Columbia University Leftist Coalition Lays Out Its Real Goal, and It’s Positively Chilling

Columbia University Apartheid Divest describes itself as “a coalition of student organizations that see Palestine as the vanguard for our collective liberation.” But it’s not just interested in “Palestine.” On Thursday, it issued “a statement in solidarity with the student movement in Bangladesh” that didn’t actually get around to mentioning Bangladesh at all. It did, however, include a statement about the movement’s overall goals that Americans should take seriously and that should lead all patriotic politicians to shun and denounce this group if we have any such politicians.The group can’t be criticized for not stating plainly what it’s all about. Its Thursday statement begins: “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.” There it is. Remember, this is not the critics of Columbia University Apartheid Divest talking. This is the coalition’s goal in its own words. Nor is this an insignificant groupuscule of far-left clowns who rave at the margins of Columbia while passersby ignore them. Columbia University Apartheid Divest boasts: “We are currently a coalition of 116 different organizations. We represent thousands of Columbia students across nine different schools.” The emphasis is theirs.

The movement is undeniably broad-based and encompasses all the various types of leftist pressure groups that are operating today. Listed as part of the coalition are Young Democratic Socialists Of America; Columbia Queer And Asian; African Students Association; Muslim Students Association; Columbia Social Workers For Palestine; Black Student Organization; Students For Justice In Palestine; Jewish Voice For Peace; Reproductive Justice Collective; Columbia Chicanx [sic!] Caucus; Black And Latinx Student Organization; RightsViews (Human Rights Graduate Journal); The Columbia Review; CU Amnesty International; Union Theological Seminary (UTS) Students For A Free Palestine; and many, many more, including WBAR Radio; Barnard Garden Club; and even Poetry Slam.

So are all these groups, even the Barnard Garden Club, “fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization”? No member of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition has announced that it is withdrawing from the group since this statement was published. No organization has repudiated the statement.

It is also important to bear in mind that we have seen this kind of rhetoric before. The Columbia University Apartheid Divest is strikingly similar to that of a document dating from May 1991, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America.” It stated that “The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions” (p. 7).

The idea that the Westerners would destroy their own civilization “by their hands” comes from the Qur’an: “It is he who has caused those among the people of the book who disbelieved to go forth from their homes to the first exile. You did not think that they would go forth, while they thought that their strongholds would protect them from Allah. But Allah reached them from a place they did not expect, and cast terror in their hearts so that they ruined their houses with their own hands and the hands of the believers. So learn a lesson, O you who have eyes” (Qur’an 59:2).