On April 23, a collection of racist, anti-Muslim forces intended to hold what they titled an “Islamic Apartheid Conference” hosted by the equally absurdly named Students for Intellectual Freedom at Temple University in Philadelphia. Instead, they were met with a militant counter-protest many times the size of their audience.
The featured speakers were Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who lead an organization called Stop Islamization of America, which the Southern Poverty Law Center considers to be a hate group. Geller was instrumental in sparking the Islamophobic hysteria about attempts to construct a Muslim Community Center somewhat close to the former site of the World Trade Center. Other speakers, included as tokens to deflect justified accusations of racism, were Nonie Darwish, billed as an “ex-Muslim,” and Simon Deng, who is Sudanese.
The main force behind the conference was David Horowitz, who runs a group called the Freedom Center. In addition to involvement with a slew of racist and pro-imperialist causes, Horowitz has paid special attention to slandering Arab and Muslim communities. For example, when speaking at the University of Massachusetts in 2010, Horowitz stated: “The Palestinians are Nazis. Every one of their elected officials are terrorists.”
Although progressive student activists found out about the event less than a week before, a wide variety of groups immediately jumped into action to organize a counter-demonstration. Officially endorsing were 28 organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Occupy Philadelphia, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Temple Queer Students Union.
The day of the bigoted conference, over 100 protesters gathered to fight back against anti-Muslim hate. After a short march to the entrance of the auditorium that housed the event, demonstrators waited in line while continuing to chant and wave Palestinian flags. After making it past the heavy police presence, which outrageously included a bomb-sniffing dog, progressive students and community members filled the room, embarrassing the tiny group of racists who came to attend the program.
The conference began with a disgraceful speech by Stephanie Ives, the dean of students, who gave the event Temple University’s official endorsement. Ives told the protesters to respect the bigots’ right to free speech, which was met with boos and chants of “Hate speech is not free speech!” A few minutes later Robert Spencer took the podium, and counter-protesters stood up as a group, silently holding pieces of paper with slogans like “Spencer and Geller’s hate speech inspires mass murder” before walking out as a group.
A rally was then held outside the entrance to the auditorium, featuring speakers from Temple’s Muslim Students Association, the PSL and others. The mass response, organized in a very short amount of time, was a clear rejection of the idea that those who seek to spread divisive hate could hide behind the guise of freedom of expression.
Although genuine attendance at the “Islamic Apartheid Conference” was pathetic, their ideas are central to maintaining domestic support for U.S. imperialism. To justify the atrocities and wars of aggression waged in the Middle East, Muslims are portrayed as a violent and irrational menace. In addition, Islamophobia reinforces and is reinforced by racism.
While Christian and Jewish extremists are seldom talked about, Muslims, who are mostly people of color, are routinely demonized. To defend the rights of working people in the United States and our sisters and brothers around the world, bigots like Horowitz, Spencer and Geller must be met with the same mass people’s response wherever they go.
