My Speech for the Human Rights Rally Against Radical Fundamentalist Islam Today in Times Square, New York
Radical, fundamentalist Islam is the world’s largest practioner of both gender and religious apartheid.
Others are speaking here today about Islamic religious apartheid. I have been asked to focus on Islamic gender apartheid.
We who live in the West, and who have learned how to analyze and protest gender inequality here, simply have no idea how much free-er and safer women are in the West than in Muslim countries.
I once lived in the Islamic world, in Afghanistan. What I learned in Kabul rendered me immune to the romanticization of the Third World or to the glamorization of tyrants and terrorists that defined my generation of 1960s and 1970s radicals.
Being born female and Muslim, especially today, under radical Islamic rule, is potentially a capital crime. The warnings and the punishment begin early on and are both relentless and normalized.
Women are viewed as sub-human, half-demon, dangerous, sexually “wild”—by men whose own lust and progeny knows no bounds. While there are many exceptions, in general, Muslim (and Arab) girls are despised and routinely cursed, beaten, treated as servants or slaves by their fathers and older brothers. Women are hidden, literally suffocated under face and body veils, shrouded, visually buried alive while still alive.
If you have ever worn a burq’a you will understand that it is not the “same” as covering your hair with a scarf or a wig. You have no peripheral vision. You can never feel the sun on your face. People cannot see your eyes, your face, your expressions; you really cannot relate to anyone. You are condemned to move in the universe as if you are a ghost.
Today, eight year old girls are being married off by their fathers to men as old as fifty–in order to pay off their gambling debts. This is happening as we stand here—it happened in the last few months, in both Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Girls are being forced to marry first cousins against their will and if they refuse—they are being honor murdered.
Muslim women are being legally stoned to death in Iran, and Afghanistan; beheaded, both legally and customarily, in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan; customarily blinded by acid attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan—and not by Jews, Israelis, or Americans, but by other Muslims.
Muslim women are being buried alive (literally, not merely under face and body veils), in Algeria, in Pakistan, and under Taliban and Al-Qaeda rule. Muslim women are being sexually stalked by “wilding” parties in Egypt and Algeria, and gang-raped and then lashed almost to death in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria. They are being normatively beaten at home all over the Muslim world—yes in Gaza and the West Bank as well as in Jordan and Egypt– and normatively killed in honor/dishonor killings. Physical and sexual child abuse is both rampant and hotly denied as is homosexual pederasty.
According to recent studies, in Pakistan, 90% of all women are beaten throughout their lives. One million women in Pakistan are beaten every year while they are pregnant. Honor killings are pandemic but the killers are rarely prosecuted. On the contrary. They are usually glorified, heroized.
In the West, battering and femicide are crimes and are often (not always) prosecuted. Battering and woman-murder are not glorified or acceptable in the West, nor is it a family collaboration.
Honor killings are a Muslim-on-Muslim crime, a collaboration of an entire family against their own female blood. So is female genital mutilation, polygamy, and arranged and child marriage.
These human rights atrocities are happening all over the Muslim world. Make no mistake: Such practices have fully penetrated the West. If a girl or a woman, in Europe or North America, wants to go to college; refuses to veil; leaves an abusive husband; refuses an arranged marriage; chooses to have non-Muslim friends; acts in ways that are considered too “western,” her own family (father, mother, brother, sometimes husband), will kill her. In the last year, this has happened in Dallas, Toronto, Atlanta, and Henrietta, New York. Honor murders happen far more often in Europe because the Muslim population is much larger there.
Recently, a Pakistani-Muslim man beheaded his Pakistani-Muslim wife in Buffalo. Beheading takes great strength and planning. The wife’s crime? After being beaten and living in fear for years, she finally dared to leave him. More: she dared to keep the children and the home. An order of protection forced him out of his castle. In Pakistan he would simply kill her for such insubordination. He would not be prosecuted. Here, American feminists and domestic violence workers refused to see this as an honor killing, refused to understand that a beheading is related to radical fundamentalist Islam and jihad, and insisted that if they did so, it would render them vulnerable to being called “racists.”
