One is the 17th son; the other is the 16th son. Neither are the sons of a first wife. One is an engineer; the other was an engineering student. Both have ancestral roots in Yemen. Both are educated and come from wealthy families.
I am talking about Osama bin Laden–the 17th son among 57 children whose father is Yemeni–and the Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab–the 16th and youngest son, whose mother is Yemeni. Both men were born “shamed,” disadvantaged, because their mothers were not “first,” or high-status wives.
Both men are lonely sons of Allah, yearning for paternal attention, even affection, in a polygamous culture in which fathers have too many children and little incentive to pay close attention to any one of them. This is devastating, especially to sons, because the culture overly values fathers and men, and grossly undervalues mothers and women. Thus, the attention a son may receive from his mother (if she is not sent away, as Bin Laden’s mother was) does not make up for the missing and longed-for father.
I have often thought that the way many Arab Muslim brothers brutally order their sisters around not only reflects how their fathers treat everyone, but is also a measure of their frustration about not being able to bond with their absent, lordly fathers. Thus, for a number of reasons, prison-style sexuality as well as homosexuality and homosexual pederasty is as rampant as it is forbidden in Arab and Muslim culture.
Arab and Muslim sons desperately want their fathers. But their fathers are busy marrying other, younger wives, having other, newer children, and founding financial empires. They want their fathers to redeem them from the shameful fate of living in a world of mainly women–which they do when they are very young; and of course, they want their fathers for reasons of identity and inheritance.
Based on his memoirs, even our totally assimilated American President is still in search of his missing, absent, polygamous Muslim father. Folks: The comparison stops here. I am not suggesting that Obama has anything else in common with Bin Laden or Abdulmutallab.
Both Osama bin Laden and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are dreamy, disassociated, unnaturally calm, “removed,” and, according to my friend and colleague, Dr. Nancy L. Kobrin, perhaps “slightly autistic.” These men do not relate well to others. Both men have “issues” with women. They can’t really connect with them—but when they do, their need to control them is extreme.
Cruelty leads to cruelty. Be kind to your children.
Why have so many Jews been successful? Because their parents pampered them.
Excellent analysis. And spot on as far as I am concerned.
I believe in the inherent goodness of human beings, at birth. But I also know that the tremendous plasticity of the human brain means that we can fairly easily turn an innocent child into a monster by about age 3. And certainly by age 9.
The culture you describe in Yemen is, it seems, a hotbed for male monster creation in the extreme! The only real answer will be to address the way children (both boys and girls) are devalued by their fathers.
Here in Britain, Pakistani male youth strut the streets and shopping centres as if they were already conquerers.
They dress in a kind of high brand lead uniform of dark, new Armani jeans, pristine and very expensive Stone Island jackets and sweaters and the most flamboyant box fresh Nike trainers imaginable.
Meanwhile many of the women, never with the males, but always in a gaggle of other headscarfed women tend to dowdy, often quite shabby black coats, cheap shoes and a kind of resigned expression.
Funnily enough, if funny can ever be compatible with this lot, the ones in abeyas and enveloping robes glare, are obviously defiant and seem to display an angry animosity.
When peering at us kuffar the submission is gone, replaced by a sullen resentment at even a glance, almost as if we are not worthy.
They love to shop, that’s for sure but for many that’s as far as it goes. We are there for nothing else but material income and ways of spending it.
The one thing in common between the sexes is they rarely mingle outside other adherents of the faith.
Troubles a brewing. We’ve got a huge cuckoos nest situation.
Money has nothing to do with it, in fact as mentioned earlier these youths are classic examples of ostentatious wealth display.
They are pampered by family and state. They will never accept responsibility or ‘fess up. Nothing is their fault. And the lie, when dealing with us infidels oozes from the lips as if born to deception.
What is to be done?
Unfortunately our dhimmis in power fawn and grovel. Only when final ultimatums and raging street battles ensue will we see a reaction.
Unfortunately our Gov has form even when Muslims are bang to rights.
Our populace groans. We, the indigenous natives are second class citizens in our own lands. All of this is not lost on them.
Not if, but when will our patience snap?
Ms. chesler: if you like to see sexually repressed young men. Take the F train to Crown Heights!
For all you folk into the dating scene of how “Alpha” male get single, married, whatever, etc. girls at the expense of “Beta” losers (be they single, married, fiances, whatever)… here’s where it leads, studs get all da b*tches and loser blow themselves up for Allah as angry surplus male population (why do you think Mohammed and co. encouraged the four wife thing– gave ‘em lots of cannon fodder).
I am ordinarily not a big fan of psychoanalysis, I believe the observer’s perspective tends to inform all psychoanalysis. For instance, much of Freud’s thinking has more to do with his own upbringing and proclivities than those innate in humans.
But I do think this article hits the mark. I have always suspected that there is something vaguely homosexual about the radical Muslim. Sure, they espouse a desire to rendezvous with vestal virgins after death, etc. But think about it — if this desire were true, wouldn’t it also manifest as a desire to rendezvous with an actual female prior to death? Clearly there is some underlying sociopathic frustration that prompts them to their murderous actions. I personally think it might be that they aren’t attracted to females.
Bin Laden, Atta, this most recent person — obviously these people are not devoting their time and attention to attracting and winning a mate. Perhaps they are suicidal because they are hoping the transition will resolve their fundamental lack of attraction to women?
One does not have to be a member of a Judeo-Christian denomination to realize that their family values are mandatory in the underpinning of a viable society. Monogamous relationships are the glue that holds everything together. Modern feminists and Hugh Hefner wannabees are responsible for an incredible amount of damage in the last some fifty years of American history.
In the very first paragraphs I was alarmed by what it stirred in me. Obama clearly fits the following;
“sons of Allah, yearning for paternal attention, even affection, in a polygamous culture in which fathers have too many children and little incentive to pay close attention to any one of them. This is devastating, especially to sons, because the culture overly values fathers and men, and grossly undervalues mothers and women. Thus, the attention a son may receive from his mother…does not make up for the missing and longed-for father.”
I believe our president clearly fits your description and has;
““issues” with women. They can’t really connect with them—but when they do, their need to control them is extreme.”
I see Obama as a woman hater who spends more time in HI now that he did while the woman who raised him needed him at her side, who was not at hisd mothers side when she died and who has not invited his Kenyan grandmother here for a visit yet watched while the world saw her flewn to be an exaulted guest of the Saudi King.
He has done little on women’s rights – The Ledbetter bill was written and set on his desk so he signed it when he took office. Ldet’s not give him more credit than is due. His mother and grandmother are only invoked when needed to make a point as are Michelle and the girls.
Logdon, thanks for your telling description of Londonistan. Dalrymple, the writer and doctor, has noted that in the underbelly of England, both Muslim and kuffir thugs have ‘girlfriends’. The difference between the 2 is that altho the kuffir beat their ‘girlfriends’, the muslims beat them harder. Nice, eh?
Also, he notes that neither Hindi nor Sikh show this malaise.
Thanks, Phyllis, for your analysis, by the way. It definitely is about women and men.
One of the reasons the Scottish highlanders did so well when they got away from the highlands was because their women were as well educated as were their men. And this was true down to the lowest, poorest level.
I think you are scratching the surface with this essay.
…but as I have stated in other posts Islam is the biggest single denominator in this puzzle (of course to me it isn’t that big a puzzle).
I don’t disagree with your premise (in fact I agree with it), but without Islam there would be very few of these anomalies manifesting themselves with such explosive tendencies.
those who have been studying the mindset are the terrorist recruiters who seem to have a very good understanding of this.
ALL the problem spots in the entire world (with the exception of narco/terrorists and ETA) are with Islam. In fact terror as we know it today is Islam related, bred and propagated.
regards
What’s the difference between a Westerner who jumps off a bridge and a Muslim jihadist? Both hate their unfulfilled (loveless)life and wish to extinguish it, but the Muslim kills everything that reminds him of his misery. This is why they attack schools, weddings and churches–they want to obliterate the “pureness” of Life-since they will never achieve it, except in the “afterworld”. Just like a gang-member, they long to become part of a society that accepts them, and in their case, the Koran beckons. How true that sexual repression is the real cause of most suicide/murders, and we can always look at the American ones of the last decade: all the male mass-murderers were lonely and uncomfortable around women, but desperately wanted them. News just emerged regarding Farouk’s internet postings confirming his sexual frustrations, and his draw to Islam to control and ultimately “release” his libido by his genital exploding (sans orgasm); all this is promised by the “72 virgin” mythology. I am looking forward to read Dr. Kobrins new book.
Solomon was right when he said, “Train up a child to follow the right path when he is young, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Likewise, a warning, “A father who does not discipline his son hates his son.” Would that the Muslims would study the wisdom the Lord granted King Solomon.
