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A western feminist stepped down from her Ivory Tower and moved to a Muslim country with her Muslim husband and received the kind of education she never would have received in any left-leaning western university.
Phyllis Chesler, a professor of “women’s studies,†witnessed Muslim barbarity firsthand. She married a Muslim she’d met at an American school, then moved to his country. She writes:
When we landed in Kabul, an airport official smoothly confiscated my US passport. “Don’t worry, it’s just a formality,†my husband assured me. I never saw that passport again. I later learnt that this was routinely done to foreign wives — perhaps to make it impossible for them to leave. Overnight, my husband became a stranger. The man with whom I had discussed Camus, Dostoevsky, Tennessee Williams and the Italian cinema became a stranger. He treated me the same way his father and elder brother treated their wives: distantly, with a hint of disdain and embarrassment.
…
Individual Afghans were enchantingly courteous — but the Afghanistan I knew was a bastion of illiteracy, poverty, treachery and preventable diseases. It was also a police state, a feudal monarchy and a theocracy, rank with fear and paranoia. Afghanistan had never been colonised. My relatives said: “Not even the British could occupy us.†Thus I was forced to conclude that Afghan barbarism was of their own making and could not be attributed to Western imperialism.
Naysayers will claim Chesler’s account is an isolated story or merely one woman’s account, but it is not. Though some Muslim countries may not be as brutal and backward, there is no such thing as “women’s rights” in Islam or even “individual rights.” This is why people say that Islam is incompatible with western societies. The suppression of individual rights is an integral part of living under Sharia, and it is not racist or bigotry to say so.
My problem isn’t with “radical†Islam. I have a problem with the entire religion, especially the desire of its followers to live under religious law and to have that law imposed on westerners. In western countries. Every time I blog about my issues with Islam, somebody somewhere calls me a religious bigot. Whatever. Sticks and stones, you know?
My first question to Chesler and women like her is why she married a Muslim in the first place? (And don’t give me that love stuff.) Based on the fact that she’s a women’s studies professor and probably majored in women’s studies in college, she, like so many feminist elites in the West, held a romanticized and false notion that followers of Allah were no different from secularists like herself. But she knows the truth now. After having lived in Afghanistan, she says (emphasis added):
Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs†are absolutely, not relatively, evil.
My best guess is that Chesler, who is Jewish, is not an observant Jew, which is why she married a non-Jew. As a Christian, I am forbidden to marry an unbeliever. An unbeliever is anyone who does not profess Christ. (This doesn’t mean that someone who became a Christian after marriage should divorce an unbelieving spouse. The admonition is against Christians intentionally marrying non-Christians.)
My second question to Chesler is why in god’s name she even thought about moving to a backward Muslim country, let alone actually doing it? The most likely explanation is that she, like so many liberal westerners, bought the insipid multicultural all-cultures-are-equally-valid line. Strangely enough, these same people tend to hold Islam and other religions in higher esteem than they do Christianity, a religion that played and continues to play a huge role in the fact that even Christianity’s harshest critics can denigrate the faith without worrying about having their heads chopped off!
After witnessing Islamic brutality, Chesler is telling the world what she knows. But she has to put up with people who don’t know what the hell heck they’re talking about:
Western intellectual-ideologues, including feminists, have demonised me as a reactionary and racist “Islamophobe†for arguing that Islam, not Israel, is the largest practitioner of both sexual and religious apartheid in the world and that if Westerners do not stand up to this apartheid, morally, economically and militarily, we will not only have the blood of innocents on our hands; we will also be overrun by Sharia in the West
Islamophobe. What a stupid word. If that label describes anyone who thinks the West is far superior to the Middle East and that an Islamic state is a less than ideal place to live, Islamo-lovers can call me whatever they like. The irony is totally lost on them. Only in a western country, particularly the U.S., do individuals even have the freedom to broadcast their bloody opinions about us Islamophobes in the first place! Dolts.
You know, it’s really easy to sit in the comfort and luxury of the U.S. and fantasize about some Third World country, full of barbarity, and blame that barbarity on “imperialism.” I believe the word is code for hostility and envy toward white “Christian” men. I strongly suspect this is the case among feminist bloggers, who shall remain nameless and unlinked. They seem not to care about actual brutality toward women by Muslims, only perceived brutality perpetrated by white men.
Let’s do an experiment. Go to the top feminist political blogs and search for criticism of Muslims’ treatment of their wives specifically and women in general, and Islam. Now do a search for disparaging references to the “patriarchy,” which also is code for “white men,” and for Christianity. Additionally, search for criticism of rape where the rapist is someone other than a white man. Let me know what you find.
Chesler of the Open Eyes has a word of warning for western liberal snots and their cohorts:
Now is the time for Western intellectuals who claim to be antiracists and committed to human rights to stand with these dissidents. To do so requires that we adopt a universal standard of human rights and abandon our loyalty to multicultural relativism, which justifies, even romanticises, indigenous Islamist barbarism, totalitarian terrorism and the persecution of women, religious minorities, homosexuals and intellectuals. Our abject refusal to judge between civilisation and barbarism, and between enlightened rationalism and theocratic fundamentalism, endangers and condemns the victims of Islamic tyranny.
Western so-called anarchists antiracists [I misread the word, but that's OK. So-called tolerant "antiracists" are spoiled brats, too!] and multiculturalists are nothing more than brats, spoiled on the fat hog of American wealth and freedom, which provides them with plenty of leisure to fantasize that barbaric Third World countries and uncivilized religious zealots are somehow morally equal or even superior to the society that gives them the forum and safety to criticize American wealth and freedom.
They lean back in cushioned comfort bad-mouthing the hog while biting into it. May they suffer gut-wrenching indigestion.
Update: Commenter Jeff Turner writes:
For six years of my life I was a devout Muslim who followed the “path†(sirat) of the Salif-as-Salih (those who follow their righteous predecessors) or Wahabibism (a name we didnt particularly like), and I can tell you that everything that this woman has written is true. I’ve seen Muslim men beat their wives, marry other women without their first wife knowing and then one day springs it on his first wife that she is now a co-wife. I remember watching a jihadist tape which was used as a recruiting tool to get the Muslim men to fight jihad in Bosnia via Afghanistan. Islamic life focuses on death and returning to Allah. I have never been so miserable as when I was a Muslim; I could not stop thinking about death. It is a very repressive and oppresive lifestyle in which you are not in control your actions or your thoughts; you’re always living in fear that Allah will punish you not only for your bad actions but your bad thoughts.
Commenter Margaret shares insight on why Chesler traveled to a Muslim country (edited for spelling):
La Shawn, you asked why a feminazi would marry a muslim and go live in Afghanistan.
The answer is because of Chesler’s age. She is in her early 70’s. She went to college in the late 50’s early 60’s married and went to Afghanistan in 1961.
She, like most of the early feminazis such as Betty Freidan was a marxist from a communist background.
In the fifties when Chesler was growing up, Islam was unknown in this country. Most of the Mediterranean islamic countries such as Algeria, Egypt etc were officially very secular at the time. This secularism was because the communists had been very helpful in ridding those countries of their European colonial rulers.
African nationalists also depended on communist help in ending colonial European rule.
So most leftists in America and Europe thought of muslims as fellow fighters against evil colonial white men.
It was really a different time. There was no such thing as women’s studies. The only people who were into women’s rights were the communists. But they weren’t really for women’s rights of course.The communists became pro women’s rights back in the thirties when the labor movement and MALE working class rejected communism. so the communists decided to focus on women, minorities and regional conflicts, (Spanish Basques, Irish catholics etc)
A marxist rebel beatnik young woman of the 1950’s, ignorant of the muslim treatment of women would be very likely to reject all the boring bourgeois boys in her college and marry a stranger from afar country simply because he was not a drab American.
Barack Obama’s Mother is the same age as Chesler. She did the same thing, not once but twice. I am older than you who were exposed to women’s studies at an early age. I am younger that Chesler but knowing the marxist, anti american beatnik New York milieu from which she came I can understand why she chose to marry an Afghan, as far from middle America as possible.
Ten years later, women like Chesler joined the weather underground and bombed the ROTC building on their college campuses, married Black Panthers and rioted for their causes.
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I love you! Where have I been for all of your life! Your bold commentary is a shock to the system, a brilliantly refreshing wake up call. Thank you.
Speaking of western countries and Sharia, when are you going to blog about Caribou Coffee? I’m dying to go in there and ask for a bacon sandwich.
I’m pleased that this lady has spoken out, but one must really wonder how she got herself into that mess to begin with. I agree with the idea that she was caught up in the vast sea of deliberate leftist ignorance that is the university system today.
For six years of my life I was a devout Muslim who followed the “path” (sirat) of the Salif-as-Salih (those who follow their righteous predecessors) or Wahabibism (a name we didnt particularly like), and I can tell you that everything that this woman has written is true. I’ve seen Muslim men beat their wives, marry other women without their first wife knowing and then one day springs it on his first wife that she is now a co-wife. I remember watching a jihadist tape which was used as a recruiting tool to get the Muslim men to fight jihad in Bosnia via Afghanistan. Islamic life focuses on death and returning to Allah. I have never been so miserable as when I was a Muslim; I could not stop thinking about death. It is a very repressive and oppresive lifestyle in which you are not in control your actions or your thoughts; you’re always living in fear that Allah will punish you not only for your bad actions but your bad thoughts.
I am comfortable with the term Islamophobe. Phobia implies fear and I am terrified at the prospect of having to live under such an hateful and repressive system. That doesn’t mean that I hate people of the Islamic faith. Don’t confuse fear and hate, they are not the same thing.
No, I don’t believe that I am better than they are and certainly not morally superior. But I enjoy the freedom and blessings in life that come only from our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Hate the sin, love the sinner…
Sometimes, we all need to be shaken out of our complacency — thank you, La Shawn.
To concur with cira bellum, there is no hate in my heart for the people of any faith. I struggle, every day, to keep the hate where it belongs — for the horrible actions committed in the name of ‘faith’.
For many Western intellectuals Islam is today what Communism was two decades ago - a religion/political philosophy that can do no wrong. Many of the same excuses used to justify Soviet imperialism and barbarity (American foreign policy, support for Israel, American military actions, etc.) have only been lightly edited to cover Islam.
This is a bizarre set of affairs, since Islam differs in many important respects with what Western intellectuals have claimed for decades to represent: opposition to homosexuality and women’s rights, a belief in a higher power. But I think that many of these intellectuals are unhappy with atheistic humanism, and Islam fits the bill of a politically-charged religion that is not “tainted” with dreaded Christianity. It’s not surprising that many are favorably disposed towards it.
Phyllis Chesler is (and will probably remain) a tiny minority among her increasingly hostile campus peers.
I think Chesler probably fell victim to the rule of three:
Rule 1: All cultures are equal.
Rule 2: If rule 1 is broken by one culture being superior than another, and the choice is between Western and non-Western, under no circumstances will the Western culture be declared the victor–especially if the Western culture is American.
Rule 3: If rule 1 is broken by one culture being inferior to another, and the choice is between Western and non-Western, at all times the Western culture will be regarded as inferior, especially if it is American.
I do not know why, but a certain segment of the population, particularly academics, simply do not regard people who are non-Western, non-white, non-Christian as human. These people believe the “nons” are merely puppets without agency, without beliefs, without actions apart from reany of the above is no, find another man, especially if “honor” killings are the norm amongst his group. You are not special, you will be treated the same way, especially if you go to his home country where treating women as chattel is the norm.
Lashawn, you are correct. Islam is not compatible with Western Society, Capitalism, or Democracy. It makes you wonder why we are spending ridiculous amounts of US tax dollars in Iraq attempting to spread democracy to a region and people that aren’t compatible with it. They aren’t even compatible with each other.
You also missed this article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0306/p06s01-wosc.html
La Shawn, While I believe that St Paul recommended against marrying a non-believer, I don’t think that anything in the New Testament forbids it. On the other hand, St Paul does provide some excellent advice for the spouse of a non-believer. I believe that Christianity is more respectful of other religions that even you, in this case, give it credit for.
That said, for a feminist to marry a practicing Muslim, then move with him to a Muslim country, that was incredibly stupid.
Hmm, part of my post was eaten above. Let me try again.
Chesler fell victim to the 3 rules:
Rule 1: All cultures are equal.
Rule 2: If rule 1 is broken by one culture being superior than another, and the choice is between Western and non-Western, under no circumstances will the Western culture be declared the victor–especially if the Western culture is American.
Rule 3: If rule 1 is broken by one culture being inferior to another, and the choice is between Western and non-Western, at all times the Western culture will be regarded as inferior, especially if it is American.
I do not know why, but a certain segment of the population, particularly academics, simply do not regard people who are non-Western, non-white, non-Christian as human. These people believe the “nons†are merely puppets without agency, without beliefs, without actions apart from reacting to what Westerners do.
LaShawn wrote that multiculturalists see barbaric cultures as superior to the one that gave them their privileges and freedoms in the first place. I believe that is why some women marry as Chesler did, because the husband is a prop meant to prove their “cred,†and show how exceptional they are in their tolerance, open-mindedness, and moral superiority.
In my job I only see failed marriages, and from my observation, a prime underlying cause of people marrying badly is from thinking of the spouse as a prop.
Here is a rule for any women who wishes to marry a man from a culture that treats women as 2nd/3rd class as a rule by law and custom: look at his sister. In my experience with people who marry badly, everyone in general falls back on what the values and habits they were raised by. So, can his sister date your brother? Can she date any man who is outside of her group? Can she be like you, in that she is educated and allowed to live independently? Can she have any lifestyle other than being barefoot and pregnant? Can she have the same freedoms her brother does?
If the answer to any of the above is no, find another man, especially if “honor†killings are the norm amongst his group. You are not special, you will be treated the same way, especially if you go to his home country where treating women as chattel is the norm.
To answer David above, God gives us free will. However, as a believer, not all marriages are heavenly. When two unbelievers marry, or when a Christian and an unbeliever marry, they are set up for problems. They will find themselves at odds. God blesses marriages of His own people and but believers take their marriages out of God’s hands. I married an unbeliever and it was a living hell.
I have traveled to several Muslim countries and the only one that gave women “a bit of dignity” is the United Arab Emirates. All of the other Muslim countries I have visited including Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait treat their women like prisoners.
Many liberals who talk a good game about Muslim cultures, Pan-Africanism and the like, have never traveled to these countries to actually experience those cultures first hand. They refuse to believe the conditions unless they experience it firsthand like Phyllis Chesler.
“Every time I blog about my issues with Islam, somebody somewhere calls me a religious bigot.”
I’m sure. Yet those same folks who charge you with bigotry, probably stand up and cheer Julio Pino, Kent State’s pro-jihadi professor or Colorado
Univerisity’s resident (faux indian) liar, Ward Churchill, and excoriate christianity for being ‘too repressive.’ This is the rhetoric of cowards,
because like you said,’Christianity’s harshest critics can denigrate the faith without worrying about having their heads chopped off!’
