Sam Harris

Click: Schoolgirls blinded in acid attack in Afghanistan

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Bongobongo Smith - 13 November 2008 02:15 AM

Click: Schoolgirls blinded in acid attack in Afghanistan

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Me too, Bongo, I’ve done a lot of crying about it.  First we cry- then we get angry. By crying we might lay down and could get walked on. Get angry in a constructive way.  Become part of an objection that resonates around the world. There are times when passivity is shameful if not sinfull . We have a legitimate case against an abomination and a blight on the face of all humanity.

The big question that always comes up is :  is it radical Islam or Islam itself that we blame ?  We could look at it this way : What inspired “Radical ” Islamics ? It wasn’t the Boy Scouts . Also—to what extent does the Taliban deviate from Islam as it is meant to be ? People are always assuming that the Taliban is such a distortion of the “real” Islam that it isn’t fair to think of that organization as even a slight good example of what Islam really is.. I’ve heard some compare the Taliban of Afghanistan to the KKK of America.  I think that is a poor analogy myself.

Dee - 13 November 2008 06:40 AM

I’ve heard some compare the Taliban of Afghanistan to the KKK of America.  I think that is a poor analogy myself.

Dee, would you consider a comparison of the Taliban to the USA’s Christian fundamentalists in general a poor analogy?

I’m not trying to lay a trap for you here. I just think that our secular laws are often the only thing holding such fundamentalists (including the KKK) in check. I see such an analogy as fairly accurate.

If you haven’t already - let me suggest reading Kimberley Blaker’s Fundamentals of Extremism. The language used by fundies of various stripes and Islamic militants is nearly identical. However, Islamic culture often gives tacit support to such atrocities while any similar action in the U.S. would be considered horrific and unacceptable.

Dee - 13 November 2008 06:40 AM

Bongobongo Smith - 13 November 2008 02:15 AM

Click: Schoolgirls blinded in acid attack in Afghanistan

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Me too, Bongo, I’ve done a lot of crying about it.  First we cry- then we get angry. By crying we might lay down and could get walked on. Get angry in a constructive way.  Become part of an objection that resonates around the world. There are times when passivity is shameful if not sinfull . We have a legitimate case against an abomination and a blight on the face of all humanity.

 

The big question that always comes up is :  is it radical Islam or Islam itself that we blame ?  We could look at it this way : What inspired “Radical ” Islamics ? It wasn’t the Boy Scouts . Also—to what extent does the Taliban deviate from Islam as it is meant to be ? People are always assuming that the Taliban is such a distortion of the “real” Islam that it isn’t fair to think of that organization as even a slight good example of what Islam really is.. I’ve heard some compare the Taliban of Afghanistan to the KKK of America.  I think that is a poor analogy myself.

I think it’s both the culture in the region and the doctrine that are feeding off one another.  Obviously, not all Muslims take that attitude and almost certainly it does violate Islamic teachings.  I guess what was going on here was they don’t like the idea of girls going to school.

Afghanistan must be a strange country.
About a year ago we had a soldier on the forum writing about his experiences in that harsh country.
I think his name was Spencer.

It seems that Afghanistan is a brutal and difficult place to live in and that only a ruthless attitude allows people to eke out an meager existence in a place with so little fertile soil, every possible poisonous snake and spider you can wish for and an almost continuous history of occupation and war going back all the way to Alexander.

I can’t be sure about this but I often think that a brutal environment makes for brutal people.

Besides all that I wonder about the origins of the blatant misogyny and outright hatred towards women and girls in Islamic societies.

Since the simplest explanation is usually the best, I think it has a lot to do with the separation of the sexes.

Little boys ( the author included ) don’t understand girls at all and it takes a bit of school-yard piggy-tail pulling and playing doctor and all that to get a clue about how to interact with those mysterious females.

In Islam this is forbidden and I must be very mistaken if that isn’t where the problem starts.

Burkah’s and all the rest of this horrific sexist garbage are meant to take power away from women and a frustrated individual needs a weak out-group to terrorize and set loose his internal conflict.
No doubt a large part of this inner conflict is good-old backed-up semen.

Rape, under the Taliban, was a very common experience for the women in Afghanistan.

In a way the hatred towards women in Islam is like xenophobia: you can not love or value someone you fundamentally do not and will not understand.

It’s a damn epidemic in Bangladesh.

