Victicrat Conference at UC Berkeley

On April 20-21, UC Berkeley will be the site of a big victim conference whose main theme is Islamophobia. It looks like the ubiquitous UCB professor Hatem Bazian will be one of the main players. He is pretty much the chief victicrat among the Islamic movement in America. The purpose of this conference is to cry racism against Americans and to convince other Muslims that they cannot get a fair shake in this country- thus, they need all the organizations like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, ICNA and MAS to look out for their interests, which is pure.....

Here is the agenda (aside from the agenda I just mentioned):
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Critical Discourses on Islamophobia: 

Symbols, Images and Representations

April 20-21, 2012
Booth Auditorium
UC Berkeley Boalt Law School

This conference will be webcast!  Check back on this page for more details.

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PROGRAM

FRIDAY, APRIL 20th, 2012

Opening and Welcoming Remarks 9:00am

Prof. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Center for Race & Gender Welcoming Remarks           
Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP and Conference Convener         

Keynote:   9:30 -10:30am

A Global Perspective on Constructing Muslim Otherness
Professor Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the Oxford University, Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, (Qatar), Senior Research Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan) and Director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethnics (CILE) (Doha, Qatar)

Panel  1   10:30am-12:15 PM
Images and Representation of Islam and Muslims

Seeing Time: Visual Culture in the Drone Wars
Prof. Keith Feldman, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Beyond Individual Journalism: Deconstructing Media Framing
Sumbul Ali-Karamali, J.D. University of California, Davis, and a graduate degree in Islamic Law University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies

Framing/Reframing: The Five ‘Media Pillars’ of Islam and the Limits of the American Imaginary
Prof. Munir Jiwa, Center for Islamic Studies, Graduate Theological Union

Countering Stereotypes with Social Media: Muslim Cultural Producers in the United States
Som Pourfarzaneh, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate Theological Union

Chair: Dr. Mahan Mirza, Zaytuna College

Lunch Break  12:30-2:00 PM

Panel 2   2:00- 3:45 PM
Europe’s Islamophobia: Contested Identities, Immigration and Racism

Islamophobia in the Netherlands and Anti-Black Racism
Prof. Sandew Hiro, International Institute of Scientific Studies, Amsterdam

Islamophobia in France
Houria Bouteldja, Dialeg Global Institute, Barcelona and Paris

Breaking the Taboo of Multiculturalism: The Belgian Left and Islam
Dr. Nadia Fadil, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven-Belgium, visiting scholar UC Berkeley

Breivik and Islamophobic Fantasies of Muslim Dominance
Jason van Boom, Ph.D. Director of Nicholas of Cusa Institute and Adjunct Professor, Star King School

Chair:  Prof. Ramon Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies Department, UC Berkeley

Panel 3     4:00 – 5:45 PM
Race, Racism and Discourses of Otherness

Racism in the Aftermath of Islamophobia
Prof. Junaid Rana, Asian American Studies Affiliate in the Department of Anthropology, Center for the Study of South Asian and the Middle East, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ghettoes, Banlieues and Barrios: The Geo-politics of Muslim Hip Hop
Prof. Hishaam Aidi, Institute for Research in African-American Studies & School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Stepping Razor: Race, Muslim Identity and Perpetual War
Prof. Sohail Daulatzai, African American STudies and Film & Media Studies, School of Humanities, UC Irvine

Situated Knowledge (re)Production & Epistemic Violence: Can the Subaltern
Speak?
Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED), San Francisco State University

Chair: Prof. Marianne Farina, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, GTU

SATURDAY, APRIL 21st, 2012

Panel  4     10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Security Structures and Civil Rights: Reversing the Trend!

New Kids on the Block: Islamophobia within U.S. Jim Crow History and Resistance
Monami Maulik, founder and Executive Director of DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving

Eroding Civil Liberties: From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror
Zahra Billoo, CAIR Northern California Executive Director

SAFE San Francisco Campaign and Civil Rights Organizing
Summer Hararah, Asian Law Caucus

Muslims: Enemies of the State: The New Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO)
Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP and Zaytuna College

Chair: Prof. Munir Jiwa, Center for Islamic Studies, GTU

Lunch Break  12:30 PM – 1:30 PM   

Panel     5     1:30 PM – 2:45 PM
Theoretical Framing of Islamophobia and Blind Spots

Twice Behaved, Twice Erased: Islamophobia and the Black Body
Abdul Hamid Robinson Royal, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate Theological Union

Five Hundred Twenty Years of Islamophobia in the West (1492 to 2012): From the Early Modern Period until Today
Prof. Ramon Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies Department, Chicano/Latino Studies, UC Berkeley

Islamophobia as a Race Marker and the “First Muslim President
Imam Zaid Shakir, Zaytuna College

Shariah and Citizenshp: Institutionalizing Fear-How Islamophobia is Creating a Second-Class Citizenry in America
Yaser Ali, UC Berkeley Boalt Law School

Chair: Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

Panel     6         3:00 PM – 4:45 PM
Islamophobia Implications on the Otherized Subjects

A Measure of Islamophobia
Prof S. Sayyid, Director of the Muslim Non-Muslim Centre, University of South Australia

The psychological impact of ongoing Islamophobia and law enforcement harassment
Prof. Jess Ghannam, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF; Chief, Medical Psychology, UCSF/Mount Zion Medical Center

Media Discourse Analysis on Egyptian Revolution and Islamophobia
Yasmeen Daifallah, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, UC Berkeley

Islamophobia in the Palestinian Context
Dr. Ayesha Al Rifai, Dean of Education Sciences Faculty and Principal of Ramallah Women Training Center at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Ramallah - West Bank /Palestine

Chair: Dr. Mahan Mirza, Zaytuna College

Closing Remarks  5:00 PM- 5:30 PM

Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

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If I may add a few comments. 