Although America is far from perfect, it is still a more democractic, more lawful, more feminist, and more compassionate country than is any Muslim country anywhere in the world—no matter how charming or hospitable its citizens may also be. The same is true of tiny, imperfect, amazing, and much maligned Israel. It stands head and shoulders above its Arab and Muslim neighbors in terms of human rights. This is one of the reasons it is so demonized.
To my sorrow, many western academics, feminist activists, and mainstream journalists actively resist this point of view. They claim that human bomb-terrorism, hate speech, child suicide bombers, honor killings masterminded, funded, and carried out by Muslims, have absolutely nothing to do with Islam; that barbaric practices such as stoning, beheading, limb amputation, and honor killing are all “pre-Islamic” customs and have nothing to do with Islam; and that pairing Islam with what is done in its name by its followers, or by its national and religious leaders—is an example of western “racism” and Islamophobia.
We in the West have also been taught that Islamic barbarism is due to western colonialism, imperialism, racism. We have not been taught to view Islam as the imperialistic, genocidal, slave-owning and misogynist culture which, alas, it is. Today, even saying this is quickly labeled “Islamophobic” and censored as hate speech.
If we do not protect Muslim girls and women in the West from being honor murdered—then their blood will be on our hands too.
Funding shelters, world-wide, for battered Muslim women is long overdue. I challenge the Saudi princes to fund this worthy cause as opposed to their funding of more madrassas or more anti-American and anti-Israel Middle East Studies programs.
I believe we must unite in a vision of human rights that are universal. I believe that long-persecuted Hindus have much to teach the West about Islamic jihad as do Christians, Jews, (especially Arab and North African Jews), Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Ba’haii, etc., who have been persecuted, forced to convert, murdered, and exiled by Muslims in Asia and the Middle East.
Our country and our world is under the most profound siege. This rally is the first step that civilians are taking to fight back against radical fundamentalist Islam.
I congratulate the coalition and its leaders for their visionary brilliance and activism.
Thanks Phyllis for the great speech and your courage.
Yes, yes, I really want to be positive, to hope against hope that justice, common sense, will finally prevail. That luminaries and courageous people like Geert Wilders from the Netherlands will become the norm in the West. He was here in Miami a few days ago, where he received the prestigious Free Speech Award that is awarded annually by the Florida Security Council. In his speech in Miami, he reminded us again that Winston Churchill compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Also, as the current Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan reminded us also recently “There is no moderate Islam, Islam is Islam”. Many are finally understanding that analogy.
I his speech last Monday, Geert Wilders said this about Israel: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is one Western country that has been forced to fight the forces of jihad for its values since the very first day of its existence: Israel, the canary in the coal mine. Let me say a few words about that wonderful country. I had the privilege of living in Israel for a few years, and since then I have visited Israel many, many times. I love Israel. However, in Europe being pro-Israel makes you an endangered species. Israel is a beacon of light in an area – the Middle East – that is pitch black everywhere else. Israel is a Western democracy, while Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt are medieval dictatorships.”
He calls Israel “the canary in the coal mine”. That’s why we must support Israel with all our strength and heart.
As for India and the Hindus, there is no other country or race or religion that has absorbed the wrath and injustice of Islam in the last few centuries than the Hindus. Many scholars call this period under Islam in India a “Hindu Holocaust” because it included deliberate and systematic mass murder, and destruction of Hindu temples and places of worship (in the hundreds and thousands – notice absence of Hindu temple in northern India). There are a few people dedicated in India to bring this up, to the point of risking their lives, among hem several foreigners living in India, first and foremost Frenchman Francois Gautier from Auroville. Please check this link to his Hindu Holocaust Museum: http://www.mantra.com/holocaust/. He has to fight against the forces of Marxism and Hindu-baiting prevalent in many of the influential universities in India that apologize and engage in “negationism” (as coined by another great writer and historian, Belgian Koenraad Elst): http://voiceofdharma.org/books/negaind/ Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam.
“That’s why we must support Israel with all our strength and heart.”
This is far more than many Israelis are willing to do. They are Jews who believe their own country is victimizing the normally darker skinned Palestinians. These guilt tripped individuals don’t feel they have a right to defend Israel. Sad, but true.
Dr. Chesler: You are the bravest woman alive and a true hero and role model.