Sigmund Freud once warned that a cigar sometimes is just a cigar. Nonetheless, I wonder if this 23-year-old males’ willingness to damage his own penis and testicles to accomplish the terrorist attack says something about his awkward relationships with the opposite sex. Was this merely the best way to carry out the vile deed—or a subconscious need to emasculate himself? A little bit of both?
what a life we live in the Greco Roman fashion. poor guys can’t get laid because their women are all bundled up in burkas. give me a Spartan woman any day. Better woman, better wife and better mother, and so why is the west giving away our legacy? sharia really doesn’t have anything i want.
Excellent and illuminating piece. I agree entirely with the first commenter, too: be kind to your children. Love begets love.
this is looking at these muslims through the lens of an exceptional western democracy. these people might as well as be from another planet and a quite disgusting one at that, a no-go even for space ships. they are ugly, smelly, dumb skanks who contribute nothing to progress or productivity or intellect. they are to be reviled and spat upon. that’s my only feeling about them, girls and guys.
#7 Anonymous “… here’s where it leads, studs get all da b*tches and loser blow themselves up for Allah as angry surplus male population (why do you think Mohammed and co. encouraged the four wife thing– gave ‘em lots of cannon fodder)”
Crudely put but dead to rights. Have just visited a Greek island, Chios, where the Ottoman Turks killed or enslaved 99% of the population c. 1822. This kind of slaughter is fueled by that loser cannon fodder capturing women, the only way they will get one. Ms. Chessler is right that only a gender revolution will end the centuries of past and future abominations by Muslims.
I believe polygamy is the lynch pin or algorithm which is key to this desperately needed revolution. It must be condemned by our columnists, our religious leaders, our academics, our demographers, our geneticists and bloggers everywhere. It is an indirect attack on Islam with overwhelming legitimacy. The deluded Hefner mentality has most of the aforementioned leaders silenced because they are unable to see the long-term social degredation and cling to the moral relativity nonsense.
mr,
The F train doesn’t go to Crown Heights. However, it does skirt the edge of Borough Park, which is now a neighborhood where many Hasidim live.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Hadramaut to be born?
Or Mecca.
Or Medina.
Or Riyadh.
Or Brooklyn, Paris, Malmo, London, Lodi, Lackawanna, Red House, Detroit…
A million points of darkness born under the heinous Sickle and Star.
I still fervently believe that the unicorn of Islamic Reformation (as we would like it to be, and not like the Bin Ladens or Kings of Saudi Arabia have worked it) is as impossible and crazy as ever. We’d best make a plan B if/WHEN this comforting delusion proves itself to be blatantly delusional. But this is the first time I’ve seen your thesis about the centrality of women in the coming Reformation explained in a way that resonates. I do admire you, Phyllis, for remaining optimistic in the face of Islam’s gaping maw of evil.
I, on the other hand, believe we must destroy their ideology (even if that means many must die) before they annihilate us. They’re already here in their millions waging Jihad across the spectrum but we stand idly by. We even defend their “rights” under both our legal and cultural systems, to practice their religion of genocide and terror, while they work to subvert and defile our civilization, and pray for the destruction of those very rights which protect them. We must not lose ourselves, neither succumb to their Jihad, nor lose our souls in the measures which I am certain will be necessary to defeat Islamic Jihad. It is THEY who have waged war against us. Whereas we have laid our neck bare, given them every opportunity to live with us in harmony, given them money, aid, our technology, and our most precious rights. It is the Muslims who bear responsibility for the harrowing things which are to come, not we. It is the Muslims who have caused the nasty choices to be made, having turned all of our largesse, our money, our technology, and our gifts into poisons and weapons of destruction.
The Lonely, Murderous Sons of Allah:
A Psycho-analytic View
All true, in the long view.
Short term, it is Us or Them;
Profile, quarantine, embargo
Hi-tech items, or there may
be no long view.
A gender revolution is NOT going to fix Islam and Muslim societies. While I agree broadly with Ms. Chesler, she has failed to grasp the same thing happening in the West, and specifically America.
Tim McVeigh, Klebold and Harris, Cho Seung-Hui, George Soldini, Major Hassan, ALL have the same traits: absent Alpha fathers, childhood among women, no male role models, inability to get female love/attention/desire as adolescents, and so on.
Yes, Cho and Soldini were mentally ill. Even nutcases in times past simply went after famous men not ordinary people and particularly, women. You might add to this list the guy in Montreal who was born and raised a Muslim, but referred to by an adopted Anglicized name.
Also troubling, the passivity of the men who did not DEFEND their women in their midst: the Virginia Tech incident (not ONE young man acted, only an elderly Holocaust survivor professor and a middle aged ex-military Engineering professor, both slain), the Soldini incident, Montreal.
The problem is that Women, be they in Muslim or Western lands, are hypergamous. They don’t like sharing powerful, Alpha men, but will in preference to having ALL of an ordinary man.
See: Elizabeth Edwards, Silda Spitzer, Elin Nordgren, Kimberly Guilefoyle, Denise Richards, and Rihanna.
Now, the character of the men these women became involved with was immediately apparent. They knew very well who these men were, the men did not suddenly “become evil” like a character in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. They always were what they were, and that is why the women became involved with them.
Western women would prefer, on average, to share a powerful man with other women in soft polygamy vs. having all of a “Kitchen B*tch” (as feminist writers such as Sandra Tsing Loh and others have dubbed modern Western ordinary men). See “Big Love” or “Mr. Big” on Sex and the City.
Gender reform will simply move things around. Women will still be women, and prefer to be part of a “soft” harem rather than a hard one. Anon is quite correct, the beta male losers form jihad cadres.
We ALREADY have this in the West (and Japan, see “herbivore men.”) We just have more substitutes, video games, entertainment, pornography (which likely makes things worse). Note that sex is not equal to love and intimacy. Strippers, prostitutes, and porn are not a substitute for a marriage between a man and a woman.
Sandra Tsing Loh noted that Swedish women are seeking masculine-dominant Muslim men as husbands, even in polygamy, because the men are commanding and dominant, not “nice” and equalist like Swedish men (whom they hold in contempt).
I admire Chesler, but being an older woman, she is out of touch of today’s Western sexual marketplace which is eerily similar to that of Muslim ones, but a “soft” polygamy rather than a hard one. I will note that a life of chasing Alpha men from age 16 or so to age 32, leaves Western women often angry, bitter, punishing, and manifestly unhappy that they are “settling” for Joe Average instead of Mr. Excitement, the dominant Alpha male. Such marriages end in divorce with the wives openly mocking the masculine nature of the men (see “Julia and Julie” author Julie Powell’s account of her affairs when her “nice guy” husband grew contemptously boring).
Conclusion: the West is growing its own counter-jihad movement, but one likly aimed first at its own elites (and hypergamous women who are part of the deeply matriarchal, feminized elite). Seeking first to supplant the elites and then (particularly in Europe) adopt a BNP-solution to Muslims (the BNP advocates deporting them all).
You can condemn polygamy all you want to: it is part of Islam (Mohammed practiced it and “good Muslims” are supposed to do it if they can afford it). More to the point, women themselves support it since part of a dominating, powerful man is preferable to all of Joe Average boring guy. And WESTERN WOMEN BEHAVE THIS WAY TOO.
It is likely hard-wired into women and only controllable by strict social shaming and controls of female and Alpha male sexuality, a dead letter in today’s society.
In addition to the homosexual undercurrent, there is a malignant narcissism inherent in this culture — pampered mama’s boys overly endowed with a sense of entitlement.
One young suicide bomber-in-training was asked how he felt that a number of Muslims might also be killed in an attack. He replied, “I’m sure Allah will ask them to forgive me.” Apparently he has a special relationship with his Creator, strolling arm in arm.
Labeling oneself as special, with godlike powers, or above mundane concerns or reponsibilities, is a sign of this personality disorder. Most likely this guy failed at everything in life it was too much reality for him. “Going out with a bang” is the only thing than can feed into his declusions of grandeur.
“I am not suggesting that Obama has anything else in common with Bin Laden or Abdulmutallab.”
They both have friends who bombed Americans (William Ayers).
Some would say the main difference between Obama and Osama is a “B” and an “S”.
Another great article by Dr. Chesler.
One need only examine the life of Islams founder, Muhammed, to understand the pathologies that afflict this ‘religion’.
The moral compass for Muslims, Islams “excellent model of conduct” and “perfect man” was in truth one of the most repugnant examples of a man in the annals of human history.
Far from being a ‘holy prophet’, Muhammed was a sadistic sociopath, a murderer, a torturer, a decapitator, a mutilator, a kidnapper, a human trafficker, a rapist, a sex slaver, a sexual deviant, a child rapist, a thieving looter, a perfidious liar, a genocidist warlord, a self proclaimed terrorist motivated by unquenchable lust, greed and power.
This is the man who set the personal examples and moral foundations for Islam and all Muslims to follow.
Think of how many of the 10 commandments this ‘holy man’ breached. Think of how many of his own capricious Islamic laws this ‘holy man’ breached.
