David Horowitz, Islamic fundamentalist?

It is a familiar trope in literature: adversaries who need each other and come to resemble each other over the years. This describes David Horowitz's relationship to Islamic fundamentalists perfectly. If Islamic fundamentalists didn't exist, Horowitz would need to invent them. They are the reason he exists in his public persona.

Horowitz is an 'activist' involved in any number of conservative causes. Among his achievements: encouraging students to spy on their 'liberal' professors, and who, with co-activist Daniel Pipes, has been on a mission to battle what he terms 'Islamo-fascism' (though it is not very clear what the term itself means)

Horowitz and Pipes also have the distinction of using free speech arguments to attempt deprive others of their right to free speech: in particular, university professors and members of minority communities.

Watching HBO's terrific documentary, "Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech," I was struck by the extent to which Horowitz and Pipes sounded like fanatic mullahs who are utterly convinced about their theories. Among self-appointed spokespersons for Muslim communities in India or elsewhere, one often finds a disturbing streak of anti-Americanism and anti-semitism. Everything is an American or Zionist conspiracy, according to these individuals. Anyone attempting to present a contrary viewpoint is labelled an 'American agent'. Horowitz and Pipes are carbon copies of these mullahs, with the object of their suspicion inverted. Islam and Islamic culture are suspect in their eyes. Everything that Muslims do is an anti-American or anti-Jewish conspiracy. Anyone who disagrees with them is accused to either promoting an Islamic agenda to undermine America or is condemned as a sympathizer with Islamo-fascism.

The documentary also brought to light the fact that in America folks like Horowitz can get away with generalizations about Muslims (and, by implication, possibly about Hindus and Buddhists) that would provoke outrage if they were attributed to other religious or ethnic groups, such as Baptists, Methodists, Jews, or European-Americans.

I had the same thought when a few years ago Horowitz had taken out a vile advertisement in the Emory Wheel, Emory University's student newspaper. The ad does not seem to be online but I remember that it teemed with the worst kinds of generalizations about Muslims and Islam.

For me, HBO's thought-provoking documentary raised, among other questions, two sets of key issues:

One, who does free speech exist for in America? And does it exist equally for all communities? What does it mean when some powerful individuals and groups use free speech to deprive others of free speech?

And, two, why has there been such a silence in the media on the patently unfair and hypocritical actions of Horowitz & Co.? Why don't the likes of CNN and MSNBC not take up such issues. Is it, in part, because of their strong political connections? The widespread support that their views seem to have among sections of American society?