Posted on 04/07/2006 6:52:45 PM PDT by Dark Skies
It took 10 police officers to keep order last month when Brigitte Gabriel gave a speech at Memphis University.
A passionate and powerful speaker who had witnessed Palestinian terrorism and experienced anti-Jewish and anti-Christian propaganda in her native Lebanon, Ms. Gabriel had been invited to speak at the Tennessee campus by religious studies professor David Patterson.
But the day before Ms. Gabriel's speech, Mr. Patterson began receiving threatening e-mails.
“Do you honestly think the scheduled lecture will serve any useful purpose other than inflaming the Muslims, insulting them and spilling poison in the community?” one message said. Another said that inviting Ms. Gabriel to speak was “worse than hosting of the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan,” and another described her as among “the true enemies of Islam.”
When Ms. Gabrial and Mr. Patterson arrived in the campus auditorium 15 minutes before her scheduled presentation, several rows of seats in the front of the room were already occupied by men and women dressed in distinctive Muslim clothing.
Before Ms. Gabriel was introduced, a Muslim man who has been long-term graduate student at the university strode to the front of the room and announced: “We have been told that the speaker will only accept questions written on cards. Everyone who believes this is an un-democratic lecture, raise your hands.” The Muslims in the audience shouted their agreement.
Ms. Gabriel then went to the front of the room and announced that the lecture belonged to her and that all who did not see it this way were welcome to leave. Two campus police officers stood, one on either side of her. They also called for backup. By the time order was restored and Ms. Gabriel began her speech, 10 police officers were posted in the room. Mr. Patterson implored the audience to give her a chance to be heard.
After her speech, she answered every question submitted — questions she described as “Palestinian talking points” — before the Muslim audience members swarmed onto the stage and surrounded her, yelling angrily at her. Finally, police officers grabbed her and hustled her out a side door. Someone else had to retrieve her coat and suitcase while she waited in a police car to be driven to the hotel where, for security reasons, she was registered under a fictitious name.
Only after she had locked her door and drawn the curtains, did Ms. Gabriel allow herself to begin to tremble.
“The intimidation takes a toll on you,” Ms. Gabriel said in an e-mail message to friends after the Memphis speech. “I was dreading this all day, ever since my hosts told me they had been receiving hostile e-mail about my lecture. It was weighing so heavily on my heart. My stomach was in knots. I got a migraine headache. I knew I was going into battle and there was no way out of it. I was nervous and stressed. Each time this happens, I hate it and it makes me feel that I don't want to do it anymore. But I will do it. I will never stop. If we stop, the Islamists will have won. We cannot allow that to happen.”
'Hostile environment’
Does the right to work in a non-hostile and non-life threatening environment trump the right of free speech as envisioned by the First Amendment? Is academic freedom more important than telling the truth?
Years ago, I was asked to testify in a legal action on behalf of a woman who worked the night shift alone in a small store. As a devout Christian, she was offended by the pornographic magazines the store sold. She also felt endangered by the kind of men who came in after midnight to peruse and buy these magazines. She eventually refused to sell the magazines during her shift, and was fired.
She sued. The question: Does the First Amendment right of pornographers override a woman's personal religious beliefs and her rights to on-the-job safety? Does being surrounded by pornographic magazines constitute a “hostile” work environment? The company retaliated for her lawsuit by depicted her to the press as a fanaticon a rampage against both secular society and free speech. My decision to testify on her behalf led some of the usual suspects to question my political sanity and my feminism.
Over the years, I have been consulted by other women, especially those in blue-collar, formerly all-male jobs who have often been harassed and forced to live with sadistic pornography placed in their lockers, locker rooms, and work areas.
The film “North Country,” which stars Charlize Theron, depicts exactly such mistreatment of women miners. The film is based on a real class action lawsuit that 19 women first filed in the 1970s against Ogleby Norton in Eveleth, Minn. The women sued because they were subjected to verbal, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and to omnipresent sexual graffiti.
It took more than 20 years for the women to win a settlement, but only after they found themselves put on trial: their sexual, gynecological, psychological, and marital histories were scrutinized in the courtroom.
Many people said that the women simply ought to “tough it out.” Some said that pornography and insults were protected under the First Amendment.
Campus hostility
Today, when someone tries to tell the truth about Islam or departs from the politically correct line — against America, Israel, Jews, and religion — just like the women miners of “North Country,” are subjected to hostile working conditions.
In the West, authors critical of Islam are routinely threatened, sometimes sued for “defamation,” or slandered as “racists.” In Muslim countries, such authors are more often jailed, mobbed, murdered or forced into exile.
Western academics who criticize Islamic culture have been ostracized or silenced on campus. They are shouted down, shamed, interrogated, and cursed.