Simply put, Muhammed represented the absolute worst in humanity, yet it is this man 1.2 billion Islamists worship.
~ The Infidel Alliance
I have to think that if these guys were getting laid on anything near a regular and periodic basis they would be far less inclined to try to detonate explosive underwear and pursue other antisocial activities.
Both Osama bin Laden and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are dreamy, disassociated, unnaturally calm, “removed,” …I’d say Obama fits this. He certainly seems removed from what the populace wants re health care and I’d say that somebody who ordinarily won’t shut the hell up and is on TV every other day….well I think you have to be disassociated and removed when it takes you 3 days to show up about a terrorist attack on Christmas day. Shameless might fit as an adjective as well.
Thank you Phyllis Chessler for a very thought provoking article.
This is deep psychology. The father-son relationship is critical.
As you pointed out each culture has its own ways and expected family structure. In the case of these two the pattern is similar.
The gap whereby boys are expected to grow up with an absetee or disintrested father is without question harmful. A culture which permits or encourages many children from multiple wives magnifies that problem.
Some may grow in positive ways, others in negative ones, but all are operating in a moral vacuum. Dad is the standard and boys militate their independance against that.
The femminist POV works here. No man can be father to 17 sons. It is hard enough with one or two when you gotta work late again and miss the ball game, for something they cannot comprehend at their age. They do not care about the mortgage or car payments which do not exist in their world.
I dont know, and politics just makes it all the more difficult. Politics is an adult game.
Maybe I saw my own dad (a US military surgeon) as a hero and hated that he was often not home. What could I do with my puny 11-year old ability? Yet I followed him in some important ways later and…well, OK now.
Anyway.
Shalom,
Spindok
Very good article.
It can be often observed that men who miss their father marry 4 or 5 times, in western countries consecutively. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Mohammed did not know his father (he died before the prophet’s birth), and treated women the way he did.
You could say this a religion of the “fatherless.”
Gautama Buddhas mothers died on giving birth. Some westeners who convert to buddhism seem to miss their mother emotionally.
26. whiskey:
pour yourself another one.
I will grant your world view to the fact that you haven’t lived or worked in any muslim dominated country.
you are connecting dots that, while the dots are true aren’t connected.
@Infidel Alliance #29: Many Christians
wonder when the antichrist will appear.
Maybe he already has???????
Spindok; Dr.Bukk; others:
Seems to me that “polygamy” is not the problem.
What Phyllis is so eloquently describing is not
any real form of plural marriage. Yes, certain ceremonies are performed, but “marriage” just flat ain’t there.
And no, enforced monagamy is not the answer.
What is going on in the Islamic world is seduction and abandonment writ very large indeed. Not only is it legalized, not only is it encouraged, it is jolly well required.
The consequences are as described.
I mention this because it is essential that we have a thorough understanding of the essential dynamics involved and it seems to me that simply syaing “polygamy” will NOT suffice.
Anybody got any other thoughts on this?
Free will animates not only Jews and Christians, but all of humanity. Forlorn or frustrated, purchasing a one-way, trans-Atlantic ticket to Detroit while packing the only clothes you have with explosives can only be an idea that appeals to someone with an education.
If erectile misfortune were the cause, look out for the fruit of Chinese demographic imbalance to take down every plane that can take off. And they are raised in a misogynist culture (granted, a monogamous one) with disrespect for the West too.
Put the blame on the teachings of Islam, not on the irresistible urges of the psyche, for each Islamic terrorist’s hatred of our way of life.
Islam emasculates men. The ONLY power they have in Islam is over their women and only when married to them or have daughters. Everything else is not under their control. No choices in any area of their lives from cradle to the grave.
Much talk in Malaysia as well as in the West centers around the perceived need for an “Islamic Reformation.” What is probably meant by this is something that will have the same effect on Islam as what happened to Christianity in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, when a monolithic theo-political power (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church) cracked and what emerged, eventually, was a Christianity that overall was less oppressive, less domineering, and less doctrinaire than what had existed before. Of course, this picture is oversimplified … and do not forget that barrels of blood were spilled in the process. Or maybe what people really want is just someone to stand up and be Mecca’s version of Martin Luther and say, “enough of this foolishness.”
It’s a hopeful, optimistic vision, and who doesn’t want to be an optimist in these restive times? However, even zealous optimists must take care so as to not misplace their hopes. Hence, the question is this–given Islam’s dogmatic and traditional nature (to say the least), is reforming Islam a feasible endeavour?
In order to answer this question with any precision, the true circumstances surrounding the founding of Islam must be examined, and in particular, the actions of the founder of this ideology need to be critically scrutinized. Islam was founded by the self-proclaimed prophet Mohammed in the seventh century (not withstanding the Muslim claims of “everyone since Adam has been a Muslim”). Without Mohammad, Allah, the Quran, and Islam would be unknown. Islam has never existed, and cannot exist, without invoking the example of Mohammed’s life, his actions, and his words. He is the religion’s sole prophet, Islam’s solitary example, and Allah’s lone conduit. Mohammed has been hailed by 14 centuries of Islam as the perfect soul, and the noblest model of behaviour that every Muslim must strive to emulate.
So what did Mohammed spend his one life on earth doing? According to authentically Islamic sources (specifically Ibn Ishaq’s biography of Mohammed and Bukhari’s Ahadith, both generally accepted by Muslims as reliable), here is what Mohammed did in his lifetime:
-He had political opponents murdered
-He murdered prisoners of war, sometimes after the most brutal of torture
-He seized the women and children of his victims, using them for sexual favors, taking them as wives and concubines, selling them into slavery for profit, or sometimes all of the above
-He persecuted the Jews in particular until his oppression and butchery were borderline genocidal
-He agreed to peace treaties with his enemies (“hudnas”), and then broke the agreements as soon as such action was to his advantage
-He and his followers stole anything and everything they could get their hands on, in order to finance their movement and obscenely enrich themselves
-He and his followers had repeated sexual intercourse with children
This foregoing list is but scratching the surface of Mohammed’s depravity. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” goes the Biblical parable, which is just a fancy way of saying that one’s worth or true character can be ascertained by one’s actions. Judging Mohammed by his actions, he was plainly no prophet—rather, he was a pirate, terrorist, brigand, paedophile, thief, liar, and murderer.
Remember, Muslims hold up Mohammed as the *perfect* model of behaviour. Therefore, what Mohammed did in the 7th century, according to Islam, is still just as praiseworthy and respectable now as it was then, and will be for all time. Furthermore, this ‘fact’ can never be up for discussion or revision—the mere suggestion of anything so untoward in Islam is in itself blasphemy and heresy!
How can any honourable, decent movement or religion ever be based on or draw its inspiration from such a man like Mohammed? Any house built on such rotten foundations will itself be rotten, and be beyond fixing. Trying to fix such a structure would be a colossal waste of time, money, and effort. Ask anyone in construction, or any engineer, and they can tell you—if the foundations of a building are fundamentally unsound, the only solution is to start over from scratch.
Throughout fourteen centuries, despite endless attempts to do so, no one has ever come close to succeeding to ‘repairing’ Mohammedanism. “Islam Hadhari” is but the latest effort in this regard, and there is no reason to suspect that it will be any more successful than the rest. For that matter, why should we expect any future attempts to succeed? In fact, most such ‘Islamic reform movements’, like the Wahhabis of Saudi Barbaria, have only managed to enhance Islam’s inherent wickedness. Also, bearing in mind how the Salafists themselves got their own start as ‘reformers’ of Islam, one can already argue that the Islamic reformation happened already–i.e. the Wahhabists, the Muslim Brotherhood, Bin Laden, et al–and we’re fighting it now.
So here’s how I see it. Trying to ‘reform Islam’, considering the indisputable actions of its founder, is like trying to build a respectable political party based on Hitler’s crackpot racial theories. It simply can’t be done!
38. Lynn B:
Islam emasculates men.
YES it does.
but it is not the only power. each father has total control in the family and the eldest son supports him to maintain his position in the power structure.
the women are of no significance unless supper isn’t ready and the house work isn’t done.
…and this is where the world is heading.
37. Which is why I fear that China will start a war, ostensibly for natural resources or combating Islamic terrorists stupid enough to pick a fight with them, with the true objective being to kill off some of their surplus men and allowing others to procure wives out of the conquered population.
For the commenters singing the praises of the alpha male, can we assume that you respect and prefer the alpha male Mohammed to the sissy-boy Jesus?
And it seems to go without saying (again) that women (as you see them) would also prefer Mohammed. Evidently Islam’s strength is that it is a reality-based religion, eh?
It is to bad those within Islam can see how Mohammed brought a curse to mankind.
Men are suppose to cling to their wife. When men do not, and ignore their children, hate and loss grows in the child.
We see it in America with so much Homosexuality. Boys growing up without a Father, they turn to Homosexuality to replace the bond that is missing. It is a curse on society.
This is a great read Phyllis. I too believe this.
