![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Information added to this article should be very carefully sourced to reliable mainstream sources. Anything else will be removed. -- Michael Snow 06:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Why were the old discussion pages removed? Can anyone restore them?
Look, this is ridiculous. We don't censor talk pages, and we have no need to hide what's on them. To say that one would have to petition Michael Snow with some memory of what might have been in an edit is absurd. I can see no problem with opening up the histories of this talk page. To have to have the archives of the Talk Page kept as records on the obnoxious 'WikiTruth' site is an embarrassment. Who cares if there was nothing valuable in the archives? Simply opening them up would have saved many paragraphs worth of pointless back-and-forth, unnecessary insults and patronizing. Accordingly, I've restored the history of this page. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 15:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Information added to this article should be very carefully sourced to reliable mainstream sources. Anything else will be removed. -- Michael Snow 06:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I am geniunely confused. Why? Why is this any more worthy of careful and reliable sourcing than any other article? - Toptomcat 01:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Lao Wai, this is a personal attack, please do not engage in personal attacks. ALL articles should be carefully sourced, including this one, and the reason it should be treated specially is that people have used it to attack Mr. Schwartz. Please assume good faith... our objective is a high quality, neutral encyclopedia, with solid sourcing on any aspect which is controversial in any way. This attitude of blaming the subject of a biography is not acceptable.-- Jimbo Wales 14:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I restored this to conservative rather than neoconservative because I couldn't verify from non-polemic sources the assertion. Scwartz has written about neoconservatives and his new book talks about whether they unduly influenced the current administartion - but not that he is considered one -- Trödel 14:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
'Non-polemic sources'? You mean like his own articles? Try this in the National Review where he describes himself as a 'neoconservative'. Or how about doing a search of the Weekly Standard with 'Stephen Schwartz'? There's a 100 plus articles by him in the 'neoconseravative bible'. Next time, please do some more research before reverting. Thanks. Rasta Man06 16:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Here is some text that was added at the top of this page by John randolph ( talk · contribs) in August: [1]
I have removed one sentence as required by WP:BLP (in my understanding of that policy). Cheers, CWC (talk) 06:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the following sentence:
No reliable mainstream source was provided, and it can't go in unless one is. -- Michael Snow 02:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't believe this article doesn't refer to his days of writing, as some sort of commie or another (their sectarian splits don't interest me), under the pseudonym "Comrade Sandalio." Its often one of the first things that gets mentioned when this person is brought up in conversation. I'll have to source that one out, and bring it to life. The fact that one of the intellectual leaders of the now-dominant, neo-"conservative" faction of the Republican Party used to churn out propaganda on behalf of the Nicaraguan "Sandinista" Communists is not only quite hilarious, its also self-evidently noteworthy. Google, here I come! KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 14:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Is this worth mentioning in the article - in this article [3] Schwartz claims to have invented the term Islamofascism. However this claim is incorrect, as Malise Ruthven used it in the same context in his articles in The Independent newspaper in London in 1990, and it may well have been in use before then. 86.138.46.163 ( talk) 16:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
antiwar.com, anarchymag.org, chroniclesmagazine.org, and similar are NOT reliable sources, and have been proven in this case and many others to be highly politicized. Please do not use them for this article. -- Jimbo 10:06, 3 September 2006
What's your evidence to support this assertion? Rasta Man06 21:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Well? Why does it? Someone should merge the two. One of them appears to be a real References section, with footnotes linked to actual citation within the article. The other is a mix of redundancy (some items show up in both sections), and a list of just stuff Stephen Schwartz has written in various publications, quite possibly added to the article by himself. Perhaps some of it belong in the External Links section, but that's already pretty long for this article. One thing is for certain; two sections both entitled "References" is a problem. I'll get around to fixing it, if no one else does first. KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 18:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
* Bernstein, Richard. "The Saudis' Brand of Islam and Its Place in History". New York Times, November 8, 2002. * Bostom, Andrew, M.D. "A Wahhabism Problem Misleading historical negationism". "NRO" http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-bostom120602.asp * Doran, Michael. Fighting Faith. "Washington Post" December 22, 2002 http://www.cfr.org/publication/5327/fighting_faith.html * Geertz, Clifford. "Which Way to Mecca? Part II". The New York Review of Books, July 3, 2003. * Heer, Jeet. "Trotsky’s Ghost Wandering The White House". National Post, June 7, 2003. * Jeffries, Stuart. "Did Stalin’s killers liquidate Walter Benjamin?" The Observer, July 8, 2001. * Kakutani, Michiko. "Anatomy of the Left Coast Without the Sunshine". New York Times, April 7, 1998. * Marshall, Paul. "Reading Up on Islam". Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2003. * Meyerson, Harold. "Red Sunset". New York Times, March 15, 1998. * Radosh, Ronald. "State Department Outrage: The Firing Of Stephen Schwartz". FrontPage Magazine, July 2, 2002. * Reidel, James. "Ex-Libris Weldon Kees". The Cortland Review, Fall 2002. * Rifkin, Ira. "Books: Blame It on the Wahhabis". The Jerusalem Report, January 27, 2003. * Rothstein, Edward. "A Daring Theory That Stalin Had Walter Benjamin Murdered". New York Times, June 30, 2001. * Safi, Louay M. "Hardliners in Search of Moderate Muslims!" Media Monitors Network, May 4, 2005. * Safire, William. "State Out of Step". New York Times, July 1, 2002. * Schwartz, Stephen. An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Behind the Balkan Curtain". San Francisco Faith, May 2000. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Defeating Wahhabism". FrontPage Magazine, October 25, 2002. * Schwartz, Stephen. "A Different Kind of Filial Piety". Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1999. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Follies of the MSM". Tech Central Station, June 15, 2005. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection". The Spectator, September 22, 2001. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Remembering an SLA Terrorist". FrontPage Magazine, February 20, 2003. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Trotskycons?" National Review Online, June 11, 2003. * Starr, Kevin. "Leftovers; From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind". Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1998. KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 07:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
I undid the last edit, because irrespective of the reasonable questions some may have about Stephen Schwartz's sincerity with respect to his claim of conversion to the Sufi sect of Islam, I don't think we should be in the position of calling people liars when they claim to be a member of a particular religion, at least not without concrete evidence indicating they are lying. I suspect Schwartz's conversion to Islam is some sort of bizarre stunt myself, but I don't think its appropriate for this article to reflect that suspicion, absent real proof to that effect. KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 22:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I discovered that after a long series of vandal attacks on the entry about me in Wikipedia a new one had taken place. I could not locate an OTRS button on the contact page and therefore went ahead and attempted to revert the page to the state it was in prior to the beginning of February 2009. Anybody reading the comments on this Talk page will perceive the malicious and unfounded basis of the February series of edits. To question the sincerity of my becoming Muslim by insulting speculation is obviously inappropriate, especially since I am the author of a book on Sufism that explains my knowledge of Islamic spirituality in detail. I did not add anything self-serving or self-promoting, but did add the year I became Muslim and the ISBN of the book on Sufism. BTW, I have never been involved in Republican party politics and to suggest I am some kind of ideological leader among neo-conservatives is unsupportable, and I never produced propaganda for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas -- indeed, the list of my books includes one favorably describing the contra and civil opposition struggle against the Sandinistas led by Eden Pastora. To exaggerate my comments in a TV interview through a snippet, to ignore that in the interview I was specifically shown disclaiming any support for illegal surveillance, and to further ignore that the TV station later, on air, withdrew its characterization of my work, is unethical. But anybody should perceive that to turn a couple of lines in a controversial interview into a section under an inflammatory heading about the intelligence community is also unacceptable and obviously malicious. To further dredge up a graffiti ticket incident from 25 years ago is also an obvious malicious attack.
( talk) 20:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I have removed material from this article that does not comply with our policy on the biographies of living persons. Biographical material must always be referenced from reliable sources, especially negative material. Negative material that does not comply with that must be immediately removed. Note that the removal does not imply that the information is either true or false.
Please do not reinsert this material unless you can provide reliable citations, and can ensure it is written in a neutral tone. Please review the relevant policies before editing in this regard. Editors should note that failure to follow this policy may result in the removal of editing privileges.
Specifically:
Editors who are here seeking to promote an agenda should note that it is not permitted on Wikipedia's articles.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 15:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
This is my response:
1. My statement on KRON-TV was exaggerated in that a couple of comments describing investigative methods were exaggerated into a fabrication of a relationship between me and "the intelligence community." The investigative methods I described are used by historians and journalists and in no way imply an involvement with the "intelligence community." No information was ever supplied that would suggest I ever participated in or gave testimony or was otherwise involved in any such investigation (although I have provided U.S. Senate testimony on Saudi funding of radical Islam), or that I used any information that was furnished to me for anything other than legitimate historiographic and journalistic aims. My work is transparent.
2. It is obvious to me that the statement from the KRON-TV interview was not taken from the "source," i.e. from a transcript of the interview itself or from a viewing of the video. It was obviously taken from a prior snip of the interview, not from the KRON transcript, which should be easily available from them. The transcript and the video from which it was taken both record my specific disclaimer of any involvement in illegal surveillance. The transcript records the withdrawal by KRON-TV of its charges against my employer and me being "private spies." The claim made in the show had, as we say in journalism, "no legs." Nobody serious or reputable has ever demonstrated or asserted any connection between me and intelligence services and there is nothing in any record anywhere that would show otherwise. Indeed, because of my radical background the intelligence services are, in general, suspicious of me and we have never had relations. My books on Islam do not, in 99 percent of cases, draw on intelligence community material. I have, however, done research on Soviet clandestine intelligence operations, through open sources and identified interviews as an author, not an intelligence employee.
