Last night I appeared at the University of Buffalo at the invitation of the courageous students of Young Americans for Freedom, who have to put up with this Left-fascist thuggery on a daily basis, while I left Buffalo this morning. I say I “appeared,” because to say “I spoke” would be exaggerating a bit. Rather, I started a few sentences, made a couple of points, in between being screamed at by Leftist and Islamic supremacist fascists who think they’re opposing fascism.
The Spectrum article below is not that bad a report from the campus newspaper, showing the Left-fascist opposition to the freedom of speech, with a few exceptions: I am not a “self-proclaimed expert on radical Islam,” as I have never proclaimed myself an expert on anything, and my work stands or falls on the basis of the evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah, history and current events. Nor do I ever speak about “radical Islam,” which is a Western construct that does not exist in the Islamic world. And I didn’t call the fascists “uninformed fascists”; although they are indeed uninformed and think they know a great deal more than they actually do, I didn’t use that word. Finally, the reporters Ashley Inkumsah and Sarah Crowley wrote that I was “unphased” by the screaming fascists, when I was actually “unfazed.”
That said, I am grateful to Ashley Inkumsah and Sarah Crowley for a generally accurate report. Note the claims of victimhood trotted out yet again by the Muslims quoted in the article. They have hoodwinked the University of Buffalo Left-fascists into thinking that it’s “Islamophobes,” rather than jihad terrorists, who are killing people around the world. And that is one thing I said last night, although it is doubtful that the fascists heard it: the guy holding the sign “Queers Against Islamophobia” and any feminists in the audience have no idea what they’re enabling. By shutting down any discussion of the motivating ideology of the jihad threat and consigning it all to the realm of “hatred” and “bigotry,” they are only enabling that threat to grow, and one day, they may very well experience the consequences of their actions firsthand.
Meanwhile, UPD Chief of Police Gerald Schoenle “wished more university staff were present at the event to contain the disruptive crowd of students who were unable to get in.” This is disingenuous in the extreme. There were hordes of disruptive students who got in with no problem. What’s more, Schoenle overruled a plan that his subordinates had agreed to with my security team, that hecklers and screamers would be asked to be quiet and then escorted out. Schoenle actively aided and abetted the Left-fascist destruction of the event. Write him, courteously and politely, and remind him of the importance of the freedom of speech as the foundation of any free society, and the dangers of aiding and abetting Left-fascist thuggery for the future of any free society, at gws3@buffalo.edu. Also Tom Tiberi from Campus Life should was supposedly there to assist in making the event successful, but just stood by and did nothing while the Left-fascists screamed their abuse. He’s at tiberi@buffalo.edu. Remember: all messages to Schoenle and Tiberi should be polite, respectful, and courteous, sticking to the facts and calling them out for their malfeasance and allowance of Left-fascist thuggery.
Below the student paper article is the article from the Buffalo News, which is worthwhile only for capturing one thing I said: “The attempt to silence someone who has a differing viewpoint was a ‘quintessentially fascist act, and you are manifesting it in a wonderful way tonight,’ said Spencer.” There is also this: “Spencer frequently discusses terrorism by Muslims as being religiously motivated, an argument that has put him in the cross-hairs of American Muslims who say his interpretation of Islam is dangerously inaccurate and perverts their faith.”
Those American Muslims have a big problem on their hands, because in reality, I have no interpretation of Islam at all, but only report on how Muslims interpret it, which all too often involves justifications of and exhortations to violence. They are avid to silence me because they don’t want Americans to know how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify hatred, violence, and supremacism.
And so the University of Buffalo Left-fascists abundantly signaled their virtue by screaming at me for an hour and a half. What have they accomplished by doing so? Will the jihad threat thereby go away? Alas, no.
“A campus divided: Robert Spencer’s visit met with chaos and opposition from UB community,” by Ashley Inkumsah and Sarah Crowley, The Spectrum (University of Buffalo), May 2, 2017:
Students and faculty piled into Knox 109 to both hear Robert Spencer’s speech and protest his appearance.
