that are simply a work of fiction, and will oppose anything or anyone telling otherwise, their main job is to collect money from other muslims or muslim governments.l grew up in an area that saw honor killings as a necessary practice to solve the “problem”,I do remember the many times when innocent young women especially were victims of such a savage and degrading act.Most of the time the women are young ,17 -25 y/o, and not married and were just trying probably trying to escape an abusive enivronment of some sort.I do believe in many cases there were more than 1 victim , and I know someone will most likely be angry at me for saying this, of course the woman is the primary victim but also that young brother whom that barbaric culture pressured to “clean and clear the family name” by slitting the young woman’s throat in mid day light in the town center in broad day light.I am not defending the deed or perpetrator , I think it is subhuman and dehumanizing for him, but I have an an understanding of how things go over there.This is a true story by the way and it took place in the town where I grew up.Now I have given up on islam and any religion for that matter and don’t see any good in any, but I bel7eve that peolle many times when given a chance can start changing thngsfor the better.Issues like honor killing or status of women are only part of the problem there, and while some will just religion especially islam are the causes for such maladies , I have to say by experience it is bigger than that :I think the biggest problem in most of the muslim world is simply lack of individual freedoms for all and arule of one form of dictatorship or another:religious, military, tribal , economic or some combination of all. It would be nice to hear CAIR or other organiztions or individuals start distinguishing themselves from that part of the world and come up with real solutions to such problems and tell other western muslims to become a real part of their societies and focus on being good members and not to think of themselves as perpetual “victims of oppressive cultures”
It would indeed be nice to hear CAIR do that.
One group that does do what you suggest is British Muslims for Secular Democracy. Another is the Muslim Canadian Congress.
And no, I’m not angry with you for saying that, and I doubt others will be. I agree that brothers pressured into defending the family “honor” can be victims too.
The problem we have sometimes over herenwith western media and up to a degree with the societies is there is a tendancy to only wanting to show the 2 extremes:the denialist and self victimized muslims and organizations and some islam hating ex muslims who many times seem to just want to attack and vilinize anything or anyone related to islam and manny are willing to be in company of antiarab and neocon individuals and groups, while you rarely see figures like Zainab Khan ,Heina Dababhoy, Irshad Manji or Maryam Namazie on Western Media , such figures I believe do have a more balanced approach towards a better understanding of the situations. I remember the fascination with Wafa Sultan after appearing on Aljazeera arabic, but a lot of people focused on her attacking and criticizing Iislam and the arab world , but few peoplem paid attention little attention to her handling of the palestenian issue and how she always put the blame on the palestenians and really kissed up many times to pro israel groups in the USA , to me that showed how unbalanced her approach to the problem was. We have to remember that when we talk about such issues wevare also talking about human beings on both sides who have hopes, rights and aspirations . She is not alone, there are others too that are just plain wrong about the issues, I am not being insensitive to their individual experiences in islam and muslim cultures but many times seem to only hear advocation of hate and intolerance towards their cultures of innocence.
@8. That sounds just awful
@11.in case you are wondering this was and is still happening in the “wonderful and peaceful hashemite kingdom of Jordan” rule by the “american educated and friend of the west”(words you hear on some media outlets by certain talking heads in the US) his majesty and descendant of the prophet king Abdullah II “.Sorry I had to throw that in for this fellow and his family are really part of the problem as is the house of Saud , house of Sabbah in Kuwait , the Alaouite family of Morroco, the Khalifahs in Bahrain , the bloody and savage Assads of Syria and many others.And also to prove to anyone that these problems are deep in the culture of that part of the world , in Jordan christian families also practised honor murders (I think this a better term than killings)s , not as often as the muslims .l recall at least 3 instances when the victims were christian women.The Jordanian penal law is made to protect the men who murder those women , so they would only spend up to 1-3 years in prison , and when in there they usually become more religious and are respected by the rest of society.I remember back in 1992 when women groups were speaking louder about this malady,the chief medical examiner in the country was on TV talking about and because he said most of these women were innocent, he meant virgin, he received threats , accusations of being a zionist and western agent and calls to remove him .These things came from a variety of people , the typical self righteous islamist loosers, arab nationalist voices and even a few communists.Of course the king at the time, Hussein, kept out of the whole thing and shortly no one was talking about it.I know one thing for sure more and more people have given up on rule of goverment and national law and are resorting to traditional and oudated methods of dealing issues: dependence on clans Andrew extended families to resolve coflicts,violence and intimidation against “the weak ones”.That is why I don’t understand why some people here, new converts to islam per example, feel the need to defend that destructive culture without even having visted places like that
CAIR has a problem with Truth.
They hate it.