The Workday Liberal

I've really tried very hard to ignore the "Islamofascist Awareness" campaign this week, but a blog post covering a speech (h.t. Whiskey Fire)has caused me a couple of conflicting reactions. First I had a good belly laugh, (and with my enormous gut, when I have a good belly laugh the rest of the block knows it), and then I started worrying about the stability of the right wing fringe. Check this out:

Last week, on October 18, 2007, our hero [Nonie] Darwish spoke at the all-female Wellesley College as the guest of Hillel on campus.

[snip]

About 80-100 students came. Far more Muslim than Jewish students came and “so many” of the Muslim girls were wearing head-scarves.

This is the first sign of trouble for any "Islamofascist Awareness" speaker. Muslim girls wearing headscarves! It seems to me that head scarf wearing Muslim girls ought to be precisely the audience Darwish is interested in addressing. She used to be one herself. But evidently not, because from Darwish's perspective Muslim girls wearing head scarves signifies trouble.

According to Darwish, the female students in head-scarves did the following: As she spoke, they made exaggerated, “mean girl” faces at her. They rolled their eyes, practiced “disbelieving” facial expressions—did everything but stick out their tongues.

Noooo! Mean girl faces and disbelieving facial expressions! What has western civilization come to?! These headscarf wearing Muslim girls are obviously out of control... but wait! It gets even worse.

And they continued to talk to each other in loud whispers while Darwish spoke: “How can she tell such lies!” “I was never, ever indoctrinated against Jews!” “Can you believe what she is saying?” “We do not call Jews pigs and apes, how can she lie about her own people?”

Where do these headscarf wearing Muslim girls think they are anyway? At the movie theater? We can only thank the good lord in heaven that one of these headscarf wearing Muslim girls didn't have the temerity to leave their cell phone on. We can only imagine the anguish THAT would have caused our hero.

In addition to the “mean girl” faces and the continual loud whispering, one by one, at least four to five head-scarfed girls, got up to leave the room during Darwish’s speech. This meant that each girl took two minutes to move to the end of her row, physically causing the other students to get up or twist aside, causing the entire room to look at the departing student, not at their invited guest—and then each girl did precisely the same thing when she returned two minutes later, presumably from a bathroom break.

Four to five? Is our hero not able to count once she goes past the fingers on one hand? The only way we could fix these disruptions for future events is to install potty training devices under each seat for immediate use when an audience member can no longer hold it. What Darwish describes with such certainty as a choreographed attempt to disrupt her speech can be expected by anyone giving a speech. For example, during my father in law's memorial I developed an itch in my throat and felt the need to go into a coughing fit. As I left the proceedings I was stifling coughs, causing various snorts and huffing, but only the most uptight member of that audience would have mistaken my efforts to make it outside before being wracked by a coughing fit as an attempt to disrupt the proceedings. Not only that, but there were other occasions during the memorial when people left the proceedings and returned, presumably after a bathroom break. Now that I think about it, I wonder why so many people who I thought loved my father in law chose to protest his memorial in such a craven way!

They quadruple-teamed Darwish and did not stop until Darwish ended her lecture. Twenty to thirty minutes of soft-core, well-choreographed, goon squad behavior. “They are Hamas-trained” says Darwish.

I was giggling the entire time I read this post, but this is where I let out the belly laugh. Headscarf wearing Muslim girls making mean girl faces and getting up to go to the bathroom are Hamas trained? That statement is prima facie evidence that Darwish has lost her senses. If Hamas were actually training people in America, we would have to consider ourselves to be very very lucky if the extent of that training was how to make mean girl faces and go to the bathroom!

One must not expose Islam’s long record of gender and religious apartheid and if one does, one is treated as a traitor and a liar and silenced in violent ways.

Erm... yeah. If an Arab speaker were to cast the religion practiced by the vast majority of her own people the way Darwish does, then she should expect to be called a liar and traitor, among other things...(but mean girl faces or any of the other slights perceived by Darwish in this particular speech really do not qualify as part of the "silenced in violent ways" in my humble opinion). Even if what she is saying is 100% entirely accurate, she can still expect that treatment. In fact she should bear those taunts with pride if she truly believes what she is saying. Just by way of example, if a Catholic were to carry on ad nauseum about the Catholics being wrong about everything, then that person could expect to be characterized badly by the Catholic church. Is that really so mystifying? This is not a function of the veracity or goodness of the message in question. If Darwish is going to go off labeling Islam the way she does, why would she be surprised that she is opposed, even vehemently so, by those who follow Islam?