Sander - 13 November 2008 03:33 PM

Afghanistan must be a strange country.
About a year ago we had a soldier on the forum writing about his experiences in that harsh country.
I think his name was Spencer.

It seems that Afghanistan is a brutal and difficult place to live in and that only a ruthless attitude allows people to eke out an meager existence in a place with so little fertile soil, every possible poisonous snake and spider you can wish for and an almost continuous history of occupation and war going back all the way to Alexander.

I can’t be sure about this but I often think that a brutal environment makes for brutal people.

Besides all that I wonder about the origins of the blatant misogyny and outright hatred towards women and girls in Islamic societies.

Since the simplest explanation is usually the best, I think it has a lot to do with the separation of the sexes.

Little boys ( the author included ) don’t understand girls at all and it takes a bit of school-yard piggy-tail pulling and playing doctor and all that to get a clue about how to interact with those mysterious females.

In Islam this is forbidden and I must be very mistaken if that isn’t where the problem starts.

Burkah’s and all the rest of this horrific sexist garbage are meant to take power away from women and a frustrated individual needs a weak out-group to terrorize and set loose his internal conflict.
No doubt a large part of this inner conflict is good-old backed-up semen.

Rape, under the Taliban, was a very common experience for the women in Afghanistan.

In a way the hatred towards women in Islam is like xenophobia: you can not love or value someone you fundamentally do not and will not understand.

I’ve heard it said that when a person no longer has sex that person turns to religion . Maybe lack of sex is one good reason that the minds of Muslims are so infested with religion - they can’t have sex without being stigmatized as morally deprived and a lesser human being, or in the case of women, utterly outcast as a filthy whore , and may get set on fire by her own family because she is considered so shameful.

Think about how ridiculous it is :  young people when their hormones have come alive and turn into a real nagging,sometimes painful desire to do the natural thing and get together with the opposite sex , and in the Muslim life, the sexes are FORBIDDEN to be with each other ! How crazy !  A young woman can get accused of commiting adultry even if she shakes hands with a guy . 

As I see it, those young men are turned into drones and all thier natural urge turns into an exploding religious passion. ..(and that can become a suicide explosion perhaps . )Women are nixed so the men feel fixed . Women are kicked out so Islam kicks in .

Think about it : Young men and women can’t do the natural thing, and get together ! They must feel outraged—and it all comes out in a furious desire to kill———or pray.

How can they worship Allah when he is so cruel ? Honestly- Islam has to be wrong for both a man or a woman .

bigredfutbol - 13 November 2008 07:40 PM

It’s a damn epidemic in Bangladesh.

What do you have in mind, bigred ? I should know but I admit I have not been tuned into Bangladesh lately .

Sickening.

I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but every Afghani I’ve known in the US and UK has been kind, hospitable, amiable, and honest. However, and this is important, I have never met an Afghani fundamentalist, even at the mosques or halal shops. It seems that the fundamentalists who run the country are so extreme they’ve scared away even the conservative Muslims.

Anyway, the act in question does violate the letter of Islamic law, most certainly. Just as the Jewish fanatics who have been throwing bleach/acid/rocks at women in East Jerusalem are violating several of the 613 injunctions that they theoretically live their lives by. The problem is not that the text does not say “don’t throw acid on women”, the problem is that such absolute faith is put in religion that people put the address of imaginary affronts to god over the true good of being compassionate to others.

Okay, so it violates Islamic law, then.
Perhaps it therefore is something good in the act after all, since a system of law fully endorsing that adult males stick their dicks into 9-year olds is a thoroughly VILE law.

From the article:

Kandahar government spokesman Parwaz Ayoubi…  called the attackers “enemies of education.”

NIce downplay by ole Parwaz there. Enemies of education? More like enemies of women seeking education, and to make it easier for the “enemies” to spot their targets:

... schoolgirls in Kandahar can be recognized by their uniform of black pants, white shirt, black coat and head scarf.

If the gov. in Kandahar honestly wanted to do something about troglodytic thugs like this that always seem to get away, they would put an end to the segregation of the sexes in classrooms.

Sander: Besides all that I wonder about the origins of the blatant misogyny and outright hatred towards women and girls in Islamic societies.

Methinks you know Sander, what the origins of this blatant misogyny are, and not just in islamic societies; vestiges of misogyny are alive and well in so-called free societies as well. The effects of the Big Three’s ancient texts and teachings helped to create the monster with their scripturally dogmatic assertions that “woman” is the lesser/the weaker of god’s creations.