Hatem Bazian is a progressive activist who immigrated here from what he calls "Palestine" with his family. He has two main agendas: Islamophobia and bashing Israel. But you see, he is such a victim since he has obtained an education including PhD from Berkeley and is now a professor. Poor Hatem.

Hatem Bazian

Hopefully, as he is talking about how Americans hate Muslims, he might address some comments that have been attributed to him, such as telling a Berkeley audience that if they look around campus, they will see Jewish names on the buildings, or reportedly calling for an intifada in the US, or reportedly quoting that quaint little hadith that talks about the day of judgement, when Jews will hide behind trees, and the trees will call out to the Muslims to come and kill them. (I tried to get those answers from him a couple of years ago when he spoke at UC Irvine.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/05/hatem-bazian-at-uc-irvine.html

If you are attending, maybe you can ask him again and get better answers than I did. Keep it mind as you listen to him complaining about "Islamophobia". (Maybe he can define the term while he is at it.)

Then there is Tarek Ramadan, the Swiss-born grandson of Hasan al Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood and did not have a high opinion of other faiths. But this is Tarek, who was born in the West, highly educated, and a scholar when it comes to Islam. He is regarded by many as a true moderate. Yet, until Hillary Clinton lifted the ban last year, he was not allowed in the US due to some questionable donations to outfits that were considered connected to terrorism. (His defense is that he had no idea about the suspicious aspects of the organizations even before the US government uncovered them.) Ramadan also had problems when he was working at Rotterdam's Erasmus University. They canned him because he had a program on Press TV, which happens to be the English-language press organ of the Iranian government. A few years ago, Ramadan called for a moratorium on stonings in the Muslim world until Islamic scholars could study the issue and determine that they were justly applied-and not just to the poor and powerless. Most recently, Ramadan wrote an article on the Toulouse massacre, in which he painted the killer as a victim unable to assimilate into French society.

Zaid Shakir of Zaytuna College (Berkeley) will be there. Here is what Discover the Networks has to say about Shakir.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=974

Sohail Daulatzai

Here is Daulatzai's, faculty profile page from UC Irvine.

http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5300

"US imperial culture"

You get the picture.

I see Jess Ghannam of UCSF will be there too. Hardly surprising. Don't let that fancy title fool you. He is a fervent anti-Israel activist. Here is what Lee Kaplan wrote about him after attending a conference in La Mesa (Ca) in 2010.

http://homelandsecurityus.com/archives/3590

Leila Beckwith and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin also chimed in on the event, and here is what they wrote.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/situation-in-uc-campus-system.html

Here is one my previous mentions of Professor Ghannam:

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/al-awda-conference-in-orange-county.html

Another speaker is Rebab Abdulhadi, whose big claim to fame is she reportedly signed some letter of support for Bill Ayres in 2008, when his name was being bandied about with Barack Obama.

http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/Rabab_Abdulhadi

For what it's worth.

I also note that there will be a presentation on Islamophobia in France. Do you think the topic of Toulouse and the massacre that recently occurred there at a Jewish school will be mentioned? Will the name of Ilan Halimi, the young French Jew who was kidnapped, tortured over several days and murdered be mentioned? Don't hold your breath.

And a presentation about Islamophobia in the Netherlands, no less.

"The Netherlands. You mean the country where Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh had his throat slit on a Dutch street for having made a film called Fitna that called attention to mistreatment of Muslim women? The same country where Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an apostate, had to go into hiding and leave the country for having collaborated in the film? The country where Jews have been advised not to wear Jewish garb on the streets? Where Geert Wilders has to live under armed guard?"

That's the one.

So you get the picture. Let us call this what it is. This is a collection of progressive folks who want to paint Muslims as a victim group in this country. They will not acknowledge any instances of intolerance being shown around the world by Muslims towards others. They will not admit to the Jew hatred that is inherent in their belief system.  Instead, it is they who are the victims of a racist, imperialist nation, where Muslims must live in fear. That is a falsehood.

Yes, there is anti-Islamic feeling in this country, but it has not manifested itself in the kind of violence and discrimination that non-Muslim minorities are subjected to in Muslim nations. That is because the American people are cut from a different cloth. We know that it would be wrong to act out at innocent American Muslims. We know that most of them are law-abiding and don't wish us harm. Our laws on discrimination still apply. We have hate crime laws in place. There have been a few exceptions as there always will be. Yet, considering the high crime rates we have and the number of violent crimes like murder that we endure, our record in treating our Muslim citizens is pretty darn good, in my view. Hopefully, it will continue.

Another thing these folks will not admit is that there is a long-range goal on the part of many (not all) Muslim leaders to start America down the road to eventually becoming an Islamic country under Sharia law. Right now there is a full-fledged drive to present Sharia to Americans as a benign system of fairness and justice that is in conformance with American law and our constitution. It is not.

In addition, at least some of these individuals are very active in agitating against Israel.

What these figures are fighting and calling "Islamophobia" is an honest and normal  reaction to 9-11, to terror, to violent rhetoric, and to intolerance itself. Yes, we are discussing the Koran, the hadith, the life of Mohammed, what is happening every day around the world. Should we not? That is not hate, but we do see a threat to us and our freedoms. Many of us are not about to lie down and give up our freedoms in the name of "being tolerant" to forces that are intolerant. I still believe that most American Muslims understand that. I doubt that many-if any-of those speaking at this conference get it.