Robert Spencer couldn’t speak for more than 30 seconds without students shouting and cursing at him on Monday night.
Spencer planned to speak to students about “the dangers of jihad in today’s world” but constant heckling from the crowd made it near impossible for him to complete a full sentence. Spencer, a self-proclaimed expert on radical Islam, runs a website called Jihad Watch.
Students called Spencer things like a “Nazi, “Trump Jr.” and a “pseudo-intellectual,” and most of his hour-long speech was inaudible. Spencer seemed unphased [sic] as students shouted over him and he responded, calling the crowd “uninformed fascists.”
Students who were anti-Spencer and pro-Spencer attended the event. In the end, many students left feeling little had been accomplished for either side.
“I think what ends up happening in debates like this where there’s different people who feel very strongly about different things, instead of seeing the other side’s perspective is they strengthen their own perspective,” said Fiza Ali, senior finance major.
Hundreds of students and faculty were unable to get into Knox 109, which only fits 200 people. University Police said the room reached its full capacity and letting more people in would be a fire hazard.
Students banged on the door chanting “let us in” as UPD struggled to contain the rowdy students. The officers were flustered and visibly unprepared for the unruly crowd. Two officers searched their phones to find laws to cite to students about why they couldn’t get in.
But many people weren’t surprised with this outcome.
When Spencer’s visit was announced it immediately caused a firestorm across the university and posed questions about the implications of free speech.
Although Student Association did not pay for Spencer to speak, thousands of students and faculty petitioned for SA to remove its logo from flyers about Spencer’s visit and many demanded his visit be canceled all together. Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) invited Spencer for the club’s first official event.
Despite the outcries of discontent from the UB community, Spencer still spoke. He entered Knox 109 to a swarm of boos and middle fingers from the crowd.
Spencer held a thumbs up with a grin on his face and took his phone out to record people booing him.
“I was invited to speak whether you like that or not,” Spencer said.
When Spencer agreed to debate anyone, he was met with a roaring applause.
Students asked him a wide range of questions, such as, what the central tenets of Islam were, what measures the military should take to defend against terrorism and if white men contributed to U.S. terrorism.
Midway through every answer, someone interrupted.
YAF Chairwoman Lynn Sementilli repeatedly asked students to quiet down as they interrupted Spencer while he tried to answer questions.
Before Spencer’s speech, Muslim Student Association held a peaceful sit-in as students gathered on the ground floor of Knox Hall. Roughly 80 students and faculty members showed solidarity for Muslims while some prayed.
“This is our narrative, our voice being stripped from us, and we demand to take it back,” said MSA President Samiha Islam. “Spencer and his followers have never been impacted by Islamophobia, we have. More Muslims have been harmed and killed by ISIS than any other group in the world. We vociferously denounce terrorism at every junction, hundreds of times publicly and privately and declare this is not what Islam represents.”
Kadija Mohammed, a sophomore undecided major, said she was disappointed that the university allowed Spencer to speak.
“I was shocked that there weren’t any moves by the school to stop him from coming, considering he’s banned from the U.K., like you have to be pretty bad to be banned from the U.K., if the queen doesn’t want to see your face, that’s a bad day,” Mohammed said.
Spencer spent a large portion of his speech reading from the Quran.
He read a part of Quran about gays and lesbians that referred to them as “adulterers,” and the crowd erupted in boos and cursed at him.
Sementilli said she expected the crowd to ask “tough questions,” but didn’t expect the crowd to impede on the dialogue.
“They are responsible for their own actions obviously we can’t control what anybody does,” she said. “It would have been nice if they would’ve been more respectful to the speaker and participated in a more productive dialogue.”
Both Luciana Sena, a senior legal studies major and Jared Armitage, a junior political science major, feel conservative perspectives aren’t heard on campus.
“It’s kind of an ongoing discussion here with the more conservative or Republican groups on campus that our free speech is often suppressed and I think that we saw that here today by not allowing one side of the discussion to speak,” Sena said.