I was a far left radical until l4 months ago when the left so brutalized Hillary and Sarah Palin and I woke up. I realized that the far left is built on the backs of women, that women are continually sacrificed at the alter of political correctness and multiculturism. The Left doesn’t care a bit about women — except making sure we are sexually available and can get abortions (to be sexually available). They care about their ideology, not about people. That’s the dirty secret. They will sacrifice the most vulnerable, women and children, to be push their agenda. I have found that the real safe harbor for women is not the Left, but the Right because they still feel that women must be protected.
I hope you will survive this rally. Will you have adequate police protection? Even if you do, you are still in danger if Islamic terrorists ever discover your address.
As always you speak the truth with eloquence, and with a powerful voice, Phyllis. We need more women like you out there sounding the alarm.
Bravo!
You go with all our support.
Norman
I wasn’t able to attend the rally in Times Square but my wife did. She was struck by the diversity of the crowd and the speakers. Among the protesters were blacks, whites, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs. But the weather was drizzly and cold, the media were
prominent by their absence and the entire affair begs a question:
If Islam is so offensive to so many, why are protests against it so muted?
Conventional wisdom has it that the American public is fat, comfortable and complacent and not easily aroused. That the danger is perceived to be distant and isn’t viscerally threatening. That we Americans are naturally pluralistic and reflexively averse to prejudice against those whose ways differ from our own, especially in matters of religion.
I have a different theory. My theory is that the elites who dominate policy and public opinion in America view the American public with the same fear and contempt that males who dominate Muslim society view females.
The laughable Muslim male fantasy that excuses the enslavement of women is that women are wild beings–sexually insatiable, irrepressibly immoral and dissolute. If women were not held down continually, the entire male population would be devoured. Women are enslaved for their own good and that of Muslim society at large.
Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when America finally declared war on the Axis, anti Nazi and anti German sentiments in American media were as rare as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment are today. Hollywood directors, including Hitchcock, were not allowed to make films directly insulting to Nazis. Hitlers atrocities were well known in their full horrific detail for years but no newspaper carried the story. The execrable Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jewish publisher of the Times, knew the worst but determinedly kept mention of the wholesale slaughter of innocents in their millions out of the paper of record.
None of this occurred by accident. It was policy. And policy today is no different. The eunuchs in the State Department and their fellow travelers and camp followers in the CIA and the media are determined to keep the American public ignorant and quiescent. They know best how to deal with the Islamic challenge and they make damn sure they have no interference from an aroused and dangerous American citizenry.
I have a suggestion, Dr. Chesler: Get radical. Peaceful demonstrations only play into the enemy’s hands. If the press doesn’t attend, the effort is wasted and the demonstrators are talking to no one but themselves.
Next time you call a demonstration, make it in front of the Saudi embassy not in Times Square. Bring plenty of ribs, ham bones and pork sausages to leave behind. In your signs and placards, honestly and openly depict Mohamed, Muslims and Islam for the pigs and piggery they are.
Be unsophisticated, uncivil and crude. Arouse the faithful, challenge the enemy and wrest control of events from the arrogant and suicidal American elites.
Mr. Levavi:
A couple of comments on your post:
1) “If Islam is so offensive to so many, why are protests against it so muted?”
I would not call the protest as “muted”. On the contrary, that so many diverse individuals get together to protest a common threat; namely, radical Islam and Sharia Law, tells me of a great desire to be more vocal, and, better, to continue. There is surely a growing need for networking among the different organizations, websites, and groups in the US that consistently unmask radical Islam, Jihad, Sharia Law, and Islamic Gender Apartheid. And there are many, and growing.
2) “Conventional wisdom has it that the American public is fat, comfortable and complacent and not easily aroused. That the danger is perceived to be distant and isn’t viscerally threatening. That we Americans are naturally pluralistic and reflexively averse to prejudice against those whose ways differ from our own, especially in matters of religion.”