It’s so obvious to me that just One man ‘owning wives(up to 4 )and children’ causes their devaluation by default!
As soon as someone donates a dollar/trade value to a subordinate they can control, this person has just lost being a whole priceless person, as we all should be, as they are now just a commodity, forget having basic human rights.
As I see it the most precious resource to contribute to our future is our children, all of them. We need to produce much more ‘solid’ adults to carry humankind forward in a positive, productive, healthy and more peaceful way. I know, I know, dream on…
As a side note, young boys without a father are more often targeted by other males for abuse.
This is pretty common everywhere just to differing degrees. For example in Iraq a young boy is slapped repeatedly on the head by a local shop keeper for getting something wrong, while here in North America they are beaten by the local gangs for money, clothes and etc, so in the middle east add on the systemic male on male sexual abuse and no wonder the terrorists can make mass murdering powder kegs out their brains.
Ms. Chesler, thanks for the clarity.
Many muslims move to our land, where some of what is accepted were they come from is incompatible with our own standards. If we are not capable of enforcing our standards with those who come here voluntarily, (and are equally free to leave), we are not doing anyone any favor.
If there is a chance for an islamic reformation, it may come in two ways: Muslims immigrants in the west resolving their inner conflict by internalizing some of the western values. The other chance is the political evolution of Iraq, and even Iran, by contagion, of which some signs are already detectable. It is not hopeless, but it cannot happen quickly. In the meantime, we can help by keeping the pressure, if we find the fortitude to do so.
Apparently Bin Laden wasn’t so miserable, according to his sister in law, the swiss born Carmen Dufour/Bin laden, she wrote this book about the Bin Laden Family and how the life was wwith them in Saudi Arabia
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Kingdom-Life-Saudi-Arabia/dp/0446577081
Well I can hardly adhere to the freudian explanations about Bin Ladin and Abdulmutallab, the whole siblings have strong links alltogether, so no lack of tenderness, there.
As it is sure that Bin Laden was a bigoted religious already when he was very young, for Abdulmutallab, it seems he was indoctrinated, like a sect member.
Bin Ladin as a guru of Al Quaida sect.
In the history of the muslims, there were many sects of “assassins” (from where comes the word)
So, the Al qaida sect is a gang that recruit like mafiosi, except that this sort of mafiosi will die in the same as his victims will too.
except that this sort of mafiosi will die in the same “time” as his victims will too.
also this gang/sect is very adapted to the new technologies, and modern medias.
So we must fight them as such, gangsters !
Nice thoughts by Phyllis and comments like 39. above. It really bluntly comes down to this:
Muslims follow their prophet. Their prophet was a murdering, thieving child-raping madman. This is going to create some mighty deranged behavior. Containable when the weapons are scimitars. Scary sh@t when the weapons become mass-incendiary devices. Downright hellish when they get ol’ Uncle Putin’s nuke cookie recipe.
Islam should be banned in the US; all mosques shut down. Its practitioners given one-way tix back to Goat Herd Land. Sounds unconstitutional – but that’s it, really. It is a quasi-religion bent on killing us. It always has been. It always will be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin
history of the “assassins
that’s funny, their chief was also an old man, and the assassins perished by the Mongols, someone wrote a comment where he said that the Chineses will fight the muslims !
Leatherneck,
Your political theory is sound , but your homosexual unified theory is bugnuts. Many a dude I grew up with had absentee papas, but nary a one cruised on down to the George Michael Stop and Blow for comfort. Better get back to the drawing board on that one. Fatherless America IS a plague but if their WAS a direct connection, two-thirds of black men and 40% of whites would be cross-dressing – and they aren’t. It HAS been shown that gay men do have enlarged hypothalemus glands (roughly the same size as a woman’s) – now that is controversial and worthy of discussion.
The complete abdication of masculine dominance by the men of the west, with the active complicity and encouragement of the women of the west is the problem here.
We of the west cannot enter into mohammedan society and re-balance it into something that recognizes the individuality of women and the importance of properly proportioned child/parent bonds.
The only thing we CAN do is to kick back their rejects and malcontents when they leak over onto our side of the cultural divide.
But this is a MACHO TO MACHO encounter.
And given the anti-masculine posture of the western cultural environment we are going to a gun fight with a fly swatter.
So by your logic can we now explain why southern baptist preachers become KKK leaders? Because the women in the house were bare foot and pregnant due to incest and so boys were lonely?
Not suggesting that all southerners or baptists used to (or currently do?) rape their mom/daughter/sisters. Altough quite possible, to paraphrase this author — “folks the analogy stops right their”.
Quoting this thing (author): “Based on his memoirs, even our totally assimilated American President is still in search of his missing, absent, polygamous Muslim father. Folks: The comparison stops here. I am not suggesting that Obama has anything else in common with Bin Laden or Abdulmutallab.”
I am hardly a liberal…voted R last 3 Presidential elections but why I admire liberals is that hte right is so scared to make outright blood racist commetns — they hide it under culture or other spin. Come on have soem guts like Goldwater or Buckley (of NR) and be gainst civil rights…but I bet you don’t have the courage to say it.
Excellent. I agree:
1. Islam must be psychologically/psychiatrically analized;
2. it encourages Autism [Suicide-Murderers could take some Afghan Heroin before detonating];
3.a) Among Clans/Tribes Roles’ (Sexual) Confusion is encouraged: males don’t have to control their (Genital) Behaviour and related Consequences.
3.b) Supertitions arise where own Responsibilities are relied to Others (Spirits),
3.c) and this helps Psychiatric Disorder increasing.
4. BarackHusseinObama goes on protecting his black masculine Root,
and never publically appreciates his white feminine one.
5.a) Detroit Flight’s Suicide-Murderer’s Trainers were 2 Guantanamo Detainees, released on 2007,
and sent to Saudi Arabia, where they partecipated to an “Artistic Rehabilitation Program”.
5.b) BarackHusseinObama asks to close Guantanamo and bows before Saudi King,
and an Islam’s pre-eminent Reformer says Saudi Arabia has to be supported,
5.c) therefore the Questions are:
. how will Security/Safety of Non-islamic world ever be granted;
. how will Reformation of Islam ever be possible.
i agree with you 100% on this issue and i am very close to the binladens,
There’s a breath of fresh air in this analysis. But I wouldn’t exclude the economic factor, just shift it to a different point. All Muslim societies are facing high unemployment among college-educated males, which makes the fear of competition from educated women even more threatening. Chronic male joblessness has always been a breeding ground for extremist ideology.
linking your excellent post today, Dr. Chesler:
http://syd4.blogspot.com/2009/12/two-reasonable-approaches-to-terrorism.html
Thanks for all your hard work on behalf of Progressive Feminism.
Phyllis, you finally got to the crux that everyone avoids. When I’ve dared to mention it, I get edited off the comments page.
The Koran is also an important civic instruction, not just worship instruction.
Polygamy does all you say for Islam. In short, women (4 wives and unlimited concubines) get ‘meat-ed’ out to the elite clerics-warlords-businessmen (take your pick), intentionally creating a society which is bottom-heavy with young frustrated men to whom the law denies even masturbation, let alone homosexuality. This gives the elites a testosterone laden source of crazy combatants for their protection.
The Seventh Century lives today and is spreading.
And in the U.S., like charity, persecution of Christians and Jews begins at home while we glorify this infernal evil.
Re #6 MR: The F train does not go to Crown Height! It is the Lexington Avenue and 7th Avenue trains. If that is the quality of your knowledge, I would not trust your other observations either.
Stereotypical . . . sorry . . . but there is just way to much of in this article . . . bascially it comes down to the following characteritics of all Islamic Males: 1. Homosexual tendencies, 2. Wife abusers, 3. Polygamist 4. Suicidal 5. Rich 6. Hate everyone . . . I could keep right on going and going and going . . . The person that wrote this needs to see a shrink! I thought I was prejudiced red-neck from Oklahoma . . . but I am telling you this takes the cake! I have worked in Saudi and UAE . . . If the people worked half as hard here in the good ole’ USA as those people work . . . it would be a different world.
“The comparison stops here. I am not suggesting that Obama has anything else in common with Bin Laden or Abdulmutallab.”
I’m pretty sure they do have something in common. They both want to bring down the USA and destroy our freedom.
Betting on a Islamic Reformation is the mother of all long shots. It’s certainly possible that an Islamic Age of Enlightenment could happen, but the evil Koran and related demented Islamic texts won’t disappear. It will take an all out war against Jihad and Jihad’s millions of fellow travelers that results in unconditional surrender. The idea that Jihad can succeed must be utterly destroyed along with delusions about the superiority of Islam. Jihad has be to be a dead as the Confederacy, the Third Reich, and Imperial Japan. And a lot more dead than the Soviet Union. Consider how bad things must get before that realization will be acted on. All we can do with our current Western mindset is a holding action, damage control. Hey, and I’m an optimist and a Buddhist. My older brother is the pessimist.