UPD Chief of Police Gerald Schoenle wished more university staff were present at the event to contain the disruptive crowd of students who were unable to get in. He said the university will try to hold future potentially chaotic events in bigger venues like the Student Union Theater or Alumni Arena.
“Overall, well nobody got hurt, the points were heard on both sides so from that perspective so from that point of view it went OK,” Schoenle said.
“Controversial speaker at UB shouted down, heckled,” by Jay Tokasz, Buffalo News, May 1, 2017:
It wasn’t Berkeley or Middlebury, by any stretch.
But controversial speaker Robert Spencer was repeatedly shouted down and heckled at the podium Monday inside a University at Buffalo lecture room, as he tried to give a talk on “Exposing Radical Islam: The Dangers of Jihad in Today’s World.”
Two hundred people, most of them clearly opposed to Spencer’s point of view on Islam, sat in on the talk, while another 100 or more people were kept outside the room by university police due to fire code limits inside.
University officials and police had been on alert for the potential for significant demonstrations, in light of recent havoc at other campuses across the country over conservative-leaning speakers like Spencer, an author whose books on terrorism have been widely criticized by Islamic groups as anti-Muslim.
Spencer used a microphone during his talk but was frequently drowned out by shouts and chants to let more students inside. Some students called him a Nazi, while others yelled for him to shut up.
Spencer at times pulled out his cellphone to record the boisterous crowd. The attempt to silence someone who has a differing viewpoint was a “quintessentially fascist act, and you are manifesting it in a wonderful way tonight,” said Spencer. “What you have in this room besides the manifestation of fascism is a very interesting phenomenon in that I would doubt that any one of you has read a single thing I’ve written.”
Students began showing up to demonstrate against Spencer nearly two hours before his talk.
Tension had been building on campus since the conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom announced Spencer’s visit in April.
One of the aims of the group, which has had a chapter at UB since February, is to bring conservative-minded speakers to campus.
Within days, graduate student Alexandra Prince circulated a petition condemning Spencer as a “notorious Islamophobe and hate monger” and urging that student fees not be used to give him a platform on campus for hate speech.
Spencer frequently discusses terrorism by Muslims as being religiously motivated, an argument that has put him in the cross-hairs of American Muslims who say his interpretation of Islam is dangerously inaccurate and perverts their faith.
Spencer is part of a speaker’s bureau organized by the national Young Americans for Freedom Foundation, and he frequently talks on college campuses at the invitation of local YAF chapters….
The watchman on the wall ,sounding the ALARM
Well, when you’re from a state like Minnesota with such a large sharia-supporting Muslim population, many of whom have left to fight along side the Islamic State (ISIS), you’ll often find yourself on your knees kissing the feet of designated terrorist group CAIR.
John A. Marre says
May 2, 2017 at 10:27 am
You were warned, America, and you rejected the messenger. When you are bowed down waiting for the machete to separate your head from your body, you’ll wish everyone had listened.
Lookmann says
May 2, 2017 at 10:35 am
This is U S, the land of freedom and opportunity, to live and enjoy !
The lefturds should learn to respect other’s views or keep quiet.
Or better leave US.
HIPS says
May 2, 2017 at 10:36 am
“This is our narrative, our voice being stripped from us and we demand to take it back”.
Denying the right of freedom of expression from Mr. Spencer while demanding it for themselves.
Thank you Robert for all your hard work.
Santa Voorhees says
May 2, 2017 at 10:37 am
“I was shocked that there weren’t any moves by the school to stop him from coming, considering he’s banned from the U.K., like you have to be pretty bad to be banned from the U.K., if the queen doesn’t want to see your face, that’s a bad day,”
It’s clear he doesn’t know that truth is banned in the UK.
Mobuyus says
May 2, 2017 at 10:39 am
Invaders with iphones shutting down Americans. That’s what I see in that photo. Self absorbed smug sanctimonious brownish( political designation) nitwits in need of a beat down.