This week, 70 years after the liberation of Buchenwald, Brandeis University has brought shame on itself.
This shame, a shame to all the Jewish people, comes from the decision of the University to withdraw an offer of an honorary degree to Ayan Hirsi Ali; the offer was withdrawn, because Ayan Hirsi Ali has been outspoken in her description of Islam as a hate filled religion.
The reasons for her feelings about this matter are well known. Growing up in Somalia, then Kenya, then Saudi Arabia, Ms. Ali experienced horrible abuse,, She was indoctrinated in anti-Semitism and female inferiority. She escaped to the very liberal Netherlands where, in an almost miraculous fashion, her intellect blossomed. Ali became a leading spokesman… a pun I intend… for the need to radically reform Islam. She rose in the Dutch system to be a highly respected intellectual, a spokesperson for liberal causes, and a defender of what liberals across the world would identify as personal freedom. All of this was met by death threats from the Muslim community and the assassination of a filmmaker working with her to explore the bigotry of Muslims living in the multicultural, highly liberal, traditions of Holland.
My use of the term “spokesman” here was entirely intentional. My own university has dealt with the challenges of semantic feminism by retitling our campus office of individual rights from “ombudsman” to “ombud.” I do not speak Swedish and do not know whether the University of Washington has violated rules of Scandinavian grammar but I suspect that Ms. Ali, a true feminist, would see such a change as tokenism. Far more important to her, would be the commitment that this country has made to female equality. There may even be an ombud in Saudi Arabia, however I suspect Ms. Ali would see such nice changes as irrelevant to the more radical changes that need to occur in the religion itself for women to have equality. That is the message that she brings as a feminist. It is also the message that Brandeis is rejecting.
Any Jew should recognize Ali’s experience and her strong opinions from our own plight during World War II, Ms. Ali was forced to flee. She came to the US where she found a home in the American conservative community, at the American Enterprise Institute. As a liberal, I have disdain for the AEI, but it is all too easy to see why a refugee from Islam would seek a home amongst extremists just as many Jews sought a home in the Communist party of the 1930s.
From that extreme platform, Ms. Ali has advocated a radical effort to oppose not just the Islam of the Taliban but Islam itself. Her opposition is very clear. She celebrates parts of Islam, including its concept of UMMA, a community where racial and ethnic origins do not matter. She also celebrates the gentle forms of Islam, Sufi and Ismali. While now herself an atheist, she talks with great respect of religions that are able to contend with, argue with and respect atheism.
Surely, any Jew with a memory of the few Jews who actually stood up to the Nazis, must recognize Ms. Ali’s cause.
Unfortunately, Brandeis found Ms. Ali’s mantra offensive. What happened to their memory of Jews who publicly spoke out against fascism in the 1930s? Should fascism have been respected as the culture of another nation? Or is it that, like the American Jewish committee of the 30s, we fear that hatred will rebound on us if we speak loudly against antisemitism?
There is another issue here, that is the peculiar American concept of religious tolerance. On the right and left, what is called religious freedom is somehow different from that afforded other human institutions. A university espousing racist doctrines permitted under the First Amendment, could only survive in this country by sheltering itself under the umbrella of religion. Imagine how different Brandeis might act if Ali’s stance was against a business practice, for example Hobby Lobby’s efforts as a business to not provide women with contraceptives.?.
I do not want to make a defensive statement here. I do not want to say that I disagree with much that Ali says. I suspect, that her critics have done all too little to listen to Ms. Ali. When she says that Islam, as it exists today, must be defeated how is this different than the words of the rare critic who was willing to say that the only answer to fascism was its defeat?
My own views are more tolerant than Ali’s. Ali, however, has made the point that her stand grows out of experiences I have not had. Moreover, she adopts the very Jewish approach of struggle, that is the struggle of ideas. She presents her ideas as a fulcrum, a lever that can change a problem that she believes will otherwise continue to create vast destruction. The evidence for her opinion is impressive. With all due respect… that she shares… for Muslims, how can any Jew not be disgusted by the Judenrein policies of Saudi Arabia and the extension of those policies to openly anti-Semitic regimes in Iran, Pakistan, and much of North Africa? How would Brandeis itself deal with these countries driven by a religion that institutionalizes anti-Semitism?
Would Brandeis own existence continue today if fascism had not been defeated?