Re #61 Okie-Ex-Pat: Of course you are right, but Ms. Chessler is also right. No human being is monolithic. What needs to be addressed is Islam as a system. Polygamy has implications for how a society functions. Society with or without polygamy produces two different animals. Have you decided that boys with fathers present produce the same outcome as boys without fathers present? That is Ms. Chessler’s point. I vote with Ms. Chessler, knowing full-well that some boys grow up to be fine men in spite of their family style. It is just more difficult for them and takes a lot more head-work to reach responsible maturity, to say nothing of really good luck.
islam and muslims can never reform from within
because ANY reform will be blasphemous and the reformer/s WILL be stoned to death…or even tortured to death in the most horrifying way imaginable
islam HAS to be destroyed…completely
64. Jerry:
Re #61 Okie-Ex-Pat:
polygamy is only one aspect of the issues encountered in islam.
I doubt that polygamy on it’s own has anything to do with this terrorists decisions.
you end up with a lot of dots and there is a tendency to connect them even when they shouldn’t be.
I see only one common denominator in almost all the present day terrorism. ISLAM.
it is also the least complicated answer and usually the simplest answer is the most correct.
Granted there are lots of ancillary issues and points that are all true. (the dots) but if this Nigerian was not a muslim would he have done what he did ?? I THINK NOT.
Re #64 First I think that Ms. Chessler has way over played the polygamy card . . . and the absentism of the father. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is such sociological conditions that exist on a miniscule scale . . . and perhaps that scale can be given in a statistic . . . Ms. Chessler does have the creditials to do so. What I have found from actual experience is that the privacy of the muslim family is profoundly more protected than in any western culture. What happens inside the villa stays inside the villa. A western socilogical dogma just does not fit period. In westernize cultures the society protects the individual . . . in the muslim world the individual protects the society and the cultural values. If you will . . . the crusades have not ended . . . no human is monolithic so true . . . neither is a culture . . . changes occur. The hopelessness of the war torn refuge camp . . . carries with it the same hopelessness of the western inner city ghetto, both situations are not family oriented environments. The values of the progeny, male or female, shall for as long as the microcosim of a ghetto or refuge camp exist be perverted from the macrocosim cultural norms within which they exist.
For a good analysis of this topic, see The Arab Mind by Raphael Patai. This excellent book explores the roots of the Muslim world view and its roots in Arab culture.
Westerners must realize that this is a way of thinking that is completely foreign to Western ways, and any attempt to understand Muslims (especially Arabs – and the two are not synonymous) without acknowledging the differences are doomed to fail.
the Anti Jihadist (39):
Much talk in Malaysia as well as in the West centers around the perceived need for an “Islamic Reformation.” …. Or maybe what people really want is just someone to stand up and be Mecca’s version of Martin Luther and say, “enough of this foolishness.”
The main problem with this view is that Luther was not merely a reformer (and he was certainly not a Protestant). He preached an abandonment of the extra elements that the Roman Catholic Church had added onto Christianity over 1400 years and a return to the pure teachings of Scripture, the Apostles, and the early Church fathers. A fundamental tenet of Lutheran theology is that we would be perfectly willing to rejoin Rome – if only they would admit their mistakes.
Osama Bin Laden and the Wahhabi sect are such reformers! They wish to return Islam to its fundamental roots as preached by Mohammad and taught in the Koran and the Hadiths. They decry the foreign ways introduced by westerners, and hate us because we are not Muslim.
See Islam Watch and Jihad Watch
donttreadonme (51):
Leatherneck,
Your political theory is sound , but your homosexual unified theory is bugnuts. ….
Necessary but not sufficient cause. Homosexuality is a complex issue, triggered by family issues, cultural environment, and (to a limited degree) biology.
Anti-Jihadist #39, one of the best posts I have read. I believe you have it absolutely right and am grateful somebody pointed to the real reason of Islam’s failure – all other is simply a symptom of the root problem.
As to the comment about Jesus the sissy boy? Would we be referring to that “sissy boy” who took it upon Himself to grab a whip and apparently single-handedly run off the corrupt money changers?
Sounds more John Wayne than sissy, if you ask me.
70. Paul of Alexandria:
donttreadonme (51):
Leatherneck,
Your political theory is sound , but your homosexual unified theory is bugnuts. ….
Necessary but not sufficient cause. Homosexuality is a complex issue, triggered by family issues, cultural environment, and (to a limited degree) biology.
the muslim lifestyle/culture ..and that of Arabs is quite strange from a biological perspective (in my opinion) ..but not so from a control aspect.
obama is a good example of a mix of these environments and the problems (deviant mindset and relationships, as well as abandonment to some degree ). for a religion that has a death sentence for homosexuality they sure have a lot of them. I guess it is just another aspect of their duplicity.
…and where is Larry Sinclair in all of this? I guess Rahm is the main squeeze now.
An Article states that the Attack was professionaly planned but carried on in a “childish” way: isn’t it that Terrorists are (unconsciously) sabotating themselves?
71. Tex Taylor:
Anti-Jihadist #39, one of the best posts I have read. I believe you have it absolutely right and am grateful somebody pointed to the real reason of Islam’s failure – all other is simply a symptom of the root problem.
As to the comment about Jesus the sissy boy? Would we be referring to that “sissy boy” who took it upon Himself to grab a whip and apparently single-handedly run off the corrupt money changers?
Sounds more John Wayne than sissy, if you ask me.
interesting take on Jesus. Did he really chase the money lenders or is that one of the early “urban legends” ?
the bible was written well after the passing of Jesus by people who had never met him. (like the Koran in that aspect)
I know if I were a travelling preacher I would embellish here and there since a boring story will not get your a dinner invitation.
I am not doubting that Jesus existed …probably did, but that would preclude that he was a practicing Jew.
A gutsy article. My 2 cents would be that Islam is what it has always been; an opportunistic conquerer. What has changed in our day is that we no longer know who we are. And therein lies the opportunity for Islam’s expansion.
Ms. Chesler’s article is a brave first step back from the dominant liberal notion that all cultures are equal.
73. HC:
An Article states that the Attack was professionaly planned but carried on in a “childish” way: isn’t it that Terrorists are (unconsciously) sabotating themselves?
they probably didn’t take into account the effect of perspiration on the device.
ok I’m joking. it is always a professional job if they can get past security.
I wish I were joking with the second one.
Well, now that part about writing about Jesus from people who had never met him would be real news to Matthew and John would “never” met him over three and a half years, though they walked with him daily. That consists of two of the four Gospels. Read the Bible much, do you Billy? And I guess that pretty much rules out Peter too?
Why would they need the dinner invitation to embellish here and there to get a dinner invitation concerning grabbing a whip and overturning some tables? I would consider the claim rising from the dead and being messiah enough to get a dinner invitation, wouldn’t you Billy?
Well, that’s good that you don’t “preclude” Jesus didn’t exist, being Christ far more documented by historical fact than say Caesar Augustus, Alexander the Great, Socrates, Plato, or even King David. Do you preclude any of these people didn’t exist? P.S. – I believe you would find that Jesus was a “practicing” Jew if you read say, oh about three paragraphs of the New Testament.
That’s quite a profound statement of knowledge there Billy. Literally boggles the mind, in fact.
If polygamy was the cause of all of this, shouldn’t we be seeing more fundamentalist Mormons blowing things up?
The bomber had the stuff in his underwear because that’s where airport security was least likely to check. Drug smugglers also use body cavities to transport the goods.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar …
77. Tex Taylor:
you are making up too many stories. none of the bible (new testament)was written by anyone who traveled with Jesus.
I will not debate with you further as religion is similar to the affliction that the trolls suffer from.
your religion (your god)would not like your condescending attitude. that will cost you in the confessional.
good day
I think this article is spot-on. In the early 80s, when I was in graduate school in New York City, I lived in a dorm with a lot of international students. When the Muslim guys has too much to drink, they would hit on Western women and men alike, but even by the standards of early 1980s New York, there was a lot of gayness. I just thought these poor guys were incredibly repressed in their home countries and just went wild when they were given a chance. When they drank or smoked pot all their inhibitions would disappear and they would act like they were 14, even if they were 25 or 30. Reminds me a lot of the Nigerian bomber.
Sounds like ‘Billy’ is a believer in the Magical Protein religion.
Oh you have got to be kidding me! We are actually going to psycho-babble the loneliness of the Muslim child as a reason for murdering strangers? Really?? For every crime there is a reason. There comes a time when you have to put that all aside. There are many lonely men looking for approval, not all of them blow up innocents.
You want my answer to this? Shoot them. They stop being lonely, that large family will have less shame and more food and I’ll be free of hearing one more weak minded leftie trying to explain evil by attaching “mommy didn’t love me” to it.
Bad guys, good guys. Their culture has become retarded by their religion and is now just cancerous and it is spreading. If it weren’t so, we’d have hundreds of Christians strapping on suicide belts. But we don’t do we?