3. In the U.S. the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. I am not obligated to search through records 1,000s of miles away to find the transcript of the KRON-TV interview. If someone is going to cite the interview it is their obligation to locate the transcript and cite from it correctly, not mine to produce the transcript to disprove an example of unethical and tendentious editing.
4. The following statement is an admission of the absence of a neutral point of view: "You clearly have a vested interest in keeping some of your embarrassing public remarks, and other behaviors, as far away from the public eye as possible."
The following is an even more aggravated admission of the absence of an NPOV: "Many public figures do not come off remarkably well in their articles at this site. And we would frankly not be doing a very good job on this site, were that not the case. You are simply among that number who come off somewhat unfortunately, albeit merely from a subjective standpoint; certainly nothing I have written about you is unsourced, malicious, insulting, or defamatory. Like so many prominent Americans in the early 21st century, the truth just ain't your friend, alas."
First, the suggestion that my Islam is in anyway insincere, as in the term "claimed," is an insult and anybody should be capable of understanding that fact.
In addition, anybody should be able to perceive that a Neutral Point of View and a "subjective standpoint" are not the same thing. The claim that the truth is not my friend is malicious and insulting, aside from being absurd in suggesting that any single individual is in possession of the truth of history. Even I, a polemical historian, do not claim such omniscience. I will, however, note that the truth I write about Stalinism and especially about Wahhabism has definitely been my friend, far more than dredging up trivial nonsense a quarter of a century old could harm me.
I have done nothing in my public life of which I am ashamed; my life is a completely open book as is typically the case with journalists and authors. My comments on the KRON interview were brief and produced at the end of a blind-side interview. "Other behaviors"? This has to be a joke. Receiving a graffiti ticket 25 years ago is not embarrassing to me. It is irrelevant and nobody in the world would take such a thing seriously. Nor would the endless regurgitation of the fact that while acting as an illegal revolutionary in a country with a persistent secret police and death squad problem (Spain after Franco) I used the name "Sandalio" be embarrassing. The author of these edits apparently assumed that this latter fact implied that I wrote propaganda for the Sandinistas and added the Talk comment "Google, here I come!" on the apparent and mistaken apprehension that "embarrassing" articles by me signed "Sandalio" or articles by me propagandizing for the Sandinistas are somewhere on google. No such material appears on google because at the time I wrote as "Sandalio" the net did not exist and because I never wrote anything in support of the Sandinista regime.
Indeed, as I keep pointing out in responding to these malicious acts of vandalism, I am a public intellectual, a journalist, and author. Anybody who wants to know my views of Communism, Spain, and Nicaragua can read at least seven of the books listed in the entry. Anybody who wants to objectively assess my involvement with Jews and Islam can read four books, three of them published by one of the world's most important trade publishers (Doubleday) and one of them (SARAJEVO ROSE, on Jewish-Muslim relations in the Balkans) issued by the most prestigious publisher in the Arab world.
I am not impressed by protestations of innocence or neutrality in these acts of vandalism, which are revealed in the talk and history pages to be motivated by a malicious desire to make my life difficult and to attract anti-Jewish and radical Islamist ire toward me.
There is nothing "odd" about my life, another proclamation of the absence of an NPOV. I am an author. Authors (and journalists) are not exactly known for living the lives of office employees. I was a revolutionary, and became an anti-Communist aligned with the West. There is nothing odd about this; it was a common experience in the 20th century and is allegedly present in the current presidential administration. I had a long interest in Islamic spirituality and Sufism, had no religious affiliation, was not considered Jewish by religion or descent (my mother's Christian background was more influential in my upbringing), and after a long period of involvement with the situation in the Balkans became a Muslim. There is nothing odd about this, either. Everything I have done that is of public interest is public as is the common practice with journalists and authors. No reputable journalist except for the reporter on the graffiti ticket nonsense has ever questioned me about the issues that keep popping up in these acts of vandalism, I have never been implicated in or legally investigated for anything even remotely unethical or otherwise worthy of such notice at this point, and resent the implication that my life, my religion, my work, or my motivations should be subject to public disparagement on the basis of speculation. After both the graffiti incident and the KRON accusation I was hired and worked for 10 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, which owned KRON-TV at the time, and that should illustrate the irrelevance of the incidents.
I wish to emphasize that the idea that an author of serious books and articles published in mainstream media would be considered to "not come off remarkably well" or be labelled "odd" by someone who ignores said books and articles, inserts self-contradictory material, and limits his comments to gossip and speculation, is not only malicious, it is reckless and malicious. I can speak with confidence in saying that normal people all over the world, including the Islamic world where I have travelled widely and lectured as a Muslim -- including in mosques -- judge me by my books and articles, not by irrelevant incidents 25 years old, even when they are informed of the latter. My view of Islam and Wahhabism is accepted by the majority of the world's Muslims, and Sufism is not an obscure sect; half the Muslims in the world are Sufis or Sufi-oriented. (Both Sunnis and Shias include Sufis.) That is how the real world is. Trying to transform me into something I am not, including a "Sandinista propagandist turned Republican party leader," without even the slightest examination or citation of my works, is unethical and malicious. Authors and journalists should be cited from their works, not from defamatory comments by internet stalkers or other adversaries.
I have made no attempt at any time to influence the content of this entry or to add material favorable to me but it would be useful if the entry also mentioned that from 2004-2006 I was employed as a Writer-Expert by the National Endowment for the Arts and am the main contributor to a new book, "The National Endowment for the Arts: A History," issued by NEA, ISBN 978-0-615-23248-5, under the final editorship of a colleague, Mark Bauerlein.
I further removed from the entry a link to the libelous gossip of the person who calls himself Keith Sorel, on the grounds that a) it is a source for the irrelevant, malicious material that had previously been inserted; b) it appeared in a marginal and non-credible source. It is not a portrait of my life in Bohemian San Francisco; it is a false, defamatory, and recklessly malicious attack on my character.
SulejmanSchwartz ( talk) 00:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't we include that in the late '70s Mr. Schwartz managed the (now legendary) punk band The Dils? And that he wrote columns for Search and Destroy magazine under the name Nico? To me that's one of the most interesting things about him, and I bet a lot of people don't know. Magmagoblin2 ( talk) 00:43, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Twice in this article, it mentions Mr. Schwartz's college, but with no mention whatsoever of which college that was, or what subject he might have majored in while in college. Nothing about graduate school, either. Someone should be able to figure out what these facts are. Perhaps they will be found in the publication, Who's Who in America. 98.81.23.222 ( talk) 20:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Can this guy really be called Muslim? He appears to be a Jewish guy who has nothing but bad stuff to say about other Muslim organizations? I'll be honest, this is the first thing I've ever heard about him. But, I just read the article and he appears to have antipathy for all other Muslims and support American policies in the middle East. It's almost as if he is attempting to "delegitimize" many mainstream Muslim organizations and using his status as convert to "front" that. Somebody please tell me if I'm way off base here. Are there any articles that have raised this issue? Nlsanand 20:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The above ("Who's Afraid of Stephen Schwartz?") is the title of a newspaper article published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian long about 1985 (I believe), before the dawn of the digital age. Scholars mining Schwartz's past for dross or gold or brass or mold will want to go to the offices of said newspaper, where in the morg, they may find this article. It makes for a fascinating glimpse of the subject before he found G-d and embraced Islam. I'm just sayin'... SCFilm29 ( talk) 05:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a comment from Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, the subject of this article. For what must be the 12th or so time, the person who falsely calls himself Keith Sorel, and whose real name is Kevin Keating, has reinserted his libelous diatribes against me into this entry. These texts published in periodicals with titles like [[Anarchy] have been inserted and removed repeatedly. See the note from Jimbo Wales above. The material is false and libellous, and I object to its posting on this site. This matter was supposed to have been settled many times before.
I further object to the suggestion on this talk page that it is in the public interest for anybody to "mine" my past for negative information with which to assault my reputation. I am a widely published author, my writings are public record, as are many articles about me, and if any derogatory information aside from trivial, 25 year old articles were significant, it would not have to be dug out of a newspaper "morg." The term is correctly spelled "morgue."
The individuals who insert this nonsense into this entry apparently do not grasp that my books, issued by reputable publishers, are concerned with and describe in detail my personal evolution. It is obviously unfair to attack an author based on old gossip, speculation, and libelous allegations rather than examining the author's work. My books are available in numerous public and university libraries.
Finally, so-called experts on Islam who seek to question my religious affiliation are so uninformed they do not realize that except among the most extreme Wahhabis and other violent radicals, it is unacceptable to question the profession of faith of a Muslim. A Muslim is defined by belief in one God and the message of Muhammad, not by speculation on the part of people ignorant of the subject. The concept that people at Wikipedia "pretend" to accept my Islam, which is explained quite thoroughly in my published work, is unethical, to say the least.