Ironically, the flyer describing Darwish’s visit advertised her speech as one about “peace.” Darwish was the last to know about it. Still, she rode the wave. “We can’t have peace unless each group engages in self-criticism which is what I am doing.”

Darwish was the last to know that her speech was peaceful? Did she somehow perceive a riot? Was she physically assaulted? If the worst disturbance Darwish encounters while giving her speeches are audience members going to the bathroom and making mean girl faces then that is a testament to the peaceful nature of those who she perceives are protesting her, not proof of violence. Darwish is seriously out of touch.

The link I provided above goes to Pajamas Media, which is a site largely dominated by right wingers. So the fun continues in the comments of the post as the outraged wing nuts pile on to express their horror at the harsh techniques which Darwish had to endure at her speech:

gs :
Presentations like this should be recorded, including the audience behavior. There's something to be said for respecting the audience's privacy even in a public event, but that is preempted when organized thuggery is being practiced.

Yeah! Those headscarf wearing Muslim girls making mean girl faces are organized thugs. We need to record these events and detain the headscarf wearing Muslim girls who are thugishly making those mean girl faces... and also the ones going to the bathroom.

Brett :
This is intimidation. The college should expel the girls and their advisors should be kicked off campus.

No, that would not be discrimination against muslims; it's intolerance of hooliganism.

Many students are punished for much less.

There is seriously someone out there who thinks that headscarf wearing Muslim girls who make mean girl faces should be expelled from Wellsley for that. Can you even imagine how that conversation would sound? Dean: "Yes Ms, we have a recording here of you attending a speech... Let us look at the tape shall we? Right... here you can clearly be seen rolling your eyes and making a mean girl face... PACK YOUR BAGS!!! That type of outrage will not be tolerated on this campus... YOU HAVE GONE TOOO FAR!!!" I mean sheesh people... seriously these right wingers need to get a grip.

Here is THE weirdest comment in the whole thread. Prepare thyself:

Gary Ruppert :
The fact is, the intimidation used by Jenny Jihad here gave me a chill down my spine and a cold pit of fear in my belly. Liberals might not want to be friends with people who use such tactics, and will use them on them too not just those the left disagree with and try to silence there free speach. These thugs should be put into camps. The headscarves, intimidating gestures and rudeness from the audience is de facto the same as terrorism.

That comment is just so out there that I don't know how to form a cogent response. De facto the same as terrorism? How many mangled bodies had to be taken to the morgue after Darwish was targeted by these Hamas trained defacto terrorists? In fact, what does the term "de facto the same as terrorism" mean anyway? This seems to me one of those times when you either are, or are not a particular term. For example, you can not be "de facto the same as pregnant". So if a persons intent upon going to a particular event is anything other than spreading indiscriminate death and destruction, they are not a terrorist, or "de facto the same as" a terrorist".

Here is yet another comment that had me rolling my eyes, and thereby joining the Hamas trained "de facto the same as" terrorist thugs, in the fevered imaginations of the fantatacal right anyway:

Vinny Vidivici :
Sure, Luke.

I guess a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free assembly rights of others -- like trashing a Starbuck's at an anti-globo circus -- is just another form of 'dissent', eh?

Now that outright assault or heckling speakers off the stage on college campuses is being exposed to the wider world for the brown-shirt thuggery it truly is, time to find another way, preferrably one which deftly games the West's cultural practices, its legal and media institutions and and its current grievance fetish.

What a shakedown.

Brown-shirt thuggery?! These guys have called for students to be expelled for going to the bathroom and making mean girl faces, they have equated them to terrorists for it, said that they have been trained by Hamas... yet somehow it is the headscarf wearing Muslim girls who are the Brown-shirt thugs. Has there ever been a more apropos time to call for people to remove the log from their own eye before pointing out the mote in their neighbors eye... even if the mote in the other eye is extremely noticeable, because they keep rolling that eye in a Hamas inspired ritual that is de facto the same as terrorism?

Finally let me note that this post on Pajamas Media is no joke, believe it or not. I mean it really is hilarious parody, but it is not intended to be so. Phyllis Chesler posted later with an article titled: "Mean Girl" Behavior is No Joke

I agree with that title actually. The joke is the positively hilarious response from the right wing freaks who took offense to the head scarf wearing Muslim girls, who made the mean girl faces.