Your question to ‘Chesler and women like her is why she married a Muslim in the first place?’ should be a HUGE red flag for all western women. You rightly point out she is a university professor of ‘women’s studies’; a nortorious bastion of revisionist history and leftist-utopian political philosophy. The woman was no dummy, but Ms. Chesler’s decision speaks volumes about her as a person and her ability to critically think through complex social, cultural, and personal issues. This is a the root as to why liberalism is a recipe for cultural & political failure.
And I’ve about had it with the suffix ‘phobe’. People need to look up the definiton of ‘phobia’. My informed disapproval of some group or person and their beliefs, ideas or philosophy does not make me a ‘phobe’ of any stripe or character no matter how LOUD some ‘activist’ screams it at me. People need to look up the definiton of ‘phobia’ because it is waaaay mis-used.
Thanks, La Shawn, for, as usual, telling it like it is.
Islamophobe-much like “prejudiced.” Useful words that have been misused and abused to the point they have lost their utility. A “phobia” is an IRRATIONAL fear. Being afraid of people who like to blow up buses full of children in the name of their god is NOT irrational. “Prejudice” means PRE judging. Judging without a basis. Jesse Jackson looking behind him and feeling relieved that it is white folk and not black folk following him is NOT an example of being “prejudiced.” It is a rational reaction based on EXPERIENCE. Muslims are more likely to behead you. Blacks are more likely to carjack you. That is just the truth, whether it is PC or not.
“I have a problem with the entire religion, especially the desire of its followers to live under religious law and to have that law imposed on westerners.”
Right on the nose, LaShawn. For those who would argue that Christians proselytize and want their religion imposed on others, I say, not true. First, Christianity does not teach imposition of the faith by force. In contrast, this is a basic tenet of Islam. Living and preaching the faith, while praying for the soul to be converted, is not the same as killing those who will not convert, or subjecting them to second-class citizen status, i.e., dhimmitude.
Second, the fact that several hundred years ago Christianity was imposed militarily is irrelevant. That type of behavior was normal and accepted for those times, just like slavery. Barbaric behavior was viewed as acceptable by everyone. Neither activity is normal or acceptable today.
“And I’ve about had it with the suffix ‘phobe’. People need to look up the definiton of ‘phobia’. My informed disapproval of some group or person and their beliefs, ideas or philosophy does not make me a ‘phobe’ of any stripe or character no matter how LOUD some ‘activist’ screams it at me. People need to look up the definiton of ‘phobia’ because it is waaaay mis-used.”
Preach it locomotivebreath1901!!!!!
A great post, La Shawn. I know that God is working in the world towards the return of the Lord; Psalm 2 comes into focus as a description of the Last Days, which don’t seem that far off.
It could be that the apostasy, the falling away mentioned in the last days would be Islam temporarily controlling the entire world. Walid Shoebat made mention of the fact that many of the countries mentioned in Ezekiel as coming up against Israel before Armageddon are Muslim strongholds. So it’s possible that Islam may overrun the world, but that will be a very short rule indeed. When our Lord returns, it’s all over for Islam, Buddhism, secular humanism, etc.
Even so, come Lord Jesus!
I wonder how many tie-dyed burqas you could sell at concert attended by lots of liberal hippie chicks? I am troubled by Islam but I dont fear it.
On the subject of Christians marrying non-believers; I thank God that my wife married one. Seeing the Lord work through her is what led me to Him!
Why does a woman marry a muslim? Because she doesn’t really believe what she has heard can really be true. Women have had equal rights for generations in the US and western cultures generally, so that we really cannot imagine not having it. There was a commenter on this very blog that was considering marrying a muslim, and although other commenters were saying “don’t do it - he’ll treat you like they do in muslim countries” she was was convinced that he was different. He was eduated, “western”, charming etc. and so forth. As I recall, she was a black woman who had a master’s degree…maybe even a doctorate - I don’t remember exactly. At any rate, she had come from very little and accomplished much. She was _certain_ that for her - for them - things would be different. If Phylis Chesler hadn’t already been there, come back and written a book, I’d swear it was the same woman!
And Locomotive Breath….does that mean I can’t have a Gorephobia???
Great post. And let’s not forget the whole Airport cabbie mess in Minneapolis where the cabbies claimed that sharia law forced them to not pick up fares that had guide dogs, alcohol etc.
“For many Western intellectuals Islam is today what Communism was two decades ago - a religion/political philosophy that can do no wrong.”
Source quotes/references please?
I’d be interested in reading who says Islam can do no wrong.
I personally have no love or even like for the Islamic faith, from what I have seen and heard, it is way too conservative, and way to patriarchal/oppressive.
I do support people’s freedom to worship who they choose, or wear/eat say what they want, so I guess that puts me in the ‘multicultural’ camp.
However, that said, I don’t take kindly to anyone giving me the mantra that I view all cultures ‘as of equal worth’, any more than I’ll take a muslim telling me what I should believe, or what I ‘represent’. All cultures aren’t of equal ‘worth’ or effect. It’s worth remembering that Islamic culture is a monoculture before people go around slamming each and every concept or actuality of a multi-cultural society. Broad brushes are rarely useful, and normally dishonest.
Believing people may worship what and whomever they wish is not merely a “multicultural” trait. I also believe people are free to bow down before whoever and whatever. The multiculturalist takes it too far, declaring inferior cultures (read: oppressive) equally valid and/or worthy of appreciation as superior cultures (read: free). Your beliefs about people’s freedom are western beliefs, which come from being raised in a culture that values individual freedom. Such a culture, I’ll argue to my grave, is vastly superior to others, esp. Muslim cultures. Multiculturalists tend to view all cultures as “good,” which is grade A crap. - Admin
Krushchev of the former USSR said it, and it’s probably true… “America, you will bury yourselves” With our insane political correctness we are headed toward the slaughter house like stupid sheep. Time is on the Muslim’s side. They know it, and we are sleeping at the wheel. First Europe, and then the United States. Our politicians want to “make nice” with Islamic groups such as Hamas. President Bush claims Islam is a religion of “Peace”. What? We’re doomed. We have become a big rich, slobbering kid who can’t protect himself….from himself. Yikes…it’s nuts!!!!!
Feminism is a religion for many. Liberalism is a religion for many. Multiculturalism is a religion for many. Of course, they are all phony religions. But when you are the high priestess of feminism or political correctness or liberal love and understanding, you are able to manipulate the rules and form the doxology to your liking.
When these puff-brained folks encounter true faith and an abiding belief system, they scream like stuck pigs. They can’t stand the imperatives, the strict codes, the concept of absolute right and wrong.
Mark Twain said that a person who sets out to carry a cat by the tail is getting valuable information.
Guess what happened to our little “Jewish” friend turned Muslim; she entered the lion’s den of “multiculturalism” and she got eviscerated. Isn’t that just so astounding and beyond prediction?
There is only Islam: no moderate or reformed Islam. The radicals have carved out the deadliest ideas and they are acting on them. But the rest of Islam can not offer a strong argument against the “radical” views, because the radical views spring from the foundational tenets of the Koran.
I do not consider myself any sort of expert, but I have spent a lot of time traveling in Indonesia, Egypt, Thailand, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordon, and Malaysia. I have spent much time in consulting with Christians, Hindu’s, Copts, Jews, Buddhists and others who feel the hot breath of radical Islam on a daily basis. It is a constant, deadly threat: convert or die.
The threat of radical Islam is as clear today as it was when the first Caliphate swept across Africa and into Europe in its earliest founding years.
The liberal English society is treating its enormous problem with Islam in exactly the same way as this daffy feminist went tip-toe through the tulips of marriage with her Afghan husband. And, England may be the first European country to assimilate Sharia in its legal system.
Her tale may be a wake up call to the sleepy denizens of multiculturalism, but I doubt it. Look how many Jews in the United States want to appease and slink away from reality. They even seem willing to throw Israel overboard.
Radio hosts have been fired for saying what LaShawn has posted. CAIR makes Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton look like amateurs competing for the Donnie and Marie Osmond award.
I just finished reading an article in Archaeology about Mel Gibson offending the Maya in his movie Apocalypto. Gibson also stirred up the Jews with his Passion of the Christ. What are the chances that anyone in Hollywood will dare tread on the toes of Islam?
We are all being “courted” by Islam and being compelled to “accept” their religious beliefs in our day to day lives. It would be best if everyone outside of Islam were to approach it with a knowledge of what the basic tenets of Islam demand.
Thank you LaShawn. This is why your blog is one of my must reads.
It is about time females everywhere spoke up against Islam, while they still have tongues.
#19 Dave says: “I am troubled by Islam but I don’t fear it.”
Currently, in the United States, you can afford to feel that way. You can write off 9/11 as a “lucky hit” by a bunch of nut cases. You can look at Iraq and Afghanistan as “Bush’s War” and a stupid mistake. You can look at the pressures of Islam on London, Paris, Stockholm, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Dearborn, Spain, Italy, Sudan, Thailand, Fiji, Australia, Bali, etc. as merely local or far distant problems.
You can ignore the dictators who are holding down radical Islamists. Namely: Mubarak, the House of Saud, Mussarif, etc. But these people are a heartbeat away from having their countries go the way of Iran.
Russia has huge problems with radical Islam and every day Putin is slipping further back into the KGB days of governing. Meanwhile, the world economy teeters on the brink of chaos because of Islamic hands on the oil supply.
You might want to consider adding a little “fear” of our delicate condition with Islam.
Even if everyone were to concede that we are entirely to blame, what is our way out?
Are we going to talk Islam out of its basic tenets?
“The multiculturalist takes it too far, declaring inferior cultures (read: oppressive) equally valid and/or worthy of appreciation as superior cultures”
Sometimes I guess a ‘multiculturalist’ will take it too far. As will a ‘cultural superialist’ or Nationalist.
Extremists rarely interest me as they live in cloud cuckoo-land, re-defining and re-interpreting the world around them to suit their belief system/propaganda needs.
“Multiculturalists tend to view all cultures as “good,†which is grade A crap. ”
Well, I guess that excludes me, thanks for the education, LaShawn.
“And, England may be the first European country to assimilate Sharia in its legal system.”
Being a Brit, this is obviously of immense interest to me. Do you have any evidence that Sharia law is going to be assimilated into our legal system?
As one might say….”not on your Nelly, old chap”
My next-door neighbours are British-born Muslims, I’ll ask them what they think about it. I foresee a battle on the stairs!
Regards,
John
Chesler’s story reminds me of Betty Mahmoody, who wrote the book Not Without My Daughter. Some of you might remember this story from when it was made into a movie in 1991, starring Sally Fields as Betty, who is pictured on the book cover in the above link.
Betty’s story is that she married an Iranian, went to Iran to “visit relatives”, whereupon her husband morphed from a medical professional into an 8th Century misogynist. She was held captive by his family via the method of allowing her to move about as she pleased, but not allowing her to take her daughter whenever she went anywhere. After a year and a half of trying to arrange something with the British and Canadian consulates in Iran, she managed to sneak her daughter out of the house, and escaped, ironically enough, with the help of the Kurds, who guided her to Turkey. Yet again, the Kurds turn up as heroes in a story of Islamic repression!
Betty’s story has for years been dismissed as an artifact of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which was a recent event at the time Betty was “kidnapped”… this IN SPITE of the fact that when the story was released, hundreds of women came forward and said the same thing had happened to them in places like Saudi Arabia which are supposed to be “American-friendly”. US Consulates and Embassies in these nations stay out of these cases because of the child custody aspect, so the women are left to their own devices to find a way out.
So Chesler’s reasoning HAD to have been multi-culti fantasizing. At the time she went to Afghanistan, hundreds of cases were already on record, and one of them made famous by a fairly well-known movie starring a VERY well-known actress. It was Chesler’s viewpoint that got her caught in Afghanistan.
And people claim that the multi-culti viewpoint isn’t “dangerous”???
Go to the top feminist political blogs and search for criticism of Muslims’ treatment of their wives specifically and women in general, and Islam.
You’ll find such criticism quite frequently on feminist blogs, thank you very much. Feministing and Feministe come to mind. Feminist campaigns against the Taliban way before 9/11 also come to mind. Here’s an example below.
http://happyfeminist.typepad.com/happyfeminist/2006/01/protesting_gend.html
If you consider yours among the “top feminist political blogs,” as I mentioned in the post, wonderful. But one post? That disproves my theory? You call yourself a feminist and don’t blog more often about violence against women in Islam? Even if you find several posts on a top feminist political blog criticizing Muslims for their treatment of women, it still won’t negate or disprove the implication I made. But whatever you say…
Lashawn You asked why a feminazi would marry a muslim and go live in Afghanistan.
The answer is because of Chesler’s age. She is in her early 70’s. She went to college in the late 50’s early 60’s married and went to Afghanistan in 1961.
She, like most of the early feminazis such as Betty Freidan was a marxist from a communist background.
In the fifties when Chesler was growing up, Islam was unknown in this country. Most of the meditterean islamic countries such as Algeria, Egypt etc were officially very secular at the time. This secularism was because the communists had been very helpful in ridding those countries of their European colonial rulers.
African nationalists also depended on communist help in ending colonial European rule.
So most leftists in America and Europe thought of muslims as fellow fighters against evil colonial white men.
It was really a different time. There was no such thing as women’s studies. The only people who were into women’s rights were the communists. But they weren’t really for women’s rights of course.
The communists became pro women’s rights back in the thirties when the labor movement and MALE working class rejected communism. so the communists decided to focus on women, minorities and regional conflicts, (Spanish Basques, Irish catholics etc)
A marxist rebel beatnik young woman of the 1950’s, ignorant of the muslim treatment of women would be very likely to reject all the boring bourgeious boys in her college and marry a stranger from afar country simply because he was not a drab American.
Barack Obama’s Mother is the same age as Chessler. She did the same thing, not once but twice. I am older than you who were exposed to women’s studies at an early age. I am younger that Chessler but knowing the marxist, anti american beatnik New York mileiu from which she came I can understand why she chose to marry an Afghan, as far from middle America as possible.
Ten years later, women like Chessler joined the weather underground and bombed the ROTC building on their college campuses, married Black Panthers and rioted for their causes.
Helio, your response;
“You might want to consider adding a little “fear†of our delicate condition with Islam.”,
Indicates that you misinterpreted my post. By saying I dont “fear” it, I am not saying that I condone or lessen the extent of the threat, nor am I saying that we are to blame. I will stand beside you and oppose this evil, but I do not have to fear it. I skipped to the end of the Book. I have read how all of this turns out.
Before she became a feminazi Chessler was a marxist. She was a marxist when she married her Afghani.
I wonder how she reconciled her marxism with the incredible poverty and class oppression of the poor in Afghanistan?
Reading through the comments thread at the Times site is crazy-making. The majority of commenters are sticking with the multi-culti dogma that her experience may have been unpleasant, but it’s an isolated experience and the West is much worse. Sam in Manchester notes that there’s a conservative club that won’t let women play snooker! The horror!