Wikipedia should not allow itself to be used as a forum for internet stalking. The comment of SCFilm29 is manifestly malicious.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 68.49.236.146 ( talk) 04:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Michael Totten recently interviewed Mr Schwartz. See here or here. Like many of Totten's interviews, it may seem a little amateurish but is in fact very informative and insightful.
I've added it to the article as the first reference, replacing a misleading claim and bad source about SSS's political stance. I don't have time right now to update/correct the rest of the article. I also deleted some bad ELs per WP:BLP and WP:EL. (Linking a hostile anonymous blogger in a BLP? Where were the grown-ups?)
As can be seen on this page, lots of people hate SSS and wish to use Wikipedia to hurt him. Some of them lie. We need to do a much better job of enforcing Wikipedia's rules here. CWC 15:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
My understanding is that Steve Schwartz is a neo-con; so why is he getting published in an obscure anti-capitalist journal like this?
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480326.html
Miasnikov ( talk) 20:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC) miasnikov Miasnikov ( talk) 20:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate the NPV of Wikipedia and its various services. I wish to correct some statements in this article.
First: "He founded a one-person semi-Trotskyist "group" FOCUS.[6]"
FOCUS was not a one-person group and the reference in the article, to the volume of Robert J. Alexander, INTERNATIONAL TROTSKYISM, p. 943, does not say that. Alexander's description is "A small group... The principal organizer of FOCUS was Stephen Schwartz." Alexander goes on to describe the transfer of the FOCUS group to Portland, Oregon, after I departed from it. This illustrates that it was not a "one-person" group. There is other evidence of this in the FOCUS publication, THE ALARM, which had several contributors.
Second, earlier: I did not become a Trotskyist in college. I became a Trotskyist between high school and college, after the events of 1968, when I read a lot of books I had not read before, including Trotsky's REVOLUTION BETRAYED.
The pieces in ARENA are reviews, not stories, and they deal with the historiography of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War of 1936-39, with which I share an interest with the editor of the journal. One of them was published in Spanish in the leading intellectual journal LETRAS LIBRES and, originally, in German in the JAHRBUCH FUR HISTORISCHE-KOMMUNISMUSFORSCHUNG. The latter is the most respected journal on the history of Communism in the world, having been created by the reformed institute of party history of the former East German regime.
Miasnikov is one of dozens of aliases Kevin Keating has assumed in order to circulate dishonest polemics. Gavril Myasnikov was a Russian anti-Stalinist who is profiled on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavril_Myasnikov. Keating also poses on the net and elsewhere as Tibor Szamuely, an especially revealing alias as it is stolen from the correctly named (in Hungarian) Szamuely Tibor, who attained infamy and notoriety as a political mass-killer during the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1919. He also has a Wikipedia entry, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Szamuely. It is one thing to steal the names of Nestor Makhno and Gavril Myasnikov, among others, for such ends. It is quite another to compare one's self with Szamuely Tibor, a sadist and coward.
Anybody can check the net and see that Keating has been thrown off discussion fora for hiding behind multiple screen names.
Otherwise, thank you for your consideration.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 12:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the situation is self-explanatory. No public writer or journalist should be subjected to continued internet stalking of this kind, and certainly not with the unintentional complicity of Wikipedia. There has been nothing "strange" about my life or deeds, all of which are public, within normal canons of privacy. I protest against insistent intrusion.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 05:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Given the persistent nasty editing by SSS's enemy/enemies, including "clever" tricks aimed at deceiving Wikpedians, all edits to this article need to be checked carefully. References which do not include a URL should be treated very sceptically, as should all references to books. If an edit to this article looks at all dubious, I suggest reverting and starting a discussion on this page. Thanks in advance, CWC 15:32, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
All of the research included in my book INTELLECTUALS AND ASSASSINS has been verified, most notably by a publication on the Eitingon case by Mary-Kay Wilmers, "The Eitingons: A Twentieth Century Story" which is referenced here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kay_Wilmers.
I direct you also my article on Wilmers' admissions, "Commie Dearest," in The Weekly Standard of September 13, 2010, accessible at http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/commie-dearest. The review requires a subscription but should be accessible through the usual article services.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 07:00, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I notice that the Wikipedia entry on the Soviet spy Mark Zborowski, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zborowski, reproduces a mistaken rendering of my name as "Stephen J. Schwartz" and disparages my work. I again protest against the manner in which Wikipedia is used to distort simple facts about me or any other person who happens to attract the dislike of people whose interests are anything but neutral. "Stephen J. Schwartz" is not my born name. Not one word of my assertions about Stalinist intellectual spies has ever been disproved. Indeed, the British Broadcasting Corporation produced an extensive interview program regarding my exposure of the Soviet secret police activities of the Chilean writer Pablo Neruda. Nothing I wrote about Mark Zborowski was ever or could ever be challenged, because it was based on public record information mentioned in the works of various historians.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 10:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Did this page have a photograph of Mssr. Schwartz? Mssr. Schwartz if you have an image, please upload it to the commons and leave me a message. Thank you kindly, KSRolph ( talk) 18:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Did a photo ever turn up for the commons? KSRolph ( talk) 20:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I am the subject of this article. I have removed the following insulting and prejudicial comment from a caption accompanying a photograph of me: "American journalist Stephen Suleyman Schwartz dressed for Halloween at the Caffe Trieste in San Francisco, early 2013."
It is rather astonishing to realize how heedless and lacking in self-awareness Wikipedia people are regarding the use of this "encyclopedia" as a medium to defame and harass individuals who hold views disfavored by marginal and irresponsible people. Wikipedia is very often a platform for inquisitorial persecution. I have experienced this for a decade.
I was consulted regarding the involvement of Wikipedia with Kazakhstan and participated in a discussion with some Wikipedia personnel in which I acted in good faith. Indeed, I have always acted ethically in dealing with Wikipedia. But I am tired of having to check and recheck this page for personal attacks by anonymous trolls.
In the photograph described I am wearing the garments and regalia of Bektashi, Alevi-Bektashi, and Ahl-e Haqq Sufis. I am not dressed for Halloween. Muslims do not celebrate Halloween. To suggest I would do so is an attack on my religious freedom.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, writing from Europe Stephen Suleyman Schwartz ( talk) 18:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
I am unfortunately compelled to monitor this entry constantly and to remove libelous material from it. The latest was a claim that "However many Muslim organizations and Albanians despise his writing and accuse him to be an outright liar, manipulator and charlatan. [1] The Muslims of Kosovo accuse Schwartz to be a friend of suspected Kosovar war criminals and rapists, who cooperates with them to attack the values of Islam among the Albanians. [2]
I would first point out that the so-called Forumi i të Rinjve Musliman (Muslim Youth Forum) among Albanians is an extremist organization and that its attacks on my journalistic colleague Visar Duriqi have been the topic of a strong cautionary warning by the international monitoring body Reporters Without Borders. It does not speak for "many" Muslims or "the Muslims" in Kosovo. I would second point out the language of the insertion is plainly libellous -- referring to me as a "liar, manipulator and charlatan."
The Reporters Without Borders press release defending Visar Duriqi is accessible at [5]retrieved September 9, 2014.
It is onerous for me to constantly have to check this page. Wikipedia once again allows itself to be used as a platform of scurrilous claims.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 08:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Mssr. Schwartz is a journalist, historian, and biographer. Because his investigative work is controversial, this article has been subject to 'graffiti' and attacks; some betray a poor sense of idealism held by many Wikipedia contributors.
This page should have review for inputs not worded in the Neutral Point of View. Talk about rape and terrorist affiliations is no light set of charges, and has no place in this article. Mssr. Schwartz has no criminal record in any nation, no history of incarceration. KSRolph ( talk) 17:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +
Dear Toddy1 and fair-minded Wikipedians, As far as I know, photographs in Wikipedia have been gifted to the commons. I don't know what the Center for Islamic Pluralism is; its not my area of interest or expertise. I am a scholar of indigenous languages of the Americas, folk science in the Americas, gender issues, and qualitative methods. I'm far enough removed from this article to see whether it follows NPOV and good-faith practices, as I have taught them to my students in Wikipedia college courses. Toddy1 - you are hovering over this article for what reason? Don't you have better things to do? I will report harassing behavior towards a responsible female Wikipedia contributor who has done no harm. KSRolph ( talk) 02:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC) ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +
The libelous claim that Kosovar Muslims have accused me of being a "liar and charlatan" was reinserted without sourcing. What will it take to stop this campaign? BTW, the argument of accusations backed by citations about which Wikipedia supposedly is free of libel because Wikipedia does not know if they are right are wrong is false. There is no "neutral reporting of libel" with a disclaimer of ignorance. Further, as I have repeated on numerous occasions, in the U.S. the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused, in libel as in other matters. Anybody who wants evidence that I am not considered a liar or charlatan in Kosovo need only consult the translated articles from Kosovo media on the Center for Islamic Pluralism website. Libelous statements republished (meaning restated in any forum) remain libelous and the person who republishes them participates in the libel. That is basic libel law in the U.S.
I don't intend this as a solicitation to read the CIP site, but it will show that these charges cannot be sustained.
Also, I resent the undertone of anti-Jewish prejudice in some of the TALK comments. And I did not write and have not edited this entry. I have only checked it for libelous and incorrect comments. Had I written this entry it would include a number of important things that are missing from it.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 07:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
This article appears primarily based on autobiographical sources: whether the source be Schwartz himself, his organization, the Centre for Islamic Pluralism, or a bio page of some organizations he is a part of. Several of his books warranted book reviews in major publications. Assuming this makes him noteworthy enough to warrant an entry, my feeling is that the size of the page does not reflect his degree of noteworthiness. Rather, its length and the sourcing for much of it looks like self-promotion.
