Oh dear, I have a live one here. Emily Brink has now posted three comments which take issue with what I’ve written about female suicide bombers. In each instance, she misses the boat–and the train, the plane, and the camel. She writes:
“The only problem I have with this article is that Chesler assumes that mentally ill people don’t know the difference between right and wrong. She also makes some comments about “inbreeding” among Arabs that I think are just meant to be mean and are not factual. But most troubling to me was the calling of these women mentally ill and thus furthering the stigma that mentally ill people must face all the time.”
I see. So Emily defends the moral agency of mentally ill people who, in her opinion, “know the difference between right and wrong.” Thus, I have “stigmatized” the female suicide bombers by daring to suggest that they have not made a free, rational, and moral choice about blowing themselves and others right up. She does not focus upon the ideological indoctrination, or on the exploitation or manipulation of vulnerable women; she sees only free women making free choices. Just because these women may be mentally ill does not mean that they have not made an independent and moral decision to kill.
Emily describes herself as a “mentally ill woman who has a mentally retarded son.” Thus, she is defending her own, so to speak.
I will take no cheap shots here since I agree that mental illness does exist; that it is painful, and often crippling; and that forced treatments are inhumane. However, I also think that when someone is actively hallucinating or is clinically depressed or in a rage that they do not make wise decisions.
In her second comment, Brink minimizes the increase of female suicide killers by saying that girls and women are also more violent in the West. She writes:
“This conversation seems one-sided, examining the crimes of female suicide bombers as if our own culture didn’t have its own epidemic of violence by women. For lots of years now there have been a rise in female violence in the West, whether it be in the form of girl gangs or women killing their children or spouses. its just not as dramatic and political as strapping a bomb to your chest, but its the same thing. Women still want to be equal to men, and sometimes that frustration comes out in the form of violence.”
Another comment, by “Fred” addresses Brink’s point as well as anything I might say. Here it is:
“But the kind of violence that Ms. Chesler is getting at is more than the usual criminal kind of violence that ensnares women as well as men in our cultures. This kind of violence is ideological, theological, cosmological. It is the act of holding a gun or sword to the heads of other human beings with the aim of exacting “divine” punishment. It says, “If you don’t adhere to Allah’s demands, we will kill you and indeed we are already in the process of taking your lives.”
It does not matter if men are doing this or women are doing this. This is POLITICAL violence. I don’t label it religious violence because I do not consider Islam to be a religion. It’s a totalitarian cult, founded by a personality disordered narcissist who put words into “Allah’s” mouth to justify his every whim. I’m not making this up and these are not my ideas. There are prominent former Muslims who have stated this and much, much more.
Using women as shaheeds is not an astonishing thing. These people will do anything and stop at nothing to wage jihad. They will use children. They’ll use animals. They will use ANYTHING to advance the violence and there are no ethics in the Qur’an and ahadith to restrain them, because YOU CAN DO ANYTHING TO A KAFIR OR A MUSLIM APOSTATE. This is something that is particularly difficult for Westerners to wrap their minds around.”
Finally, in her comment today, Brink reveals her hand (and more ignorance). She writes:
“I am ashamed to even be in this conversation. Islam is a noble religion and culture, and several people here have completely dismissed it as backward and invalid, which is exactly the sort of cultural chauvinism that keeps the bombs flying, in my opinion. I’d point out that Islam enjoyed a golden age while Europe was still in the dark ages. Islam pioneered women’s rights during this time and made many important advances in mathematics and literature, and jews and christians who lived under the Moors enjoyed complete religious freedom. I think the comments here on Islam are totally racist.
Muslims from many walks of life will tell you it is America’s support for Israel that enrages them. I believe that if we stopped that, it would go a long way towards reconciliation. But I know that is not going to happen, because of the large and vocal Jewish population in the U.S.”
Ah, Emily Brink. There was never a Golden Age nor has every Muslim or all Islam traditionally behaved in “noble ways.” They have been genocidal toward infidels and genocidal towards each other in terms of Sunni/Shiite feuding. Perhaps Brink should read the works of Bat Ye’or, Andrew Bostom, Nonie Darwish, Steve Emerson, Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and countless others on this precise point.
A dead giveaway: Brink capitalizes Moors, Islam, and Muslims but presents Jews and Christians in lower case form as jews and christians.
Only leftists and Islamists do this. Or, perhaps Brink might argue, the “mentally ill” do so as well.
