Why infidelity is essential
I’m reading Infidel. I’m going to have to treat you to some samples.
This one is on p. 94. She’s been taking classes at school with a very strict Muslim teacher (though one who urges the children to think, rather than merely shouting dogma at them). She has noted that ‘Something inside me always resisted the moral values behind Sister Aziza’s lectures: a small spark of independence.’ She was troubled by the gap between the demands of the Holy Writings and the reality of daily life; she had asked how a just God could want women to be treated so unfairly; she had noted that she continued to read novels.
A Muslim woman must not feel wild, or free, or any of the other emotions and longings I felt when I read those books. A Muslim girl does not make her own decisions or seek control. She is trained to be docile. If you are a Muslim girl, you disappear, until there is almost no you inside you. In Islam, becoming an indivuidual is not a necessary development; many people, especially women, never develop a clear individual will. You submit: that is the literal meaning of the word islam: submission. The goal is to become quiet inside, so that you never raise your eyes, not even inside your mind.
Devastating final sentence, don’t you think?
So you spend the first half of eternity in a kind of state of, well, nothingness, then you get this rather fleeting break during which you get to go out and smoke a fag, have a cup of coffee, and generally chill out for a bit. And then it’s back in for the second half of eternity, which I hear, can go on a bit.
You’d really want to max out that break wouldn’t you? I mean, if you wasted it being servile and dominated, it would be kind of unfortunate, ridiculous really, especially given what you’ve come from and what you’re going back to.
Phew. It’s enough to make you religious and to believe in an afterlife.
Oh, hang on…
It is somewhat like a carbon copy appraisal of my own Goldenbridge life with the Sisters’ of Mercy. The philosophy, accepted thinking, beliefs, attitudes the submissions. The continuously having to become imperceptible./undetectable. The apology one had to feel for purely breathing, the incessant constriction, in feeling free. The guiltiness one felt at being alive. The daily lowering of the head in prayer. The hiding of ones features, particularly the eyes. All too many reminders are evident Hirsi was lucky that she could read novels. That was her blessing in disguise.
Enjoy Infidel OB. Am looking forward to reading same.
G. I have to wonder whether General Lee would have surrendered his sword at Appotomax and put his trust in his fellow Americans if he knew that the defeated southeners would be labeled facist or racist by so many of their fellow Americans!
The novels she is reading – what are they? Little Women or Pride & Prejudice or Jane Eyre or their equivalent?
Richard,
Surrendering his sword, how evocative. He got beat, of course he surrendered. Obviously, Lee would not have known what fascism was, that’s just standard Tingey-talk.
But racist? Did the south have a reputation for institutionalised and widespread racism between the civil war and the late twentieth century? How on earth could that have come about?
Answers on no more than 300 pages of A4…
ISLAMIC ETIQUETTEISLAMIC ETIQUETTE.
“When you participate in an Islamic event in America, the following guidelines…
As a Muslim woman, you are a role model for our youth.
http://www.icbh.org/topics/
I somehow do not think Hirsi Ali will make herself available to give tips!
Don Many of Lees oficers urged him to continue the fight by other means, he chose surrender mainly because he thought he could trust his oponents to deal fairly with the south,reconstruction ect proved him wrong,I just think it sad that people even expert historians like Tingey always catagorise the south as either racist or facist,the apalling abuse of black people was common throughout the U.S. and not just the south.
Richard,
ummm…having a fine library of US Civil War material here at home [American wife ya see :-) ], I heartily concur with Don that Lee knew he was beaten. Of course there were large groups of confederates who never accepted the surrender, but Lee was no idiot – he could see the condition of his army, the shrinking resources available to them, and the pointlessness of further suffering. Remember, he was no Lincoln-hating, fanatic – he only went with the South when Virginia finally seceded. If Virginia had gone the other way, he’d have been working FOR Lincoln, and the Civil War would most likely have been a damn site shorter!
And while you’re right that the US has a fairly universally poor record when it comes to the various peoples whose skin tones don’t exactly match this page, there’s no question that the worst, systematic abuses against the black population took place in the South. The “legal slavery” of sharecroppers? Segregation? Gov. George Wallace? over 200 black churches & homes being subjected to bomb attacks between 1948-65 in the “Deep South”?
Of course there are racists everywhere, and folk who’ll see it where none exists (did someone mention Al Sharpton..???), but the evidence is pretty damning.
If you haven’t read it, highly recommend “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” (by Frederick Douglass).
Oh, god, Richard, not Reconstruction…
Have you read Eric Foner’s history of Reconstruction? Or David Oshinsky’s Worse Than Slavery?
I really really really don’t want a defender of the Old South commenting here. There’s a limit to what I can stand.
Richard,
I used to be a bit of a civil war buff myself, for reasons to tedious to go into. For what it’s worth, I’ve always seen Lee as a decent and honourable commander, albeit flawed, and no more racist than Lincoln. Of course he wasn’t going to sanction guerrilla warfare. Against Grant? It would have made the Balkans look like a picnic.
But the adoption of ‘the Marble Man’ as an icon of Southern honour? What has that to do with reality?
In a world unconcerned by casual racism, the southern states became a by-word for very good reasons. Even racists were uncomfortable with what passed for normal in the south.
Other than Nazi Germany, I can’t think of another modern democracy that applied de jure and de facto racism to the extent that it permeated every aspect of life. It was the defining characteristic.
Normally, I’d get specific and provide links, but I think it’s time you started doing your own research.
On the plus side, ‘… even expert historians like Tingey …’ at least you’re getting the hang of understated irony.
“Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People? Islamist Ideology” <> Log onto.
Because women, girls and children [all of whom are the weaker species] do not succumb to the wishes of Muslim men.
To stay alive one must for a whole lifetime submit to them without question. One must die to the self in order to bodily stay alive.
“We are all” those poor innocents, who, in article are mentioned.
Where does this idea of monolithic Islam come from? There appears to be a view here that Islam is some homogeneous mass. All of one mind, religiously and politically.
Makes the place smell of straw.
What a bunch of balderdash, “DFG.” There is no religious culture that is a monolithic mass, and nobopdy here is claiming such. This discussion is very specifically tied to a very specific book.
Sure, as such discussion do,there is a bit of generalization going on. But, rejecting reductionism doesn’t mean one can never discuss in generalities at all-especially when such generalities do reflect certain unpleasant realities. Look at the trends. They are not universal, not occurring at the same pace, but name one dominantly Muslim nation that is becoming more liberal, more open, less “pure. I think the smell of straw is from your own room.
Sadly, the growth of religion is not limited to the Muslim world, of course. Look at the churches gaining membership in the US and the nasty trends in Britain. But, per your view, we cannot discuss these trends because that is generalizing. Pox.
The smell of straw is not coming from the aftermath of a fresh harvest. Nope, Siree, it is coming indeed from the residue of the effigy burning DFG Rage-boy.
What a whole load of poppycock. You are so utterly boring.
Besides, homogeneous goods – like yourself DFG do not vary in essential characteristics irrespective of the source of supply.
Well, take it up with Hirsi Ali, DFG. Of course, she may have a more informed view of Islam than you do, given that she grew up in Somalia and Saudi Arabia and was strongly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood in adolescence. But by all means set her straight.