The only 3rd party sources at present are:
In sum, we have one third party source, a few hundred words in the Religion News Service from 2003, a book-review, which talks about Schwartz himself. I will wait for comments on this point. I am tagging the article as self-promotion for now. If I don't see more significant reliable 3rd party sources about Schwartz, I will at start to significantly pare-down the article to more accurately reflect its subject's significance. Compare, for example, this article to Steve Coll, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. Bapehu ( talk) 17:26, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
As I stated above, "I did not write and have not edited this entry. I have only checked it for libelous and incorrect comments. Had I written this entry it would include a number of important things that are missing from it."
I consider the accusation that I wrote this entry, that it is an autobiography, or that it is self-promotion, to impugns my professional credibility. I consider the same about the claim that the entry is "a fan-page and, as is evident in Schwartz's active contributions to the article... a largely self-made fan-page." To emphasize, I have not written "active contributions to the article." I consider it rather amusing that these charges are made about an article that does not bother to determine whether "Suleyman" is my legal middle name, which would certainly have been curious in Ohio in 1948, or what I studied in college, or where, or any number of other matters. Again, I do not intend to edit this article. I only note my objections on the talk page.
Does Bapehu know what "self-published" means? None of the references in this entry were self-published except the first, taken from the Center for Islamic Pluralism website. The Wikipedia entry cites my published works, but except for one, they were not "self-published." "Self-published" means published at the author's own expense. I do not own and did not pay THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, or any of the other media or book publishers that published my articles or books except for the printer of my early book of poems, A SLEEPWALKER'S GUIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO and part of the printing expenses for my SARAJEVO ROSE, which was issued by a respected Arabic book publisher. I did not pay for publication or publish AN ACTIVIST'S GUIDE TO ARAB AND MUSLIM CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA. Media and reputable trade publishers accepted my articles and books and paid me. That is not "self-publication." I believe that accusation is also libelous.
Academics now frequently are asked to pay the printing costs of their books, by reputable university presses. Even that does not make them "self-published."
Does "Bapehu" know what "self-promotion" is? A person engaged in self-promotion would not cite his or her critics, typically.
Since when are book reviews not "third party sources"? I did not commission the reviews, pay the reviewers, or attempt to influence them. Some were critical of my books. Any normal person considers a book review a third party source, since authors are ethically prohibited from soliciting friendly reviews. A person writing an autobiographical entry would not include a description of him or herself as "a strange and outlandish figure."
KSRolph is a Wikipedian who took a photograph of me, on which the Center for Islamic Pluralism claims copyright. The act was a simple one and involved no conflicts of interest.
Why should I be compared with Steve Coll? "I mean, really?" I said from the beginning and repeat that I am indifferent to what Wikipedia produces about me. But this endless and unproductive controversy has no obvious motive, on the part of my opponents, but malice.
I claim no special importance in the world but I find it curious that this entry attracts so much nasty attention. Someone is obviously concerned about something and I do not believe their interest is neutral.
Further, I object to the attempt to reduce my reply to these tendentious idiocies by subordinating my comment to that of an anonymous and incompetent person calling him- or herself bapehu. All of my previous replies were kept separate. Sooner or later Wikipedia will have to stop shielding these cowards. At the least, I am a public intellectual, journalist and author, with a transparent life. Who or what is Toddy1 or Bapehu? I said from the beginning I refuse to play a Wikipedia computer game against shadow puppets who have no credentials or standing in intellectual life.
Considering the ridiculous inconsistencies, errors, and genuine self-promotion visible on so many Wikipedia pages, I suggest these people concentrate on cleaning up factual issues and stop harassing me. You can start by reviewing your articles on Islam, which are replete with radical propaganda.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 00:18, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
It has been suggested I should indeed contribute to Wikipedia articles, though not about myself for obvious ethical reasons. There are errors in the entry on me still but I am content to live with them -- errors abound in all media these days and none of them in the current entry are gross. I'm not going to ask you for special consideration of my work.
I have been reluctant to become involved in editing Wikipedia, aside from a very few instances of removing, or protesting on the TALK page, material about me I consider inaccurate and flagrantly offensive, also because of the question of neutrality. If I were to edit a Wikipedia entry on some local news event I reported for the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, and in which I was not involved except as a reporter, I would do so as a neutral person. But I never accepted the idea that objectivity as a journalist means neutrality in the face of evil, and in my more literary and historical works, I am not neutral and do not claim to be so. When I wrote about the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, the Spanish civil war, Latin American politics, California intellectual history, Kosovo, Stalinism, Wahhabism, Sephardic Jews in the Balkans, and Sufism I made and make no claims to neutrality. These writings are based on deep sympathies I do not conceal. I would therefore not presume to edit Wikipedia entries on these matters, about which I do not have an NPOV. I am not an academic.
I might be willing to help correct some Wikipedia entries on Sephardic Jewry but at this point that would require a lot of fact-checking by me. I am not Jewish by birth or religious upbringing, much less Sephardic, and can write neutrally and, I think, authoritatively, on such matters as linguistics and other aspects of local Sephardic cultural history in various countries. Sephardism is a fascinating topic with many distinctive aspects. But the sources are obscure and require considerable review. Some materials I have collected are unpublished. My writings on Sephardism are also influenced by my Islamic appreciation for the protection of the Sephardim by the Moroccan and Ottoman sultans, so I cannot not claim absolute neutrality on the matter. But I have assembled a lot of interesting and unknown materials on the topic, much of it printed. Abominably, a great deal of the corpus of Sephardica was lost in the Holocaust.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 20:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying some details of my biography.
Here is an example of an article on Islam that includes a citation error: The article on Mawlid, the celebration of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawlid. This article contains the following statement: "In most Arabian countries - i.e. Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - [Mawlid] is not an official public holiday." The comment is sourced to the following note, number 41: "Moon Sighting". Moon Sighting. 20 June 2011. Retrieved 20 November 2011." If one links to that page, there is no reference in it whatever to the status of Muhammad's Birthday in Saudi Arabia except to refer to its place on the Islamic calendar in use in the kingdom. As to Muhammad's Birthday in Kuwait, this source identifies it as public holiday -- a travel guide, but their publishers have an incentive to accuracy: http://www.worldtravelguide.net/kuwait/public-holidays. The following source lists Muhammad's Birthday as an official public holiday in Qatar: http://www.expatwoman.com/qatar/monthly_qatar_guide_2013_2014_Holiday_Dates_Qatar_11115.aspx. At http://www.worldtravelguide.net/united-arab-emirates/public-holidays it is stated that in the Emirates Muhammad's Birthday is a public holiday. The following states that in Bahrain, Muhammad's Birthday is a public holiday: http://www.holiday-times.com/public-holidays-bahrain/.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I am Stephen Auden Alfred Schwartz, known by my Muslim name as Suleyman, and by various pen-names, such as Nico Ordway, Sandalio Solsona, Sari Saltuq, Albert Moreland, Paul Yanovsky, et al. Adoption of pen-names is an honorable tradition but American Trumpies and other dunces seem never to have heard about it. Too bad. When you only read Wikipedia and can't read books you don't know such things.
I have never in my life held myself out as an officer of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, a post for which I was unqualified, unlike the author of this ratbite on my coat, who tried to run for union office.
In 1974-75 I was chairman of the stewards' committee of the then-Brotherhood of Railway Clerks Local 248 in San Francisco.
In 1994-99 I was a delegate from the Bay Media Guild to the San Francisco Labor Council.
In 1995-99 I was secretary of the Bay Media Guild.
None of these positions made me an employee of said unions.
I was an employee of the SUP in running their centennial history project.
I have been involved in union activities in Nicaragua, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo.
Please say no to anonymous trolls.
SuleymanSchwartz ( talk) 23:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
The first half of this article explains Schwartz's spiritual quest to find his home in Sufi Islam. The second half of this article is about his, and I quote, "Views on Islam [and] Israel".
We don't even have sections on Binyamin Netanyahu's "views on Israel," nor do we have sections for any Imam's "views on Islam." Why would we need such information on the opinions of one Mr. Schwartz?
This article needs to be rewritten from the ground up to be even close to encyclopedic. Jsharpminor ( talk) 05:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
I am the former Stephen Suleyman Schwartz. Since 2016 I have been. out as a trans female, Lulu Schwartz. Today I tried to gender correct my bio. My edits were reversed instantly. I protest! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.251.163.171 ( talk • contribs)
Assalamulaikum Ms. Schwartz - I came here to see why in fact your page lists an incorrect name. I'm very new to wikipedia, so I don't know if there's much I can do to help solve it, but I will try.
MekhiMKL ( talk) 04:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Ms. Schwartz - I did manage to make some changes. I'm not advanced enough to know how to migrate the page and such. Inshallah someone with more knowledge can help us, and the changes I made are not reverted! MekhiMKL ( talk) 04:17, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Ms. Schwartz - my revisions were reverted. I'm going to try to get some help with this issue. MekhiMKL ( talk) 20:57, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Information added to this article should be very carefully sourced to reliable mainstream sources. Anything else will be removed. -- Michael Snow 06:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Why were the old discussion pages removed? Can anyone restore them?