Do we want speakers on our campuses to be subjected to such hostility, to run such a gauntlet in order to be heard? Why have so many university presentations descended to the level of the “Jerry Springer” show?
Why has the Western academic world given a free pass to those who defend the rights of misogynist terrorists who practice both religious and gender apartheid in Islam's name? The women in “North Country” have counterparts in the Islamic world today who suffer worse than mere harassment: Some are stoned to death, publicly hung, gang-raped or suffer genital mutilated. The can be forced to marry their first cousins and, if they refuse, may be victims of an “honor killing.”
When speakers tell the truth about this on American campuses, they must endure harsh and punitive working conditions. This reality must be exposed, challenged, and transformed. We must call Nazi tactics by their proper name and not confuse them with a civilized or scholarly exchange of ideas. We must liberate our campuses from such barbarism.
For the same reason they allow them to wear the swastika and the KKK hood... oh, wait. Oops. Nevermind!
LOL!
Now that's a hoot! They deploy the "minders" from "Mynders" Avenue? LMAO!
Humerous...that people worry about 'inflaming' or insulting evil ones worried that they might 'go off' and do some damage..And yet our leaders refuse to stop the evil ones from doing damage and even they run around as if they are afraid...doing everything in their power to please the evil ones...to appease them...
Which has never worked in the past nor will it work in the present or future
Yet our leaders refuse to allow the victims of these evil ones to give voice to the truth for fear it will arrouse anger in the evil ones..the perpetrators of this violence.
Something basically wrong with this...
Meanwhile they build mosques, Islamic Centers and summer camps in areas and towns that have NO significant Muslim population...
They seem to be quite content to go right ahead building them all and even get our government to help them build them...
They must know something we don't
Someone is moving in and someone else is about to get moved out
The obvious question that is too impolite to ask is why, instead of hustling the speaker away under police guard, didn't they simply arrest the criminals who were threatening her?
The first answer that springs to mind is that, oh, gee, we can't do that, it might offend The Religion of Peace.
But I think the real reason is a bit more ominous.
I think the real reason is that we've conceded defeat to our new masters. We live in Vichy America, and our masters walk amongst us, abusing us with impunity, and our only recourse is to keep our mouths shut, "avoid offending", and try to get away from them before they physically attack us.
Is it because the stories about them having pre-deployed tactical nukes across America are true? Is it because our "leaders" are a bunch of quisling pussies?
I don't know. All I know is that I find it increasingly difficult to tell if I'm in 21st Century America, or Paris, circa 1940.
If there's ever going to be a "Civil War", it'll be between the Muslims and the Mexicans, squabbling over the spoils.
They seem to be quite content to go right ahead building them all and even get our government to help them build them...
Did you know that the federal government, SINCE 9/11, has initiated a program to expedite the emigration of more Muslims from the Middle East?
What?!?!?!?!?
And risk offending The Religion of Peace?
We cannot tolerate that happening in Vichy America, inshallah.
The MSM has consistently come down on the side of Islamic sociopaths again and again. I think it is basically because they are cowards. Also, defending Muslims fits nicely into their worldview.
Islam should be made illegal and outlawed in the United States. Against the Constitution you say? Change the Constitution to reflect todays realities. Islam wants to 'eat the World' . We cannot let it . Certainly we cannot let it eat our country. It doesn't belong here , is not native here and doesn't need to take root here. Islam and all muslims should be shown the door. Let them all return to their native lands of origin and practice their foolish beliefs there . Not here.
Have you read Message from a Time Traveler?
I say, "Welcome to the party Ms. Gabriel". Conservatives speakiing on campus have been subjected to this for decades. The feminists, the peaceniks, the civil rights crowd, the whole liberal establishment have made these tactics their stock in trade and the Universities have done nothing to stop it. To the contrary they condone it. The shouting down, throwing food at speakers, stealing conservative newspapers from the newsboxes as soon as they are put there. These islamofacists are just using the same tactics the libs have taught them well. Hoisted by their own petard - Well......how do you like being on the receiving end now? Hummmmmmm? You reap what you sow.
In southern California, I have seen MANY MORE Muslims here than before 9/11/01. I have seen an even more rapid increase in the past 2 years.
sir , to this all I can say is that guns and ammo are the best investment ......
We need to elect real soldiers to lead our nation , men that care far more about winning the war than winning the next election.
Very scary story there. I hope we kick their asses into the ground before they ever get the chance to take the first shots.
Joe, she's been on the receiving end from the muslims since she got blown up in her home in Lebanon in 1975 and lived in a bomb shelter for seven years after that, dodging sniper bullets just to gather water from a nearby stream to live. Do some homework on good people before you make assumptions about them. She did not come around on this recently. This has been a lifelong battle for her.
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