Daniel Pipes’s speech at McGill went off peacefully. Even the protestors were restrained, apparently:
Concordia Hillel co-president Noah Joseph, who helped organize yesterday’s speech, said the protesters had “every right to be there” and did not cause any trouble.
“They even had the courtesy to tell us when they would arrive,” Joseph said, adding that similar events at Concordia University were often marred by violence.
“You have to worry about your safety at Concordia. The McGill atmosphere, on both sides, is much safer,” he said.
Of course, the Gazette’s coverage focused mostly on the protest against Pipes, with only a short line about the speech itself. What do you expect? But at least there wasn’t a riot.
Meanwhile at Concordia . . . A Palestinian student, Nidal Al Alul, was arrested for uttering death threats:
A dazed and disheveled-looking Concordia University student appeared in municipal court yesterday on charges of uttering assault and death threats against four people at the downtown campus on Tuesday.
Nidal Al Alul, 19, a third-year commerce student, spent the night in a police lockup after he was arrested.
The incident is alleged to have occurred at the Hillel information table on the mezzanine level of the Henry F. Hall Building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Three of the complainants are civilians, while a fourth is a Concordia security guard.
The French daily rag, Montréal Métropolitain, adds that Al Alul approached the Hillel table and an argument broke out about war. He was trading insults with the people at the Hillel table and it disintegrated from there.
Yes, tensions are certainly high.
James, if you want to find out more about Pipes (not the kind that you smoke) then it is probably best to check out his website at http://www.danielpipes.org and get it straight form the horses mouth.
Some of the stuff people believe and assume about you just because you are a jew is quite ridiculous. You learn to laugh at it after a while, thats all you can do – probably explains why there are so many jewish comedians in the world. Anyway I’ve gotta go and find a Muslim or Christian baby to sacrifice becasue they are the essential ingredients for my Purim pastries, well if you believe the Syrian defense ministers latest book.
Odd quote from article: “Pipes considers the existence of Muslims in North America a danger to Israel. That’s an extremely racist idea,” said Isam Faik, president of the Muslim Students Association of McGill.
I know that Pipes has been talked about before here, but it still intrigues me. Not so much the man himself, but this idea that there’s this big-time, well-known Jewish academic out there who spews these vile things, and yet is respected by the establishment and, presumably, by Jews.
Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that what Isam Faik says isn’t really true. I find it hard to believe that a guy who has spent his academic career learning about Islam, considers the existence of Muslims in North America to be a de facto danger to Israel.
(If there were a grain of truth, then I’d guess it’d look something like Pipes believing that certain ideas which have gained a very strong foothold in North American Islam are against Israel. But disagreeing with dominant ideas is rather different than wishing the non-existence of those who hold them.)
If so, though, then why does Faik say such things? I mean, is it because he really believes this about Pipes? Because someone else has led him to believe it? Because he wants others to believe it? Where does this come from, exactly?
For those ready to explode into a because-Pipes-is-evil explanation, please save it. Answering “why” with “because he’s the devil” is called demonization and is generally dumb; the same goes for reasonable approximations thereof.
I’ll judge Pipes based on what comes out of Pipes’ mouth and I’ll judge Faik based on what comes out of Faik’s mouth.
Faik fails to mentiont that Pipes is likely talking about Islamists (e.g. Radical Islam) not your “everyday” muslim
Jonny, jaws: fine. I accept and anticipate that Faik is wrong about Pipes, for the reasons I indicate above.
What I think is interesting, and perhaps more important, is what makes Faik say this? Again, does he really believe such (on the surface, ludicrous) things about Pipes? Maybe someone else has convinced him to believe it? Or maybe he doesn’t, but he wants others to believe it? I mean, it’s a bit weird.
James, actually it’s probably a lot more simple and pedestrian than that. Most people don’t have time to learn everything about everything, so we accept what we hear from our communities, friends, and regular news sources. In Faik’s case (and this is a guess), he probably heard from the people around him that Pipes is this “evil racist”, and figured that it must be true. Most people don’t examine this stuff too much in depth, unfortunately.
Beyond Pipes own writings he is the Director of the Mid-East Forum and Editor of its Journal. Presumabely the writings of others that are puplished by the forum are endorsed by Pipes. Check it out at:www.meforum.org.
James I personally have read much of what Pipes has written going back over 20 years. Personally I find nothing racist in those writigs, but check it out yourself.
My view on Pipes — he’s a man with a career to make, but useless from a public policy persepective. He’s a ‘policy entrepreneur’ (to use a Paul Krugman term).
(The US produces ‘policy entrepreneurs’ by the dozens. They include Peter Brimelow who dislikes non-white immigrants, Micheal Ledeen who wants to make war on Iran, Michelle Malkin who thinks illegals are flooding the USA, Eric Alterman who says conservatives control the media. They write books, get on talking head TV shows, say inflammatory things, work at think-tanks, produce blogs, etc.)
Pipes says he is ‘Paul-Revering’ America abotut he ‘dangerous’ 10-15% of Muslims in America. It so happens that, in his view, all Muslim leaders (barring a few) are in that 10-15%.
This, naturally, upsets Muslim leaders in America. They says Pipes is not ‘anti-10%-of-muslims’, he is anti-any-Muslim-who-sticks-his-head-up-and-speaks out.
Two questions: Does Pipes hold the views he claims to have, and is Pipes right in the views? — I say maybe no, and no.