Look, this is ridiculous. We don't censor talk pages, and we have no need to hide what's on them. To say that one would have to petition Michael Snow with some memory of what might have been in an edit is absurd. I can see no problem with opening up the histories of this talk page. To have to have the archives of the Talk Page kept as records on the obnoxious 'WikiTruth' site is an embarrassment. Who cares if there was nothing valuable in the archives? Simply opening them up would have saved many paragraphs worth of pointless back-and-forth, unnecessary insults and patronizing. Accordingly, I've restored the history of this page. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 15:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Information added to this article should be very carefully sourced to reliable mainstream sources. Anything else will be removed. -- Michael Snow 06:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I am geniunely confused. Why? Why is this any more worthy of careful and reliable sourcing than any other article? - Toptomcat 01:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Lao Wai, this is a personal attack, please do not engage in personal attacks. ALL articles should be carefully sourced, including this one, and the reason it should be treated specially is that people have used it to attack Mr. Schwartz. Please assume good faith... our objective is a high quality, neutral encyclopedia, with solid sourcing on any aspect which is controversial in any way. This attitude of blaming the subject of a biography is not acceptable.-- Jimbo Wales 14:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I restored this to conservative rather than neoconservative because I couldn't verify from non-polemic sources the assertion. Scwartz has written about neoconservatives and his new book talks about whether they unduly influenced the current administartion - but not that he is considered one -- Trödel 14:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
'Non-polemic sources'? You mean like his own articles? Try this in the National Review where he describes himself as a 'neoconservative'. Or how about doing a search of the Weekly Standard with 'Stephen Schwartz'? There's a 100 plus articles by him in the 'neoconseravative bible'. Next time, please do some more research before reverting. Thanks. Rasta Man06 16:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Here is some text that was added at the top of this page by John randolph ( talk · contribs) in August: [1]
I have removed one sentence as required by WP:BLP (in my understanding of that policy). Cheers, CWC (talk) 06:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the following sentence:
No reliable mainstream source was provided, and it can't go in unless one is. -- Michael Snow 02:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't believe this article doesn't refer to his days of writing, as some sort of commie or another (their sectarian splits don't interest me), under the pseudonym "Comrade Sandalio." Its often one of the first things that gets mentioned when this person is brought up in conversation. I'll have to source that one out, and bring it to life. The fact that one of the intellectual leaders of the now-dominant, neo-"conservative" faction of the Republican Party used to churn out propaganda on behalf of the Nicaraguan "Sandinista" Communists is not only quite hilarious, its also self-evidently noteworthy. Google, here I come! KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 14:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Is this worth mentioning in the article - in this article [3] Schwartz claims to have invented the term Islamofascism. However this claim is incorrect, as Malise Ruthven used it in the same context in his articles in The Independent newspaper in London in 1990, and it may well have been in use before then. 86.138.46.163 ( talk) 16:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
antiwar.com, anarchymag.org, chroniclesmagazine.org, and similar are NOT reliable sources, and have been proven in this case and many others to be highly politicized. Please do not use them for this article. -- Jimbo 10:06, 3 September 2006
What's your evidence to support this assertion? Rasta Man06 21:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Well? Why does it? Someone should merge the two. One of them appears to be a real References section, with footnotes linked to actual citation within the article. The other is a mix of redundancy (some items show up in both sections), and a list of just stuff Stephen Schwartz has written in various publications, quite possibly added to the article by himself. Perhaps some of it belong in the External Links section, but that's already pretty long for this article. One thing is for certain; two sections both entitled "References" is a problem. I'll get around to fixing it, if no one else does first. KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 18:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
* Bernstein, Richard. "The Saudis' Brand of Islam and Its Place in History". New York Times, November 8, 2002. * Bostom, Andrew, M.D. "A Wahhabism Problem Misleading historical negationism". "NRO" http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-bostom120602.asp * Doran, Michael. Fighting Faith. "Washington Post" December 22, 2002 http://www.cfr.org/publication/5327/fighting_faith.html * Geertz, Clifford. "Which Way to Mecca? Part II". The New York Review of Books, July 3, 2003. * Heer, Jeet. "Trotsky’s Ghost Wandering The White House". National Post, June 7, 2003. * Jeffries, Stuart. "Did Stalin’s killers liquidate Walter Benjamin?" The Observer, July 8, 2001. * Kakutani, Michiko. "Anatomy of the Left Coast Without the Sunshine". New York Times, April 7, 1998. * Marshall, Paul. "Reading Up on Islam". Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2003. * Meyerson, Harold. "Red Sunset". New York Times, March 15, 1998. * Radosh, Ronald. "State Department Outrage: The Firing Of Stephen Schwartz". FrontPage Magazine, July 2, 2002. * Reidel, James. "Ex-Libris Weldon Kees". The Cortland Review, Fall 2002. * Rifkin, Ira. "Books: Blame It on the Wahhabis". The Jerusalem Report, January 27, 2003. * Rothstein, Edward. "A Daring Theory That Stalin Had Walter Benjamin Murdered". New York Times, June 30, 2001. * Safi, Louay M. "Hardliners in Search of Moderate Muslims!" Media Monitors Network, May 4, 2005. * Safire, William. "State Out of Step". New York Times, July 1, 2002. * Schwartz, Stephen. An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Behind the Balkan Curtain". San Francisco Faith, May 2000. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Defeating Wahhabism". FrontPage Magazine, October 25, 2002. * Schwartz, Stephen. "A Different Kind of Filial Piety". Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1999. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Follies of the MSM". Tech Central Station, June 15, 2005. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection". The Spectator, September 22, 2001. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Remembering an SLA Terrorist". FrontPage Magazine, February 20, 2003. * Schwartz, Stephen. "Trotskycons?" National Review Online, June 11, 2003. * Starr, Kevin. "Leftovers; From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind". Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1998. KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 07:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
I undid the last edit, because irrespective of the reasonable questions some may have about Stephen Schwartz's sincerity with respect to his claim of conversion to the Sufi sect of Islam, I don't think we should be in the position of calling people liars when they claim to be a member of a particular religion, at least not without concrete evidence indicating they are lying. I suspect Schwartz's conversion to Islam is some sort of bizarre stunt myself, but I don't think its appropriate for this article to reflect that suspicion, absent real proof to that effect. KevinOKeeffe ( talk) 22:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I discovered that after a long series of vandal attacks on the entry about me in Wikipedia a new one had taken place. I could not locate an OTRS button on the contact page and therefore went ahead and attempted to revert the page to the state it was in prior to the beginning of February 2009. Anybody reading the comments on this Talk page will perceive the malicious and unfounded basis of the February series of edits. To question the sincerity of my becoming Muslim by insulting speculation is obviously inappropriate, especially since I am the author of a book on Sufism that explains my knowledge of Islamic spirituality in detail. I did not add anything self-serving or self-promoting, but did add the year I became Muslim and the ISBN of the book on Sufism. BTW, I have never been involved in Republican party politics and to suggest I am some kind of ideological leader among neo-conservatives is unsupportable, and I never produced propaganda for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas -- indeed, the list of my books includes one favorably describing the contra and civil opposition struggle against the Sandinistas led by Eden Pastora. To exaggerate my comments in a TV interview through a snippet, to ignore that in the interview I was specifically shown disclaiming any support for illegal surveillance, and to further ignore that the TV station later, on air, withdrew its characterization of my work, is unethical. But anybody should perceive that to turn a couple of lines in a controversial interview into a section under an inflammatory heading about the intelligence community is also unacceptable and obviously malicious. To further dredge up a graffiti ticket incident from 25 years ago is also an obvious malicious attack.
( talk) 20:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I have removed material from this article that does not comply with our policy on the biographies of living persons. Biographical material must always be referenced from reliable sources, especially negative material. Negative material that does not comply with that must be immediately removed. Note that the removal does not imply that the information is either true or false.
Please do not reinsert this material unless you can provide reliable citations, and can ensure it is written in a neutral tone. Please review the relevant policies before editing in this regard. Editors should note that failure to follow this policy may result in the removal of editing privileges.
Specifically:
Editors who are here seeking to promote an agenda should note that it is not permitted on Wikipedia's articles.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 15:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
This is my response:
1. My statement on KRON-TV was exaggerated in that a couple of comments describing investigative methods were exaggerated into a fabrication of a relationship between me and "the intelligence community." The investigative methods I described are used by historians and journalists and in no way imply an involvement with the "intelligence community." No information was ever supplied that would suggest I ever participated in or gave testimony or was otherwise involved in any such investigation (although I have provided U.S. Senate testimony on Saudi funding of radical Islam), or that I used any information that was furnished to me for anything other than legitimate historiographic and journalistic aims. My work is transparent.
2. It is obvious to me that the statement from the KRON-TV interview was not taken from the "source," i.e. from a transcript of the interview itself or from a viewing of the video. It was obviously taken from a prior snip of the interview, not from the KRON transcript, which should be easily available from them. The transcript and the video from which it was taken both record my specific disclaimer of any involvement in illegal surveillance. The transcript records the withdrawal by KRON-TV of its charges against my employer and me being "private spies." The claim made in the show had, as we say in journalism, "no legs." Nobody serious or reputable has ever demonstrated or asserted any connection between me and intelligence services and there is nothing in any record anywhere that would show otherwise. Indeed, because of my radical background the intelligence services are, in general, suspicious of me and we have never had relations. My books on Islam do not, in 99 percent of cases, draw on intelligence community material. I have, however, done research on Soviet clandestine intelligence operations, through open sources and identified interviews as an author, not an intelligence employee.