BREAKING NEWS:
Friends:
Emily keeps writing, comment after comment. (See the Comments below). She says:
“I wish that Chesler would remove her inflammatory assessment of me and clear my name.”
“Inflammatory?” Have I penned the equivalent of the Danish cartoons?
I have not defamed Emily and will not remove my remarks which are fully protected under the First Amendment. However, I will not be posting any of Emily’s future comments if they continue along these same lines.
Let her get her own flagpole.
MORE BREAKING NEWS
Emily keeps posting and I have not censored her except in one case when she talked only about herself and not about the issues at hand. However, in her latest post, which I published, Emily explains, perhaps with pride, that she studied the work of Edward Said–which tells me all that I need to know. Said was a consummate propagandist and Big Liar. Read Ibn Warraq’s brilliant book about Said titled : Defending the West. A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism.
The problem lies in the liberal arts and social sciences academic curriculum in the West. It has indoctrinated so many people who are now, on the basis of that politically correct indoctrination, making common cause with totalitarian and fascist Islamists.
LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS
I think people should stop focusing on Emily who has probably absorbed quite enough criticism. Even if we are telling her the truth and are within our First Ammendment rights to do so, there are too many of us and only one of her.
Therefore, for those who want to address the issues raised by my post, please continue to do so but let’s leave Emily out of it from now on. Okay?
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24 Comments
1. Emily Brink:Phyllis, this is a gross interpretation of my remarks. You have put words in my mouth and I don’t appreciate it. I think your reply to me is reactionary and overbearing:
“I see. So Emily defends the moral agency of mentally ill people who, in her opinion, “know the difference between right and wrong.” Thus, I have “stigmatized” the female suicide bombers by daring to suggest that they have not made a free, rational, and moral choice about blowing themselves and others right up. She does not focus upon the ideological indoctrination, or on the exploitation or manipulation of vulnerable women; she sees only free women making free choices. Just because these women may be mentally ill does not mean that they have not made an independent and moral decision to kill.”
I never once defended the bombers. What I meant was that by using the words “mentally-ill” and “retarded” to describe these heinous acts is to stigmatize all people who have an illness or mental disability.
“Emily describes herself as a “mentally ill woman who has a mentally retarded son.” Thus, she is defending her own, so to speak.”
Yes, I was defending mentally-ill people. No, I wasn’t defending bombers.
“In her second comment, Brink minimizes the increase of female suicide killers by saying that girls and women are also more violent in the West.”
I never said that women were more violent than the West. I simply said that women here are becoming violent too, and it might help to examine violence against women as a GLOBAL PHENOMENON.
“Ah, Emily Brink. There was never a Golden Age”
You are wrong.
“neither has every Muslim or all Islam traditionally behaved in “noble ways.” They have been genocidal toward infidels and genocidal towards each other in terms of Sunni/Shiite feuding.”
You are right on this point.
A dead giveaway: Brink capitalizes Moors, Islam, and Muslims but presents Jews and Christians in lower case form as jews and christians.
I was in a hurry and when I type things online I often don’t capitalize.
Jul 31, 2008 - 10:07 am 2. George Jochnowitz:Blind faith, whether religious or secular, is a force that may (not necessarily) make good people bad and smart people stupid. Marxism led to the worst famine in human history (China 1959-61) and caused children to denounce their parents to the authorities for having counterrevolutionary thoughts.
The Bible commands us to execute witches (Exodus 22:18) and homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13). Christians and Jews no longer have blind faith and so do not do these things. The only remaining faiths on earth that people believe in absolutely and blindly are Marxism and Islam.
When females become shaheeds, do they get to have sex in heaven with 72 male virigns?
Jul 31, 2008 - 11:06 am 3. Emily Brink:“The only remaining faiths on earth that people believe in absolutely and blindly are Marxism and Islam.”
What about far-right Christians who bomb abortion clinics and say that ‘God hates fags”?
I think they have blind faith.
I don’t know if the shaheeds get to have sex with 72 male virgins. Don’t tempt me.:P (just kidding).
Jul 31, 2008 - 11:12 am 4. Stix:The Golden Age of Islam was at the expense of Jews and Christians working as Dhimmis. All of the mathematics and literature was written by Jews, most of the Muslims were iliterate and could not read even the Koran. They were Bedouins that lived in the desertand never had a settlement. But after they conquered a place they left a small number of Muslims to rule over the conquered territory. All the matehematics was figured out by Jews that were under Muslim subjegation. There was nevera time a Christian or a Jew has ever lived freely under Islamic rule. There were either slaves or Dhimmis. A Dhimmis has to pay tribute to his Muslim lord or else he is killed.