Just a thought, but maybe ancient men inscribed their insipid notions of women in order to maintain a false sense of superiority over that which they feared the most: women. (Because women are pretty scary you know. We bleed once a month and don’t die and we bring forth offspring… it appears that women are the creators of life. That must have been a hard pill for ancient hebrew men, the inventors of this monogod, to swallow. SO what do they do? Flex their mighty muscles and flap their lips declaring god, an almighty man,  the ultimate creator who made women as an afterthought, to serve at the pleasure of his finest creation, the male image of himself, man.

How often have we seen the brutal philosophy of oppress that which you fear the most play out in history?

S-man: Since the simplest explanation is usually the best, I think it has a lot to do with the separation of the sexes.

I think you’ve slapped the pancake on the head of the rabbit, mate. Segregating and separating the perceived other serves only to further misunderstanding and false impressions. The perpetrators of this crime against these young women were taught that it was good in allah’s eyes to malign, oppress, suppress, disenfranchise, disfigure, and disempower females. 

I don’t think it’s not so much that they don’t understand women as it is that they believe that they do; and the islamic understanding is that women are to serve the pleasures of men and they need to be controlled because they “understand” that they are superior by the mere fact that they have external genitalia hanging between their legs. It seems to this individual of the “fairer sex” that misogyny is sexism gone awry.

Sander:Little boys ( the author included ) don’t understand girls at all and it takes a bit of school-yard piggy-tail pulling and playing doctor and all that to get a clue about how to interact with those mysterious females.

You have a point Sander, but females really aren’t that mysterious. Generally speaking, females simply want to be treated as subjects and not simply sex objects or a vessel for the male protuberance. And now for a sweeping generalization: It’s nothing that mutual respect and mutual appreciation of the similarities and minor differences between the sexes/genders can’t fix.

I wish we could fly all of the women out of Kandahar…

Dee - 15 November 2008 06:47 AM

bigredfutbol - 13 November 2008 07:40 PM

It’s a damn epidemic in Bangladesh.

What do you have in mind, bigred ? I should know but I admit I have not been tuned into Bangladesh lately .

There are literally hundreds of acid attacks in Bangladesh every year, even though the government seems to be cracking down recently.

They mostly target women, although men and even children have been targeted as well—it’s hard to even grasp, but there is actually a recent case where someone fed acid to a one-month old boy.  I cannot fathom that kind of evil.

One woman was targeted because she refused the sexual advances of a man, so he broke into her house and poured acid all over her.  Amazingly, this woman was already married, so I can’t even wrap my head around how the sadistic little creep justified his actions in his twisted little mind.

bigredfutbol - 17 November 2008 06:07 PM

One woman was targeted because she refused the sexual advances of a man, so he broke into her house and poured acid all over her.  Amazingly, this woman was already married, so I can’t even wrap my head around how the sadistic little creep justified his actions in his twisted little mind.

To quote a friend of mine with first-hand experience:

The males especially are raised to never take blame for any bad thing they do. It is always somebody else’s fault.

bigredfutbol - 17 November 2008 06:07 PM

Dee - 15 November 2008 06:47 AM

bigredfutbol - 13 November 2008 07:40 PM

It’s a damn epidemic in Bangladesh.

What do you have in mind, bigred ? I should know but I admit I have not been tuned into Bangladesh lately .

There are literally hundreds of acid attacks in Bangladesh every year, even though the government seems to be cracking down recently.

They mostly target women, although men and even children have been targeted as well—it’s hard to even grasp, but there is actually a recent case where someone fed acid to a one-month old boy.  I cannot fathom that kind of evil.

One woman was targeted because she refused the sexual advances of a man, so he broke into her house and poured acid all over her.  Amazingly, this woman was already married, so I can’t even wrap my head around how the sadistic little creep justified his actions in his twisted little mind.

Grown to be that bad in Bangladesh huh ?  Radical Islamism—it has made it’s way into so many countries-, and seems to leave bloody footprints everywhere it goes, so to speak . The acid idea is especially brutal; it not only pains, but it mutilates..it’s a monstrous act of sheer meanness and ruthlessness. Where will it “catch on ” next ?  These acts are painful to me also; I feel awful that I can do nothing to help. All these things are hard to forget.

The perps caught and to be publicly executed!  Rough justice over there.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/25/2429539.htm