Pipes did write an article in the post where he said not all Muslims are evil (this is progress!). On the other hand, he condemned a recent PBS documentary of Muhammad — one that his Muslim allies (ICNA, Khalid Abu-Fadl) supported. I have a vague feeling that he does not really hold the ‘some-Muslims-are-nice’ view — but not a strong opinion on the subject.
But I do have a strong opinion on his views that the Muslim leadership in the USA in unrepresentative of American Muslims. I think he’s dead wrong. CAIR may be a little to foreign-focussed and civil rights oriented, but CAIR, AMC, AMSA,, ISNA, MSA, MYA, and rest of the constellation of Muslim orgs represent the views of American Muslims. Any leadership (to the extent American Muslims are children that need ‘leadership’) would hold similar views as the current leadership.
So in the substance of his views, Pipes is wrong. There is no 10-15% to diffrentiate from the mass. So if he sees the 10-15% as a fifth column, logically, he must see all American Muslism as a fifth column.
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That is just a debate on Pipes. It is separate from whether the US actually has ALQ supporters, sympathizers, or tolerators. My view (from personal expereince in the American community) is that there are very few.
There is aso the question of religious doctrine (does Pipes deal with this?). You can find on the web vigourous (and often very nasty) doctrinal debate on Salafi/Wahabis and Madhabis. Plenty of websites can provide a portal into these discussion, but none of Daniel Pipes’ sites.
Which is why I say he is not useful. He makes some people feel good, and others feel bad, but I think he brings little of value to the issues.
Sari, Notice the slam of Concordia? “The McGill atmosphere is safer”. Of Course. Concordia only admits poorly educated barbarians who couldn’t get into McGill. What can one expect from those-low-IQ brutes?
From my experience, there is a deep bigotry at McGill: an anti-Concordia bigotry. I find it humourous — but others may not.
As someone who was admitted to McGill but made the conscious decision to go to Concordia, I know that the stereotype isn’t true. I chose Concordia because of its co-op program and its strong commerce program – from what I’d heard at the time, much better than McGill’s management faculty. In addition, Concordia offered me incentive in the form of an entrance scholarship.
It’s also worth noting that in 1999, when I chose where to go to University, the situation was vastly different from what it is now. Sure, Concordia had a reputation as a bit more “activist” than McGill, but I didn’t view that necessarily as a problem. Who could have predicted September 2000? September 2001? The sequence of events that have erupted since?
For what it’s worth, I consider Concordia an excellent school, with a great marketing program. I think it’s a shame that its strong academics have been marred by controvesy and violence.
The difference that always existed, though, is that McGill has a strong reputation south of the border and across Canada as the “Harvard of Canada”. It is thus able to recruit a lot of out-of-province and international students from around here. Concordia doesn’t have that name value, and thus does extensive recruiting overseas, which affects the demographic composition of its student body.
I don’t think that Noah Joseph really meant to slam Concordia, education-wise. But his point was a valid one: had Pipes come to speak at Concordia, there would have almost surely been violence, but at McGill the protests were peaceful. This says a lot about the current atmosphere on those two campuses.
Ikram:
What Pipes says in his writings is because of the huge amount of Saudi money pouring into the Islamic institutions in the U.S. Wahaby clerics and philosophy have tahen over those institutions. Thus if a muslim is active in their institutions then they are exposed to the Wahaby ideas. Further since all the money is Saudi about 90% of the clerics in the U.S. are Wahaby.
Ikram,
I consider myself atheist though I was born into a Catholic/Episcopalian family. I don’t know enough about Pipes to say whether his analysis of mainstream Muslims vs. Islamists is genuine and consistent but I share his horror of Radical Islam. Indeed, I consider religious fundamentalism of whatever stripe (Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc.) to be one of the great scourges of modern civilization. We are hearing more about Islamic fundamentalism than the others (with perhaps Christian fundamentalism in a distant second postion) largely because of its association with terrorism and the barbarism of extreme Sharia. Perhaps Indian Muslims can tell us a bit about Hindu extremists and I know that there is a bitter struggle in Israel between secular Jews and Jewish fundamentalists who would like to impose their social vision on the country. But right now, from a secular Western point of view (my own) I consider Islamic fundamentalism to be by far the most dangerous. I would gladly ally myself with enlightened, modern Muslims of whatever ethnic origin to combat this threat. If you don’t want Pipes on board that’s okay with me, but in the reality of today’s world if enlightened Muslims don’t show that they are serious in combatting Islamism it is inevitable that others will fill the void.
It’s Pipes’ supposed claim that ‘90% of us clerics are Wahabi’ that immediately discredits him with anyone who knows even a little about Islam in America. I have yet to meet a wahabi imam. Most Muslims in the US belong to the Shafi’i madhab, though south asians are more likely to be in the hanafi madhab.
It is uncommon (for me) to see a wahabi/salafi imam. And quite obvious when you do, because they are generally obnoxious.
That’s probably why Muslims don’t much like Pipes — its an obvious lie. To a non-Muslim, the lies are not obvious.
(To be fair to Pipes — I have never heard him say 90% of imams are Wahabis. He parses his words carefully, and I admit I would be suprised if he said something so obviously wrong. He’s not dumb.)
It’s Pipes’ supposed claim that ‘90% of us clerics are Wahabi’ that immediately discredits him with anyone who knows even a little about Islam in America, and That’s probably why Muslims don’t much like Pipes — its an obvious lie..
But I have never heard him say 90% of imams are Wahabis. He parses his words carefully, and I admit I would be suprised if he said something so obviously wrong. He’s not dumb.
I don’t really understand.