Islamic States and Thought Crimes: The Thug's Ideal

Historian John Lewis gave a talk on March 13 at Georgia Institute of Technology. As he reports, on American campuses today the barbarians are well represented:

I was prepared for opposition to the idea of war with Iran, and I acknowledged up front that those who recognize that religious law is wrong might disagree with my conclusion that a war against the Iranian state is necessary. But I was not prepared for the strident defense of Islamic law and jihad—and for the condemnation of me for even raising the issue of Islamic jihad—that was to come.

The onslaught began with the first “question,” actually a monologue that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. The monologist claimed that: (1) there is a long history of separation of church and state in Islam; (2) Islamic law is good; (3) whenever imposed, Islamic law has brought peace; (4) jihad is a “wonderful idea” and does not mean war; (5) Islamic Totalitarianism poses no threat, since 500 million Muslims reject terrorism; (6) the tax leveled against subjugated peoples is just, because they are protected by Muslims in return; (7) I am “ignorant of history” if I do not acknowledge the “truth” of these claims.

But one “questioner” in particular stands out: After reading a sentence from my article Notes on the Near Eastern Roots of Islam, with no context or explanation for the audience to even understand what it meant, he attacked me by saying that I should remember “logic” and the fact that I was at a “scientific” school before making statements such as those that I had made. But rather than explain to me what was illogical or unscientific about my views—let alone ask a question in the question period—he continued his ad hominem attack by stating that my views were so obviously wrong that only a “criminal mind” (a phrase he repeated) could have come up with them. Again, he never stated what was wrong with my quote, never established any reasons for his conclusion, and never asked me to clarify my reasoning—he took his assertion of the “criminality” of my mind as a self-evident fact.

Fortunately, not all of the students present at Lewis's talk were harbingers of a new Dark Age:

There were, however, two bright spots to the evening. The first was a man who described himself as a thirty-year emigré from Turkey. He noted with pride that his homeland had a thoroughly secular government and he praised Kemal Ataturk for bringing Turkey into the modern age, for instance, by banning the headscarf. But today Turkey’s secular government is being undercut—by Americans who describe its government as “moderate Islamic” and thereby blur the line between theocracy and secularism. This opens the door to the establishment of Islamic law. The man’s message was this: There can be no compromise between theocracy and secular government; it is either–or. To accept "moderate Islam" into government is, in principle, to establish theocracy. I wonder if he realized that, by the standards of the brownshirt in my audience, he was a criminal for holding such a view.

One also has to wonder about what the brownshirts are "learning" in their classrooms.

Crossposted at The Dougout