2008 Woodie Awards
Fighting Fundamentalism
Eitan Kastner
Issue date: 12/6/04 Section: Opinion
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Over the course of a month, I covered two guest lectures for The Commentator. One was for the first Israel Club meeting of the semester which featured Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and a month later I covered a Book Project event with famed author Salman Rushdie. Both men had reputable credentials and both could have given a thorough address solely on the topic of the evening, but, curiously, both men spent a considerable amount of their time discussing something, in all honesty, off topic: Islamic fundamentalism.
This is certainly a pertinent theme for a lecture when considering current world events; nevertheless, it should not have been the primary focus of either a Book Project lecture or an Israel Club meeting. Each area has more relevant issues that could have been discussed by the speakers. Since it was discussed though, I find it interesting to point out a subtle disparity between the two speakers' approaches to Islamic fundamentalism in their respective addresses.
The overall purpose of Honlein's speech was to outline the current state of the Jewish world and Israel. However, his focus was on the state of global Islamic education. He hammered home the importance of this type of education by throwing out numerous anecdotes and statistics concerning the rise and prominence of Islamic fundamentalism in the U.S. and abroad to show what it appears we are up against. In fact, this is what took up a very significant portion of his speech. Israel itself was not discussed until twenty minutes in and even then it was only briefly. Employing something of a charismatic doomsday scare tactic, Honlein hoped to rally the sizable audience to buy into what he was selling by portraying this fundamentalism as an almost unconquerable hydra that needs immediate and direct action to be vanquished.
Following a gross misinterpretation of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, a multi-million dollar price was put on Rushdie's head which forced him into a decade long exile from the world. His personal battle with Islamic fundamentalism was fought on the grounds of free speech. Bluntly, he wished to exercise this right and the Ayatollah was not so into it. Rushdie was quick to clarify the victor in his speech when he said "don't mess with writers because apparently the pen is mightier than the sword," thus describing how he is still alive and expressing himself through his writings while Khomeini is no longer around and the fatwa has been dropped. His address was an inspiring oration of the triumph of freedom over absolutism. He showed that fundamentalism is not the unbeatable force people perceive it to be. This was a perfect way to solidify his overall message of the night, that freedom of speech and tolerance are the crucial fifth column necessary to topple fundamentalism. All that is needed is the patience to wage this war on fundamentalism one small battle at a time.
Both speeches conveyed important issues for the students of Yeshiva. Honlein's emphasis on the importance to educate and be educated in Israeli issues and Rushdie's describing the importance of tolerance and free speech are certainly crucial issues. But while Honlein tried to show the dire straits that await if immediate action is not taken against the juggernaut that is fundamentalism, Rushdie professed that if freedom and tolerance are proclaimed, fundamentalism will be exposed as the paper tiger that it is in time. Although education is truly an important defensive measure against fundamentalism, supporting those that are trying to bring it down from the inside, like Rushdie, is the only way to rid the world of this evil.
This is certainly a pertinent theme for a lecture when considering current world events; nevertheless, it should not have been the primary focus of either a Book Project lecture or an Israel Club meeting. Each area has more relevant issues that could have been discussed by the speakers. Since it was discussed though, I find it interesting to point out a subtle disparity between the two speakers' approaches to Islamic fundamentalism in their respective addresses.
The overall purpose of Honlein's speech was to outline the current state of the Jewish world and Israel. However, his focus was on the state of global Islamic education. He hammered home the importance of this type of education by throwing out numerous anecdotes and statistics concerning the rise and prominence of Islamic fundamentalism in the U.S. and abroad to show what it appears we are up against. In fact, this is what took up a very significant portion of his speech. Israel itself was not discussed until twenty minutes in and even then it was only briefly. Employing something of a charismatic doomsday scare tactic, Honlein hoped to rally the sizable audience to buy into what he was selling by portraying this fundamentalism as an almost unconquerable hydra that needs immediate and direct action to be vanquished.
Following a gross misinterpretation of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, a multi-million dollar price was put on Rushdie's head which forced him into a decade long exile from the world. His personal battle with Islamic fundamentalism was fought on the grounds of free speech. Bluntly, he wished to exercise this right and the Ayatollah was not so into it. Rushdie was quick to clarify the victor in his speech when he said "don't mess with writers because apparently the pen is mightier than the sword," thus describing how he is still alive and expressing himself through his writings while Khomeini is no longer around and the fatwa has been dropped. His address was an inspiring oration of the triumph of freedom over absolutism. He showed that fundamentalism is not the unbeatable force people perceive it to be. This was a perfect way to solidify his overall message of the night, that freedom of speech and tolerance are the crucial fifth column necessary to topple fundamentalism. All that is needed is the patience to wage this war on fundamentalism one small battle at a time.
Both speeches conveyed important issues for the students of Yeshiva. Honlein's emphasis on the importance to educate and be educated in Israeli issues and Rushdie's describing the importance of tolerance and free speech are certainly crucial issues. But while Honlein tried to show the dire straits that await if immediate action is not taken against the juggernaut that is fundamentalism, Rushdie professed that if freedom and tolerance are proclaimed, fundamentalism will be exposed as the paper tiger that it is in time. Although education is truly an important defensive measure against fundamentalism, supporting those that are trying to bring it down from the inside, like Rushdie, is the only way to rid the world of this evil.