Islamic Feminist Claims Students at Duke Tried to Cancel Her Speech
This sounds very similar to what happened to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Asra Nomani told her story at Time.
Islamic Feminist: Duke Students Tried To Cancel My Speech. That Made It Even More Important.
This past week, University of Michigan students watched American Sniper after the university first cancelled the film’s showing amid protests from an Arab-American Muslim student that the film offended her. The episode at Michigan was like my own painful experience at Duke University after a Muslim student group recently blackballed me.
Tuesday night, while Islamic State fighters gained new ground in Syria, I walked onto a stage at Duke University to argue for a progressive, feminist interpretation of Islam in the world. Staring into stage lights, I counted the number of people looking back at me: nine, not including my parents and son.
“I would have come here to speak to just one person. To me, it is simply a victory to stand before you,” I said.
Five days earlier, the Duke University Center Activities and Events had cancelled my talk after the president of the Duke chapter of the Muslim Students Association sent an email to Muslim students about my “views” and me, alleging that I have a nefarious “alliance” with “Islamophobic speakers” and noting that a Duke professor of Islam, Omid Safi, had “condemned” me. After I asked for evidence against me, the Center for Activities and Events re-invited me. A spokesman for Duke said the university regrets the misunderstanding.
This experience goes beyond feminism to a broader debate over how too many Muslims are responding to critical conversations on Islam with snubs, boycotts, and calls for censorship, exploiting feelings of conflict avoidance and political correctness to stifle debate. As a journalist for 30 years, I believe we must stand up for America’s principles of free speech and have critical conversations, especially if they make people feel uncomfortable.
Islamic Feminist: Duke Students Tried To Cancel My Speech. That Made It Even More Important. (Time)
Comments
Islamic Feminist is an oxymoron. If she is Islamic, she adheres to a culture that is repressive of women.
She needs to get real and leave Islam. It’s idiotic to pretend that Islam can be reformed. This speaks to the Islamic mindset in which free thought us verboten: a student noted that “a Duke professor of Islam, Omid Safi, had “condemned” me.”
An “Islam” in which there is freedom of speech and women have equal moral worth would not be recognizable as Islam. Killing people for “insults” to the “prophet” and taking sex slaves as war booty are written into the foundations of Islam.
The practices and attitudes that would need to be ended for Islam to become civilized are at the heart of the Islamic “moral” code, and every day gives us more of that reality.
… more evidence of that reality.
She may be wrong about the chances of ever reforming Islam to accord equality to Islamic women, but I have to applaud her effort to be able to speak. The first amendment is for all, whether we agree with them or not, and needs to be defended. Free speech zones and pandering to those “offended” by speech are blights on first amendment speech rights. If we don’t defend the speech rights of others, even those we may not agree with or oppose strongly, who will defend our rights?