July 19, 2010

by Bill Levinson

To: Tufts University Committee on Student Life (Dean Reitman)
cc: President Bacow, The Primary Source, Tufts University Board of Trustees

As reported by Ben Shapiro in “Stalin-Esque Show Trial At Tufts University,” disciplinary action was brought against the Primary Source, a conservative campus newspaper, for “Islam: Arabic Translation: Submission.” We have just read a copy of “Islam: Arabic Translation: Submission” at http://www.thefire.org/public/pdfs/f102e5ae4168a0125d295748d41d0558.pdf?direct and it contains nothing but 100 percent facts about militant “Islam,” such as the death fatwa on Salman Rushdie and the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia.

There is nothing whatsoever in this document that the Muslim Student Association should have found offensive unless, of course, it condones and agrees with the human rights violations and atrocities described. As reported by Mr. Shaprio,

And the CSL swallowed this gibberish whole. Barbara Grossman, the radical left chair of the CSL, compared printing the carol ["Come All Ye Black Folk"] to spray-painting a swastika on a synagogue. Another CSL member stated that labeling Islam violent was unacceptable in any way, shape or form.

We condemn the CSL’s actions, and especially the statement “Labeling Islam violent is unacceptable in any way, shape, or form” as morally equivalent to Holocaust denial. Traditional Holocaust denial consists of denying that any Jews (or Poles, Gypsies, and other non-Aryans) were murdered during the Second World War, or denying that Armenians were murdered in 1915. Other forms, however, involve (1) acknowledging a genocide or atrocity but blaming it on someone other than the known perpetrators (e.g. 9/11 conspiracy theories), (2) downplaying the atrocity, and (3) suppression of public discussion of such atrocities and human rights outrages under color of authority. From where we sit, Tufts University’s Committee on Student Life engaged in the latter activity. Pastor Martin Niemoller said that the Nazis came for him when nobody was left to speak up about them, and the CSL’s attempted disciplinary action against the Primary Source served to enable 21st century Nazis who would prefer that nobody speak up about their activities.

The CSL’s actions were in fact far worse than what we inferred from Mr. Shaprio’s original report. We were under the impression that the CSL took action against the Primary Source for a disrespectful spoof of unsavory behavior by militant “Muslims,” but what the Muslim Student Association apparently found “offensive” consisted of factual reporting with journalistic references.

Author Salman Rushdie needed to go into hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa calling for his death for writing The Satanic Verses, which was declared ”blasphemous against Islam.”

The seven nations in the world that punish homosexuality with death all have fundamentalist Muslim governments.

In Saudi Arabia, women make up 5% of the workforce, the smallest percentage of any nation worldwide. They are not allowed to operate a motor vehicle or go outside without proper covering of their body. (Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2001)

The Islamist guerrillas in Iraq are not only killing American soldiers fighting for freedom, They are also responsible for the vast majority of civilian casualties.

Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Sarnira Bari’s eyes in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 following a heated argument about her refusal to have sex with him. (Herald Sun)

In other words, the CSL attempted to discipline the Primary Source not for a disrespectful spoof of militant “Islam” (which would still have, in our opinion, been a misuse of its authority) but for publishing documented facts about militant “Islam” including its treatment of genuine Muslims in Iraq as well as women.

Holocaust denial enables genocide by suggesting to the perpetrators that the world will look the other way instead of holding them accountable. Hitler cited the world’s indifference to the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of Armenians when he said he planned to do the same thing to the Poles. The CSL has similarly enabled torture, rape, femicide, female genital mutilation, and terroristic violence in the name of Islam by assuring the perpetrators that nobody, at least not at Tufts University, will hold them accountable in the court of public opinion. Here are examples of what the CSL wants us to think are (1) not violent and/or (2) not being done under color of Islam.

As reported by Rachel Reid in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704288204575362980304254578.html, you may need a subscription to view this), “The Taliban War on Women Continues.”