Jeez enough already.
Boojum,
I never get too bent with the Billy types. They’re so ignorant about anything of historical first century Christianity, I simply make a point of addressing their post and then witness them make a fool of themselves during their retort.
But I would like to ask Billy the historian, “exactly who do you think wrote Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Sport?”
81. Boojum:
no religion here.
insulting me is a poor argument for what ever point you have.
cheers
Granted that Abdulmutalib was a lonely foreign student, as many are, two other factors fit into the equation. First is the duality in Islam that always pits the Muslim in opposition with the society in which they are living – see his predicament about whether or not to eat meat in the UK. Second is the resource that Muslims can always fall back to – becoming a soldier for Muhammad and Allah.
At staringattheview.blogspot.com I am presenting the information from Muhammad’s life that convinces me he could not have been a prophet from God. If Muslims begin to question the validity of their prophet and have the courage to leave him behind, terrorism as we know it will be greatly decreased.
Long ago and far away, reading about his life, comments from his siblings post 911 (“Osama was always different, so religious”), a story of how he, as a young child, trailed after his father on Saudi building projects, his Syrian “outcast” mother, his bragging about knowing how the Twin Towers would collapse, I was thinking about the psychology of Osama bin laden.
And Mohammed Atta, his very difficult relationship with his Cairo lawyer father, his refusal to enter into his family’s arranged marriage, his leaving behind instructions that no (unclean) pregnant woman should touch his dead body.
Or their common mentor, and the mentor of the equally weird Ayman al Zawahiri, the writings of the very odd man eventually hanged in Egypt, Sayyid Qtub.
The Ft. Hood shooter was, reportedly, paying for lap dances, but there is some Islamic rule about not looking directly at the woman but it is OK if you are viewing her reflection in a mirror.
I’d say both Hasan and the Christmas bomber were lonely people, whose tendency to go off balance was encouraged by the American born radical imam, now in Yemen, with whom both were in contact.
One of the worst exploitations of young people, especially men (but Zawahari has, reportedly, recently written that it’s ok for women) to become suicide bombers, is playing on the emotionally ignorant as to getting their nascent sexual frustrations abated in Paradise.
(I don’t know why “The UN” hasn’t been more involved in condemning this form of child exploitation, especially as it occurs regularly in Palestine and places like Pakistan’s Swat Valley.)
How can you form real relationships in a culture that so de-values women ? You can force a 16 YO girl into marrying you, but you can’t make her love you.
I never wrote all boys #51. Reread my post.
My post is sound. It is one of the reasons boys turn to Homosexuality. It is a curse, just like false religions are a curse. We bring it on ourselves.
Islamist nancy boys have been murdering completely innocent folks since Sirhan Sirhan, blew Bobby Kennedy’s brains out in 68 ! And milksops like Slick Willy, ObaMao, and that twerp Blair,of U.K. ,are all candy assed sissies with no hope of ever being more than jump rope ninnies, disolute bastards like ObaMao or, Muslim ass kissers and deep bow types like the Chicago community organizer. It’s time for a big time revolt and pay back time, against these murderous cowards….SOOOOON !!!REAL SOOOON !!!
“One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles.
One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes win, sometimes lose.
One who does not know the enemy and does not know himself will be in danger in every battle. ”
Sun Tzu
What we are doing here may by armchair psychology, but we can mimic what has done by professionals concerned with winning battles for thousands of years.
This is serious business and every major security agency on the planet, at least the successful ones, employ psychological profiling and a dispassionate attempt to understand factors which contribute to the will of the enemy to continue fighting and what brought them to that will in the first place.
That has nothing to do with excusing, moral claims of one religion or another, or any of that. It about sharpening the weapon to be used against the enemy. It is a cold steel approach requiring a degree of detachment.
I think that our author has brought up a point which is interesting and has been brought up before in terms of terrorism.
Childhood experience, same sex parental role modeling, cultural/peer expectations, sexual frustration… Does anyone doubt that these are powerful forces in human behaviour?
We are talking about totally disturbed individuals doing things that no rational person would do…and you dont want to talk to the psychologists?
This is more art than science, I agree. Some nations (Israel for example) has used profiles from behavioral, social, and other sources to a very successful degree with impressive results. I think our nation has failed here because of another psycho-social consideration based on our own fears…not going there now.
Anyway we should not shrink away from asking the hard questions, neither about the enemy or ourselves. We need to stop the next wave and any help is welcome.
Spindok
But I would like to ask Billy the historian, “exactly who do you think wrote Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Sport?”
The writings you are referring to were not done in the times of Jesus.
Before you go off half cocked on “billy” you should check out some of the history you claim to know so well. You will find that billy is correct.
To Tex Taylor: Who wrote the gospels? Well, neither you nor I know, but you apparently believe that the named apostle did. “Scholarly consensus” is more that a certain community, who had a closer relationship (or some connection) to a particular apostle did, but those scholars work back from the text, discounting maracles, looking for other explanations etc. whereas believers take the text more or less literally, making scholarly analysis impossible or irrelevant. Whatever.
Yes, there is a story of Jesus driving the money changers from the temple, but you certainly aren’t going to stack that up against all of Mohammed’s alpha male shenanigans, are you? I used the term sissy boy to make a point and get people’s attention. Compared to Mohammed, Jesus was a liberal-healer-doctor-preacher type, whereas Mohammed apparently was a warlord with all the attendant “strengths and treacheries.” Jesus told Peter to put away his sword. Imagine Mohammed doing that.
My point was to expose the unintended irony with which “Christian” alpha males (real or imagined) claim to follow Jesus teaching, which is the antithesis of the alpha male stance.
That’s all.
I appreciate the author but regardless of her knowledge
a) we don’t have the power to impose or even promote monogamy (opposed to poligamy) in the muslim world so it’s pretty pointless to write this kind of article
b) not all the terrorists were sons of polygamous marriages or from absentee fathers (mohamed atta, from 9-11 act had a pretty ‘normal’ family, what motivated him was his cult).
Poligamy (in the form of concubinate) was present in imperial China up to one hundred years ago, this didn’t frustrate chinese men as the arabs/muslims, chinese people have demonstrated to be far more intelligent, far more productive. Chinese people not only mastered the art of hard labour, but also are appreciative of western art and culture (see the admiration of the chinese for western art, european classical music – one of the top executors of Mozart is a chinese guy, and western progress in general).
They are known to LEARN from others, thanks to their intellect.
In the muslim world where barbarity and violence defines the person, you have no artists, no painters, when they see Mona Lisa they probably think she was a prostitute of medieval times because she dared to show her face and even smile.
I am afraid but the cause of muslims misery is their cult. Not their family composition.
Look at this thread as example, everybody agrees except 2 people, one is a self admitted american guy BOUGHT by dubai’s money (Okie-Ex-Pat): your praise of what you saw in Saudi arabia is borderline disgusting. I do not care how much a man works if he marries a 6 year old child, give me a lazy mexican any day rather than a saudi child molester. And beside, it’s common knowledge that when it’s prayer time in saudi arabia everybody stops. How do you work productively that way?
The other is n6 ‘mr’, who is a muslim (he admitted it in another thread). His only comment was “but you are worse”. Total denial. Spin, spin the lie.
Every single muslim is born and bred to think of himself above any other non-muslim, the whole cult is based on that, what is the appeal of a cult that produced nothing worth in 1400 years? the simple fact that it’s written on a book that muslims are superior people and should rule the universe, they have the right to take possess of anything that is in non-muslim land because allah said so, they are also allowed to use non-muslims intelligence, discoveries, progress to their benefit.
Their usual arguments are
-we are one billion (usually exaggerating the number) as to say ‘we can unite and kill you all anytime’ , ‘we will outnumber you soon’ or ‘if we are so many we cannot be wrong’
-you lie (when confronted by the many underachievements of the muslim world)
-you are worse
So total denial of any form of self analysis and self criticism. It shouldn’t come as a suprise because critical thinking (and philosophy) is a 100% western product that muslims reject in total.
The only 2 philosophy scholars of the muslim world were Averroes and Avicenna. However the simple fact that they were studying something that could undermine islam’s supreme truth gave them a lot of problems. First they couldn’t solve their internal conflict on which was the absolute truth: science or islam and secondly they were later imprisoned for blasphemy or saw their works destroyed by fellow muslims that couldn’t handle such a threat to their dogma.
So those scholars had even less fortune than Galileo (for the ones that are quick in finding dubious parallels with christianity).
So even if those 2 scholars are basically the only things muslims can brag about (because they have really nothing else) they usually manipulate their biographies to make believe they were devout muslims (not in conflict with muslim dogmas) and excellent scientists at the same time and that they didn’t have any problem with mainstream islam (false). They have been called heretic too, as I said a lot worse than what happened to Galileo vs the christian church.