Abd where in the wrlddid you ever get the idea that Muslims gave anykindof women rights in the “Golden Age of Islam”. As they are today in most Islamic cultures, they are property of the husband and can notvewnture out without a shaperone, or even drive in most cultures. Not much in women’s rights there.
And do notgettheidea I am against all Muslims. There aremanyfineand good Muslims, the Sufis come to mind. They have changed with the times and do not believe in the 7th century mind set that the Islamo-Fascist such as the Salifists believe in.
Jul 31, 2008 - 11:37 am 5. Bruce:Sorry to have to generalize about the “Arab Muslim world” but its anger at the West is not because the West has for centuries dominated and ruled over much of the world and because they view domination and rule of others as inherently unjust…it’s simply because someone other than them (an inferior creed, in fact!)is doing the dominating and ruling.
Similarly, their hatred of Israel has nothing to do with Palestinians, but everything to do with the fact that multiple established Muslim (read: “superior”) armies were unable to annihilate a rag tag band of Jewish (read “inferior”) untrained fighters…and then were aboslutely decimated by the same Jews just 20 years later in full view of the world.
Indeed, the Muslim superiority complex, in light of their countries’ relative inability to cope well and prosper in the modern world, combined with the most humiliating losses at the hands of lowly JEWS, has morphed into an inferiority complex of monstrous proportions and pervasive affects. Their consistent blaming and responsibility avoidance, and knee jerk insultedness can easily be characterized as a “collective mental illness”….one that would almost be comical if it were not so dangerous)
Annihilation of Israel is one of the only ways they can see to gaining back any modicum of their imaginged former superiority. “Peace” with Israel will not placate their deep psychological needs.
On a lighter note:
Ms. Brink wrote: “I don’t know if the shaheeds get to have sex with 72 male virgins. Don’t tempt me.”
aTo which I say, even if you did, what would you do after the first half hour is over?
Jul 31, 2008 - 12:37 pm 6. tanstaafl:The female virgins in heaven re-hymenate (no, not re-hyphenate) overnight. It’s in the Koran or somewhere…Sunna/Hadiths.
So every day is a new beginning, so to speak !
I’m not sure what the fate is for girls who make it into Paradise. I think they get to wait on the men, or something. Kind of like life on the Earthly plane.
But consider the 15-year old Canadian Muslim boy picked up after lobbing a grenade at American troops in Afghanistan. He has been at Guantanamo for 5 years, so must be about 20 now. His (radical Muslim) father died in Afghanistan.
His mother was recently interviewed in Canada and spoke in detail of how the brothers (there are several, one is paralyzed and in a wheelchair) were brought up on the notion of meeting the virgins in Paradise. The mother told about how it was the topic of excited conversation in their household, as her sons were growing up.
Along the same lines, some repressed Saudi teenage boys were very eager to get to the battlefield in Iraq.
Mohammed, although he had no surviving natural sons, did not even recommend such horrible things for children’s minds.
Jul 31, 2008 - 1:38 pm 7. Emily Brink:Well, though your opinions are extreme, at least you are not calling me a Muslim or suicide bomber. I wish that Chesler would remove her inflammatory assessment of me and clear my name.
on a lighter note, after the first half hour with the virgins I would probably take a nap or walk around and see what heaven is all about. According to Dante and Milton its rather dull up there.
Jul 31, 2008 - 2:19 pm 8. Pam:I agree with Ms. Chesler that very often the women who blow themselves up are mentally ill or retarded. These people are easier to manipulate than people who are, even relatively speaking, mentally healthy.
You will note it that it is not the mullahs, princes, or military dictators who blow themselves and others up. Bin Laden himself does not strap a vest to his chest and send himself to kingdom come. No. It is others they manipulate into doing so. If these people really believed they were going to get 72 virgins in paradise, they would do it themselves. What they are doing is strictly political and nothing more. These people wrap themselves in Allah in the exact same way the Klan wrapped itself in Christianity. The Klan were also terrorists: a violent criminal gang with a political agenda.
There is nothing noble about a society that has done less than nothing to improve itself since the seventh century. The wealthy among them will utilize medical and technological advances, but note, please, that they have created none of them. Their thinking is so frozen and so backward they are simply incapable of it.
Fuzzy, romantic thinking about the Middle East is deadly. These people despise human life and would like to see an end to all of it. Their intention is to murder every single human being on this planet. Especially Christians and Jews.