#30 JohnD asks: “Being a Brit, this is obviously of immense interest to me. Do you have any evidence that Sharia law is going to be assimilated into our legal system?” This was in response to my statement that “….England may be the first European country to assimilate Sharia in its legal system.â€
I am not saying it has happened. But keeping moderately attuned to the British press, it is readily apparent that the movement is alive and growing. Will it happen? I suspect it will. But the French may do it first.
Mark Steyn does a great job of keeping up with all of this as does Little Green Footballs.
#34 Dave,
Thanks for the clarification. I obviously misread your meaning.
I count among my friends many people who live in daily fear of what Islam has done to members of their families and/or is attempting to do to them.
“I am not saying it has happened.”
Helio, you misunderstand, I am not saying that you did. Please do you have any evidence that it is ‘likely’ to happen? Any actual evidence, from Britain? (And I don’t mean from right wing activists)
England, and France, have a big problem on their hands, and there are rapidly becoming more Muslims, than Christians in those countries.
I remember being floored when reading a copy of England’s ‘Daily Telegraph’ and they were having a debate on whether or not the UK would move towards enacting Sharia Law.
A debate?
The idea that they are even debating this is astounding.
Britons have such national pride in their Monarchy and Parliamentary system of Government.
If they are now even raising a debate over Sharia Law, it’s very scary!
Glamchild, do you have a link for this ‘debate’ please? Also the stats for muslims vs christians figures that you have are maybe, shall we say, exaggerated!
The census in 2001 gave the following figures for religion in Britain:
England Scotland
Christian 71.75% 65.09%
Muslim 2.97% 0.84%
Jewish 0.50% 0.13%
Buddhist 0.28% 0.13%
Hindu 1.06% 0.11%
Sikh 0.63% 0.13%
Other 0.29% 0.53%
None 14.81% 27.55%
No answer 7.71% 5.49%
I really want to see some evidence that the UK is considering handing over it’s legal system to Islam.
More importantly, I wonder why you would be so keen to make such claims about Muslims ‘taking over?’
Glamchild, with respect, could you please quote your sources for religious percentages in the UK?
Regards,
John
Does anybody ever wonder why the left will tolerate any religion, no matter how how inimical it is to its beliefs - see Islam, yet loathes Christianity?
Me thinks that God phobic leftists, (everybody for that matter) know deep down that Christianity is the truth and it will be Christ who they will have to face on judgment day…not Allah.
Like Christianity Islam teaches a final judgment and is actually more rigid in many ways than Christianity, yet it’s Christianity that is hated by them.
Glam,
I would be willing to bet that France would adopt Sharia law before England as well because there is a bigger spiritual vacumn in France than there is in England. France is now reaping the harvest of secularism and it won’t be pretty. What happens to places like the Louve when Muslims gain real power in France? Scary thought for this artist…
Apologies glamchild, the stats got garbled on the post.
Here’s the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/03/census_2001/html/religion.stm
Note the pie chart is diametrically opposed to your claim, how is that?
LaShawn, thank you, thank you, and thousand times thank you, for writing this and for bringing Phyllis Chesler’s story to this corner of the blogosphere. I cannot believe how her feminazi ex-compatriots are villifying her now, all because she has chosen to stand up and speak the truth. They are doing the same thing to Aayin Hirsi Ali, who also has firsthand experience with the evil that is Islam. I cannot understand why pampered western feminists are so hellbent on letting their sisters in other countries suffer so many aggregious human rights abuses with nary a protesting peep (like the gang rape victim in Saudi Arabia who last week was sentenced to 90 lashes for her “role” in the gang rape).
I admit that sometimes my faith in G-d gets on shakey ground, but oddly enough, one look at Islam’s “fruits” and my faith in the existence of Satan remains very, very strong. Since you don’t have one without the other (G-d, Satan), I find in a strange sort of way that looking evil in the face reminds me that there is a loving G-d who is still in control of the world, and that we all need to seek Him for protection.
#39 JohnD,
I do not get into “link” contests with anyone. However, you may have missed this in your hardly right-wing UK Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/29/nsharia29.xml
I read the Telegraph nearly every day and this Sharia is a constant subject there as well as on the BBC.
I assume you also eschew left-wing sources along with the right-wing sources, which would leave you with darn little to read except the ingredients column on cereal boxes.
JohnD-
Of the supposed 70% Euro Christians, how many are really Active, believing,church attending Christians? I would bet the vast majority of that number are listed as Christian only because they don’t identify with any other faith and being white/ born in Europe in their minds equals being a Christian.
I would be very carefully painting feminism with too broad a brush. Jut because a woman married a Muslim, and learned from her mistake of moving to a very sexist country, does not make all of feminism ignorant naive or bad. Feminists have spent years working hard for the right of women in this country. We are not so far, from treating women poorly, to throw too many stones.
I studied a lot of feminism in college and feminists have been way out front in the fight for women’s rights in the middle east. They have been anything but ignorant of the serious problems presented by the Muslim religion.
On this issue, feminists are allies in the war on terror and the ground of squalid inequality from which it grows.
A warning to James T. (Comment #1); Back off! She’s ours! Lol! Of course we all agree. I am a total intellectual groupie.
Andrew, buddy, you are living in a bubble. WHERE ARE THE FEMINISTS? They are sucking up to America-hating, Jew-hating leftist moonbats, that’s where they are. They are so terrified to say anything faintly negative about the “brown people” in the Middle East that they have voluntarily gagged themselves on the human rights abuses being carried out routinely in Muslim countries. To speak out would be a little too close to fighting the war on terror (the common perpetrator being Muslims). A few months ago, I read an article by a Yale feminist in which the author clearly stated that she finds it morally reprehensible for white American women to judge brown, Middle Eastern women or their cultures (which rape, stone, burn, stab, shoot, torture and imprison them). Whaaaa?
As for painting with the broad brush — fine. Show me where the outspoken feminists are who are raging against Islam. They should be out burning burkas, don’t you think? Hell, they could burn a bra in the ’60’s, they can for damn sure burn a burka. How I wish I could believe you that the majority of them are really concerned and working actively to fight Islamic abuses of women, but that simply is not true. They are SILENT. There is NOTHING happening in that arena, except the usual whining about the potential threat to abortion on demand, and the lack of government subsidized childcare for yuppies (they are having a hard time affording their brown nannies). Oh, and the whimpering over the hallucinations of glass ceilings in the workplace. Consider how they all band together to attack Phyllis Chesler, a TRUE feminist.
I’m disgusted that current day “feminists” have utterly contaminated the word that once was used to describe a group of women who fought for equal rights and fair treatment for women everywhere.
Ross,
And another thing, the left does not “tolerate any religion, no matter how how inimical it is to its beliefs - see Islam, yet loathes Christianity?” Hell, the vast majority of us are Christian just like you.
What we do not like is when our Christian religion gets mixed up in our politics. It is interesting to me that many people on the religious right does not seem to grasp why Islam is such a threat. It is a threat because it has infused its religious beliefs into the political system and then expects all people of the state to follow it’s rules.
In other words, when you mix religious rules into secular state government you end up trampling those that do not happen to belong to your religion. Remember, not ever one in America is a Christian. We need to have government rules that do not force us to follow religious rules.
This is not to say that many secular rules (laws) are not also religious rules. You will find rules against killing in both. That is fine and actually important. However, when a taxi driver, in Minneapolis, does not want to carry a passenger with alcohol, and alcohol is legal to carry in a taxi, we have a problem with the religious rules. Our secular state cannot tolerate that particular religious rule if your are a taxi driver. If you drive a taxi you carry everyone under the same law.
The same goes for marriage. If you want to marry another man, who is to say you cannot just because some Christians believe it is against their religion. We are wrestling with this now in our country. Eventually you will find that in a secular society, we must treat people fairly. If you belong to a church that does not marry people of the same sex than so be it. But, don’t try to impose your religious belief on someone who does not practice your religion.
If you want to live in a religious country you can. We, however we live in a secular one where we expect people to be treated fairly under our laws, and those laws need to make reasonable accommodation, they should not enforce a particular religious doctrine.
Well, we’d better remove laws against murder from the books, because that’s a “religious rule.” Contract law, too. Property rights as well. In fact, we’d better strike our whole legal system because it contains many biblical principles. And about marriage, my argument against homosexual “marriage” is based on more than the Bible. Tradition, marriage’s benefits for raising children and maintaining stable societies, etc., are a few reasons why I believe granting marriage rights to homosexuals will dilute traditional marriage. Homosexuals have the same civil rights as everyone else, but the clamor for special rights, based on who one sleeps with, no doubt, is going too far. - Admin
A 3% Muslim population in England is in agreement with the figures given by the left-wing Brookings Institute in 2003. The Muslim birthrate will double to more than 6% by 2015 while the decline in birth rates among the traditional Brits will cause their proportion of the English population to decrease by 3.5% in 2015. The rate of Muslim increase, coupled with the rate of traditional Brit decrease will lead to a Muslim majority in England within this century. (It will happen in France first.)
England is facing this conundrum: How will it assimilate the Muslim culture into the British system or how will the British culture be assimilated into the Islamic system.
There is a third path: cultural apartheid.
I am sorry if I have been a buzz kill. I will try to hold my tongue.
Lashawn still rocks.
Oh, silly me, I forgot to add “Christian-hating” to that descriptor of current day feminists. To hear them talk, it’s the American Christians, and not the Muslims, who pose the greatest, most terrifying threat to women (and humanity in general) than has ever been posed before in the history of the world.
Heliotrope, there is a fourth path: deportation.
Heliotrope, I’ll do you the courtesy of ignoring the assumptions and sarcasm.
However, to address your ‘points’:
I too have no wish to eneter a ‘link contest’. Suffice to say, I would rather believe Census or my next door neighbour than someone like Mark Steyn or Michael Moore, or National parties, or Freepers, or Daily Kos. I would have thought that for thinking people that would be a given? No?
Fiercely agenda driven polemic is not my chosen reading, whether or not I get accused of being illiterate or uninformed by yourself, I at least try to fact check or cross-reference rather than believe something just because a politician or demagogue is spouting it. At least cereal boxes give you the plain old ingredients. OK, they cheat on the wrapping, those dried strawberries always look plumper on the box, just like the stats of racially-charged politicking.
I checked the Telegraph (yes it’s right-leaning and yes it misinforms)article that you provided, and knowhere does it say that UK law is assimilating into Sharia. It does point out that some muslims preferred to settle a dispute between themselves, and that the law doesn’t have to intervene if no claim is made, unless for certain crimes like rape.
The telegraph is taking a case of arbitration and using it to sensationalize. It sells papers. And yes, I want to know. But always read the small print.
Orthodox Jewish communities have the same thing in the UK, they go to ‘Beth Din’. I have no problem with either.
Meanwhile we are left with the Telegraph, who said (in your link)
“Although Scotland Yard had no information about that case yesterday, a spokesman said it was common for the police not to proceed with assault cases if the victims decided not to press charges.
However, the spokesman said cases of domestic violence, including rape, might go to trial regardless of the victim’s wishes.”
Is it a ‘loophole’ in the law to allow victims NOT to press charges? Or is this just for exploitation by Muslim and Orthodox Jewish communties?
What do you think?
Admin,
I refer back to my post “This is not to say that many secular rules (laws) are not also religious rules. You will find rules against killing in both. That is fine and actually important.”
Just because a law can be found in a religion does not disqualify it from being a secular law. In fact you will find that most religions share many of the same rules. Both Christianity and Buddhism share rules against killing, misuse of sex, stealing, speaking falsehoods etc. This makes sense as most laws are, at their core, very practical. Our society needs effective laws that promote a fair and just, and smooth running society.
With regard to gay marriage. I don’t think gay people want to have extra rights. They just want the same rights. I can get married,and am married, to another adult only if she is a she. I see no reason that I should not be able to marry an adult if he is a he. Why change the rules based on the sex of the partners? Seems a bit arbitrary for our legal system, don’t you think?
I also happen to know at least three gay couples with wonderful children. So far I have seen no reasonable evidence that gay couples do not raise healthy children. If you have some, let me know.
You wrote, “Just because a law can be found in a religion does not disqualify it from being a secular law,” and the rest of the paragraph blah, blah, blah. Thank you for making my point. And homosexual couples can do civil unions. I frankly don’t care. Just don’t call it “marriage” because it is not. - Admin
Sorry to leave this hanging. I will continue later. I need to pick up my daughter at day care.
Off-topic. - Admin
I would guess what we call it is unimportant to most gay people. If the sticking point is the name then we can get through this quickly. The problem is that civil unions do not carry very many of the rights that my wife and I enjoy as a married couple. I would guess that we could call, what gay people want to do, “Strawberries” if we wanted to. As long as “Strawberries” allowed gay people to have the same secular rights as married couples under our Federal laws.
At this point the civil union of one state is only good in that state, whereas my marraige is good anywhere I go. I just don’t think that is a reasonable place for us to be in this country.
My guess is that you and I are not very far apart on this issue if we cut thorugh the talking points.
By the way I promise to not characterize your comments as “blah, blah, blah” and I expect you to do the same. Our country is too divided over important issues to disparage each other’s opinions as blah blah blah.
Katya,
How did I make you so angry? I would guess that most feminists are doing what most of America is doing. They are living their lives as best they can.
As for “America-hating, Jew-hating leftist moon bats,” sorry you lost me on this. The feminists I know don’t hate America or Jews.
As for “they have voluntarily gagged themselves on the human rights abuses being carried out routinely in Muslim countries.” I would refer you here:
http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/cms/content/blogcategory/21/59/
here:
http://www.feminist.com/violence/campaign.html
and here:
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=10187
If you will take one moment to Google feminism you will find that concern and activism around the rights of women in Muslim countries is a consistent theme.
I will cut you some slack on this “They should be out burning burkas, dont you think? Hell, they could burn a bra in the 60s, they can for damn sure burn a burka. How I wish I could believe you that the majority of them are really concerned and working actively to fight Islamic abuses of women, but that simply is not true.”
Because it turns out that they are doing many things far more effective than burning burkas on the streets of America. They are raising money and supporting women in the countries of the world that need their help.
Batyah, perhaps now we can get down to talking about real issues that will bring us together as Americans.
In America we are conditioned to be allowed to say political belief systems are good or bad, same with economic, cultural stuff - but have somehow gotten the impression that to say anything derogitory about any religion is “bigoted, narrow-minded”. Part of it started with good intent - that Jews had “suffered unduely” so to protect them, any comment on any religion was prejudice…
And after WWII, the SCOTUS began saying that all religions are equal was enshrined in the 1st Amendment and those “Venerators” who treat the Constitution as Holy Parchment as the High Priesthood of lawyers in robes pronounces chimed in “God through the Founders says it is so!”
Try a test. Ask a friend if they intensely dislike national socialism. Check. Stalinism. Check. Hip hop’s misogyny. For sure. Caudillos seizing a county’s wealth? Ditto.
Instant and unequivocable condemnation.
Then ask them if they think anyone aspiring to be Priestess of Satanism should be reviled.