Another typical fat lie is that Muhammed in the seventh century ‘gave rights’ to women and empowered them when at that time women had no power (they usually point out the nasty romans -who were christians). Muhammed gave some inheritance rights to females because the female was a commodity to pass from man to man, better if provided with some money too.
When you tell them that Cleopatra (absolute FEMALE ruler of egypt kingdom) came 700 years before muhammed they remain speechless. They don’t know how to spin it. And Cleopatra wasn’t the only female ruler of the past, she’s just the most famous. They truly believe that muhammed with all his sex slaves, female war booty, child brides and multiple wives was a champion of women’s rights. And they usually tell you that (fill a biblical name of no importance) in the bible had 2 wives, like it has the same meaning.
If you start such a discussion face to face with a muslim you might get killed on the spot. Their level of denial is unbelieavable. They would tell you that cows fly if it was written in the koran.
So as obama likes to apologise for USA’s faults and sins and the poor character of americans (except the ones who voted for him), muslims will NEVER NEVER NEVER admit any problem, failure, shortcoming in any of their behaviour, PAST or present. Or they would blame israel or the west.
This is true for both muslims and obama (and I do not believe obama is a muslim, he’s merely a muslim apologist of epic proportions) if you have been surrounded all your life by people who told you that your $hit doesn’t stink, you grow up thinking that the science has finally discovered the centre of the universe and you are just THERE. Both obama and muslims.
Unfortunately with the whole UN on their side, the useful idiots on the left (feminists, left, democrats) and even some devout christians that feel empathy for a fellow ‘believer’ they will never be forced to face their pitiful reality so they will keep on living in denial.
Ironically the only solution for us comes from watching their behaviour and imitate them. Treat them as they treat non muslims in their muslim majority countries (in many muslim majority countries you are denied citizenship and many rights simply for being a non-muslim). They won’t change or feel ashamed, but at least they would feel unwelcome and hopefully leave, they will scream at racism and islamophobia but if we didn’t have the left playing the useful idiots we would simply point out that we are applying the same laws that they apply to non-muslims in their countries. That’s the only thing we can learn from them.
Whine about the swiss minaret ban? tell them that in the majority of muslim countries (if not all) churches cannot display the cross or have a steeple. End of the discussion. Building of mosques? tell them that saudi arabia has no temples or churches. Ask for their holidays to be observed in the west? tell them that christians are forced to observe ramadam in their muslim countries.
But we need people with deep knowledge and we need to get rid of the left and political correct police (which is the armed force of the left)
Ms Chesler,
Thank you for and incisive and penetrating essay. You have illuminated what I believe is the real root the modern Islamic schizophrenia.
I speak as a fatherless child; my own father died in November of 1944 in France, and I was born 5 months later. My mother didn’t survive his loss, despite living for another 50 years. I can testify from experience that men need fathers, and that a lifetime of analysis and prayer can never fill that gap.
The current fad of Single Motherhood By Choice has produced generations of Barack 0bamas and Osama Bin Ladens, with the results we see all around us in the disintegration of culture. I have rarely met a “single mother” who didn’t justify her choice as a fulfillment of her own desires, with the needs of her children, if in fact acknowledged at all, placed lower on the priority scale. “Feminism” has yet to acknowledge the fact that boy children have needs that, frankly, few women can conceive of.
When this is compounded with the travesty of polygamy that is the accepted life-style of upper class Muslim men, the toxicity becomes exponential. Whatever faults and dysfunctionality may have resulted from traditional Mormon polygamy, it can hardly be argued that it resulted in the equivalent psychosis of the death cult that is Islam.
I really think you’ve hit upon it here. Your argument coincides exactly with my experience of the profound difficulty of self-definition that is the life of a fatherless man – and I didn’t have to contend with an Islamic environment while I figured it out. I’m sure you have read Alice Miller; your work extends those insights, and highlights the fact that whether we can do anything about it is not really the point. Recognizing and acknowledging the roots of pathology is the necessary first step for all concerned, even if it’s only accomplished by the victims rather than the perpetrators.
Brava, Madame.
74. billy:
the bible was written well after the passing of Jesus by people who had never met him. (like the Koran in that aspect)
‘Scuse me? The Old Testament was written by the prophets and kings who lived through the times: approximately 2000 years preceding Christ. They are eyewitness accounts and – as far as we have been able to check – verifiable archeologically. The New Testament was entirely written by people who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life and teaching, and who were the first fathers of the Church (albeit starting from the opposing point of view in the case of Paul).
Freeq (78):
If polygamy was the cause of all of this, shouldn’t we be seeing more fundamentalist Mormons blowing things up?
It’s not polygamy per se, it’s the Islamic culture of which polygyny is a fundamental part. If you look at the analyses and sources previously mentioned Arab culture (and thus Muslim culture, since the second proceeds from the first) is inherently dysfunctional and leads to terrorism and anti-social behavior.
Three things must be remembered:
1) Islam is based on a nomadic desert culture and is not truly compatible with civilization. (BTW, the supposed knowledge held by the Arabs while Europe was in the Dark Ages was primarily held by the dhimmi non-Arab populations of conquered lands). The culture is inherently misogynistic (essentially an extension to extreme of the male mandate to protect and care for the women and children) and truly cares little even for males who are not powerful.
2) Islam (“submission”) is all about power. No Arab worth the name wants to work, (see Patai above) they want to supervise. Every Arab would be a king, there is no such thing as a Muslim work ethic.
3) No Muslim can be truly certain of his salvation in the hereafter unless he dies fighting the infidel. Allah is beyond understanding and knowledge and even those who try to faithfully obey the pillers of Islam may be denied Paradise. Only the martyr is guaranteed admission.
This article refers to “martyr-killers” which is a bit like a fat thin painter applying flat gloss paint to the outside inside of a tent building. All of which may make great sense seen from inside Islam.
But it is an interesting article nevertheless. I also enjoyed reading through the comments, especially where Billy got creamed over and over for ignorance.
94. Paul of Alexandria:
74. billy:
the bible was written well after the passing of Jesus by people who had never met him. (like the Koran in that aspect)
‘Scuse me? The Old Testament was written by the prophets and kings who lived through the times: approximately 2000 years preceding Christ. They are eyewitness accounts and – as far as we have been able to check – verifiable archeologically. The New Testament was entirely written by people who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life and teaching, and who were the first fathers of the Church (albeit starting from the opposing point of view in the case of Paul).
I was referring to the new testament. and you are wrong about the eyewitnesses to Jesus. none of the new testament authors were contemporaries of Jesus.
I know a lot of people think the bible is the word of god, but it is the word of man. I used to hear voices too but the lithium fix that.
There’s nothing like good old fashion physical sweat on the brow work to bring a soul to reality. There’s so many that lack this education here in the good old USA and the world. Pampered youth lack this and learn it too late in life to do them any good. The truth is unfortunately hidden to them with their belief systems forced on them by their parents or teachers.
I contend the worst thing that the government ever did was to eliminate the draft. So many young men were turned around in their youth with the training they received in the military. I have experienced this first hand in my life with young men who have a work ethic, a desire to better themselves, and have the ability to accept constructive criticism without an emotional breakdown. We have lost so many excellent teachers by the rules that are now in force that do not teach but make excuses for behavior that instills negative emotion and rebellions.
The New Testament was written by a combination of eyewitnesses and scribes who interviewed eyewitnesses, with most of the books being written within three decades of the crucifixion, and the last book (Revelation) being written about 60 years later, by the youngest of the Apostles (John was a teenager when he walked with Christ, and penned Revelation as an old man).
Concerning how badass Jesus was, just consider His death. He took a terrible scourging with a cat-o-nine-tails, wore a crown of thorns, carried a cross-beam on His back for three miles, was nailed to a cross, mocked, spit on and slapped, and through it all never complained once, and indeed, forgave His enemies. That, sir, takes real strength. He could’ve killed them all if He felt like it, but He endured the torment because He wanted to, to procure a Holy Bride. You may interpret this as weakness, because you are a fool, but what it really illustrates is that a real man knows when to unleash his full fury and when to show restraint. When He returns, every eye will see Him, and He will be a soldier like none the world has ever seen- a soldier who slays a vast army in a single blow.
Most importantly to rebut the alpha male nonsense, Jesus was a leader, but not one who lorded it over people. No, Jesus was a new type of leader- one who serves those He leads. Nevertheless, when you walked into a crowd with Him, you instantly knew He was in charge. A Roman Centurion once approached Him asking Him to heal a servant of his. The Centurion firmly believed that Jesus’ word from a distance would be able to heal the servant, so he did not bother inviting Jesus into his home, considering himself unworthy to have Jesus as a house guest. As requested, Jesus healed the man merely by saying that the man would be healed, without the sick man even being within earshot.