Jul 31, 2008 - 4:09 pm 9. Ron Goodwyne:Pointing to “Christians” who bomb abortion clinics or to Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church is meaningless. Such people are an insignificant percentage of Christianity. You will not find a single group on Earth that doesn’t include a few crackpots. Islam, on the other hand, is characterized by radicalism. Such radicals are not anomalies, they are the norm because they are actually following what the Koran teaches. Therein lies the difference. While some Christians have selected isolated passages from the Bible and taken them to be the whole of Christian teaching, leading to abhorrent behavior, that is not and never has been the norm. The Bible and Christianity is not characterized by such teaching.
Emily is grasping at straws to justify a position rather than honestly analyze that position to see if it holds water. Her’s is a purely emotional position, not something she arrived at through honest, rational thought.
That’s the problem with so much of these discussions. They are emotionally charged which prevents many people from rationally engaging the conversation. Instead, they respond with kneejerk reactions which is the norm for emotional rather than rational response. Indeed, it is the difference between response and reaction.
Jul 31, 2008 - 4:20 pm 10. Emily Brink:“Emily is grasping at straws to justify a position rather than honestly analyze that position to see if it holds water. Her’s is a purely emotional position, not something she arrived at through honest, rational thought.”
On the contrary, much of my thought is influenced by what I learned in college, at the University of California no less. I studied Edward Said and other reputable scholars. I did my thesis on Algerian women in the literature of Assia Djebar. This is the last time I am going to post here, because not only are my comments being censored– I have posted a few times and found my posts erased– but I am being called names, such as a suicide bomber or a Muslim, which is backwards and reactionary. Chesler has not behaved like an intellectual, but like a right-wing despot.
Jul 31, 2008 - 5:30 pm 11. Pam:About Emily’s “reputable scholars:”
I learned at a very early age that anyone who hold himself up in a class room as a teacher, instructor, professor, scholar, or anything else needs to be questioned.
When I was six years old and in the first grade my teacher was telling the class about Thanksgiving. She told us that the “…very first permanent English speaking settlement in the New World was at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.” I knew that was simply not so. I had ancestors who were at the founding of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia in 1607. When I questioned her about this disparity, she became very angry and hostile.
Things that are said by “reputable scholars” in universities that are awash in political correctness should be studied and researched carefully and they should be held to account when they are incorrect. This is true whether they are simply mistaken or lying for whatever reason, including advancement of a political agenda. I strongly suspect that the Islamic Studies departments of most universities are so fearful of offending Muslims, but not Christians or Jews, that they will say nearly anything to advance a political agenda.
Jul 31, 2008 - 6:08 pm 12. Andrew Bostom:Ms. Brink, your being proud to have “studied” under the egregious Edward Said is hardly reassuring. Edward Said was a shallow, ignorant fraud in the realm of Middle East studies. To understand just how shallow, ignorant, and fraudulent read Ibn Warraq’s magisterial “Defending the West–A Critique of Edwad Said’s Orientalism.”
As to the myth of Andalusia–which I find further revealing in that you seem to actually believe it– read this:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2004/04/001665print.html
Andrew G. Bostom
Jul 31, 2008 - 6:10 pm 13. Ron Goodwyne:The University of California ought to raise red flags in itself. West coast schools are notorious for their leftist agendas. Any student not on his or her guard will find themselves indoctrinated and it appears that Emily has been a victim of that indoctrination.
Jul 31, 2008 - 7:39 pm 14. Louis Santacroce:First, I’m a born again Christian and I do not bomb or condone the bombing of abortion clinics, neither do I picket the funerals of murdered gays sporting a sign that read “God hates fags.” Moslems (yes, I mis-spell it for a reason: to show disrespect), on the other hand, kill women who have, and doctors who perform abortions, and publicly execute gays. They also attempt to present themselves as a cultured people in order to cover up the fact that they have no culture — at least no civilized one — whatsoever.
Second, I have known more than one person who could be described as mentally ill who could not, under any circumstances, be persuaded to commit an act of mayhem; but, I also know several who, with little prodding (coupled with the removal of their medications), could be persuaded that (a) God will reward them; (b) they can make up for something “bad” they have done; or (c) they can stop the voices in their head; or (d) get even with everyone who was ever mean to them; or (e) fill in the blank if they were to stap some explosives to their torsos, stroll into a supermarket, and…
Third, Ms. Brinks’ pride in having come by her irrational views as a result of her years in acadamia makes me glad that I went to college at a time when rational facts, rather than irrational white guilt was the order of the day.