Hestitation…then perhaps words that they are not in a position to judge, perhaps Satanism is misguided - but hey, we are a big country and the Sacred Parchment of the Holy Founders compells all of us to tolerate and accept Satanism, as long as it is “not manifested in public or government controlled places”.
Then ask if New Guineans practicing religious cannibaism should be condemned. Perhaps the Aztec death cult.
You are likely to get words about the many positive aspects of New Guinea cannibal religions outside “better understanding and education” needed in the area of cannibal practices…Or searching for the “plenty of good things Aztec priests did when not cutting hearts out…”
We have fallen in that trap with Islam. We must give lip service to saying it is the moral equal of Christianity…or admit bias. From George Bush’s insipid drivel in his early defense of Islam as the Religion of Peace, to feminists attacking any woman once under Islam that says life is hell under Islam as misinformed and bigoted.
Well said: There is only Islam: no moderate or reformed Islam. The radicals have carved out the deadliest ideas and they are acting on them. But the rest of Islam can not offer a strong argument against the “radical†views, because the radical views spring from the foundational tenets of the Koran.
The bottom line is anyone should be able to attack or agree with another persons ideology - political, cultural, economic AND religious.
PS -
Why only Muslim men hit on infidels…because it is forbidden in most Islamic cultures on pain of death for a Muslim women to dishonor her family subjugating herself to the will of the son of pigs and monkeys. But enslaving or capturing infidel women by romance or guile is good because it creates more Muslims and is encouraged by the Qu’ran.
Western so-called anarchists and multiculturalists are nothing more than brats…
I trimmed it because it’s a huge sentence. Anyhow, I think you made the same mistake I did when I first read Chesler’s words, which were in the blockquote above your “anarchists” comment:
Now is the time for Western intellectuals who claim to be antiracists and committed to human rights to stand with these dissidents.
She said antiracists. When I first read that, I wondered what anarchists had to do with anything, then I got to your words and wondered the same thing. Anarchists?
You’re right! Thanks for the correction. - Admin
>>The problem is that civil unions do not carry very many of the rights that my wife and I enjoy as a married couple.>>
Such as?
Sorry Batya, I did not mean to call you “Katya.”
My sincere apologies.
By the way, here is the article you read in the Yale Daily News:
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/16858
It was written by a man from Pierson College, and certainly no feminist. By the way. I would guess he has not talked to the feminists at Yale either (I realize this is probably redundant).
A couple comments:
Feminism is political. Maybe at one point it was nobler, but that’s all it is now. That’s why they don’t care about “sisters” mistreated by religions the Left is in bed with. That’s why they don’t care about “sisters” who are torn apart with their mother’s blessing–not even when it is done to them because they are female. That’s why they care less about their “sisters’” preferences than their agenda in deciding whether I should work or how many children I should have. That is why they care more about the rights of the “sisters” who want to live irresponsibly and break commitments than the littler “sisters” who will grow up in broken homes with a parent who is only concerned with what her feelings are.
I think that if the original, real feminists could see what has become of their movement, they’d hand back their voter registration and say it wasn’t worth it.
Oh, and a comment on marriage: I say, civil unions for everyone. It’s a travesty that the government is involved at all in deciding who can or cannot get married. I say leave that to the churches.
#56 JohnD asks: “What do you think?”
Have a nice day.
Andrew… let me put my “anthropology” hat on for a moment. I am not going to mention a single word about “religion”.
Every civilization in human existence has had a marriage law or custom that consisted of a contract between men and women (at whatever number, and yes, there have been a few societies were women could have more than one husband). It is as universal as laws against murder (or, at least, we don’t murder people in our own tribe), theft, etc.
Even in gay-friendly societies, such as ancient Greece, marriage STILL existed as a contract between a man and a woman. When a custom/law is as solidly universal as this, there is a reason for it; we just don’t know what that reason is.
You can toy around with the idea that it was set up to protect children of the union.
In recent years, we’ve come to discover that children need a role model of BOTH sexes, at least one male and at least one female, in order to thrive. Children who succeed with only one parent do so IN SPITE of this handicap, due to their own great strengths.
It has become painfully obvious in recent years that young boys who don’t have a good male role model simply do not know how to act like men, and have no clue what men are supposed to do. If his mother is not a good female role model, she is a very poor example for him to use for “how to treat women”. A woman who lets her boyfriends misuse her, for instance, is setting a very BAD example for her son. But who else does he have to imulate?
For reasons unknown to us as yet, it’s easier for a young girl without a mother to seize upon a teacher or other woman in her life as a role model. A young girl with a mother who is NOT a good role model, however, has big problems, and succeeds only when she is clever enough to use her mother as a good example of a bad example. And if there is no father in her life, she ALSO has no idea how a man is supposed to behave, and gets into even more trouble. She has the same problem as a boy with no father… no real example to follow.
Having spent years of research to discover the obvious, however, THIS IS NOT the reason marriage is a contract between men and women.
Virtually all societies had other methods of protecting children when parents died or went bad for one reason or another, usually giving the children to extended family.
We messed up in modern times by allowing the state to step in. The reason so many absentee fathers are absent is because they no longer have a social responsibility to fulfill toward their children. But this is a MODERN anomaly!
This anomaly did NOT exist in far past times when the human race, in virtually one voice, decided that marriage was a contract between a man and a woman. Children of dead parents or problem marriages went to extended family, end of story. A mechanism to protect children already existed.
Until we discover what the REAL reason was, it would be incumbent upon us to NOT mess with the “family” system any more than we already have.
Social re-engineering of the family has already been proven to be a disaster. When you have something like marriage being a contract between a man and a woman being as completely universal as the laws against murder, we don’t need to aggravate the family problem further until we know more about the whys of it.
I just don’t believe “children” is the full and complete “why”… and I’m not alone in this.
I, too, have heard news reports of the very high birthrates of Muslims living in Europe, and the rapidly decling birthrates of white Europeans. Same thing is happening in Russia. That is how Europe will become Muslim by the end of the century…
I have long know I would never marry a Muslim, or Middle Easterner. I have heard too many stories of women who did whose husbands have taken their children back to their countries of origin, and the woman has absolutely no recourse to get her children back - the U.S. government will not help, likely for purely geopolitical reasons (forget about what is right or wrong in these cases…). Although I plan to marry for life, marriages do go wrong, and if I had children from a marriage gone wrong, I would not want my children lost to me forever.
Nothing personal, but I don’t want any more discussion of homosexual “marriage” on this thread. - Admin
Let’s keep the discussion on-topic: Muslim brutality toward women, foolish feminism, liberals’ “tolerance” of almost anything, no matter how degrading and dangerous, etc. No more discussion about homosexual or “gay marriage.” Any comments making reference to it will be deleted. Actually, such comments won’t even make it out of the spam filter.
Lashawn’s editorial in setting up the article mentions naysayers and doubters of Chesler’s story.
Prima facie evidence of the US loss of the ablity for critical thinking. Just look at the picture with the article. Women covered head-to-toe. No sunlight on their body, no interaction with the world.
Can anyone really look at these customs and not, by extension, believe the points Chesler makes?
BTF
Sorry, LaShawn… I’ll stop talking about it! Didn’t mean to add to the thread drift!
Ross, re: “Me thinks that God phobic leftists, (everybody for that matter) know deep down that Christianity is the truth and it will be Christ who they will have to face on judgment day…not Allah.”
Actually, I think they’re afraid of getting their heads chopped off or stabbed or blown up by a ’splodey dope. Radical Islamists are dangerous people. Radical Christians tend to bless people to death!
Andrew, re: “What we do not like is when our Christian religion gets mixed up in our politics. It is interesting to me that many people on the religious right does not seem to grasp why Islam is such a threat. It is a threat because it has infused its religious beliefs into the political system and then expects all people of the state to follow it’s rules.”
Being able to offer a prayer for well-being in a public place or display a Creche in the town square or store employees being allowed to say, “Merry Christmas!” is a completely different order of magnitude from religious laws that belong in the 8th Century.
Islamic law has no clear leaders, and is instead interpreted by individual Imams with widely varying educational levels, from professors to country bumpkins. How Islamic law is interpreted in individual cases is the problem, as there is NO central authority to overturn the decisions of a “bumpkin” type Imam. Most Christian faiths DO have a central authority of one type or another that must be answered to.
Well this blog continued another discussion at wetcanvas.com. It’s nice to make my fellow artists see things from a different perspective. This has been a fascinating discussion to follow. All I can add is that not all Muslims act like they do in the Middle East. The problem is that the radical ones get all the press and have intimidated many of the moderate Muslims into silence, thus perpetuating the problems we see today.
Lashawn,
I am also sorry. I think I was the one that took us down that road. My wife says I have the attention span of a gnat sometimes.
Mamapajamas, I agree with you on post 75. How have we gotten to this place where people are feeling threatened by the wealth of goodness than can be found in religion, and more specifically Christianity? Why are things getting so polarized? I grew up with Christmas and its icons. My family revels in everything Christmas. I have to admit I say Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas depending on my audience. I would not say Merry Christmas if I knew someone was Jewish, but my Jewish friends would not be offended if I did. They would return the solicitation. What can we do to concentrate on the important things like how people are treated here and overseas? We are spending so much time on beating up conservatives and liberals that we have divided ourselves. Osama would be satisfied. He flew a few planes into buildings and rather than uniting us he divided us.
Where do we find our common ground and build from there? My Grandfather was a Baptist minister, and a kind and gentle man. Liberals are not bad people and neither are conservatives. As a very conservative friend of mine says often, “Andy, we agree on 98% of everything, let’s not focus on where we differ.” He is also a kind and gentle man and one of my best friends.
I also want to thank those of you who have been kind to me today. I have witnessed conservatives being treated poorly on liberal blogs and visa versa. This blog seems a welcome place to share ideas. I am sorry if I took up too much space.
Greg, re: “The problem is that the radical ones get all the press and have intimidated many of the moderate Muslims into silence, thus perpetuating the problems we see today.”
I agree in part. But the problem of the woman who wrote the article LeShawn commented upon had an entirely different situation… one that has been seen before as I pointed out in my post concerning Betty Mahmoody and the hundreds of cases like hers that came out in the open when she married a highly intelligent, Western university educated Iranian… and went to Iran to visit his relatives.
In short, so you don’t have to go back to reference my post again, as soon as he (and the other husbands the hundreds of wives who complained escaped from!)got home, he reverted back to 8th Century misogynists, becoming completely unrecognizable outside the Western setting.
This appears to be a ROUTINE problem of Western women who marry Muslims who come from a country with a repressive Islamic government. Even if they just VISIT the relatives, as Mahmoody did, their children are “kidnapped” by the local laws. Under Sha’aria, only the father can “own” his children. Women have ZERO rights. This is a very common problem with Western women who marry Saudis.
When children are involved, and the mothers actually have to kidnap the kids to get them out of the country involved, Western child custody courts get involved with their too-frequently multi-culti attitudes, and too often rule to give the father part-time custody… in which case the child gets kidnapped by the local laws all over again… because only the father can “own” the children by Sha’aria law. The decision of the Western child custody court has zero weight in a country under Sha’aria law. Part-time custody is not allowed… period.
The primary reason Betty Mahmoody got to keep custody of her daughter was because we had a distinctly hostile relationship with Iran at the time, so the child custody question never came up.
Andrew, thank you for your kind words :). I agree that liberals and conservatives CAN get along if we treat each other with respect.
In re: “How have we gotten to this place where people are feeling threatened by the wealth of goodness than can be found in religion, and more specifically Christianity? Why are things getting so polarized?”
I’ve been watching this unfold for the past 40 years or so (I’m presently 58). It started with atheists demanding that prayers not be said in school… and winning their case on the basis of the 1st Amendment’s “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
I remember standing and doing the Pledge of Allegiance and saying the Lord’s Prayer in classes all through my public school years. I can see how standing around waiting while the rest of the class recited the Lord’s Prayer could be extremely uncomfortable to people who are not Christian, and decided at that time that they had a point, actually. Schools were tax-payer supported and not all tax payers are Christians.
So the schools came up with the idea of having a moment of silence instead of a specific led prayer. That, too, was fought by the ACLU, and judges that I regard as extremist supported the fight.
I think it was at this point where the part of the 1st Amendment that said, “… or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” got effectively eliminated from the U.S. Constitution.
Then other things started happening… teachers getting suspended or fired for wearing tiny crosses in the classroom, students arrested for praying on school property, cities sued for having religion-oriented Christmas decorations…
We were no longer free to express our religion in public.
And somewhere along the line, we started fighting back, working to reverse some of the more ridiculous rulings, and fighting to get laws emplaced to back up the “free exercise” clause of the 1st Amendment.
I recall one specific case where the city of Sanford, Florida, bought a stretch of ranch land that had once belonged to the local 7th Day Adventist Church. The problem was that the water tower on the ranch land had a cross on the top, rather large and highly visible. Sure enough, some idiot sued the city to get it removed.
Now, this wasn’t a cross the city used tax-payer funds to PUT on the water tower, it was a case where the city would have to go to considerable expense to remove it.
We fought that case, and won it… but only because pilots from all the major airlines flying into Orlando were using that unique water tower with the cross as a visual landmark to verify their instrument readings!
It’s been a long hard battle to re-establish the “free exercise” clause of the 1st Amendment, and have been labeled “extremists” by the far left because we chose to take a stand. Yes, we can get screechy and hostile just like the other side, but we feel we have a Constitutional matter at hand.
Thanks for asking :).
Andrew… one more comment to throw at you before I retire for the night… I recall a quote from a book I read long ago. I wish I could recall where it was! But the quote is:
Man can learn to tolerate any number of differences of fact, but may never learn to tolerate a difference of opinion!
I thought you’d get a chuckle out of that!
Hmmm… I think we’ve “drifted” this thread again!
Sorry, LaShawn! I’m off to bed now :D.
Andrew, I am not angry at you. You only had to assert that feminists are not shirking their job to get me going! Sorry if it seemed I was attacking you. I wasn’t, rather, this is a hot button issue for me and I feel completely, completely betrayed by American feminists. I’m angry over the topic, not at you.
Thanks for the links — they do my heart good. As for the Yale article, I haven’t had a chance to look at your link but I’m sure it is not the same article because the one I read was written by a graduate student in, I think, Journalism, at Yale, and she was a real prize idiot.
I would still like to see feminists be much more outspoken publicly, and their voices should join the small chorus of voices in our country against Islamism. Instead, the ones who are working on behalf of Muslim women are working quietly behind the scenes. While there may be some good purpose to this method, we NEED to see SOMEONE who represents major feminist organizations come forward and speak out. Phyllis Chesler takes NOW to task, as well as other feminists, because she, too, agrees that they are far too quiet.