This is true, and I think you are correct; however, America is not nearly as monolithic as it was when Pearl Harbor, things are much more complicated and pluralistic nowadays. Difference sectors of society has attained power they never had before, plus there are even new sectors of society that were not existent in the US then. So, which group of Americans do we refer too? Obviously some Jews will be in the forefront of this fight, given the imminent threat to Israel, but there are other growing groups in the US that have taken abuse by radical Islam for centuries in their original homelands, such as the Hindus (including the Sikhs), now Hindu-Americans, that can contribute much to the struggle. But, finally it is the engagement of that often-silent white christian majority that will decide the struggle. It was radical Islam as Al Qaeda who attacked us on 9/11, so it is incumbent to those who know, want, can, and have the call to, such as Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders, to enlighten the American public at large on the stealth Jihad taking place under the application of Al-Hijra, the Islamic doctrine of migration, this is what happened to Europe and where the US is going unless something is done soon. Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi said, “We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe – without swords, without guns, without conquest. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.” This is what’s coming to us unless we unite.
Phyllis, thank you so much for your great courage in speaking out. You are indeed one of the great heroes of the Free World!
How bitter is the betrayal of Europe and the UK of women and non-Muslims!
In Britain, Muslims and Islam are Elevated above All Other People and Religions. Is there Anyone in the UK Government Who PROTECTS the Human Rights of NON-MUSLIMS?
Polygamy is against the law in Britain and punished by up to seven years in jail. The law is applied to everyone except Muslims. Provided Muslims marry multiple wives overseas, Muslims are richly rewarded and given welfare benefits for their multiple wives. Some Muslim men maintain two separate homes, driving between each home.
The UK and other European governments have set up supremacist Islamic sharia law courts revealing Western leaders’ utter contempt for the Western justice system of equal rights. Under Islamic law, women are inferior and defenseless non-Muslims have no human rights. Unless a drastic change occurs, due to extremely high Muslim immigration and very high birth-rate, Muslims will become the majority and cruel Islamic sharia law will replace Britain and Europe’s justice system.
MUSLIM Demographics (very alarming)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU
The END of EUROPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfOmQ4Eo_as
Other countries, arise from your sleep: all peoples of different ethnic backgrounds and religions must band together as America did in New York on Sunday. The threat is greater than communism and Hitler’s fascism combined. Our freedom and very survival is at stake.
As always, you “go,” my friend.
Miamaman:
“…But, finally it is the engagement of that often-silent white christian majority that will decide the struggle…”
True enough. But experience suggests that this majority will not stir until it is directly threatened. It took Pearl Harbor to bring us into a war we should have been engaged in three to five years earlier. Any Jew, Hindu or Sikh who looks to Christians or Christianity for salvation needs his head examined.
The wholesale slaughter of innocents during WWII drew only one feeble protest from the Vatican, Mit Brennender Sorge, a Papal encyclical mainly lamenting the euthanasia of Germans with debilities. Nazi priests leaked word of the encyclical’s preparation and the Gestapo responded instantly with arrests of priests on charges of pedophilia. The Vatican quietly shelved its encyclical and remained silent until the end of the war when, like Austria, it claimed innocent victimhood by Hitler. The Vatican concordat with Hitler as well as many unambiguous statements from individual bishops leaves no doubt that, in its heart, the Church supported Hitler’s authoritarian program.
The Lutherans were even more openly enthusiastic in their support of the Fuhrer. They launched an effort to de-Judaize Christianity—an enterprise roughly equivalent to removing Hydrogen from H2 O and imagining that the result will be wet and drinkable.
So don’t count on the “crusaders,” Miamaman. The Islamists program is two-fold: Terrorize and narcotize. The “crusaders” are in dreamland and, odds are, they won’t wake up until it’s too late.
It is insulting to all Americans that the media whitewashes almost all the conflicts caused by Muslims with buzzwords such as “rebels”.
I believe Hollywood and the media are actually intimidated and that is the reason for their silence and attempt to limit justifiable outrage by parsing words and ignoring the types of things Ms. Chesler points out. The failure to publish the Mohammed cartoons stands as a stark indictment of our newspapers.
I pray for your safety, Phyllis, and that of your family and pets.
I adore Phyllis! Right on!
Only good Islamofascist is a dead one!
I grew up in a far-right family and have learned that they also got to be where they are on the backs of women- and their ‘protecton’ is not sufficient, and can be patronizing and constrictive.
The right has been blinded to these issues because most of them are not bilingual. to reach them, we must speak their language. When we have conservative churches preaching social justice and action, and country songs as battle cries instead of laments- things will happen.