I reply not out of irritation but out of necessity, because when noise parades as thought it demands to be challenged, one more time. Dr. (Comrade) Erasmus Ikhide accuses me of ego massaging. This is the easiest refuge for a man who has nothing to say and knows it. When argument fails, language is tortured. Big words are piled on miniature ideas in the hope that weight will pass for depth. It never does. Scholarship is not the art of sounding verbose and pompous with superfluous and catchy clichés. It is the discipline of saying something true and being able to defend it.
He speaks of repeated subversion of the United States constitution. This would be serious if it were real. The fact remains that Ilhan Omar holds her seat, has not been convicted of any crime, and has not been judged guilty by any competent court. In a constitutional order, accusation is not verdict. To pretend otherwise is not radicalism. It is a deficit of cognition parading as courage.
Then comes the familiar incantation about “global Islamic terrorism”, whatever that means. This phrase is not an argument. It is a balderdash. It explains nothing and excuses everything. It exists to frighten the inattentive and to flatter those who prefer prejudice to study. When a man leans on such language, he is not analysing the world. He is hiding from it.
Dr. (Comrade) Erasmus invokes Islamic fundamentalism and nihilism, and speaks darkly of fatwas and dissenters. This is not critique. It is caricature. It takes effort to understand a belief system. It takes none to insult one. Slaughtering the English language does not produce insight, and contempt is not a substitute for knowledge. Never!
Dr. (Comrade) accused me of justifying antisemitism. This is a convenient lie. Criticism of power is not hatred of a people. If that distinction is lost, then thought itself is finished. When did being criticised become a proof of guilt. Since when did scrutiny turn into a crime?
On the matter of AIPAC, its record is public. One does not need conspiracy to examine influence. One only needs curiosity. To confuse investigation with hatred is to declare certain actors immune from reason.
You talked of Ilhan Omar being removed from her membership of foreign affairs in the congress. Yet to the utter disappointment of the white supremacists and their hirelings, she still remains a congress woman in the United State of America. Moreso, removal from an assigned responsibility is not the same thing as criminal guilt. Confusing the two is either ignorance or malice. Choose whichever you prefer.
It is clear that Dr. (Comrade) did not understand what I wrote on the slogan “death to America”. This is not surprising. Comprehension requires patience, and patience is in short supply where rage does the reading. A little time spent learning how to read before reacting would have helped him and spared us this performance.
Unable to address substance, he retreats into half-truths, and baseless allegations. What emerges is not strength but panic. His comments on Islam reveal not courage but poverty of understanding. A man so poorly equipped to grasp what he despises is unfit to lecture anyone about belief, whether religious or secular.
There is a pattern here. When a supposed intellectual abandons evidence and runs toward hallucination decorated with half-truths and recycled drool, you are watching someone who may have passed through institutions of learning without allowing learning to pass through him.
I understand his frustration. Islam, Muslims, and the Islamic Republic of Iran have refused to collapse on schedule. They remain inconvenient facts in a world that prefers obedient myths. For some, this endurance is unbearable. So, they shout. They insult. They invent.
I deliberately pass over the remainder of the tantrum. Why? Because it adds nothing to understanding and serves only to either glorify its author’s compound ignorance and venomous hostility toward Islam. I will not dignify that kind of intellectual immaturity with a line-by-line reply. Silence, in this case, is not evasion but judgment. When argument collapses into abuse, the most honest response is to stop listening and let the emptiness speak for itself.
History has seen this type before. When arrogance fails to persuade, it resorts to noise. When noise fails, it reaches for lies, libel and defamation. My interest is not in silencing Dr. (Comrade). It is in exposing the emptiness of what he says, and reminding readers that reason still exists, even when it is unpopular and inconvenient.
