Editors’ note: The following was a public statement issued by the Democratic Solidarity Committee to the Brown University and Providence community in response to attacks by the organizers of Irshad Manji’s speech there on September 28, 2004.

Natalie Smolenski in her article discussing Irshad Manji’s visit to our campus decries ideological hecklers who undermine civil discussion. She ostentatiously speaks on behalf of the Brown community and argues that partisans of political speech should be removed by campus police when they are rude to “our” guests.

Since when does the endorsement of the Brown administration and some campus clubs and departments constitute the welcome of the entire community? Are the campus police the private army of certain individuals who decide when speech miraculously gets transformed into “violence,” or are they for the public safety of everyone? This only underlines the wisdom of one of the “hecklers” who made plain enough that we only have the freedom of speech until the state decides we do not. That so-called “progressives” wish to obscure this makes clear their outlook on democracy and their so-called anti-racist and anti-war efforts are laughed at by radicals and conservatives alike. They are nothing but a loyal opposition.

The campus administration has collaborated with the state in registering international Arab and Muslim students to intimidate and curtail their political speech and free association. These are not foreigners but a substantial body of our neighbors. Ms. Smolenski and Ms. Manji perhaps find this condition unfortunate. When will they advocate that some armed force intervene to protect these students’ speech? When will they ask the state and the campus administration to behave with more civility? We say those that justify public forums on "what’s wrong with Islam" without criticizing white supremacy and empire are facilitators of these latter two evils. How can we have a public forum about “The Trouble with Islam” (the title of Manji’s book) when courageous or angry political speech by Arab and Muslim students, or anyone, is grounds for losing one’s job, being expelled from school, deportation and jail? Ahhh, the virtues of “civil dialogue.”

Smolenski points out that Anti-Racist Action and Democratic Solidarity Committee circulated a flyer about “The Trouble With Irshad Manji,” and that in the question and answer period there were vocal detractors. Smolenski fairly states these critics were insulted by Manji’s “Zionism,” “phony multiculturalism,” and that she was “a tool of American Empire.” Is Zionism, the advocacy and defense of the state and ruling class of Israel and its colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, a neutral matter? Is Israel not the frontline of American empire in the Middle East? Why do “they” hate us? Some of us have disdain for our fellow citizens at Brown. Is that a right? Or, apparently, a privilege of a select few?

Irshad Manji has been invited by Zionists to many places internationally. They have paid for her trip to Israel where she miraculously discovered democratic freedoms there. She is presently working with the UN to liberate Muslim women by giving them loans to open up their own businesses. Is the UN a defender of human rights or a country club of ruling elites who piss and moan and then follow America’s dictates? She came to encourage the Muslim students to speak out (about the lack of democracy within their own communities alone) implying they had “cultural” obstacles to being self-governing. Could a white conservative male have done any better? In fact nobody would have listened—and that’s the Irshad Manji gimmick.

Smolenski would wish to remind us that a multiracial, multicultural coalition, among whom there happened to be some Zionists, invited her. We remind the Brown campus community that multiculturalism, which justifies institutional racism and colonialism, will no longer be accepted in a civil fashion. We will speak out angrily. We have learned from how African American working class people are subjected to police brutality nationally by black and white mayors and police chiefs alike. We have seen Colin Powell facilitate the slaughter of Arab and Muslim peoples whether under Bush or Clinton. We are aware of how modern white supremacy and empire functions. Let the rainbow coalition of aspiring rulers on this campus continue to go to pieces in the great debate about what exactly constitutes democracy and anti-racism.

Democratic Solidarity Committee