I want to mention one more thing — you brought up the idea of the Beit Din in England. We also have Beitei Dinim (plural) in America too, a religious court where religious Jews will take their conflicts before resorting to gentile courts. However, there is something very, very important to remember as a distinction between Jewish law (halacha) and Islamic law (sha’aria): in Jewish law, in the Talmud, we are instructed to “follow the laws of the land” so long as the laws of the land do not cause us to sin against Jewish law. Jewish courts no longer hand down capital punishment judgments, for reasons I explained in another thread, but let’s say, for instance, that they could. They would choose not to, because it would go against the law of the land, which prohibits killing by citizens (unless in self defense). This is quite distinct from Sha’aria, which condones rape and murder of women as proper and just punishment for certain situations. This clearly goes against the laws of the land (at least in Western culture), but Muslims who wish to enact Sha’aria law do not respect that. Europe is having a terrible problem with rape by Muslim men, and especially Norway. When these men are arrested and questioned, they invariably quote Koranic tests which tell them that it is their duty to rape infidel women or Muslim women who have strayed beyond the strictures set by Islam. These are not just a few rogues; these are devout practitioners of Islam! Wake up, America.
Oops, sorry Andrew. It was JohnD who mentioned the Beit Din in the UK.
Basically, to reiterate, a Beit Din will only hand down a judgment that falls within the parameters of the law of that country. What kind of judgments do Sha’aria courts hand down in Western countries? Do they always, without fail, fall within the legal parameters of the host country? I would like to know this, if anyone has information. I suspect that they don’t, based upon the disregard they show for Western culture, the crimes that are committed freely (surely the imams have more control over them than that?), and all the honor killings of females that are turning up all over Europe. Are the Sha’aria court judges to have us believe that they condemn such actions?
Batyah, is was me that mentioned Beth Din.
You say that Beth Din and sharia are not comparable because sharia operates outside of the ‘law of the land’. You also say that ‘Jewish courts no longer hand down capital punishment judgments’.
No Muslim (to my knowledge) has handed down a ‘capital punishment judgement’ in the UK, and neither do they have the power to do so. Capital punishment is not practiced in the UK.
The issue in the Telegraph (given by Heliotrope) was a case of civil arbitration in an unofficial ‘Somali court’ , which the writer ‘forgot’ to say is not ’sharia law’. So it appears that you are not comparing like for like?
I was comparing/contrasting civil arbitration in UK religious communities, whereas you are comparing wahhabist/taliban-type sharia *law* and with a ’somali court’ on arbitration?.
The two practical questions I would ask are:
1. Should UK laws be changed to intervene against *any* civil or criminal altercation where no criminal charge has been made by the victim.
2. Furthermore, should we make illegal religious council arbitration illegal?
Batyah, what do you say to 1 and 2?
One more thing and then I’ll try to shut up.
I have known women in America who got charmed into marrying Muslim men. There stories have frightening similarities to Betty Mahmoud’s story. That should come as no surprise. One woman I knew was stupid enough to cheat on her Muslim husband (dumb, dumb). He found out about it, promptly called ALL his relatives in Syria (I mean, like, dozens of people) and told them that his wife was a whore. He later regretted doing that, was in “love” with her or let’s say, emotionally attached to her (you could almost feel sorry for the guy) and wanted to stay with her. He had a whole slew of cousins who were immigrating to the US and wanted to live in their town. He told her never to open the door to any of them unless he was home because he was afraid they might try to kill her. Even though he had told them that he loved her and didn’t want anyone to hurt her, in their culture, often other male relatives will do the killing as a “favor” to the husband, whose emotions might be too bound up in the wife, rendering him incapable of fulfilling his duty in restoring the family’s honor. For a while she and her family considered trying to hide the children among relatives while she sued for divorce, but she was afraid that a divorce court in the US may not see her side of things (her word against his regarding the murder threat) and might award joint custody or at least visitation rights. I am not in touch with her anymore (he forbid her to have a Jewish friend) but as far as I know, they are still together.
I have seen many American women around Target and WalMart, dressed in hijab or burkas, and I’ve been fascinated by their attraction to Islam and Muslim men. As in my friend’s case, Muslim men can be extremely charming, and there is something else that they are offering that we should ALL WAKE UP TO; they are offering a seemingly moral life and family and marriage to women who have not been very lucky on the dating scene. A Muslim man will not care if you are fat, homely, unpopular, uneducated, unambitious. He will not expect sexual relations from you until after marriage. He will be happy to start a family immediately so that you can have that baby you are hungering for. There is nothing to converting to Islam; it’s as easy as pie. He will pay off all your debts before marriage, even if they have to borrow from family back home, because debt and buying on credit are against their religion. He will absolutely take responsibility for your parents and try to support them too. A Muslim husband will not cheat on you (well, except for taking another wife if he can get away with it)and he will never come home drunk and he will hold down a job and feed you and put a roof over your head.
How many American men offer this attractive deal to a woman who has been more or less unlucky, maybe even shunned because she’s not pretty or thin, in the marriage market? Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? It’s something to think about. Later on, the women will learn about the evil lurking beneath the surface of Islam, and as Bob Dylan says in one of his songs, “even Satan sometimes comes as a man of peace.” But by then, it is too late. She’s a fly in the spider web.
This is in response to Greg Laurich’s (post #76) statement:
Greg dont be so easily fooled that so-called moderate Muslims are not willing to fight in jihad…against Americans in America. They are most willing, but they have to be tempted a little more than the extreme Muslims we see today in the Mid-East and Asia. In most cases this tempting comes in the form of a reputable Islamic scholar who issues a fatwa stating that it is permissible now to fight so-and-so country, region or people in jihad, and overnight you will see Muslims who were once considered moderate become the raving lunatic jihadist Muslism you see on TV.
I know this first hand because while I was a Muslim, I had non-Muslim friends, worked in a non-Muslim environment and in general seemed everybit as a moderate Muslim; HOWEVER, if the ailem (scholars) in Saudi Arabia had issued a fatwa then all bets were off the table, and I was assuredly ready to protect and defend “my” religion. I have sense left that nonsense and change my ways 180 degrees.
Oops!! two typos in my post “since” not “sense” and “changed” not “change”
As my dear old departed Daddy used to say: Figures lie and liars figure. This is why I have not ever trusted public opinion polls. Way too easy to manipulate.
As to the problem with Islam, I have always been fascinated that liberals - most particularly the ultra left wing variety - who preach tolerance on a daily basis would be so enamored of one of the MOST intolerant “religions” in the world. Their credo is so simple - and to give them credit, they don’t disguise it - if you are an “unbeliever” you must die. For the jihadists, that makes life really very simple: it’s black or white kind of thinking. And THIS attitude is why they must be resisted and/or fought with all our abilities. Their ultimate victory would be our ultimate annihilation!
I would like to ask a question. It has been my understanding that there is a great deal of tension between the Muslim religious leaders in Iran and a large part of the population that is used to being more secular. From what I have read, the more secular crowd, in Iran, votes for more moderate views with regard to Islam despite the significant structural disadvantage they encounter when voting for a more liberal Iran. How do we parse this moderate Iranian tendency and should we support it? Or do we write these “moderates” off as Muslim and thus in the same kettle as the Wahabi of Saudi Arabia?
I also know Muslim’s from Turkey and they seem quite moderate and appalled by what they see going on in the middle east. I just have a hard time reconciling the wonderful people I know from Turkey, who are very happy to live here in America. One has even been divorced from his American wife and the process was very respectful.
I am sorry if I cannot respond very quickly today. I am very busy at work.
By the way, Batyah. Great comment, #85. I have also heard about these tragedies. Perhaps I am naive, but I have to believe there is a difference between the Muslim religions practiced in Saudi Arabia and let’s say Gambia. I don’t know the Saudi Muslims but I do know a Gambian, two Turks and a host of Somalis. The Somalis seem pretty conservative but the Gambian and the Turks seem very moderate. I struggle with the thought of pouring them all in the same bucket and calling them scary or bad. I tend to go with what I see first hand and I can tell you these are wonderful people. Then again, they are guys and I am not getting married.
JohnD, I’m not sure I understand #2. Did you mean to say “legal arbitration”?
If a matter is civil, no charges have been filed in court, and both parties are agreeable to having the matter settled by a religious court, then I can see nothing wrong with allowing that.
Your question #1 is a bit more complicated when you include criminal matters along with civil matters. Even in the U.S., in most situations, a victim of a crime needs to press charges. I know there are some exceptions, but I am not familiar with the law. Obviously murder is one example where the state has to press charges because the victim can’t do it for himself. I imagine it would be difficult to win a case if a victim refused to testify, for example, in a rape case. Anyway, I’d be leery of allowing criminal cases to be handled by a religious court because I would doubt whether the victim’s rights would be defended and upheld. For example, in the case of an abused wife who is badly physically injured, she will likely not get justice if she goes to a religious court, and she may be too frightened to press charges in a regular court. If the state steps in and prosecutes her husband without requiring her to press charges, it will make it easier on her and easier for her to leave (we hope). The next question, regarding criminal matters, is how will the religious court mete out punishment? They are not in a position to imprison convicted criminals, and we certainly don’t want to allow hand severing or lashes! I can’t see how punishment could be enforced. That is also true in a civil case, but perhaps the community can be brought to bear upon the loser and force him to honor his agreement to abide by the decision of the religious court and pay up or whatever.
Andrew,
you asked about the supposed “secular moderate Muslims” of Iran. From what I’ve been able to piece together they aren’t so much secular as the press tries to make them. What they are is educated people who know there is more than what the Iranian government openly permits and are fighting to increase the amount of information and culture they are exposed to. Most if not all would happily support turning all of the world into Dar al-Islam.
For anyone interested in knowing more about what Islam is like, especially for women living under it you can try visiting faithfreedom.org, which is moderated/hosted by an ex-Muslim from Iran. I don’t visit it regularly, but I did a few years ago when my then girlfriend suddenly told me she was going to convert to Islam. I found out a lot that really opened by eyes to just how brutal the religion is.
And Batyah is right about how the Muslim men tend to act when it comes to “courting” and marriage. To them marriage is a requirement, not a luxury/priviledge, so they are much less choosy about the looks of the woman. Also they don’t worry to much about pushing the lady for sex during dating. They know that once the lady is married to them, they can all but rape them daily and their brothers and sisters in Islam will support them. Its a frightening facade they put up, they will say anything to get the woman to accept a wedding ring knowing that there is no commitment on their part to be respectful the instant the woman says “I do.”
And the Feminists will continue to be quiet about this, despite claims from a few posters here to the contrary. Fighting against Islam is a war that feminists know they cannot gain any political advantage for, so while some feminists in Western countries will pay lip service to complain about the plight of women in the Middle East there is little to no interest in actively working to improve that lot through military or legal means, and there will be no change.
In the end the world is poorer because feminists only care about political power and not true suffering.
#89 Andrew,
Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco keep a heavy thumb on their Muslim populations. These are states that have a government that rides herd over the religious leaders. Saddam, you will recall, did not have “problems” with religious leaders.
The “moderate” Muslim is not engaged in the call to prayer, the prayers to Mecca, or even the prohibition against pork or alcohol. He may call himself Muslim, but he is no regular at the mosque.
But when you interrupt his “get-along” autopilot, you will discover an inner Muslim that will rise to a level of blood rage.
Mubarak keeps a tight thumb on the radical mosques. They are surrounded by hundreds of machine gun toting soldiers, water cannons, tanks and paddy wagons when they are in operation. Go to Cairo and see for yourself.
When Mubarak dies (and it won’t be long) there is going to be a great upheaval as the Egyptian Brotherhood tries to reassert its power. The moderate Egyptian Muslim will have to choose between the Egypt of the modern West or brutal Islamic fundamentalism. Or he will have to lie low and hope that a new Mubarak arises to make his life safe.
In short, moderate Muslims have adapted to the modern world and they don’t let their faith get in their way.
JohnD, should clarify my comment about communal pressure: for example, if the one who lost his case is a merchant, the community can boycott his store. Or, he can be refused entrance to the mosque, ostracized from social activities, etc.
Andrew, I also know nice Muslims and have found myself getting very emotional about the prospect of friendship with them. I interact with them every day. (The nicest ones are the ones who aren’t Muslim anymore.) But there is always the problem that nice Muslims can decide on a whim to become devout, and now you basically have a new jihadi on your hands. It only sounds paranoid to the very naive who haven’t witnessed this phenomenon firsthand. I’ve seen it happen here in Israel. About four blocks from my apt. lived an elderly lady who had employed a Palestinian gardener for over 20 years. He was a “nice Muslim” and I’m sure he was a lovely person. She sent gifts home to his family on a regular basis, and would help him financially when he needed to get out of a tight spot. One day about two years ago, he showed up for work, told her he needed five thousand dollars. She was shocked, said she didn’t have that kind of money, and what did he need it for? He proceeded to slit her throat, an elderly woman whom he had known for over 20 years, who had been so fond of him. He left her to bleed to death in the hallway of her home. He was easy to find. Around here, we aren’t willy nilly about profiling when trying to solve a crime. As the police drove up to his home, they found him in the backyard burning his blood drenched clothes in a tin barrel. He confessed to the crime and that is how we know the details of the conversation that took place in the home between him and his murder victim.
This is why I will never be able to enjoy a friendship with a Muslim, and I don’t care how “moderate” they may seem to be. Unless they are like Aayin Hirsi Ali and have left Islam altogether and are actively working to obliterate its influence in the world, I cannot trust them. This is a horrible story but it is not unique. There are so many of them, stories of how a gentle, kind Muslim suddenly turned and murdered a non Muslim friend. It happens in America, in Europe, in Britain, and certainly it happens in the Middle East. Look at the Muslim who ran the SUV into a group of students at UNC Chapel Hill. Didn’t you see how his fellow students and teachers described him? Nice, quiet, polite, well-mannered. It’s always the same.
Does this mean that I believe that all Muslims have a defective brain and are schizoid? No, of course not. What it means is that if a 20 year friendship full of fondness and sweetness can end up with me lying on the ground with my throat cut, I’d rather just not have any part of getting started with something like that. Furthermore, we know that the most evil of the Islamists have threatened Palestinian workers, who have permits to get into Israel, that if they don’t kill a Jew on their next trip into Israel, they will kill that man’s family or rape his daughters or whatever. Now, what would you do? I know what we are SUPPOSED to do, but I wonder how many of us would refuse to do evil, knowing that it would mean our daughter would be raped or our sons killed.
These people are truly the embodiment of evil and Andrew, honestly, I am just having such a very hard time believing that this is the handiwork of only a few savages. I think the entire Muslim culture is somewhat inured to barbarism. I am not aware that Turkey supports Israel’s right to defend itself and it wasn’t long ago that synogogues were destroyed there. Of course, I guess we should be happy there are still synogogues there! That says somethin’.
#94 Batyah,
Thanks for taking on the job of explaining how Sharia and Beit Din differ.
I my opinion, it is an insult to find the two lumped together. However, with the rapid return to antisemitism in Europe, it is no shock that this may be the new parlor chatter.
English Common Law has an interesting aspect: it is largely the accumulation of custom and usage. If the Muslim camel gets its nose under the tent of English Common Law, Sharia is sure to follow.
Sharia is no mystery. It is entirely knowable. It is short on multiculturalism and long on obedience. And deadly serious.