3. In the U.S. the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. I am not obligated to search through records 1,000s of miles away to find the transcript of the KRON-TV interview. If someone is going to cite the interview it is their obligation to locate the transcript and cite from it correctly, not mine to produce the transcript to disprove an example of unethical and tendentious editing.
4. The following statement is an admission of the absence of a neutral point of view: "You clearly have a vested interest in keeping some of your embarrassing public remarks, and other behaviors, as far away from the public eye as possible."
The following is an even more aggravated admission of the absence of an NPOV: "Many public figures do not come off remarkably well in their articles at this site. And we would frankly not be doing a very good job on this site, were that not the case. You are simply among that number who come off somewhat unfortunately, albeit merely from a subjective standpoint; certainly nothing I have written about you is unsourced, malicious, insulting, or defamatory. Like so many prominent Americans in the early 21st century, the truth just ain't your friend, alas."
First, the suggestion that my Islam is in anyway insincere, as in the term "claimed," is an insult and anybody should be capable of understanding that fact.
In addition, anybody should be able to perceive that a Neutral Point of View and a "subjective standpoint" are not the same thing. The claim that the truth is not my friend is malicious and insulting, aside from being absurd in suggesting that any single individual is in possession of the truth of history. Even I, a polemical historian, do not claim such omniscience. I will, however, note that the truth I write about Stalinism and especially about Wahhabism has definitely been my friend, far more than dredging up trivial nonsense a quarter of a century old could harm me.
I have done nothing in my public life of which I am ashamed; my life is a completely open book as is typically the case with journalists and authors. My comments on the KRON interview were brief and produced at the end of a blind-side interview. "Other behaviors"? This has to be a joke. Receiving a graffiti ticket 25 years ago is not embarrassing to me. It is irrelevant and nobody in the world would take such a thing seriously. Nor would the endless regurgitation of the fact that while acting as an illegal revolutionary in a country with a persistent secret police and death squad problem (Spain after Franco) I used the name "Sandalio" be embarrassing. The author of these edits apparently assumed that this latter fact implied that I wrote propaganda for the Sandinistas and added the Talk comment "Google, here I come!" on the apparent and mistaken apprehension that "embarrassing" articles by me signed "Sandalio" or articles by me propagandizing for the Sandinistas are somewhere on google. No such material appears on google because at the time I wrote as "Sandalio" the net did not exist and because I never wrote anything in support of the Sandinista regime.
Indeed, as I keep pointing out in responding to these malicious acts of vandalism, I am a public intellectual, a journalist, and author. Anybody who wants to know my views of Communism, Spain, and Nicaragua can read at least seven of the books listed in the entry. Anybody who wants to objectively assess my involvement with Jews and Islam can read four books, three of them published by one of the world's most important trade publishers (Doubleday) and one of them (SARAJEVO ROSE, on Jewish-Muslim relations in the Balkans) issued by the most prestigious publisher in the Arab world.
I am not impressed by protestations of innocence or neutrality in these acts of vandalism, which are revealed in the talk and history pages to be motivated by a malicious desire to make my life difficult and to attract anti-Jewish and radical Islamist ire toward me.
There is nothing "odd" about my life, another proclamation of the absence of an NPOV. I am an author. Authors (and journalists) are not exactly known for living the lives of office employees. I was a revolutionary, and became an anti-Communist aligned with the West. There is nothing odd about this; it was a common experience in the 20th century and is allegedly present in the current presidential administration. I had a long interest in Islamic spirituality and Sufism, had no religious affiliation, was not considered Jewish by religion or descent (my mother's Christian background was more influential in my upbringing), and after a long period of involvement with the situation in the Balkans became a Muslim. There is nothing odd about this, either. Everything I have done that is of public interest is public as is the common practice with journalists and authors. No reputable journalist except for the reporter on the graffiti ticket nonsense has ever questioned me about the issues that keep popping up in these acts of vandalism, I have never been implicated in or legally investigated for anything even remotely unethical or otherwise worthy of such notice at this point, and resent the implication that my life, my religion, my work, or my motivations should be subject to public disparagement on the basis of speculation. After both the graffiti incident and the KRON accusation I was hired and worked for 10 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, which owned KRON-TV at the time, and that should illustrate the irrelevance of the incidents.
I wish to emphasize that the idea that an author of serious books and articles published in mainstream media would be considered to "not come off remarkably well" or be labelled "odd" by someone who ignores said books and articles, inserts self-contradictory material, and limits his comments to gossip and speculation, is not only malicious, it is reckless and malicious. I can speak with confidence in saying that normal people all over the world, including the Islamic world where I have travelled widely and lectured as a Muslim -- including in mosques -- judge me by my books and articles, not by irrelevant incidents 25 years old, even when they are informed of the latter. My view of Islam and Wahhabism is accepted by the majority of the world's Muslims, and Sufism is not an obscure sect; half the Muslims in the world are Sufis or Sufi-oriented. (Both Sunnis and Shias include Sufis.) That is how the real world is. Trying to transform me into something I am not, including a "Sandinista propagandist turned Republican party leader," without even the slightest examination or citation of my works, is unethical and malicious. Authors and journalists should be cited from their works, not from defamatory comments by internet stalkers or other adversaries.
I have made no attempt at any time to influence the content of this entry or to add material favorable to me but it would be useful if the entry also mentioned that from 2004-2006 I was employed as a Writer-Expert by the National Endowment for the Arts and am the main contributor to a new book, "The National Endowment for the Arts: A History," issued by NEA, ISBN 978-0-615-23248-5, under the final editorship of a colleague, Mark Bauerlein.
I further removed from the entry a link to the libelous gossip of the person who calls himself Keith Sorel, on the grounds that a) it is a source for the irrelevant, malicious material that had previously been inserted; b) it appeared in a marginal and non-credible source. It is not a portrait of my life in Bohemian San Francisco; it is a false, defamatory, and recklessly malicious attack on my character.
SulejmanSchwartz ( talk) 00:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't we include that in the late '70s Mr. Schwartz managed the (now legendary) punk band The Dils? And that he wrote columns for Search and Destroy magazine under the name Nico? To me that's one of the most interesting things about him, and I bet a lot of people don't know. Magmagoblin2 ( talk) 00:43, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Twice in this article, it mentions Mr. Schwartz's college, but with no mention whatsoever of which college that was, or what subject he might have majored in while in college. Nothing about graduate school, either. Someone should be able to figure out what these facts are. Perhaps they will be found in the publication, Who's Who in America. 98.81.23.222 ( talk) 20:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Can this guy really be called Muslim? He appears to be a Jewish guy who has nothing but bad stuff to say about other Muslim organizations? I'll be honest, this is the first thing I've ever heard about him. But, I just read the article and he appears to have antipathy for all other Muslims and support American policies in the middle East. It's almost as if he is attempting to "delegitimize" many mainstream Muslim organizations and using his status as convert to "front" that. Somebody please tell me if I'm way off base here. Are there any articles that have raised this issue? Nlsanand 20:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The above ("Who's Afraid of Stephen Schwartz?") is the title of a newspaper article published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian long about 1985 (I believe), before the dawn of the digital age. Scholars mining Schwartz's past for dross or gold or brass or mold will want to go to the offices of said newspaper, where in the morg, they may find this article. It makes for a fascinating glimpse of the subject before he found G-d and embraced Islam. I'm just sayin'... SCFilm29 ( talk) 05:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a comment from Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, the subject of this article. For what must be the 12th or so time, the person who falsely calls himself Keith Sorel, and whose real name is Kevin Keating, has reinserted his libelous diatribes against me into this entry. These texts published in periodicals with titles like [[Anarchy] have been inserted and removed repeatedly. See the note from Jimbo Wales above. The material is false and libellous, and I object to its posting on this site. This matter was supposed to have been settled many times before.
I further object to the suggestion on this talk page that it is in the public interest for anybody to "mine" my past for negative information with which to assault my reputation. I am a widely published author, my writings are public record, as are many articles about me, and if any derogatory information aside from trivial, 25 year old articles were significant, it would not have to be dug out of a newspaper "morg." The term is correctly spelled "morgue."
The individuals who insert this nonsense into this entry apparently do not grasp that my books, issued by reputable publishers, are concerned with and describe in detail my personal evolution. It is obviously unfair to attack an author based on old gossip, speculation, and libelous allegations rather than examining the author's work. My books are available in numerous public and university libraries.
Finally, so-called experts on Islam who seek to question my religious affiliation are so uninformed they do not realize that except among the most extreme Wahhabis and other violent radicals, it is unacceptable to question the profession of faith of a Muslim. A Muslim is defined by belief in one God and the message of Muhammad, not by speculation on the part of people ignorant of the subject. The concept that people at Wikipedia "pretend" to accept my Islam, which is explained quite thoroughly in my published work, is unethical, to say the least.
Wikipedia should not allow itself to be used as a forum for internet stalking. The comment of SCFilm29 is manifestly malicious.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 68.49.236.146 ( talk) 04:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Michael Totten recently interviewed Mr Schwartz. See here or here. Like many of Totten's interviews, it may seem a little amateurish but is in fact very informative and insightful.
