David Horowitz’s recent advertisement in The Brown Daily Herald is not my first encounter with his brand of argument. As Joshua Unseth ‘09 pointed out on BrownIvy.com (a conservative blog I adamantly invite the reader to peruse), Horowitz published in the Herald several years ago ten reasons why slave reparations were a bad idea. And, again, the Brown campus was uproarious.
In my letter to the Herald, I was equally impassioned. Having just read the ad (and I reveal that a few of my very good friends are of the Islamic persuasion) I penned a hot response. Conservative and liberal students alike have supported and rebuffed my words. Despite their comments, I stand by what I said.
However, an important clarification is in order. I set out to criticize the methods of David Horowitz and his organization, but not the essential message. To reinforce, I was not attacking freedom of speech. It was my opinion that the Herald, mindful of their advertising revenue, published something misaligned with the ideology of our paper and our academic community. That ideology is defined by open discussion and dialectical argument.
Keeping in mind this credo, I write this article to clarify my objections to Horowitz and to defend the core argument that he so egregiously eschewed.
September 11th catapulted the average American into the political sphere. It also launched the careers of a variety of seemingly perspicacious news analysts and talking heads. Horowitz is one example of this cockeyed crowd. In the face of hard evidence, however, his claims have been vanquished.
Horowitz’s wailing is ad hominem. Rather than attack the tenets of an insidious dogma, he attacks the character of Islamic university students. His bastardization of the term “jihad” insults the historical and cultural tradition of the word and, more importantly, debases legitimate disputation.
Moreover, the ad did not explicitly reference Brown’s Muslim Student Association. His mendacious generalizations cannot hold water unless he chooses to apply them in relevant contexts to specific individuals. Would one chide Brown’s Christian Fellowship group because Tufts’s Christian organization disallowed homosexual leadership? The question is rhetorical because the answer is obvious.
Unfortunately, his otiose explanations hamper and convolute meaningful discourse on the topic of Islamo-fascism. To be forthright (and to present a case unexpected by some readers), there are valid attacks to be made concerning “Islamo-fascism.”
Scottish writer Malise Ruthven popularized the term in a British newspaper in 1990. Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens eloquently echoed Mr. Ruthven’s characterization when he wrote that the attacks of 9/11 represented “fascism with an Islamic face.”
Connotatively, Islamo-fascism draws a comparison between the sinister ideology of Mussolini and Hitler and the malicious, Salafistic strain of Islam associated with Osama bin Laden. Interestingly enough, while Mr. Ruthven disagrees with categorizing Islam as equal in strict terms to Islamo-fascism, he finds their similarities persuasive.
And the comparison is forceful. For one, Hitler professed to be the harbinger of a master race, destined to “cleanse” Europe. In the same way, Islamic fascists struggle against non-believers. That is, by no accident, the Arabic translation for “jihad,” a struggle.
It comes as no surprise then that Islamic jihadists view their calling as comparable to the heinous goals envisioned by the German Nazis. Both ideologies preached absolute superiority over the “inferior” races, brutal annihilation of any opposition, and cowardice under the guise of courage.
Extremists in Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan embrace a sort of vox populi, vox dei mindset. They think themselves God’s handpicked servants. As such, they have little hesitation in killing themselves for their beliefs and even less vacillation in justifying their religious suicides. Leaders like the former Ayatollah Khomeini simply declare fatwas against antagonists to intensify bloodshed done in the name of Allah.
So, I think the term sticks. Dubbing it an over-generalization is deflection. As I write, Al Qaeda and its cohorts “strive” (another Arabic translation for jihad) against the hard-fought democracy won by Kurds in Iraq.
Furthermore, these nihilists seek the destruction of Afghani stability and the undermining of President Karzai’s lauded efforts at unification. And the façade of NATO intervention in the region is counterproductive at best. These problems are pressing. Horowitz does not help the matter. Denouncing Islamo-fascism as an intolerant label is inaccurate and a waste of time. We need to stop patronizing Islamic fascism and start dealing with it.