To Batyah:
I so enjoyed reading your post; it is an eye-opening anecdote of how Muslims will turn on your in the blink of an eye. Like I said before, I was one of those Muslims who absolutely D-E-S-P-I-S-E-D the kuffar (non-Muslims). During this time period in my life, much like the caregiver in your story, I could have done fatal harm to a kaffer (non-Muslim). I hope the West wakes up and understand what they are up against. Lastly, your hesitation to befriend a Muslim is not unfounded, and I think that it is prudent for you to have a healthy suspicion of ALL Muslims.
Jeff, I just want to say, welcome back to the world, and G-d bless you.
Heliotrope, I, too, hate to see Beit Din and Sha’aria law appear in the same conversation! But whenever I see that a comparison is being made, I feel compelled to nip it in the bud. Sadly, you are right: this will be the new parlor chatter and some will innocently engage in it.
Others aren’t so innocent. The Left will continue to twist and contort facts in an effort to defend Islam, right up to the moment when the Muslims come for the gays (to hang them) and the free-swinging modern women (to trim their genitals) and those Lefties who lead a life of “freedom” (debauchery) will be very, very bummed. Even the Prozac prescriptions they obtained after Bush won the second term in office will not restore the sunshine. They will sit in their long, hot burkas or crunched over on their rug listening to foreign gibberish around them, and long for the good old days when all they had to fear was that the Christians might win another Republican seat in the House.
Batyah,
You’ve commented here a long time. As I recall, I have had definite differences of opinion with you (though at the moment, I can’t recall what they are!).
I just want you to know that in this, I’m with you 110%. I was one of those who thought that islam was just another religion which termed God as Allah, but otherwise, pretty much upheld the same basic religious principles that Judaism and Christianity did. OK, so they allowed multiple wives, but so did the Mormons. I wouldn’t mind my husband having a second wife around so much - as long as she did windows!
Since 9/11, I’ve learned a lot about islam. None of it good. The biggest problem I see is that many underestimate islam for two reasons: they compare it to fundamentalist Christianity which they see as obnoxious but toothless, and secondly, they think that the primitiveness and technological inferiority of most muslim countries renders the US (and the west generally) immune to whatever evil intentions muslims might harbor towards us.
They are fools. Islam _is_ dangerous. There are those who call those who fear it fools, but I’d rather be a live fool than a dead fool!
Jeff, #86, “HOWEVER, if the ailem (scholars) in Saudi Arabia had issued a fatwa then all bets were off the table, and I was assuredly ready to protect and defend “my†religion. I have sense left that nonsense and change my ways 180 degrees. “
This is what frightens me. I’ve also heard that it’s perfectly OK for Muslims to lie to non-Muslims, that’s it’s OK if it’s perceived to be in the service of Islam, that it’s a sin to lie only to other Muslims.
Is that true? If it is, that worries me beyond all measure, since it would allow any speaker to say anything to us that he wants at any time, as long as he is “in the service of Islam”. What I have in mind here are the “talks” with the Syrians and Iranians. They could hook us into an agreement that they might not honor, if it is.
Jeff, #87… “Oops!! two typos in my post “since†not “sense†and “changed†not “change†“
Don’t worry about it. If anyone was “counting typos” here, I’d be in HUGE trubbul!
“Thanks for taking on the job of explaining how Sharia and Beit Din differ.”
It was in response to my comment, about arbitration, not ’sharia law’ I didn’t put them in the same comment, Batyah did.
Heliotrope says:
“I my opinion, it is an insult to find the two lumped together.”
If you read back on my post, I din’t ‘lump them together’.
“However, with the rapid return to antisemitism in Europe, it is no shock that this may be the new parlor chatter.”
I say I have no problem with either Beth Din, or Somali council in the UK regarding civil matters.
You call that ‘antisemitism.’
Why would you do that?
#91 JohnD, I’m not sure I understand #2. Did you mean to say “legal arbitration�
Sorry, it was clumsy phrasing/typo, I typed illegal twice. It should have read:
2. Furthermore, should we make religious council arbitration illegal?
I am reminded of an incident that I’ve kept to myself for several years, because, frankly, it is no one else’s business. But my “comfort level” here allows me to feel inclined to talk about it here.
A few years ago, I had a position open in my unit, and was interviewing candidates. There was a young man from Saudi Arabia who had a superior application. I looked forward to meeting him.
When I interview him, however, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end! I could not place the reason for it, except that the way he looked at me gave me the creeps.
Unfortunately, there is no place on my candidate report that says, “gives me the creeps!” His was far and away the best applicant, he was extremely polite and personable, and, against my better judgement, I approved the hiring process.
Happily, our establishment requires a heavy security check, and that turned up a felony conviction and prison time for beating his former wife! (Smart woman… she pressed charges in the US system instead of “submitting to Islam”!) Because he had not mentioned his conviction on the slot given for that on the application, I was able to turn it down for a legitimate reason other than “gives me the creeps!” The weird part is that if he HAD told the truth about that conviction, I would have had to hire him because of the system I work under. It was his lie of omission that caught him out.
Anyway, in afterthought, it went a long way toward explaining WHY the way he looked at me gave me the creeps. He was a misgynist who would have been working under the auspices of a white woman who, he undoubtely thought, should have been supervising the raising of her grandchildren instead of bossing men! The potential for unpleasant scenes was immense!
To this day, I thank God for that lie on his app!
To Mamapajamas:
In terms of lying to the unbelievers, this was something that was only condoned in times of war. During the Battle of the Confederates, one of Muhammad’s soldiers told Muhammad that he knew a way to infiltrate the enemy and weaken his defenses, but it involved lying. Muhammad answered by saying that it was alright to tell lies in the time of war because “war is deception.” Since most of the Islamic world believes that they are at war with the US then, chances are, they will feel totally at ease with lying to us in the West.
It is indeed a clash of cultures, but only one side in Europe seems to know it, and it’s the wrong one. Remember the law about a vacumn cannot exist by itself because something will rush to fill the void? A Spiritual vacumn is the same thing and radical Islam has rushed to fill the void left by Europe’s march to an athestic society. We’ll soon get to watch France etc., reap the whirlwind.
Jeff… thank you for your response.
re: “Since most of the Islamic world believes that they are at war with the US then, chances are, they will feel totally at ease with lying to us in the West.”
Bingo! That is what was worrying me. What, then is even the point of having “talks” with our Iran and Syria in this conflict?
Hi Suek, yes, we’ve had disagreements but the common ground we share is more important and certainly on this issue, more critical to our survival.
I grew up in America, not Orthodox either, and I did not have much knowledge about Muslims at all. I thought they were kind of harmlessly “backward” but that their religion, like Christianity, grew out of Judaism, so, how bad could it be?
Even after 9/11, I still believed that radical Islam was the problem, though I was a bit more wary of all Muslims than your average bear. Yet so many Jews were bending over backwards to reach out to the Muslims and be “friends.” It was confusing. Even here, we have moonbat Israelis and I just don’t understand it. I wish I could so I could explain it to you all, but I can’t.
It wasn’t until I moved to Israel that my eyes were really opened. At the same time, I started reading blogs like Charles Johnson’s very excellent Little Green Footballs (everyone should add it to their Favorites list), Robert Spencer’s Dhimmi Watch and Jihad Watch, Debbie Schlussel and Michelle Malkin, among others. I’m glad to see that LaShawn is joining the battle too. Seeing the Islamic world in action up close and personal, and also being closer in proximity to Europe and being more exposed than ever to the rampant antisemitism there (as well as the takeover by Muslims), I started to re-evaluate my opinion of Islam.
Christians have a bad history with regard to Jews, it’s true, but if you look at Christian scripture, nowhere will you find instructions to do evil. (I’m not an expert but I have read the New Testament) Early Christians behaved wickedly, AGAINST the wisdom and guidance of their scriptures. Christians of today have denounced those earlier acts. The same cannot be said of Islam or Muslims. In fact, the opposite is true. Islamic scriptures are filled with vile, wicked, hateful crap and in order for a Muslim to be a good person, he must first DISREGARD his holy book. In essence, in order to be moral, a Muslim must not follow Islam! And Muslims are not reforming their religion either (the ones who try get threatened and murdered).
Many Jews are still leery of Christians because of the history, and some Christians are still antisemites, but the amazing thing I see is the coming together of the people of both of these faiths and recognizing that Islam is not from G-d, Islam is from Satan, and we need to stand together.
It is ingrained in us Americans to respect another’s religion, even if we think it is wacky. It has taken me a long time to realize that Islam is not a benign, wacky religion; it is a dangerous political ideology and we need to band together to fight it.
I know LaShawn wants us to stay on topic about Islam’s abuses of women so I hope I’m not straying too far off in talking about Islam in general, but it is really very very scary. Europe is virtually lost, due to the rapid proliferation of Muslims there. I have been meaning to read some books that were recommended to me: Eurabia by Bat Ye’Or and While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer. “Muhamed” is the fourth most common baby name in Germany! EEK!! As it is said, the Europeans may just be figuring out that trading Jews for Muslims was a bad move.
Jeff, isn’t that called “taqya”?
Nope, talking about Islam in general is not off-topic.
To Mamapajamas:
I dont know why the US would belittle itself and talk to Iran; nothing will be accomplished by this. Islam is on the march to gaining nuclear weaponry, and the only way to stop them is militarily; the only power that they understand is military power. If you talk to them then you’re wasting time.
To Batyah:
I cant recall the exact term used to describe lying during war; it’s been a few years since I’ve stopped studying Islam.
Batyah,
Your post made me realize a couple other things. One, is it any coincidence that the vacuum left by Christianity and is now getting filled by Islam also coincides with the rise in anti-semitism? And I also believe the threat posed by Islam in Europe is a major reason why the Pope is working to reestablish the RC faith there. (My opinion only) The Pope after all saw first hand the horrors of Nazi Germany and can probably see the same coming with radical Islam. I think (and hope) that he realizes that because Western Europe is so secular that they cannot understand the depth and breath of passion that the followers of radical Islam have for their ‘faith’ and thus are totally unprepared for dealing with people who are ready willing and able to commit all sorts of atrocities in order to win the day.
The one advantage the US has is that the left has not totally driven faith out of the country although there are way to many people who call themselves Christian who have no clue what the profess to believe. However there are still enough of us who clearly see the dangers that the Islamofascists pose to our way of life, so we’re quicker to act when things like the muslim cabbie sharia issue pops up and can be dealt with properly. I fear that soon it will be the US, Isreal and the Aussies vs the rest of the world if things keep going the way they are…
#110 Jeff, your comments on talking with Iran remind me that:
The soldiers of Islam do not wear uniforms and get a thorough indoctrination of the restrictions laid down by the Geneva Conventions of War.
The first obstacle we face is getting the left to understand the true nature of Islam. The second obstacle is getting the left to understand that Islam engages in guerrilla war and that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to fighting them and are actually an impediment.
At present, we are going into the ring under the Marquis of Queensbury rules while they shoot at us from the balcony.
Greg, re: “I fear that soon it will be the US, Isreal and the Aussies vs the rest of the world if things keep going the way they are… “
I agree with this, and see the threat coming this way:
The native Russians are, at present, aborting themselves into minority group status. They are having one or no children. They are failing to even replace themselves, cutting their own population in half or more each generation. In biological words, the term for this is “extinction curve”. I’ve seen estimates that native Russians will be a minority group in their own country by 2050, and that Muslims will have taken over their military a decade or so earlier. But I don’t expect any harm to come of this at first.
The process is happening slower in Western Europe, not yet describable as an “extinction curve”, but it’s happening.
By the end of the century, Muslims will be the majority in Europe. When that happens, whatever Constitution the EU eventually enacts will simply be overturned and replaced by Sha’aria.
I have the suspicion that this is NOT happening by accident, but is a long-range plan coming from Saudi Arabia, who are the culprits financing and sending the radical Wahabbi Imams around the world. It is being planned as a “bloodless” coup, using democracy as the mechanism.
The bloodbath comes AFTER the coup, when the European natives realize what has happened. By then, though, taking action against it will be “illegal”. People who try to object will be executed… by Sha’aria law.
I’m predicting a civil war there, if they gather enough guts to protest after the fact! They clearly don’t have the guts to protest now.
re: “The one advantage the US has is that the left has not totally driven faith out of the country”
Indeed, I’ve been wondering if the influx of Catholic Mexican illegals might be a blessing in disguise! I tend to waver a bit on the illegal alien issue when it comes to Hispanics! Their demographic is actually helping the US maintain the balance Europe lacks.
But among the rest of us, many of us have found the left’s tendency to deride our Faith as the very best reason to raise objections! Americans have NEVER liked being told how to think! LOL!
#91, Batyah, thanks for your response.
To be clearer, the queston I was asking, was do you think that religious civil arbitration should be made illegal in the UK. I’m not talking about criminal courts, or ’shariah’, I’m talking about councils. Heliotrope attempted to portray a ‘Somali Court’ arbitration as ‘proof’ of Sharia Law in the UK.
There is *no* Sharia ‘court’ or process of law in the UK, nor, I think, in Europe?
Although mamapajamas accuses Europeans as ‘not having the guts’ to protest* ’sharia law’ in Europe, can he/she show where there is an official or unofficial Sharia court operating at all (or without protest) anywhere in Europe?
PS: I don’t include the anti-semitic, anti-arab, anti-pakistani, anti-India, anti-Sikh, anti-darker skin-than pale, anti-immigrant crowd on the far right. We all now that they protest.
JohnD… re: “Although mamapajamas accuses Europeans as ‘not having the guts’ to protest* ’sharia law’ in Europe, can he/she show where there is an official or unofficial Sharia court operating at all (or without protest) anywhere in Europe?”
Last year, the police in Paris went on strike to NOT be sent to answer calls in the banlieues (Muslim ghettos in French cities). They have a nasty tendency to get killed there, and simply will NOT go there any more.
This puts entire sections of Paris under DE FACTO Sha’aria law, since there is no French police presence there.
JohnD… the story about the police strike in Paris was reported in the French language edition of Le Monde. It mysteriously did NOT appear in their English language edition. I suppose it’s because they could not hide a massive police strike from their readers in Paris.
I’ll try to locate the story… if Le Monde still has it online… but if you don’t speak French it will require a BabbleFish translation, which is “iffy”. But you can get the gist of it.
Greg, I agree with you 100% about the role that lack of religious faith is playing in Europe’s capitulation to Islam. I only hope they can wake up in time to deal with the problem before it becomes too late. When I think about the extreme freedoms that people in western cultures have enjoyed, I find it so hard to believe that they would actually just roll over and let Islam put them in black body bags and take away their alcohol and free sex. I think they are just slow to wake up, but when they do, they will act. Then again, I think of France . . . and I wonder if there is any hope.
JohnD, I guess I’d have to think about it more, but on the face of it, I don’t see a problem with religious civil arbitration, such that it needs to be made illegal.
Batya… re: “I think they are just slow to wake up, but when they do, they will act. Then again, I think of France . . . and I wonder if there is any hope.”
