Infidel: Wimpy Misogynism

The reason the new, pure Islam of the Muslim Brothehood requires absolute separation of men and women, and hiding women in the anonymous hijab? The men are scared of the women!

From Infidel:

As women, we were immensely powerful, Sister Aziza explained. The way Allah had created us, our hair, our nails, our heels, our neck, and ankles - every little curve in our body was arousing. If a woman aroused a man who was not her husband, she was sinning doubly in God's eyes, by leading the man into temptation and evil thoughts to match her own. Only the robe worn by the wives of the Prophet could prevent us from arousing men and leading society into fitna, uncontrollable confusion and social chaos.

The woman's form created to be arousing to a man? Check.
Deliberately leading men into temptation is sin? With you so far.
Wearing the hijab and social chaos are mutually exclusive? Whoa! Stop right there!

Women are so powerful that they must be covered up, and men are so weak that they can't be trusted to be responsible for their thoughts and actions. Going to this extreme is an easy way for men to avoid the nuisance of personal morality and responsibility. That said, I'm not sure the pendulum hasn't swung too far the other way in the Western world.

Redefining the Family?

Front page news in the Globe and Mail this morning: Canadians Redefining the Family. The article of course, reported some of the statistics from the latest Canadian census. Special attention was paid to the falling rates of married couples, young women with kids, number of kids per family, etc.

The family being the basic unit of society and civilization, it is proper to be concerned with its health and status. But the Globe and Mail's primary interest isn't how the size of families or the number of single-parent families have changed. It deliberately ties the phrase "redefining the family" to stats on same-sex "marriages" and couples. It wants its readers to consider a same-sex couple a family. The Globe and Mail wants you to know that the debate is over, and you might as well shut up and get used to it. Same-sex "families" are here to stay.

Here follows the first paragraph under the headline of a similar story on the Globe and Mail website:

The redefinition of family continues apace in Canada, with the latest household figures from the 2006 census showing a significant increase in the number of same-sex couples and a first-ever count of same-sex marriages.

Four of the article's first five paragraphs are about same-sex couples. For the Globe and Mail, this is the most important aspect of the census.

A family is a family, and regardless of what Canadians do, they cannot change its definition. But the Globe and Mail is trying anyway, by implicitly and explicitly equating same-sex households with families. And it just can't resist shilling for them at every little opportunity.

Infidel: African Political Systems in the 70s

I'm doing a second reading of Infidel, Hirsi Ali's memoir.

Largely due to her father's involvement in the resistance against the Somali leader Siad Barré, Hirsi Ali was moved from country to country. She was born in Somalia, lived in Mecca and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, and then briefly in Ethiopia before moving to Kenya.

Right before she discusses the move to Kenya, she offers this gem of a reflection on the political systems she had lived under:

That is how, by the time I turned ten, I had lived through three different political systems, all of them failures. The police state in Mogadishu rationed people into hunger and bombed them into obedience. Islamic law in Saudi Arabia treated half its citizens like animals, with no rights or recourse, disposing of women without regard. And the old Somali rule of the clan, which saved you when you needed refuge, so easily broke down into suspicion, conspiracy, and revenge. (p.60)

No wonder she can not subscribe to the PC relativist notion that all civilizations and political systems are equal.

A Musical Interlude

Apparently I am late in jumping onto the McKee YouTube bandwagon, but better late than never. Use the menu in the YouTube viewer to see a lot of other cool songs. Presenting finger-picking virtuoso Andy McKee.

The Phobia Fallacy

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is outspoken against abuses in the Islamic world. The most obvious of these are abuse against women, adulterers, and of course, homosexuals. So she often comes to their defense. This is good. We cannot consent to the killing of homosexuals for being homosexual. But this should also not preclude vigorous debate about homosexuality.

In the interview discussed earlier, Hirsi Ali rejects the term Islamophobia because Islam is not an inherent trait, as race and sex are, for instance. Critiquing an idea or practice is not necessarily an act of phobia. (Even hatred of an idea or practice is not de facto phobia.) This is a sound argument. The term Islamophobia is very new, created and used deliberately to shut down critical debate about Islam by putting it on the same level as racism. Redefining the debate is a favourite tactic for those who don't have the facts on their side.

Those who created the term Islamophobia were merely copying those who created the term homophobia. This term, while older, is still a relatively young term, created for the very same reasons, with great success. It makes the assumption that homosexuality is an inherent trait, and therefore is off-limits for critical debate. Homosexual activists have been quick to label detractors racists. The problem is that they do so with impunity, even though it is absurd to equate inclinations or behaviour with race.

So we hear Hirsi Ali making the same error with regard to homophobia as she is refuting in regard to Islamophobia. To her credit, the error is not due to obviously faulty logic, but to a false premise. Her logic is sound; if homosexuality is an innate trait, determined by one's genes, then sexual orientation could legitimately be considered to be on the same plane as sex and race. It is her premise regarding sexual orientation - "It's something you can't do anything about" - that is fallacious. Homosexuals are not born that way. There is no gay gene. Thus homophobia joins Islamophobia in the dictionary of deceptive nonentities, and we should strive for vigorous debate about the health and effects of both Islamic society and homosexual behaviour.

The Qur'an

One of the main themes in Infidel is Hirsi Ali's struggle to distinguish between Islamic practice and what it actually says in the Qur'an (or Koran), the holy book of Islam. Her conclusion is that some of the worst abuses she witnessed and underwent had legitimate basis in the Qur'an.

I've been following a series on Hot Air called Blogging the Qur'an, by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. It details what is actually written in the Qur'an, as well as how certain passages are interpreted and practiced. Well worth the read.

Infidel

I'm currently reading Infidel, a book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In a nutshell, she was born a Somali Muslim, fled to the Netherlands, and became an MP in Dutch parliament. Currently, she is living under guard in the US due to death threats. All this because she dares to tackle the tough issues of Muslim assimilation (or lack thereof) and the plight of Muslim women.

I hope to interact with several parts of this book in the near future. As a primer, check out this video I first saw at Little Green Footballs, one of my favourite blogs.


The video gives an idea of Hirsi Ali's quiet, confident disposition. It's easier to be that way when you have the facts on your side. A lesson in contrast is Avi Lewis, who needs to be loud and obnoxious to get his point across. To be clear, Lewis is Canadian, as I am. This interview - if it can be called that - is from the CBC, the Canadian equivalent of the BBC. Lewis more directly states his views than most CBC journalists - and Canadian journalists, for that matter - but he says what most of them are thinking.

It's worth hearing twice, and it's too easy to demolish Lewis's objections, especially since Hirsi Ali does it first. But here's a good analysis from Dennis Prager: Part 1 | Part 2




As with Infidel, I take issue with some of things she says, and I'll tackle those later.