I've added it to the article as the first reference, replacing a misleading claim and bad source about SSS's political stance. I don't have time right now to update/correct the rest of the article. I also deleted some bad ELs per WP:BLP and WP:EL. (Linking a hostile anonymous blogger in a BLP? Where were the grown-ups?)
As can be seen on this page, lots of people hate SSS and wish to use Wikipedia to hurt him. Some of them lie. We need to do a much better job of enforcing Wikipedia's rules here. CWC 15:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
My understanding is that Steve Schwartz is a neo-con; so why is he getting published in an obscure anti-capitalist journal like this?
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480326.html
Miasnikov ( talk) 20:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC) miasnikov Miasnikov ( talk) 20:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate the NPV of Wikipedia and its various services. I wish to correct some statements in this article.
First: "He founded a one-person semi-Trotskyist "group" FOCUS.[6]"
FOCUS was not a one-person group and the reference in the article, to the volume of Robert J. Alexander, INTERNATIONAL TROTSKYISM, p. 943, does not say that. Alexander's description is "A small group... The principal organizer of FOCUS was Stephen Schwartz." Alexander goes on to describe the transfer of the FOCUS group to Portland, Oregon, after I departed from it. This illustrates that it was not a "one-person" group. There is other evidence of this in the FOCUS publication, THE ALARM, which had several contributors.
Second, earlier: I did not become a Trotskyist in college. I became a Trotskyist between high school and college, after the events of 1968, when I read a lot of books I had not read before, including Trotsky's REVOLUTION BETRAYED.
The pieces in ARENA are reviews, not stories, and they deal with the historiography of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War of 1936-39, with which I share an interest with the editor of the journal. One of them was published in Spanish in the leading intellectual journal LETRAS LIBRES and, originally, in German in the JAHRBUCH FUR HISTORISCHE-KOMMUNISMUSFORSCHUNG. The latter is the most respected journal on the history of Communism in the world, having been created by the reformed institute of party history of the former East German regime.
Miasnikov is one of dozens of aliases Kevin Keating has assumed in order to circulate dishonest polemics. Gavril Myasnikov was a Russian anti-Stalinist who is profiled on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavril_Myasnikov. Keating also poses on the net and elsewhere as Tibor Szamuely, an especially revealing alias as it is stolen from the correctly named (in Hungarian) Szamuely Tibor, who attained infamy and notoriety as a political mass-killer during the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1919. He also has a Wikipedia entry, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Szamuely. It is one thing to steal the names of Nestor Makhno and Gavril Myasnikov, among others, for such ends. It is quite another to compare one's self with Szamuely Tibor, a sadist and coward.
Anybody can check the net and see that Keating has been thrown off discussion fora for hiding behind multiple screen names.
Otherwise, thank you for your consideration.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 12:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the situation is self-explanatory. No public writer or journalist should be subjected to continued internet stalking of this kind, and certainly not with the unintentional complicity of Wikipedia. There has been nothing "strange" about my life or deeds, all of which are public, within normal canons of privacy. I protest against insistent intrusion.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 05:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Given the persistent nasty editing by SSS's enemy/enemies, including "clever" tricks aimed at deceiving Wikpedians, all edits to this article need to be checked carefully. References which do not include a URL should be treated very sceptically, as should all references to books. If an edit to this article looks at all dubious, I suggest reverting and starting a discussion on this page. Thanks in advance, CWC 15:32, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
All of the research included in my book INTELLECTUALS AND ASSASSINS has been verified, most notably by a publication on the Eitingon case by Mary-Kay Wilmers, "The Eitingons: A Twentieth Century Story" which is referenced here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kay_Wilmers.
I direct you also my article on Wilmers' admissions, "Commie Dearest," in The Weekly Standard of September 13, 2010, accessible at http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/commie-dearest. The review requires a subscription but should be accessible through the usual article services.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 07:00, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I notice that the Wikipedia entry on the Soviet spy Mark Zborowski, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zborowski, reproduces a mistaken rendering of my name as "Stephen J. Schwartz" and disparages my work. I again protest against the manner in which Wikipedia is used to distort simple facts about me or any other person who happens to attract the dislike of people whose interests are anything but neutral. "Stephen J. Schwartz" is not my born name. Not one word of my assertions about Stalinist intellectual spies has ever been disproved. Indeed, the British Broadcasting Corporation produced an extensive interview program regarding my exposure of the Soviet secret police activities of the Chilean writer Pablo Neruda. Nothing I wrote about Mark Zborowski was ever or could ever be challenged, because it was based on public record information mentioned in the works of various historians.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.46 ( talk) 10:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Did this page have a photograph of Mssr. Schwartz? Mssr. Schwartz if you have an image, please upload it to the commons and leave me a message. Thank you kindly, KSRolph ( talk) 18:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Did a photo ever turn up for the commons? KSRolph ( talk) 20:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I am the subject of this article. I have removed the following insulting and prejudicial comment from a caption accompanying a photograph of me: "American journalist Stephen Suleyman Schwartz dressed for Halloween at the Caffe Trieste in San Francisco, early 2013."
It is rather astonishing to realize how heedless and lacking in self-awareness Wikipedia people are regarding the use of this "encyclopedia" as a medium to defame and harass individuals who hold views disfavored by marginal and irresponsible people. Wikipedia is very often a platform for inquisitorial persecution. I have experienced this for a decade.
I was consulted regarding the involvement of Wikipedia with Kazakhstan and participated in a discussion with some Wikipedia personnel in which I acted in good faith. Indeed, I have always acted ethically in dealing with Wikipedia. But I am tired of having to check and recheck this page for personal attacks by anonymous trolls.
In the photograph described I am wearing the garments and regalia of Bektashi, Alevi-Bektashi, and Ahl-e Haqq Sufis. I am not dressed for Halloween. Muslims do not celebrate Halloween. To suggest I would do so is an attack on my religious freedom.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, writing from Europe Stephen Suleyman Schwartz ( talk) 18:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
I am unfortunately compelled to monitor this entry constantly and to remove libelous material from it. The latest was a claim that "However many Muslim organizations and Albanians despise his writing and accuse him to be an outright liar, manipulator and charlatan. [1] The Muslims of Kosovo accuse Schwartz to be a friend of suspected Kosovar war criminals and rapists, who cooperates with them to attack the values of Islam among the Albanians. [2]
I would first point out that the so-called Forumi i të Rinjve Musliman (Muslim Youth Forum) among Albanians is an extremist organization and that its attacks on my journalistic colleague Visar Duriqi have been the topic of a strong cautionary warning by the international monitoring body Reporters Without Borders. It does not speak for "many" Muslims or "the Muslims" in Kosovo. I would second point out the language of the insertion is plainly libellous -- referring to me as a "liar, manipulator and charlatan."
The Reporters Without Borders press release defending Visar Duriqi is accessible at [5]retrieved September 9, 2014.
It is onerous for me to constantly have to check this page. Wikipedia once again allows itself to be used as a platform of scurrilous claims.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 08:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Mssr. Schwartz is a journalist, historian, and biographer. Because his investigative work is controversial, this article has been subject to 'graffiti' and attacks; some betray a poor sense of idealism held by many Wikipedia contributors.
This page should have review for inputs not worded in the Neutral Point of View. Talk about rape and terrorist affiliations is no light set of charges, and has no place in this article. Mssr. Schwartz has no criminal record in any nation, no history of incarceration. KSRolph ( talk) 17:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +
Dear Toddy1 and fair-minded Wikipedians, As far as I know, photographs in Wikipedia have been gifted to the commons. I don't know what the Center for Islamic Pluralism is; its not my area of interest or expertise. I am a scholar of indigenous languages of the Americas, folk science in the Americas, gender issues, and qualitative methods. I'm far enough removed from this article to see whether it follows NPOV and good-faith practices, as I have taught them to my students in Wikipedia college courses. Toddy1 - you are hovering over this article for what reason? Don't you have better things to do? I will report harassing behavior towards a responsible female Wikipedia contributor who has done no harm. KSRolph ( talk) 02:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC) ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +
The libelous claim that Kosovar Muslims have accused me of being a "liar and charlatan" was reinserted without sourcing. What will it take to stop this campaign? BTW, the argument of accusations backed by citations about which Wikipedia supposedly is free of libel because Wikipedia does not know if they are right are wrong is false. There is no "neutral reporting of libel" with a disclaimer of ignorance. Further, as I have repeated on numerous occasions, in the U.S. the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused, in libel as in other matters. Anybody who wants evidence that I am not considered a liar or charlatan in Kosovo need only consult the translated articles from Kosovo media on the Center for Islamic Pluralism website. Libelous statements republished (meaning restated in any forum) remain libelous and the person who republishes them participates in the libel. That is basic libel law in the U.S.
I don't intend this as a solicitation to read the CIP site, but it will show that these charges cannot be sustained.
Also, I resent the undertone of anti-Jewish prejudice in some of the TALK comments. And I did not write and have not edited this entry. I have only checked it for libelous and incorrect comments. Had I written this entry it would include a number of important things that are missing from it.
