Stephen Schwartz offers his assessment of a recent OSCE conference in Poland.
In Schwartz’s world-view, of course, virtually all non-Sufi strands of Sunni Islam qualify as “Wahhabism”. Note also that the original version in the Weekly Standard carries the strap: “Extremists get together to worry about intolerance”! CBS evidently baulked at describing an OSCE meeting in such terms.
Schwartz writes: “The OSCE is, to put it bluntly, political correctness personified. Its agenda for combating intolerance and discrimination includes everyone from prostitutes to victims of schoolyard bullying.” After all, why should anyone waste their time worrying about the exploitation of sex workers or the victims of school bullies?
Judging by the contributions of some conference participants, Schwartz observes, “one might have thought fear of Muslims among non-Muslims in Europe was a purely gratuitous expression of bias, or, as Nuzhat Jafri of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women put it, a product of ‘U.S. foreign policy decisions’.” Given that Schwartz is a firm supporter of the neocon policy of bringing “democracy” to the Iraqi people by means of invading and occupying their country, killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians, and turning the country into a breeding ground for terrorism, you can see why Nuzhat Jafri’s analysis might not find favour with him.
Worse was to come, Schwartz relates: “Imam Sajid regaled the audience with the many times he had confronted Blair, insisting to the British prime minister that Islam and terrorism are completely unconnected from one another. He also offered up a diatribe against internment at Guantanamo.” I mean, criticising Bush’s decision to imprison hundreds of Muslims indefinitely without the chance of a fair trial – the nerve of it.
Schwartz remains silent about his own contributions to the conference. However, another participant has described Schwartz’s role as follows: “This guy was the most obnoxious and obstructive buffoon at the entire meeting. He was disruptive and rude, and at one point launched into a full scale shouting match with Bashy Qureishi, who could do little but call for order.” At another point Schwartz reportedly delivered a belligerent attack on the very concept of Islamophobia, arguing that it was just a product of Muslims’ “victim mentality”.
No doubt the numerous women who have suffered from human trafficking and forced prostitution, and those young people who have been reduced to misery by bullying at school, are suffering from the same psychological disorder.