Preserving some comments
I’m sharing some of the comments on the Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ post, in case they get deleted and because they’re good. I’ll leave the names off even though it’s a public post, in case the people don’t want to be spotlighted that way.
One.
If you can watch that debate and insist poor ISOC were attacked, your community has taken a dishonest stance to shield itself from a bully that ISOC is. This cowardice is why freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and even freedom of sexuality are at risk.
You have taken bullies’ side, and the irony of it could not be made up. The representatives of a society which you defend harassed and tried to silence those whose opinions they do not like. If this is not shooting yourself in a foot, then I don’t know what it is.
Finally, if you can support the voice of your own community, but not of the one of the most oppressed communities in the world (apostates), you aren’t looking for equal rights; you are looking to join the privileged.
Post Scriptum, invite their representatives to debate sexuality, and update your “solidarity” announcement then.
Disgusted.
Two.
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion. So are people with opposite opinions. That’s fundamental to a free and open society. I’m struggling to understand how people claiming to be for women’s rights cannot tolerate non-incendiary criticism of forms of imposed modesty in some cultures. You can’t have it both ways. Fundamentally the only true feminist position is that women have a right to wear the hijab and the right NOT to wear the hijab if they so choose. Are you interested in a free exchange of ideas or only hearing ideas you already agree with?
Three, by someone from ASH.
I’m sorry to hear that; we at the AHS condemn anti-Muslim bigotry in the strongest terms, while defending the right to criticise ideas in an academic environment. Having watched the recording of this event I find it impossible to understand how you can stand in solidarity with a small number of ISoc members whose disruptive and threatening actions were condemned by some of the Muslim sisters in the room, at the time.
For anyone who might like to inform their opinion on recent events, Maryam’s lecture has been recorded and is viewable below. I find the behaviour of a minority of the audience members extremely chilling.
The LGBTQ+ Society replied to that one:
Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ SocietyFrom what I could tell, some of the brothers were rude, loud and disruptive, as well as being filmed without their consent, yelled at and racialized. We don’t have to like what they did to support them in the face of the mistreatment that followed.
Opening up that video to the public (which wasn’t necessary for the investigation AHS want), making them appear as ‘extremists’ and racializing them in the title- has left the brothers AND the sisters AND their friends open to islamophobic hate and harassment from across the globe. We’ve been getting comments from Montreal, Florida, Sydney, Seattle…
Given the media attention our union has received recently, making that video public has put our fellow students at risk and impeded our work and study.
Hence, solidarity in this delicate time.
Seattle – that’s probably me. Yes, there is global attention, but why would they be surprised or perturbed by that? It’s a global issue, certainly, and Maryam’s outlook is global. I’ve been following and promoting Maryam’s work for well over a decade. This is not just a little local issue confined to one borough of London.
Four.
I noticed that the Goldsmith’s Muslim group hosted Moazzam Begg. Did you know that he supported the Taliban in my country Afghanistan? In fact, Begg insisted in his memoir that the Taliban were “better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past twenty-five years.”
Do you support that my Afghan sisters were beaten and murdered in a football stadium as a form of entertainment and forced to live under misogynistic rule?
Do you also express solidarity with the other speaker that visited? Hamza Tzortzis? He expressed that “homosexuality” (how clinical and cishet!) should be a crime. Do you believe that women of colour like me from Muslim families are criminals? His philosophical musings also include a supposed link between queer people and sexual assault of children.
You really make me, a queer Afghan of a refugee family, feel very supported.
I’m sure your support of a group of men that harassed my colleague is unwaivering. I mean, hey, women who lived through oppressive regimes can just go fuck off right?
Your feminism is dreadful as it is harmful. Your lack of solidarity with women of colour appalling.
Why? Because she left a religion? And despite her fighting against xenophobia, anti-Muslim bigots, right-wing fascists, you still side with those who harassed her?
Fuck your feminism. Us women of colour have paved their own ways and we will die doing it without support from racists.
Beautifully said.
I like how presenting unedited video of a 100+ minute event constitutes “racializing” the ISOC and “making them appear like extremists.”
If an unedited video makes the behavior of certain assholes appear as ‘extremists’ then perhaps it’s that what we should focus on.
v/s
Hmm so harrasment of Maryam – no worries . The real issue is how harassers should be allowed to continue harassment.
They say they were ‘racialized in the title’ – is that a reference to the words ‘Islamist thugs’? Because in the US the word ‘thug’ is used to make people who are existing while black appear as criminals, so now any use of the word to describe non-white (or ‘not white enough’, after all the category ‘white’ is ever-changing) people is racist, even when the person is attempting to shut up an invited speaker?
I really like comment #4 in the original post.
Yes, so do I. You can see who said it by clicking on the link. She’s an active and out ExMuslim; I think I’ve met her. (She unfriended me during the Great Shunning, sadly.)
Why in the name of Bast shouldn’t that video be public? Because it makes ISOC look bad? Well, who’s fault is that?
They made themselves appear that way.
“Islamist” is “racializing” now. I see. Some knuckledraggers conflate “Islamists” with “Muslims, so now we’re not allowed to name the problem.
Notice the dishonest conflation of “islamophobic hate and harassment” with “comments.”
I bet that comment from Seattle was just chock full of Islamophobic hate ‘n’ harassment. /s
No, but it was from SEATTLE, which is FAR AWAY, so you can see why they had to delete ALL THE COMMENTS.
There was a comment in there saying the society’s stance was as ludicrous as Jewish people supporting Nazis. I’ve learned a thing or two about humans by now, so I looked it up.
Sure enough, Finnish Jews fought alongside Nazis in WWII. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/museums/10682975/The-Jews-who-fought-for-Hitler-We-did-not-help-the-Germans.-We-had-a-common-enemy.html
Hmm. Perhaps the LGBTQ society also feels they are fighting an enemy they share with ISOC…and that enemy would be woman?
Finnish Jews? Really? Both of the them?
A handful of German Jews were conscripted into the Wehrmacht as well. They did not sign petitions of solidarity with Hitler. They were human beings attempting to survive in unthinkable times.
Now that the San Bernardino murderers have been identified as Islamo-fascists, the avalanche of rationalization and euphemism has already started. When Dylan Roof slew 9 people in Charleston, the Right babbled about ‘mental illness,’ and only the left would talk about ideology. With the Farooks we have a 180º reversal of roles. Nothing can demonstrate the decadence of western societies better than this. NOTHING can pull us out of our parochial obsessions, not even an existential threat.
Imy phone froze and and I accidentally posted an unfinished comment above. Here’s the corrected version:
I was looking for more takes on the issue and found your post. I was surprised to see my own comment in it. Thank you for saving it, though LGBTQ have not deleted it. Yet.
I’ve been following this scandal since the very beginning, and I am really glad to see people haven’t let gone. We need to make noise, because the behaviour ISOC demonstrated needs to be shamed and discouraged, if not punished.