“We as Taliban warn you to stop working . . . otherwise we will take your life away. We will kill you in such a harsh way that no woman has so far been killed in that manner. This would become a good lesson for women like you who are working.” When Fatima K. received this letter she was terrified and left her job. Such messages—called night letters, since they are delivered after dark—are a common means of intimidation used by the Taliban.

When 22-year-old Hossai received similar threats by phone from a man saying he was with the Taliban in Kandahar, she refused to be bullied. She loved her job at the American development company DAI, and her salary supported her family. But one day in April Hossai was shot by an unknown gunman as she left her office. She died from her wounds. A few days later another woman in Kandahar received a night letter. It demanded that she give up her job, or else she “will be considered an enemy of Islam and will be killed. In the same way that yesterday we have killed Hossai, whose name was on our list.”

As reported by Dr. Phyllis Chesler’s “The Horrors of Islamic Gender Apartheid,” http://www.israpundit.com/archives/24973

““If your head scarf slips off, if you bring non-Muslim friends home, if you wear makeup, if you learn to drive a car, if you marry a non-Muslim, if you choose your own spouse without family approval, you can become a primary target for an honor killing”, she said. Clearly, women who have been raped, those who commit adultery or those who are considered insubordinates by their families have also met their end at the hands of male relatives who believe the family honor has been shamed by the actions of these women.

Honor killings are not limited to Islamic countries in the Middle East says Dr. Chesler as she spoke about the alarming rise in such gruesome murders in Europe and North America. “The average age that a young girl will be honor murdered is only 17 and the average age of a woman who will be honor murdered is 36? she said. Having meticulously studied over 230 honor killings with the inclusion of detailed statistics about the perpetrators, their locations and ages, Dr. Chesler concludes that most of these women experience draconian tortures and are gang raped by their male executors prior to being stabbed to death and then burned. “54 percent of these women were tortured before being murdered and 83 percent of girls under the age of 18 in Europe were viciously tortured before being put to death” she intoned.”

The Committee for Student Life took the position “Labeling Islam violent is unacceptable in any way, shape, or form” to propose disciplinary action against the Primary Source: disciplinary action that President Bacow wisely overturned before it could make Tufts University a pariah. To the best of our knowledge, the CSL never retracted or repudiated the statement “Labeling Islam violent is unacceptable in any way, shape, or form.” The truth is that, although the vast majority of people who call themselves Muslims are not violent, almost everybody who invokes religion to justify the worst imaginable violence calls himself a Muslim. Furthermore, the man-bites-dog exceptions who call themselves Jews or Christians are almost universally deranged lone actors as opposed to members of an organization or society that sanctions and even encourages their actions. The individuals who crashed the airplanes into the Twin Towers were not chanting “Shma Yisrael,” “Hare Krishna,” or “Jesus Saves,” and nothing the CSL can say will make this fact go away. Finally, most victims of the mindless violence in question are (spectacular examples like 9/11 to the contrary) Muslims as shown above.

We assume that Tufts University and the CSL support the right of women in all countries to be free from domestic violence (e.g. so-called honor killings under color of Islam), female genital mutilation as supported by militant “Islamic” culture, terroristic threats from the Taliban under color of Islam, gang rape and murder under color of Islam, and death by stoning under Sharia or militant “Islamic” law, but the CSL’s actions show exactly the opposite. The CSL’s speech-chilling statement that “labeling Islam violent is unacceptable in any way, shape, or form” enables violence against women, including kidnapping and rape, by suppressing information about what might happen to them if they go to a country under militant Islamic rule, especially as the wife and therefore “property” of a male. This is exactly what happened to Phyllis Chesler; she was a college undergraduate when she married a man who took her to Afghanistan, where she was kidnapped and imprisoned. This is something that Tufts women need to know about for their own protection.

Even though the CSL’s efforts to discipline the Primary Source took place in 2007, the CSL has never retracted or repudiated the statement in question, or apologized to the Primary Source and the Tufts community for its actions.

Tufts University’s Committee on Student Life: “Labeling Islam violent is unacceptable in any way, shape, or form.” WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS, THEN?