Would a sissy dare challenge the authority of the religious leaders of his day, march out into the streets, call them out on their hypocrisy and dare them to arrest Him? Would a sissy answer with, “You say so,” when asked if He is a King/Prophet/Son of God? Try doing that to people- it’s bound to confuse and irritate them- not something most people are inclined to do to the judge and jury when in court. A sissy searches for a leader and wants to fit in; an alpha male leads, shows others who he is, asks them to love him as he is, but he isn’t afraid to be unpopular. I submit to you that Jesus was the latter every single day, more than Mohamed was on his best day.
Islamic/-ist Poligamy is meant to give Birth to as many Babies as possible, in order to enlarge one male’s Ego (“the Father”, “the Tribe’s Chief”, “the Male”).
Women are Babies’ Producing Machines, Maids, and “Fields to be visited” (according to one’s – masculine – Lust). Altogether there is no Consideration or Respect for the “feminine half of the World”.
This causes in the Children: 1. Feeling of being Nothingnesses, Objects, and merely Enlargers of Father’s (masculine) Ego; 2. Devaluing of “feminine” Qualities like Kindness to Others, caring Attitudes to Others, Heart centered Behaviours.
Which can drive to Suicido-homicidal (1. + 2.) Attitudes/Behaviours [Maso-sadochism].
***
I agree that Islamic world is representing (bad) Qualities potentially existing in every human Being, and that it respresents Human Adolescence: the Problem with(in) it is that Islam-ism INSTITUTIONALIZE them,
forbidding people (Islamic/-ist forced Fellows), to evolve (in their Minds and Actions). [Converts to Islam display (Adolescential) Regression.]
Islamic/-ist Poligamy/Poligyny? Wait …:
Ibrahim Shkupolli, from Kosovo, in Finland, just killed (murdered) his Ex-girlfriend and then went in a Shoppingcenter and killed (murdered) other 6 people. Then he committed Suicide.
Our unbearable politically correct (corrupt) Medias reported it as a “Crime out of Jealousy” and say that Ibrahim Shkupolli already committed other Crimes, and that in the Case of the Ex-girlfriend he was called “a Stalker” and the Police forbad him to approach the Ex-girlfriend again.
It is Islamic/-ist … POLI-MISOGYNY, filled by suicido-murderous Disease, caused by Honor/Horror Indoctrination, preached by Haters, and followed by “the religious of Peace”.
If you don’t submit to their Backwardness, they blow you up! Suicide only is forbidden in Islam … but Allah appreciates “Islamic/-ist Martyrdom”.
Curtis (56) brings up the economic point which is critical to the whole thread:
“All Muslim societies are facing high unemployment among college-educated males, which makes the fear of competition from educated women even more threatening. Chronic male joblessness has always been a breeding ground for extremist ideology.”
Spot on.
What do guys have really? If you can provide, then many other sins are forgiven. If you cannot then those do not matter.
Somewhere in there, with or without dad present, the expectation that you are the bottom line prevails.
Imagine the panic of a 23 year old with an unrealistic expectation of becoming his rich, powerful and distant father.
Yet at this point you have not secured any satisfactory personal relationships, no income worth talking about other than what you get from family, no real girlfriend.
Nothing like a soulmate who loves and will support and guide you through the tough times and wants to make a family with you.
If I were AQ that would be my perfect profile for the next bomber.
Spindok
Islam is vastly different from other sex-negating religions in the degree of sexual/emotional cruelty imposed unto their children and women (and thus men also). It is not just polygamy and machoness; but clitorectomy, early childhood gender separation, and later, a lack of adolescent and even pre-marriage sexual life, which makes this religion the most barbaric and damaging to the psyche–ready to be molded by a cult that will offer release from their sadistically-tainted sexuality. And yes, not every child who is fatherless or brought up in a patriarchal society turn out to be suicide bombers-they merely will become the average neurotic. But every suicide martyr is incapable of heterosexual love and thus is extremely frustrated irregardless of how many times he can “do it” a night with his concubine.
100. Myth Buster
Your comment was spot on. Jesus was truly one of the strongest most courageous men to ever walk the face of the earth. Those who dominate others with violence and intimidation are not strong, they are weak. They are slaves to their uncontrolled lizard brain emotions. Jesus was a leader and you could trust your life in his hands.
It’s sad that so many men and women are so confused about which behaviors make one a strong male and which are signs of weakness. A man who sires several children with several females and then leaves the children behind for the women to raise is not a strong manly alpha male. He is a weak, self-centered, slave to his emotional lizard brain. A man like Jesus who has no wife, who totally abstains from all sex (an act of self-indulgce), who sires no children but cares for and serves all men, women, and children as if they are his close family is the epitome of a strong un-selfish alpha male.
106. I see Things the Way you do, but I think Jesus-Christ had a twin Soul, too (like other “Avataras” – allegedly – appeared on Earth).
***
Here to be seen: Islam = Misogyny and Democracy-cide.
http://kitmantv.blogspot.com/2010/01/children-of-islam.html [4 Videos-Documentaries]
The Author of “Children of Islam” states: “To be honest, it is no Wonder that there are so many Suicide-Bombers!”.
***
Dear Phyllis Chesler and all your Readers: have a very beautiful New Year 2010 after Christ!
106. And thus does Jesus set the example for those who would follow Him and call Him “Lord.” The Christian has a choice between two good paths in this life- a life of celibacy and servitude, in which he or she abstains from all sexual pleasure to pursue a life of prayer and merciful works of service, or monogamous marriage, in which one assumes familial duties. Most importantly, sex is about pleasing your partner, not pleasing yourself. Done right, it is a supreme act of love from which both spouses derive the greatest licit pleasure in this world, and the Lord uses that same act both to strengthen the couple’s bond and to create new life.
The Christian husband’s duty is to provide for his family- first his wife and kids, but also his parents in their old age, and then any other family members who need his help. His duty is to raise his children to be upright and God-fearing, teaching them by both word and example. He is to be a lover to his wife physically, emotionally and spiritually. Finally, he is to be his household’s protector, valuing the lives of his wife and children above his own.
A fundamental tenant of Christian marriage is that your sexuality belongs to your spouse, not to yourself. A man’s body belongs to his wife and a woman’s to her husband, thus couples should engage in sexual relations as often as their spouse desires, being mindful of their duty to love one another (thus it would be wrong to engage in sex in an unhealthy manner or to blackmail one’s spouse into having sex). If there is a problem with your sex life, do not keep silent! By all means, speak up, lest you ruin a perfectly good marriage! If the frequency, timing, duration or quality of the sex is bad, you need to say something! A marriage can survive poor sexual compatibility, for one can adjust to compensate, but no marriage can survive poor communication.
Islamists like women (except on Man-Love Thurday, because goats can’t do housework or look after children, to be seen in a veil and not heard, and think every man should own four).
108. I think Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov talks about Sexual Energy, and its proper and aware (phisical or sublimated) Use [Books: "Education starts before Birth"; "Cosmic Balance: the Secret of Polarity".
From Plato's "Symposium": "Diotima's explanation of Love shows how to become a Philosopher, or a Lover of wisdom, and by doing so one will give birth to intellectual children of greater immortality than any conceived through procreation".]
NEWS another couple of dreadful Attacks on Innocents by an Islamic/-ist people (males) [*], indirectly supported by “politically correct/corrupt” Authorities/Politicians and “Intellectuals”/Medias:
. Ciryl Mesbah, from Morocco, immigrated in France [**], ; he beated his wife, she left home with the 3 common very young Daugthers, he obtained partial Custody, HE BRUTALLY MURDERED THEM, beheading them and them setting them on Fire.
. A man from Somalia, immigrated in Danemark [**]; ATTEMPTED TO BRUTALLY MURDER (by an Ax and two Knives and infiltrating in his house) Kurt Westgaard [a Danish Cartoonist, 74 years old, who satirized Islamic/-ist Terrorism (representing Muhammad, or a bearded person, with a Bomb shaped Turbant, with an Islamic/-ist Writing), and who got Death Threats]; he was “just in Time” stopped by Kurt Westgaard’s Bodyguards.
[*] Calling them “Devils” is not enough. There is no Cultural or else Justification for their Mentality and Behaviour.
[**] Benefiting of all the Advantages offered by European Immigration Policies and Aids.
Dear Dr. Chesler:
You write:
“Arab and Muslim sons desperately want their fathers. But their fathers are busy marrying other, younger wives, having other, newer children, and founding financial empires.”
This is true for some sons in very wealthy families. However, it is not true for millions of Arab and Muslim sons who grow up in poverty. Overgeneralizing is not strategic in a complex world with complex problems.
113. I understand you are fixed (not focused) with that “complex World with complex Problems” but Psychology is meant right to try and understand appearently un-understandable “Complexity”. Poor or rich Islamic/-ist Families almost suffer of that “Roles’ Fixity”, where the woman/wife worths (almost) Nothing, Children are Goods and Father’s Pride, which cause a human (psychological) Sense of Abandonement in Children. This exists Everywhere, but Islam-ism institutionalize it. The Islamic/-ist world is not mentally developed as other worlds are.