Posted on 04/08/2006 3:20:04 PM PDT by quidnunc
Universities, for those of us who lecture on campuses, are the battleground for the heart and soul of the next generation of leaders. They are the battleground where we must fight to win back the opinions and allegiance of American college students. This is made harder when Islamists in both the college and local communities try to intimidate us and deny our free speech on campuses in some of the least likely places.
We have grown to expect these things on the major East and West Coast cities “elite” university campuses that harbor radical professors and anarchist student and radical Muslim community activities. But not in the heartland where I spoke last week at the University of Memphis. What was shocking was that it occurred in the South, in “Bubbaland” as my friends from the region call it.
I was invited to give a lecture sponsored by Professor David Patterson of the Judaic Studies Program. When news about my appearance spread, the Muslim community both on and off campus launched a full-scale campaign to stop my lecture. They demanded that Dr. Patterson cancel my speech. E-mails flooded the University of Memphis administration and Dr. Patterson from Muslim students on campus and Muslims in the community and mosques. Here are some of their comments:
-snip-
By the time I showed up at the amphitheater style lecture hall on campus, police officers were already standing at each entrance. Nearly half of the hall was filled with Muslims with their leaders dressed Osama Bin Laden style sitting in the front two rows at eye level making “their point,” that I wasn’t going to get away with speaking freely.
Just as the program was about to begin, a Muslim student walked to the front and asked the crowd to raise their hands if they believed that this lecture was “undemocratic.” They complained that I would be taking questions on cards instead of allowing them to ask them publicly. Experienced in these settings, I knew they would make speeches, spew anti American and Israeli sentiments and create chaos in the room during the Q&A. I decided that they were not going to do that. The provocative Muslim student behavior before I even began my lecture proved my foresight. Dr. Patterson explained that taking questions from cards distributed to the audience was normal protocol at university speaking events like mine.
Patterson tried to calm the unruly crowd but nothing was working. Fed up, I went straight to the podium and ordered everyone to sit. I told them, this is my lecture and I run the show. If they didn’t like the way I conducted my lecture and my questions they could leave the room, now. Shocked at my behavior and authority they shut-up. The non-Muslim members of the audience applauded.
-snip-
It is a sad state of affairs when any speaker on any American University campus has to be surrounded by police officers to protect their freedom of speech and person from intimidation and menace. America is the country where free speech is protected under our constitution. Who would have expected that in the home of the Beale Street Blues, W.C. Handy and Elvis, I would be confronted by Muslims trying to muzzle my free speech and perhaps all of us?
At the end of the lecture the Muslims immediately in front swarmed over me questioning and intimidating. Police officers quickly moved in and pulled me out straight to the police cars as the enraged Muslims started shouting.
-snip-
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. Gabriel 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 a 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 undemocratic 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.
-snip-
(Phyllis Chesler in The Washington Times, April 7, 2006)
To Read This Article Click Here
I wish I had known about this. I'm in Memphis, and I know more than a few people who would have evened out that crowd a bit.
Wow. It's everywhere, isn't it? Chilling.
It'd sure be useful to have a tape.
You think MSM would air them?
There's such a thing as the Internet and Drudge. We don't need no steenking MSM--we just need a tape.
I would imagine that there were a fair number of native born Black Muslims there, but I also suspect that a large number of Middle Easterners were present, too. Every university in this country seems to have been assigned its own personal contingent of trouble-making hostile Muslims. Everywhere I go here in Florida, in fact, whether it's a university town or not, I seem to see young ME women flopping around in their 20 pounds of black laundry. Why do we even let these people into the country?
This was a college lecture, and taping them isn't usually done.
I believe that some lectureres don 't want their lectures taped so as to protect them against piracy.
And I believe that many venues don't allow taping, or even still photography.
Well, like I said, I believe he--but you'd think there could have been one picture phone in the audience--somebody with one of those cameras which also do the little movies. Some Muslim bully snarling at a pretty gal like Gabriel--it would have been priceless.
It also creeps me out to hear some guy talk about how erotic all that veiling is--like there's some great present to unwrap. Where's Germaine Greer? Oh, yeah, she's worrying about the lesbians and lipstick and important stuff like that.
"I wish I had known about this. I'm in Memphis, and I know more than a few people who would have evened out that crowd a bit."
Is this the first you have heard about this too?
Where are the NBC camera crews when they are needed?
Out looking for discrimination at NASCAR races.
Hand that Muzzie a Bud, Jeff.
So much for " the melting pot." These people think we should assimilate into their melting pot.
Looks like I need to get a rifle and get ready for the revolution that's inevitable.
This phrase is either my next tagline or I'm going to have it printed on a t-shirt.
L
bookmk ping , and thanks quidnunc
Attention Senators, congressmaen...This is how you handle them, you don't coodle them.
Nice work Bridgette.
bump
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