I worry about France, but then, when I do, I remember the Danes during the Great Cartoon Jihad of 2005-6, and the editors of the Jyllands-Posten, the paper that originally published the infamous cartoons:
“Ytringsfrihed er ytringsfrihed er ytringsfrihed. Der er intet men.”
“Free speech is free speech is free speech. There is no ‘but’.”
Jyllands-Posten, 2/10/06
God bless the Danes… they give me hope :).
Mamapajamas…
google “taqiyyeh” (other versions of spelling are 1 y, or ah instead of eh) and “hudna”.
I find the lying “virtue” to be extremely corrosive - I don’t see how one (nation or individual) can come to trust _any_ muslim to fulfill _any_ agreement/truce/contract they make.
>>The soldiers of Islam do not wear uniforms and get a thorough indoctrination of the restrictions laid down by the Geneva Conventions of War.>>
Unfortunately, we hold ourselves to the Geneva Conventions as a mark of civility even in the inhumanity of war. In fact, the Conventions state that they are between the signing parties, and the islamic states are not among the signers. We have no requirement to follow them except the requirements we place upon ourselves. Though you’d never know by reading the MSM.
Holy catfish!!!!
JohnD contorts and twists an exchange to pronounce: “Heliotrope attempted to portray a ‘Somali Court’ arbitration as ‘proof’ of Sharia Law in the UK.”
This is either a transparent misrepresentation of my words in order to cast aspersion or a conclusion that was reached by one far too limited to understand plain English.
There is a growing use of Sharia within the British Muslim community. So far as I know, it has not yet come in conflict with British law in a way that has caused a legal conflict. A large per cent of British Muslims favor resorting to Sharia. Full blown Sharia would conflict with British law in myriad ways. (Compare and contrast the method of divorce under each.)
I do not offer “proof” to anyone on anything that does not involve math or alcohol content.
Heliotrope: Sharia and English law. Where Sharia is practiced it is a matter of belief. The proponents will obey the Sharia law. Most times the sentences will not be known outside the community. It is too late when the girl or woman is dead and English law takes over.
Melanie Philips Londonistan is well worth the read.
In general: While the current rise of radical Islamism around the world is worrisome, it is fortuitous, because their actions have been a wake up call to a much greater threat.
The Muslim Brotherhood and like organizations have been, for many years, insinuating their values into Western societies. Their values are every bit as harsh as the Jihadists, but, unlike the Jihadists, have patience, and were prepared to proceed slowly.
The adoption of Sharia laws is just one way of controlling Muslims within a community, ensuring they stay aloof from the general community.
davod: “The Muslim Brotherhood and like organizations have been, for many years, insinuating their values into Western societies.”
Exactly my point. Many urban areas in the West are folding in minor Sharia arbitration from within the Muslim community as part of the great diversity of multicultural infusion that creates the magnificent liberal meringue they so adore.
Look how many European cities and towns have Muslim areas where the police dare not patrol.
The fact that Ontario, Canada considered allowing sharia religious arbitration for issues such as divorce and child custody is but an opening shot in the clash of civilizations at our doorstep.
The Brits seem to be pretty much asleep at the wheel. This is in no small part do to their general lack of religious grounding and their reactionary disdain of traditional values.
Gilbert and Sullivan would have a field day.
suek… re: “Mamapajamas…
google “taqiyyeh†(other versions of spelling are 1 y, or ah instead of eh) and “hudnaâ€.”
Thanks for the tip… I’ll check it out.
“The Brits seem to be pretty much asleep at the wheel. This is in no small part do to their general lack of religious grounding and their reactionary disdain of traditional values.”
The combat of religious fundametalism requires secular law, not more religion. As for ‘traditional values’, I think you’ll find them in abundance in Islam.
“JohnD contorts and twists an exchange to pronounce: “Heliotrope attempted to portray a ‘Somali Court’ arbitration as ‘proof’ of Sharia Law in the UK.â€
That is a groundless accusation. I asked for evidence of your claim that UK law was being ‘assimilated into Sharia law’, in response, you referenced a story about a ‘Somali court arbitration’.
I then said I didn’t have a problem with civil arbitration on religious grounds, and that I similarly had no problem with Orthodox Jews as per ‘Beth Din’, etc. You then proceeded to call such talk ‘anti-semitic’.
That’s as clear as day, so there is no need to turn it around into an accusation of ‘twisting’ or ‘contorting’
As I say, I am of course (being a Brit) concerned with claims that the UK is ‘handing over it’s legal system’ to Islamic law. Your reference of the unofficial Somali Court incident doesn’t lend me the hot air to begin rounding up UK Muslims for re-alignment, neither does it effect my existing disdain for the harmful superstition, patriarchy, nationalism and conservatism inherent in Islam.
John D. I suggest traditional values mans values of the country. This is where the problems with multiculturalism come into play.
In Britain for instance, multiculturalism has meant the sidelining of teaching the whole history of Britain to the teaching of the bad things. The role of the mainline religions have also been under attack by the state for at least twenty years.
When there appears to be nothing positive about a country’s past, why in the world would anyone want to tie their allegiance to the values of the country.
Tie this to the attempts to bend over backward to accommodate non mainstream religions (under the multiculturalism umbrella) and I Can understand why some children of immigrants chose a path with some strict guidelines about how to deal with non-believers.
There’s only one way to beat this in the long run, and most people aren’t willing to do it. We have to go back to the very first command in the Bible: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. This is one area that Muslims have been great at and Christians, in general, have ignored. We’ve gotten pretty good about trying to carry out Jesus’ last order; how about God’s first one? 2.1 kids isn’t multiplying, and even 3 is not a “quiver-full.” The population vacuum in Europe is getting filled. Those who refuse to reproduce themselves will be a footnote in history. You want to really make a difference? Start raising warriors for Christ.
“multiculturalism has meant the sidelining of teaching the whole history of Britain to the teaching of the bad things.”
I’m sorry but that’s just poppycock. The pure and unadulterated kind.
The same kind of overblown groundless rhetoric that one hears from Murdoch’s tabloids when they wish to make a few more million by pandering to Nationalists.
I was taught in England, and believe me, history lessons were dull, dull, dull, mostly consisting of Tudor clothing, weren’t we great in WW2, and the names of Queens and Kings, The Plague. 1066, bla bla bla. We are also taught the cool inventions that Brits, Scots etc made. The industrial revolution too. But surprise surprise,we are taught how the onset of coal-powered iron production and steam travel heralded not only great advances, but enormous poisonous factories, great squalor and awful working conditions. It’s important to know the two sides of a story, if indeed there are. Where do you get the idea that British people are taught all ‘bad’ things? I’d be interested to know.
When a bomb goes off in London, you will find Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, pagans, atheists, agnostics, Christians, the Irish and Hindus grieving together. Not, ususally, because they have lost one of ‘their own’, but because they have lost a friend or a loved one.
Rhetoricians of all stripes shall not profit this world by demonization and stereotyping, including Islamists, including the ever-present politicking demagogues.
Regards,
John
“Start raising warriors for Christ.”
Awesome.
OH, look what I found.
link
Hmmm double standard anyone? I mean come on! Three stinking weeks? Pah-LEEZE
I have said many times before it they read that corrupt evil book to Koran then they can not be trusted this country is is such terrible condition because the liberals have there heads where the sun doesn’t sine All our freedoms are what will destroy this country The times have changed our founding fathers lived in a much different world if they were alive today they would be the first to see the errors of their ways. We are doomed due to our stupidly
Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen? Consider this
Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of
Arabia.
Scripturally, no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam
and the Koran (Koran).
Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns
in prayer five times a day.
Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends
with Christians or Jews.
Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders),
who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great
Satan.
Domestically, no, because he is instructed to marry four women and beat
and scourge his wife when she disobeys him
(Quran 4:34).
Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except
Islam (Quran, 2:256)
Intellectually, no, because he cannot accept the American Constitution
since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be
corrupt.
Philosophically, no, because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow
freedom of religion and _expression.
Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either
dictatorial or autocratic.
Spiritually, no, because when we declare “one nation under God,” the
Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as
our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran’s 99
excellent names.
Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very
suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both
good Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish…it’s still the
truth. If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above,
perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand
this, the better it will be for our country.
Pass it on. The war is bigger than we know
Frank Romano fromano1@hotmail.com we need to wake up before its to late
Frank, if all Muslims are traitors to America, then you must throw them out immediately.
Regards,
JohnD
John D what we need to is case by case basis we let so many in and now we need to start controlling our mistake never in the world have there been such a religion that teaches it followers the art of deception and trained to hate all non-believers If you ever decide to read what is in that book then even you will understand the position the world is in they have school that teach 5 year olds to hate.
They have a society that in unwilling and unable to change. Look at the problems in England and France soon it will be here were hundreds of them caught trying to cross our border posing as Mexicans do the right thing John D and check out the truth because its all there its a fact
Frank Romano fromano1@hotmail.com
>>Frank, if all Muslims are traitors to America, then you must throw them out immediately.>>
JohnD, this sounds like you don’t accept that islam is our enemy…. Would you be interested in elaborating some?
#136
“JohnD, this sounds like you don’t accept that islam is our enemy….”
Islam calls me its enemy, then I am its enemy.
I’m already the enemy of every patriarchal, monotheistic cult who call me satan, or kaffur, or goy, or whatever is ‘not them’, so it’s pretty well nothing to me to be surrounded by those who call themselves my enemy. But are they my enemy? If they do me harm, yes. If not, no. I take every case by every case.
All the religious nuts of the world will not be happy until their ‘prophecies’ have come true, so fulfill them they will.
But back to America’s problem of which Frank speaks. I’m a pragmatist. So if Frank speaks the truth, and all muslims are under suspicion, and all muslims are traitors to the US, then I start looking for answers.
The first and most sensible seems to be to deport them to muslim countries. Irrevocable exile from a country they profess to hate.
The second and most childish, is to call them names, ‘dirty’, ‘animals’, etc etc.
The third is to imprison or execute them as traitors. I do not support this.
I would be interested to hear what other commenters solutions to American muslims is? It must be more productive than calling them names?
Regards,
JohnD
Hang on, Frank, you asked if a muslim could be ’scripturally’ loyal to America? How the heckington is that possible?
Regards,
JohnD
Switzerland declared itself a nuclear free country. That is a good thing. When the bombs fall, they will automatically avoid Switzerland and the winds will divide so Switzerland will escape the radiation from fallout.
So it is with Islam. If you declare yourself aloof from all the voo-doo and pagan bells and smells of all religion with its big tuna sandwich in the sky, then the radical Islamists (and all others) will just leave you alone.
Now, should a rabid Islamist mistakenly hack your arm off, you can just explain that he was in error and all will be well.
However, the rabid Islamist hates you, the non-believer, the most.
Oh, well. Yours is not to reason why, yours is but to toss stones at the silly frogs and watch them jump and bump and act according to form. There really is no mystery in the world. It is all so patently simple, stupid and predictable.
The Great Oz has spoken!
God help those who are too wise to be humble.
#139.
Heliotrope, no doubt that little screed was once again directed at me.
“However, the rabid Islamist hates you, the non-believer, the most.”
So does the rabid ‘Christian’, and the rabid Nationalist, and the rabid feminist.
However, neither of these facts make me ‘wise’, and neither of them require humility of humble-itude from me. Their arrogance is not mine.
Heliotrope, what is your chosen solution to American muslims?
>>So does the rabid ‘Christian’, and the rabid Nationalist, and the rabid feminist.>>
Which of these consider it their God-given mission in life to kill you if you don’t convert to their way of thinking?
#142.
Suek, all the more reason to kick them all out of the US for treason?
I don’t yet believe my muslim friends and neighbours are trying to kill me if I don’t agree ‘convert’. We have discussed gardening, walking, engineering, school life, horse-riding and cooking, stereotyping (they are Briish born, yet get verbal abuse and told to ‘go home’) and life in Britain etc. Ho hum, business as usual.
So far. The day they come at me with the old chop-chop device, Quran in hand, it’ll be time for me to get mediaeval on them. And anyone messes with me or my family it’s the LAST free or breathing thing they will do.
That’s the deal I make with others, innocent until proven guilty, but I always keep one eye open. It’s not just muslims that kill your kids, it’s everytihng from Christian preachers to the local park attendant.
This still isn’t answering the question you guys all have? WHAT to do with the muslims in the US?
I suggest you throw them out. It’s easier than trying to outbreed them or convert them. And from what I read here, Islam spreads like a virus, and they can breed rapidly like the plague.
Suek? What is your suggestion, seriously? Frank?
Regards,
JohnD
You didn’t answer the question: what “rabid ‘Christian’, and the rabid Nationalist, and the rabid feminist” have threatened to kill you? Your answer seems to be “none - but neither have any muslims threatened to kill me if I don’t convert”. If that, in fact, _is_ your answer, then you just haven’t been listening.
As for solution…winning the peace in Iraq is a necessary first step. Possibly exiting from Iraq through either Syria or Iran, but hopefully not. If Iraq can pull itself together and become an Islamic democratic state with a free economy, the whole ME situation will change for the better. Why do muslims flow into Europe? For peace and prosperity, don’t you agree? If it’s provided to them in their native countries, don’t you think they’d rather stay home? If they don’t, then you have to consider that their dispersal from their home countries has some motive other than peace and prosperity and that their motive really _is_ world domination.
#143 JohnD.
Thanks for your lucid and exact addressing of how you would handle personal danger to you or your family.
It must be quite the trial to have to keep an alert eye on the park attendant and the Christian preacher.
As we all know, you must not profile, for profiling is the greatest sin of all.
Anyone who can legally emigrate to the United States and adopt the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of the land is welcome.
(”This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution.)
Any Muslim who can not subordinate the dictates of the Koran to the Constitution of the United States can not be an “American.”
You asked about “Muslim Americans.” They must make the choice of whether we bend the Constitution to suit them or whether they drop the pretense and become law abiding citizens who pledge allegiance to the United States of America.
In your Alice in Wonderland world of logic, I suspect that equates to your dreaded “rabid nationalism.”
When you fire off your automatic rejoinder, kindly keep it in context and on topic. What you so often mistake for sarcasm is actually frustration that is born from trying to mud-wrestle with an eel.
Suek, I acknowledge that rabid Islamists mean my country more harm than rabid femininsts, that wasn’t my point, my point was I handle things on a case by case basis, and if a ‘rabid’ fundamentalist claims me to be their enemy, then I am of course their enemy. And my point about keeping ‘one eye open’ for EVERYONE, stands. For national security, I have no problem with profiling if the threat warrants. In the case of bombings or hate-preaching, it does warrant.
Check out ‘Dispatches - Undercover Mosque. It may still be on YouTube.
What you aren’t understanding is that I have yet to either kill or hand over my muslim friends and neighbours.
Suek, thanks for attempting to answer my question, but whatever wars are waged in the Middle East aren’t solving the issue of muslims in the US today.
And Heliotrope, whether you believe my logic is ‘Alice in Wonderland’ or not, it’s at least a suggestion for a solution. I contend that I am firmly on topic.
