I want to welcome you all to my Pajamas Media XPRESS blog. I am delighted to be with you. I hope that what interests me will interest, enlighten, strengthen, inspire and delight you. Of course, some postings will also enrage and amaze you since, among many other subjects, I write about Islamic gender and religious apartheid, jihad, Islamist fundamentalism, Muslim and ex-Muslim dissenters, the new anti-Semitism, the demonization of Israel, terrorism, anti-Americanism, and Big Lie Propaganda and the way in which it has increasingly penetrated culture.
I am an old-fashioned independent American thinker. I do not “do” one-line put-downs or savage soundbites. I know how to critique data and conduct studies but I also write so that non-academics can understand what I am saying. I listen respectfully to someone who has an opposing point of view, (or at least I try to). Even when my blood boils, I do not bully, intimidate, mock, scorn, or demonize my opponent.
As you all may or may not know, I am a retired Professor of Psychology, a retired psychotherapist, and a retired courtroom witness. But I remain an author, a lecturer, and a public intellectual (God help us all!) who is often interviewed by the media, but no longer by the liberal/left mainstream media.
Once, my books (there are fifteen, thirteen are published), my articles (there are thousands), and my various political, feminist, civil, religious, and human rights campaigns were widely and prominently covered in the major mainstream media. This changed radically in 2003 when I began writing in defense of Israel and America and about the hijacking of the western university by a virulent form of Stalinist Palestinianism and postmodernism.
I do not represent any one nation-state but rather a state of mind not bound by any political party or ideology. I believe in universal human rights and am therefore not a multi-cultural relativist or a Blame America-firster. Once, long ago, I lived in purdah, in Kabul, Afghanistan. I do not justify the veil, polygamy, purdah, or Islamic religious (shari’a) law. And, I do not necessarily blame the West for indigenous barbarism in the Third World.
For example, tribal warfare, honor murders, bride (or dowry) burnings, female genital mutilation, amputation, and stoning are not caused by western capitalism, colonialism, or imperialism, nor is tiny Israel responsible for such customs. For that matter, neither the West nor Israel can be blamed for the genocides in Rwanda or Darfur, Sudan, or for the mass gang-rapes there and in the Congo.
For holding such views, I have sometimes been slandered as a “racist” by a handful of outspoken western ideologues–but then again, I’ve also been embraced by some of the bravest people in the world: Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents who share my passion for women’s rights, human rights, freedom of thought and religion, the belief that Israel absolutely deserves to exist and that the West deserves defending.
Unsurprisingly, I have been unable to find a publisher for a collection of my writings that I’ve titled The Islamification of America or for a new book which will expand upon my own long-ago captivity in Afghanistan and upon the fabulous voyages to the Islamic East that other westerners have taken.
However, I am optimistic and determined to publish these works myself if necessary.
“Samizdat” means self-publishing. This word came into vogue in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union. Dissidents published themselves in order to evade officially imposed censorship. My views have been censored but not by the government. (More about what this means in future postings).
Things are far from bleak. More than five million readers have bought one or more of my first thirteen books. Millions of readers from 100 countries visit my website (www.phyllis-chesler.com) every year where I post my articles. Perhaps my internet–and now you, my Pajamas Media readers—will also buy my books, especially if they are self-published.
I am cheerfully resolute on this subject. And why? Because I know that I am very lucky for a truth teller. Unlike my honorable Muslim counterparts, I can still live safely in my own country and publish under my own name. They are often censored, imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their work, driven into exile (if they are lucky), hounded with death threats, forced to live in hiding and to publish under pseudonyms.
Thus, I think the times are exceedingly grave, not only for Jews or Israelis but for all civilians, Muslims as well, who are being terrorized and blown up by Islamic suicide killers. We cannot continue to misunderstand Islamist fundamentalism. We do so at our own peril.
But fear not, Dear Reader: My blog will also cover other, “lighter,” subjects. I plan to take you with me to the opera, theatre, cinema (aka movies in my childhood), and to museums and concerts in New York City. You will be with me when I attend political and literary events and when I interview some of the most remarkable people in the world. I will also review books.
I welcome your feedback and requests. I will read and try to respond to your questions and comments if you submit them to the blog.
Join me as I continue to cover the Culture Wars. Their outcome will determine our global future.
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