Panel gives warped view of Muslims
Thursday’s L.O.G.I.C. panel was like an island of stability in a troubled world.
Sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute, “Totalitarian Islam’s Threat to the West” featured Wafa Sultan, a Syrian American psychiatrist; Daniel Pipes, writer and visiting professor from Pepperdine University; and Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
What better way to use college facilities and an ample and expensive security force, if not to show the community that they, too, can participate in the academic tradition of public debate?
Of course, some people would expect these champions of democracy to create an open forum by including a question-and-answer session. But when democracy is at stake, isn’t it better to give those who disagree with you a 3 x 5 index card to write down their questions? That way, you can carefully select the most democratic comments. Way to strike a blow at totalitarianism.
Without getting mired in “facts” or citing a single source in their introductory statements, these experts can really speak straight about 1.3 billion Muslims’ propensity for violence.
The most reassuring part of Sultan’s speech was her historical evidence for Islam’s totalitarianism: seventh-century Arabia when the Prophet Muhammad attacked the Banu Qurayza tribe and married Aisha when she was 6 years old.
I’ve taken some college history classes, but I’d prefer to think that not much has changed in 14 centuries.
In Daniel Pipes’ world, truth and democracy prevail over totalitarianism as long as you’re surrounded by like-minded people and backed by a burly police squad ““ provided you can cough up tens of thousands of dollars in extra on-campus security.
That is why we must do everything to shut out opposing voices because eventually we will all think alike, or at least look alike.
The important thing is that we can target and dismiss critical academics ““ heck, abolish the university and its forum altogether ““ and, once and for all, be rid of totalitarianism.
Wendy Desouza,
Graduate student, history