THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 114, May 5, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PUSHING "ISLAMOPHOBIA" AT UCLA
By Judith Greblya
ANOTHER ANTI-WESTERN & ANTI-AMERICAN DIATRIBE EMANATING FROM ACADEMIA: PROMOTING FEAR OF
"ISLAMOPHOBIA," INSTEAD OF DELIVERING A LECTURE ON SHARIA (ISLAMIC LAW) -- CLAIMING THAT MUSLIMS ARE THE
REAL VICTIMS OF "HATE CRIMES," THAT MUSLIMS ARE THREATENED BY ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE U.S.A. & THE WEST --
PAINTING THE WESTERN WORLD AS RACIST & ETHNOCENTRIC
FULL STORY:
Should an academic lecture on Sharia (Islamic law) become a platform for promoting fear of "Islamophobia"? This is
exactly what occurred on April 14, 2011, when the University of California, Los Angeles, held the third and final lecture
from Khaled Abou El Fadl — Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law and Chair of the Islamic
Studies Interdepartmental Program at UCLA — in the series, "Sharia Watch: A View from the Inside." The lecture was
co-sponsored by UCLA's School of Law, Center for Near Eastern Studies, Journal for Islamic and Near Eastern
Law, and Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program.
The receptive audience of approximately 30 people consisted mostly of members of the local Muslim community and
graduate students from UCLA's Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department.
In her introductory remarks, UCLA Law Professor Asli Bali explained that the aim of the series was, "to better
understand Sharia, as there is a lot of misinformation on what it is in the West." But, as in previous lectures, only 15
minutes of the hour-long lecture were actually devoted to Sharia; the bulk of the lecture focused on Islamophobia in
America and the West.
Abou El Fadl claimed that the phenomenon of Islamophobia is due to racism and that it originated in medieval Europe,
where, as he put it, "Jews and Muslims were repeatedly constructed in European literature as 'folkloric monsters.'" This
is incorrect, for both race and ethnicity were alien ideas in medieval Europe. In fact, the terms "race" and "racism"
appeared for the first time in European belle-letters in the Eighteenth Century.
Continuing the anti-Western diatribe, Abou El Fadl later added that, "the construction of the racial and ethnic alien
stems from the West's ethnocentrism." Of Islamic supremacy, he had nothing to say.
He even blamed the West for the very concept he was espousing:
"The term 'Islamophobia' is inadequate, as it is limited.
Discourse on Islam has a long history, but the word
itself, Islam, is problematic, for it is constructed and
reconstructed by the West."
Without citing a single piece of evidence — and in contradiction to FBI statistics on anti-religious hate crimes —
Abou El Fadl alleged that, in the U.S.A., "every single week there are new victims of Islamophobia."
Employing a false correlation popular among those advocating the view of Muslims as victims, Abou El Fadl insisted
that Islamophobia is similar to anti-Semitism:
"Those crazy Rightwing nuts who keep on telling the
public that Muslims want to impose Sharia on
Americans have [much] in common with anti-Semites
who, to this day, propel the ideas of the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion."
Betraying the disingenuousness of this comparison, Abou El Fadl and Basli later circulated a December, 2010,
Huffington Post article by Leftist journalist Max Blumenthal alleging an "Islamophobic crusade" on the part of,
among others, "Rightwing ultra-Zionists" and the "pro-Israel lobby." Such rhetoric, paradoxically, hearkens back to
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was, they asserted, "great literature."
In bemoaning the discomfort among Americans with the building of mosques such as Park51 (the ground zero mosque),
Abou El Fadl failed to mention that non-Muslim houses of worship are forbidden and bibles routinely destroyed in
Saudi Arabia, Buddhist shrines were blown up by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Israelis, or travelers with an Israeli
customs official stamp on their passports, are barred from entering countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait,
Libya, Syria, or, in the case of Iran, from flying to Israel.
Later, Abou El Fadl — without naming names, as is his usual practice — made the following accusation:
"Those who spread the idea that Muslims want to
dominate the West and America are lunatics. . . . In
America, the Muslim population is about six million,
which is close to two percent. It is as if this two
percent of Muslims can actually take over America.
I mean, you have to be seriously paranoid to think
this."
But the facts belie his accusations of paranoia: members of that small percentage of the American population killed
approximately 2,992 people on September 11, 2001; bombed the World Trade Center in 1993; opened fire at Fort Hood,
killing 13 and wounding 29 on November 5, 2009; shot two soldiers outside a military recruiting center on June 1, 2009;
left a car bomb in Times Square, in New York City, on May 1, 2010; and the list goes on.
In addition, the Muslim population in the U.S.A. is under two million, not the inflated figure of six million — which
conveniently matches that of Holocaust victims and outnumbers American Jews — cited by Abou El Fadl, the Council
on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and others with an interest in manipulating public opinion.
In reality, this tiny sliver of the population poses a very real threat to the security and safety of American citizens.
Nonetheless, Abou El Fadl chose to shift the focus and insist that it is Muslims who have something to fear.
During the final 20 minutes of his lecture, Abou El Fadl at last addressed Sharia, discussing the wealth of literature that,
as he put it, "like rabbinic literature on the Torah," exists in the Islamic tradition. After explaining the various definitions
of Sharia, he concluded that, "the challenge for the modern Muslim is how he or she relates to his religious obligations
(taklifs)." He then added:
"The challenge for every Muslim thinker must be
how they can enter the modern world and
contribute something to this modern world from
their rich religious tradition. That is the real
challenge."
Ironically, Abou El Fadl ended up calling for the same thing as members of what he dubbed the "lunatic Right": the
need for reform in the Islamic world. Based on Abou El Fadl's Islamist proclivities, however, his version of reform is
unlikely to be as far reaching as that emanating from the West or from true moderate Muslims.
Moreover, by focusing our attention on "Islamophobia," the Abou El Fadls of the academic world have successfully
hijacked the narrative and made it that much more difficult to achieve reform. Such efforts to redirect, redefine, and
rewrite today's debate over the challenges the West has had to confront post 9/11 have become part of the problem,
not the solution.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Islamist Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Lawfare -- The Use of Law as a Weapon in War & Politics:
Islamist Lawfare & the "Legal" Jihad Against America & the West
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
American Foreign Policy -- Political & Psychological Warfare
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Education, Training, & America's Schools:
Institutions of Elementary, Secondary, & Higher Education
Judith Greblya, a contributor to Campus Watch, can be reached via email: jgreblya@aol.com
The foregoing article by Judith Greblya was originally published in Front Page Magazine, May 5, 2011, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2898/ucla-islamophobia)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
May 5, 2011
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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