Frank presented a raft of evidence that proved all muslims in America to be under suspicion. I asked for a solution. I proposed deporting them to an Islamic country.
Again, eels nothwithstanding/wriggling, what is your solution to American citizens who are muslims? Or is that horse so very high that one needs give it no serious thought or response, instead just scoff at the ‘Brits’ handling of Islamic terrorism?
Regards,
JohnD
JohnD:
Perhaps you missed this: Anyone who can legally emigrate to the United States and adopt the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of the land is welcome………Any Muslim who can not subordinate the dictates of the Koran to the Constitution of the United States can not be an “American.â€
If you are asking about those Muslims who would dedicated to converting the populace to Islam, then it is patently obvious that they would be planning the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States.
We the people can call for a new Constitutional Convention and we can rewrite the document to be subordinate to the Koran. It would not be necessary to have a violent revolution to accomplish this; it would only take a “great Islamic awakening.”
I suppose if one is opposed to the Caliphate of the United States, that makes him some sort of rabid anti-Islam bigot. That would be me.
>>… what is your solution to American citizens who are muslims?>>
Be very aware of their efforts to make the changes that Heliotrope mentions - that of substituting the Koran interpretations of law for the US Constitution - and resist any such efforts that entail special privileges for muslims. Individuals who actually commit traitorous acts - even if for religious purposes - should be prosecuted vigorously, and the fact that the act was done in the name of religion should have no bearing. It will, of course - it will be called islamophobia - but let the facts speak for themselves. We have to ensure that people can _believe_ whatever they want, but must _act_ in accordance with the law. There is a story of an Englishman encountering the practice of suttee*…it’s something of the same thing.
I’d love to have some neat test that would force all kinds of people to choose where their loyalty actually rests, but as far as I know, none are available.
*I can relate it, but figure it’s pretty well known and you’ll probably know what I’m referring to…
What we need to do is deal with the countries that are ripe for conversion to Islam and win their hearts and minds. We should remember Iraq was not governed by sharia. All the “vices” of the West were available to its’ citizens if they so chose. The invasion just stirred up the ants nest of Islamists and brought them running to engage the “Great Satan” in much the same way they flocked to Afghanistan after the Russians invaded.
I know there are a lot of Christians on this board, but that isn’t going to do it. Our consumer culture and a heavy dose of secularism will be the key to winning folks over. When a would-be Muslim sees that he can buy anything he wants, be around women without guilt or shame and be left alone in general, we will have a real victory.
Heliotrope, maybe you misunderstand, I wasn’t looking for rhetoric, just a solution to the problem of muslims living in America. Franks made no suggestions, just warned of the treachery and sleeping ginat that constitutes all muslims. Suek suggests being ‘aware’ of them.
I would be interested to hear what you suggest is the solution
What about my idea of deportation? Surely that is solving the issue for all the real Americans whom it is claimed are currently living in very real threat of muslims?
As Frank proved (#133), no muslim can be a loyal American also. This means they are all suspect.
So Suek’s solution of ‘keeping an eye’ out is an kind of redundant. They are already there. They are all traitors? They are already treacherous?
The problem remains what to do with them?
I guess we have to throw out the Jehovah’s Witnesses too. From what I understand, they do not swear allegiance to any entity but God. Their tenets do not allow them to salute the flag, recite the Pledge, stand for or sing the National Anthem, run for public office, or serve in the armed forces of this country. Troublemakers!
>>All the “vices†of the West were available to its’ citizens if they so chose.>>
Are you talking about Iraq? _Saddam’s_ Iraq? The one where there were _no_ tvs, no cell phones allowed? No computers, no internet, with all newspapers under Saddam’s control???? _That_ Iraq?
>> The problem remains what to do with them?>>
Sure. Give them my non-existent test, and shoot those who fail. You can’t deport them if they’re citizens. If they’re not, then of course, you _can_. We won’t - also of course - because we don’t even deport Mexican illegals when they get thrown in jail for committing crimes. We also won’t shoot them - we’re too sensitive these days. The question really comes down to whether we have the will to resist and are willing to do what it takes, or whether our civilization is doomed as was the Roman Empire. At this point, I think we’re at even odds.
As for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s true that they don’t have the same sort of allegiance to the US that would be nice to have, but they don’t have an allegiance to any other earthly government either. Are they willing to die for it? Of course, they can always pay the jizyeh…as long as they’re able. After that, it’s convert or die.
Suek,
The one and the same. Iraq was a secular country. Of course, it was a dictatorship. But it wasn’t an Islamist paradise by any stretch. Those denials of freedom were based on maintaining political control. Not defending it, just pointing out the difference between a place like Saddam-era Iraq and present-day Saudi Arabia (Our “friends”).
>We should remember Iraq was not governed by sharia.>
Granted.
>>Iraq was a secular country.>>
True. At least up until the last few years of Saddam’s reign…it seemed as if he was beginning to tout religion there towards the end. But it was not shari’a. No way Saddam’d share power.
>All the “vices†of the West were available to its’ citizens if they so chose.>
I’d call that a real stretch.
JohnD and Angel:
There is no answer that you, me or anyone else on this site is going to come up with to solve this problem.
Our government and numerous other governments, our think tanks and think tanks around the world, our intellectuals and intellectuals everywhere, our simpletons and simpletons everywhere are trying to deal with this issue.
Iraq under Saddam was a vicious dictatorship that treated “problems” with tickets to mass graves.
Egypt’s “popularly elected” dictator keeps his population in constant check. The same is true in Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Tunisia, Morocco and to a lesser extent in Pakistan.
There seem to be three major schools of thought on radical Islam: 1) Confront the major players and neutralize them; 2) Keep a lid on it and stockpile the ammunition; and, 3) Lets talk about it and wait it out to see what happens.
From my perspective, the threats of radical Islam do not make a case for parlor room discussions and sophomoric flights of fancy.
Many people, I believe, are unwilling to confront the danger of radical Islam head on because they are both ignorant of the facts and too invested in being known as champions of diversity, compassion and one world harmony.
One week as a Buddhist on the southern border of Thailand would disabuse any coherent person of most of the pap that those who oppose confronting radical Islam are floating around.
Heliotriope, with respect, I was asking about the direct threat to America that Frank was referencing.
You are keen to portray Britain as a soft-touch on Silam, and that UK law will soon be Sharia law.
I disagreed, while acknowledging that there IS a problem with Islamic extremism in the UK.
Where I get lost is where you start lecturing on the correct ‘way’ to write.
when I try to come up with some solutions to the US muslim problem; that is, the traitorous nature of all muslims in the US, you call it ‘parlor talk”
How do you propose you confront that danger? Seriously?
Otherwise are you not guilty of what you accuse others of, that is, ‘parlor talk’.
I suggested a solid solution to muslims in the US:
Deportation.
There is no need to kill them, as has been suggested by certain right-wingers.
There will not be the political will to do this unless you actively lobby for such, with the supporting facts that Frank mentioned.
So, from your perspective, what is the right way to protect the US from it’s ‘enemy within?’ You acknowledge that they are traitors by default? But that is just acknowledgement.
What is the next step? And what is the US doing that Britain isn’t?
Suek,
The only reason Saddam touted religion was to rally the extremists to his side when we invaded. Liquor was available to you in Iraq and so were some of the other “vices”, such as gambling and prostitution.
“Our government and numerous other governments, our think tanks and think tanks around the world, our intellectuals and intellectuals everywhere, our simpletons and simpletons everywhere are trying to deal with this issue.”
With respect due, Bush calls Islam the ‘Religion of Peace’and bombed the Iraqis.
How is that the coming up with solutions?
Helio,
I appreciate your comments, but six or seven years ago, I was telling anyone I could about the dangers of radical Islam. At the time, I was concerned about the Taliban (well before 9/11). They demonstrated their “tolerance” for other religions by destroying two beautiful and rare Buddhas. Then, they went on to make Hindus in their country wear yellow cloth badges to “protect” them from non-Hindus. My warnings were greeted with yawns. Until 9/11.
I’ve been studying this issue for quite some time. Again, appreciate the comments, but I think I’m on solid ground in my thinking on the matter.
JohnD,
I can not say what is to be done with Muslims in the United States who will not accept the Constitution as supreme to the dictates of the Koran. I am not a dictator and I am not a friend of dictators, no matter how benign I might suppose them to be. (Although I do recognize the utility of dictators who are friendly to our aims.)
Frankly, your insistence that I proffer a plan is old stuff to me. I have always had students in my ethics classes who wanted me to offer a solution to an enigma for the sheer joy of pitching stones afterward.
One difference between the United States and England is that our country has not stunted the spirit of individual initiative by drugging the people with heavy doses of socialism. One major effect of eschewing socialism is a population that is feisty and willing to take on movements that are subversive to that personal independence. Our Aussie friends seem to cherish the same individualities.
You insist that I have made predictions about Sharia in England that I simply have not stated. England, France, Canada, Sweden, and Germany have all given Islamic “diversity” so much leeway that they are now beginning to understand that they may be caught up in a Faustian bargain.
Strangely, it is the extreme left Dutch who are most in touch with what Islamic “diversity” has cost them. The Dutch have been emigrating faster than their native birthrate and it has them scared. They are getting very serious about the “fifth-column” effect of being soft on Sharia.
George Bush called Islam the “religion of peace” and he was dead wrong about it. However, he is in charge of conducting “real politick” and “geo-politics.” You may be assured that we conservatives were as upset with his ROP statements as many liberals were with his “axis of evil” and “old Europe” remarks.
Our country has organized gangs from Mexico, Russia, El Salvador and elsewhere. We have an enormous number of illegal aliens from Mexico. We are the target of radical Islam. Much of our labor force has to adapt to being in the service sector since much of our manufacturing has gone elsewhere. We have plenty of problems begging a solution. Radical Islam is only one of them.
You can read Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” to better understand the mystery of this country or Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” to grasp the power of the engine of capitalism or James Madison’s (Publius) “Federalist #10″ to see the delicate balance between majority rule and minority rights.
I can not get closer to the answer you demand than that. Your twisted claims of my take on Sharia in England demonstrate that your questions are not benign queries for the purpose of springboards for honest discussion or debate.
Neither you nor I will be much more than observers to the progress of this problem.
“Your twisted claims of my take on Sharia in England”
Heliotrope, with respect, your memory must be shorter than my patience!
#24 Heliotrope:
“The liberal English society is treating its enormous problem with Islam in exactly the same way as this daffy feminist went tip-toe through the tulips of marriage with her Afghan husband. And, England may be the first European country to assimilate Sharia in its legal system.”
I didn’t twist your claim, I questioned the validity of it.
Now in order to support your claim that the US raises more ‘feisty’ individuals that deal with ’subversives’ do you have any real-world examples of US muslims being repelled by these superior individuals?
Regards,
JohnD
JohnD: You accurately quote me: “And, England may be the first European country to assimilate Sharia in its legal system.”
My construction is not really faulty, but it would have been more precise had I written “…….may BECOME the first….”
At any rate I did not write “And, England IS the first…….”
Strange that you overlooked this qualifier about feisty individuals in the United States: “One difference between the United States and England is that our country has not stunted the spirit of individual initiative by drugging the people with heavy doses of socialism.”
You then ignore the next sentence: “One major effect of eschewing socialism is a population that is feisty and willing to take on movements that are subversive to that personal independence.”
While liberals have long attacked religion as an opiate of the masses, it turns out that state socialsim has been a far more effective and wider reaching method for creating an addictive dependency. Socialists seem to tolerate a great deal so long as the train of goodies keeps rolling.
Now you ask me to give examples of feisty individuals girding their loins and taking on the subversives.
That is a matter for history to unfold. We will see how quickly the United States comes up with separate doorways, divided classes, covered faces on driver’s licenses, sex segregation, etc. all in deference to accommodating a specific religion. (Our Quakers, Amish and Seventh Day Adventists do not have destructive agenda.)
If “ten” is “extreme social liberal” and “one” is “reactionary conservative”……where would you place England? What are the chances that a George Bush or John Howard type could make it to office in England?
Of the three reads I suggested, Federalist #10 is the shortest and is readily available on the web. It deals with the conundrum of faction. We take these Federalist papers very seriously. They are far superior to parlor talk and have served this country well.
JohnD…
Read these two articles and consider them. They show the direction of the problem.
http://towncommons.blogspot.com/2007/03/keeping-eye-on-cair-part-5-conspiring.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/noxford11.xml
Heliotrope, rhetoric doesn’t even answer 1% of my question. The rest was the mostly bulked with the same old condescending distortions.
I couldn’t/wouldn’t even begin to really do credit to all the assumptions, non-sequiturs, deft sidesteps and ad-hominems that the formed bulk of your response.
Thanks for the Federalist 10 tipoff, I won’t return the favour and likewise riff on the evils of Nationalism as it’s as unecessary as your:
“UK = Socialist. Ergo socialists tolerate a great deal so long as the train of goodies keeps rolling.”
jab.
Why not? Because it’s wrong.
One could just as easily, and just as ‘honestly’ say that Republicans ‘tolerate a great’ deal as long as the dollars keep rolling’ (see sponsored terrorism, see hiring illegals, see any number of hands-over-eyes conscience-less deals being done with monsters in the name of greed, achievement and enormous wealth.
Yet I wouldn’t say that, because offering that as an ‘argument’ would be, quite simply, facile propaganda.
So thanks for the broad brush and the rhetoric, but no thanks.
And the muslims in America, I presume, are still every bit as dangerous as Frank pointed out.
Suek, as you say, ‘you’ are now too ’sensitive’ to kill them. So what now?
And thanks for the links. And I do know the problem. How to deal with it is where I get stuck, in all honesty, other than jailing or deporting any extremist who incites hatred towards the UK for not being part of their faction.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/02/585e69f9-0847-4e76-9750-14d31a46bd81.html
7 years is a crime. A life-sentence of forced labour would maybe suffice.
Also, if that ***** gets extradited to the US, please put a good boot in for me. Or tie his good hand behind his back, sharpen his hook, and drop a whole tub of itching powder down his shorts…
Regards,
JohnD
JohnD
It is time the west paid attention to the words of Islam. Words have meaning. They want us converted, submitted or dead. You keep shoutin’ from the housetops, sistuh girl.
>>So what now?>>
So don’t give an inch - because they _will_ take a mile. Apply all laws equally. Make no accommodations for religious sensitivities. Either they want to live in an non-islamic state or they don’t. If living in a non-islamic state is not to their liking, let them return from whence they came.
Our problem in enforcing laws equally is the ACLU - what’s yours?
…our problem is the ACLU _and_ liberal activist judges who feel it is their God-given right and responsibility to deliver what they see as justice on this earth, no matter what the laws actually say.
Do you have any of that sort? Judges who take a plain law like “don’t steal” and interpret it to mean “unless you really need something” or some such?
#165 JohnD scolds: “I couldn’t/wouldn’t even begin to really do credit to all the assumptions, non-sequiturs, deft sidesteps and ad-hominems that the formed bulk of your response.”
OK, then don’t try. But do I have to accept your character reference?
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