Ohhhhhhhhh fuck you, BBC.
Today’s must-read
Brandeis University’s decision not to bestow an honorary degree on a women’s rights advocate and outspoken critic of the Islamic faith has generated a firestorm of criticism from conservative media outlets.
Bullshit. Not just conservative. I’m not conservative, Kenan Malik is not conservative, plenty of people who have written about this are not conservative.
Ms Ali would go on to start a foundation to assist women in the West who were the victims of religious oppression, and she would occassionally have harsh words for the faith of her childhood.
In 2007, Ms Ali told Reason magazine that Islam needs to be defeated: “I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars.”
Statements like these were cited by those who objected to Ms Ali’s appearance at Brandeis’s commencement ceremonies. On Tuesday they prevailed, as Brandeis announced that it “cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values”.
The decision was denounced by conservative commentators.
But not exclusively conservative commentators, you stinking weasels.
Such things certainly can make for strange bedfellows…
Actually, I’m torn on this, and what the BBC points out is exactly why.
On the one hand, I’m a proud, unabashed antitheist. I don’t just dislike religion, I abhor it. I like faith even less. So, in my view, the stronger the criticism, the better. Hell… I’ve outright trolled Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus… even Jews!… based on some of the bullshit spouted, and angrily counteracted the more bigoted shit spouted by them.
But Hirsi Ali has also taken sides with Sam Harris and others when it comes to profiling and such. Look at how she’s quoted in the article:
No we really aren’t, and that’s the problem. I’ll go ahead and admit a burgeoning anti-US bias, but the truth is that we are “at war” with enemies that we created. We funded Saddam Hussein. We funded Osama Bin Laden. We fucking trained the 9/11 hijackers on how to fly planes.
We are the Jack Shane of the world. Basically, we throw guns at other countries, tell them to pick up the gun, and then shoot them because “they had a gun”.
We’re the bad guys.
So when Hirsi Ali says “we’re at war with Islam”, that’s complete bullshit. The whole reason we’re one of the least popular countries in the world is because our foreign policy is based almost entirely on being bullies.
This is, of course, not to downplay the horrid abuses of human rights happening in Islamic countries. And I value Hirsi Ali’s voice to that end. It’s shit that needs to be called out. And of course, as an antitheist, I would actually give my life if my sacrifice would indeed mean the near-immediate end of religion and the relegation of holy books world-wide to museum shelves as historical curiosities; more the better if such an end would include an end to all <i.accepted bigotry. Though of course it wouldn’t be immediate because the only sure-fire way to achieve such an outcome is through education (which is why fundies fear it so much).
But we don’t seem to be at war with Christianity despite the human rights abuses happening in Christian countries around the world (including right here in pockets of the US). So why is Islam especially picked out?
For the record, Brandeis is run by fucking cowards. Hirsi Ali fucking deserves this honor and that they caved to CAIR is just pathetic. They should be ashamed of themselves and I hope this plagues their reputation for as long as Brandeis exists, assuming they don’t reverse their decision with a full, honest, and tearful apology.
But that Hirsi Ali has found friends amongst conservatives and, yes, actual Islamophobes (for the record, I don’t consider Hirsi Ali an Islamophobe… I have said in the past that I do, but I was wrong), bugs the hell out of me.
The word “accepted” above… in the phrase “accepted bigotry”… should be italicized, to emphasize it.