How long does Ms. Brinks think she would last as a resident of an Islamic country?
Jul 31, 2008 - 8:31 pm 15. Chip:Emily Brink,
Seen any abortion clinic bombings since last millenium?
Meanwhile
Debating these issues with someone who only spouts the opening talking points is very tiresome and I try to avoid it these days.
But, everyone knows arranged marriages between first cousins is the norm in places like Saudia Arabia, Pakistan and surrounding environs. To be fair, India is a leader in arranged marriages, but not to first cousins.
I just went to search the subject and I typed “Arabs marry…” “Cousins” appeared as the first option before I could finish.
You should try research.
Jul 31, 2008 - 9:13 pm 16. Chip:The Golden Age of Spain was largely a creation of historians who were trying to make Christian leaders more tolerant by imagining a fictional Andalusia to compare favorably to the Christians.
So much for harmless lies.
Jul 31, 2008 - 9:18 pm 17. J.J. Sefton:The Golden Age of al Andalus, however Jews and Christians played a part, is irrelevent to TODAY.
At one billion strong, even the small minority of violent extremists adds up to tens of millions of people. The majority either actively or passively agree with them. The rest sadly suffer in silence, intimidated and afraid for their lives if they speak out, the occasional and rare Ayan Hirsi Ali notwithstanding.
What a world.
Aug 1, 2008 - 4:03 am 18. Godefroi:Wow…someone earned a comment from the esteemed Dr. Bostom. I’m truly impressed.
Thanks to all for the honesty here.
Drs. Chesler and Bostom - keep up the great and greatly-appreciated work.
~GdB
Aug 1, 2008 - 5:27 am 19. Sylvia Navon:I do not claim to be an expert on the world of Muslim women, but from the first, I wondered how the women who committed bombings had “fallen out” of the very conservative world into which they were born. Subsequently, their biographies began to emerge. Loss of “proper” status within their community seemed to have been the fate of several of these women. Considering, the control and rigidity of the social rules which govern their lives, their behavior would have been very unusual if they had not already been
Aug 1, 2008 - 6:36 am 20. tanstaafl:outside of the acceptable.
…what I learned in college, at the University of California no less (Emily)
It took me 20 years of hard work to undo my University of California brainwashing.
And it’s only gotten worse, a few years back I read of a Palestinian friendly course being set up at Berzerkley, uh, Berkeley, where the actual course description read something like…If you’re sympathetic to Israel, don’t enroll in this course.
This kind of phenomenon is, as far as I can tell, going on at more than a few US universities.
Good luck untangling your thinking, Emily.
Aug 1, 2008 - 7:30 am 21. J.J. Sefton:After reading Andrew Bostom’s link to dhimiiwatch, I take back what I said: the past is ABSOLUTELY RELEVANT to what happens today. Very embarrassed to have written such a dumb comment
consider me chastised
Aug 1, 2008 - 7:40 am 22. Howie:Islam’s golden age?
You mean when they butchered and destroyed India and Alexandria?
http://www.islam-watch.org/SujitDas/Holy-Islam-Illiteracy-Poverty-Backwardness.htm
Aug 1, 2008 - 10:51 am 23. Mary Madigan:Emily Brink asks: What about far-right Christians who bomb abortion clinics and say that ‘God hates fags”?
The Christians wo say that “God hates fags” are led by Fred PHelps. Phelps’ who is a Democrat. Phelps worked for Al Gore’s campaign, in part because he believed the Gore hated gays, because Gore opposed a “gay bill of rights” and stated that homosexuality was not something that “society should affirm”.
Most of the members of the small Westboro Baptist church are members of the same (Phelps) family. Phelps and his son hosted a Gore fundraiser, which Gore and his wife attended.
Aug 1, 2008 - 12:46 pm 24. massaraksh:The Golden Age of Islamic Civilization happened because Islam was weak & Muslims were a small, militarized minority surrounded by a sea of non-Muslim subjects, & Muslim rulers were concerned mainly with collecting taxes & waging wars with all of their neighbors. This allowed the free-thinking intellectuals to benefit from the Greco-Roman heritage & combine it with the scientific knowledge from India & China. Once Islam “matured”, the mullahs had smothered free inquiry, & the Islamic world has become an intellectual wasteland.
Egypt, Syria, & Mesopotamia were the cradle of the world civilization - there’s no need to explain what Islam has done to them.
Aug 3, 2008 - 12:25 pm