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 07:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
This article appears primarily based on autobiographical sources: whether the source be Schwartz himself, his organization, the Centre for Islamic Pluralism, or a bio page of some organizations he is a part of. Several of his books warranted book reviews in major publications. Assuming this makes him noteworthy enough to warrant an entry, my feeling is that the size of the page does not reflect his degree of noteworthiness. Rather, its length and the sourcing for much of it looks like self-promotion.
The only 3rd party sources at present are:
In sum, we have one third party source, a few hundred words in the Religion News Service from 2003, a book-review, which talks about Schwartz himself. I will wait for comments on this point. I am tagging the article as self-promotion for now. If I don't see more significant reliable 3rd party sources about Schwartz, I will at start to significantly pare-down the article to more accurately reflect its subject's significance. Compare, for example, this article to Steve Coll, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. Bapehu ( talk) 17:26, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
As I stated above, "I did not write and have not edited this entry. I have only checked it for libelous and incorrect comments. Had I written this entry it would include a number of important things that are missing from it."
I consider the accusation that I wrote this entry, that it is an autobiography, or that it is self-promotion, to impugns my professional credibility. I consider the same about the claim that the entry is "a fan-page and, as is evident in Schwartz's active contributions to the article... a largely self-made fan-page." To emphasize, I have not written "active contributions to the article." I consider it rather amusing that these charges are made about an article that does not bother to determine whether "Suleyman" is my legal middle name, which would certainly have been curious in Ohio in 1948, or what I studied in college, or where, or any number of other matters. Again, I do not intend to edit this article. I only note my objections on the talk page.
Does Bapehu know what "self-published" means? None of the references in this entry were self-published except the first, taken from the Center for Islamic Pluralism website. The Wikipedia entry cites my published works, but except for one, they were not "self-published." "Self-published" means published at the author's own expense. I do not own and did not pay THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, or any of the other media or book publishers that published my articles or books except for the printer of my early book of poems, A SLEEPWALKER'S GUIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO and part of the printing expenses for my SARAJEVO ROSE, which was issued by a respected Arabic book publisher. I did not pay for publication or publish AN ACTIVIST'S GUIDE TO ARAB AND MUSLIM CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA. Media and reputable trade publishers accepted my articles and books and paid me. That is not "self-publication." I believe that accusation is also libelous.
Academics now frequently are asked to pay the printing costs of their books, by reputable university presses. Even that does not make them "self-published."
Does "Bapehu" know what "self-promotion" is? A person engaged in self-promotion would not cite his or her critics, typically.
Since when are book reviews not "third party sources"? I did not commission the reviews, pay the reviewers, or attempt to influence them. Some were critical of my books. Any normal person considers a book review a third party source, since authors are ethically prohibited from soliciting friendly reviews. A person writing an autobiographical entry would not include a description of him or herself as "a strange and outlandish figure."
KSRolph is a Wikipedian who took a photograph of me, on which the Center for Islamic Pluralism claims copyright. The act was a simple one and involved no conflicts of interest.
Why should I be compared with Steve Coll? "I mean, really?" I said from the beginning and repeat that I am indifferent to what Wikipedia produces about me. But this endless and unproductive controversy has no obvious motive, on the part of my opponents, but malice.
I claim no special importance in the world but I find it curious that this entry attracts so much nasty attention. Someone is obviously concerned about something and I do not believe their interest is neutral.
Further, I object to the attempt to reduce my reply to these tendentious idiocies by subordinating my comment to that of an anonymous and incompetent person calling him- or herself bapehu. All of my previous replies were kept separate. Sooner or later Wikipedia will have to stop shielding these cowards. At the least, I am a public intellectual, journalist and author, with a transparent life. Who or what is Toddy1 or Bapehu? I said from the beginning I refuse to play a Wikipedia computer game against shadow puppets who have no credentials or standing in intellectual life.
Considering the ridiculous inconsistencies, errors, and genuine self-promotion visible on so many Wikipedia pages, I suggest these people concentrate on cleaning up factual issues and stop harassing me. You can start by reviewing your articles on Islam, which are replete with radical propaganda.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 00:18, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
It has been suggested I should indeed contribute to Wikipedia articles, though not about myself for obvious ethical reasons. There are errors in the entry on me still but I am content to live with them -- errors abound in all media these days and none of them in the current entry are gross. I'm not going to ask you for special consideration of my work.
I have been reluctant to become involved in editing Wikipedia, aside from a very few instances of removing, or protesting on the TALK page, material about me I consider inaccurate and flagrantly offensive, also because of the question of neutrality. If I were to edit a Wikipedia entry on some local news event I reported for the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, and in which I was not involved except as a reporter, I would do so as a neutral person. But I never accepted the idea that objectivity as a journalist means neutrality in the face of evil, and in my more literary and historical works, I am not neutral and do not claim to be so. When I wrote about the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, the Spanish civil war, Latin American politics, California intellectual history, Kosovo, Stalinism, Wahhabism, Sephardic Jews in the Balkans, and Sufism I made and make no claims to neutrality. These writings are based on deep sympathies I do not conceal. I would therefore not presume to edit Wikipedia entries on these matters, about which I do not have an NPOV. I am not an academic.
I might be willing to help correct some Wikipedia entries on Sephardic Jewry but at this point that would require a lot of fact-checking by me. I am not Jewish by birth or religious upbringing, much less Sephardic, and can write neutrally and, I think, authoritatively, on such matters as linguistics and other aspects of local Sephardic cultural history in various countries. Sephardism is a fascinating topic with many distinctive aspects. But the sources are obscure and require considerable review. Some materials I have collected are unpublished. My writings on Sephardism are also influenced by my Islamic appreciation for the protection of the Sephardim by the Moroccan and Ottoman sultans, so I cannot not claim absolute neutrality on the matter. But I have assembled a lot of interesting and unknown materials on the topic, much of it printed. Abominably, a great deal of the corpus of Sephardica was lost in the Holocaust.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) 20:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying some details of my biography.
Here is an example of an article on Islam that includes a citation error: The article on Mawlid, the celebration of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawlid. This article contains the following statement: "In most Arabian countries - i.e. Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - [Mawlid] is not an official public holiday." The comment is sourced to the following note, number 41: "Moon Sighting". Moon Sighting. 20 June 2011. Retrieved 20 November 2011." If one links to that page, there is no reference in it whatever to the status of Muhammad's Birthday in Saudi Arabia except to refer to its place on the Islamic calendar in use in the kingdom. As to Muhammad's Birthday in Kuwait, this source identifies it as public holiday -- a travel guide, but their publishers have an incentive to accuracy: http://www.worldtravelguide.net/kuwait/public-holidays. The following source lists Muhammad's Birthday as an official public holiday in Qatar: http://www.expatwoman.com/qatar/monthly_qatar_guide_2013_2014_Holiday_Dates_Qatar_11115.aspx. At http://www.worldtravelguide.net/united-arab-emirates/public-holidays it is stated that in the Emirates Muhammad's Birthday is a public holiday. The following states that in Bahrain, Muhammad's Birthday is a public holiday: http://www.holiday-times.com/public-holidays-bahrain/.
Stephen Schwartz 76.218.124.85 ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I am Stephen Auden Alfred Schwartz, known by my Muslim name as Suleyman, and by various pen-names, such as Nico Ordway, Sandalio Solsona, Sari Saltuq, Albert Moreland, Paul Yanovsky, et al. Adoption of pen-names is an honorable tradition but American Trumpies and other dunces seem never to have heard about it. Too bad. When you only read Wikipedia and can't read books you don't know such things.
I have never in my life held myself out as an officer of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, a post for which I was unqualified, unlike the author of this ratbite on my coat, who tried to run for union office.
In 1974-75 I was chairman of the stewards' committee of the then-Brotherhood of Railway Clerks Local 248 in San Francisco.
In 1994-99 I was a delegate from the Bay Media Guild to the San Francisco Labor Council.
In 1995-99 I was secretary of the Bay Media Guild.
None of these positions made me an employee of said unions.
I was an employee of the SUP in running their centennial history project.
I have been involved in union activities in Nicaragua, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo.
Please say no to anonymous trolls.
SuleymanSchwartz ( talk) 23:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
The first half of this article explains Schwartz's spiritual quest to find his home in Sufi Islam. The second half of this article is about his, and I quote, "Views on Islam [and] Israel".
We don't even have sections on Binyamin Netanyahu's "views on Israel," nor do we have sections for any Imam's "views on Islam." Why would we need such information on the opinions of one Mr. Schwartz?
This article needs to be rewritten from the ground up to be even close to encyclopedic. Jsharpminor ( talk) 05:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
I am the former Stephen Suleyman Schwartz. Since 2016 I have been. out as a trans female, Lulu Schwartz. Today I tried to gender correct my bio. My edits were reversed instantly. I protest! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.251.163.171 ( talk • contribs)
Assalamulaikum Ms. Schwartz - I came here to see why in fact your page lists an incorrect name. I'm very new to wikipedia, so I don't know if there's much I can do to help solve it, but I will try.
MekhiMKL ( talk) 04:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Ms. Schwartz - I did manage to make some changes. I'm not advanced enough to know how to migrate the page and such. Inshallah someone with more knowledge can help us, and the changes I made are not reverted! MekhiMKL ( talk) 04:17, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Ms. Schwartz - my revisions were reverted. I'm going to try to get some help with this issue. MekhiMKL ( talk) 20:57, 6 September 2021 (UTC)