Ibn Rawandi review of Why I am Not Muslim
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 04, 2014 12:56AM
[infidels.org]
Review of "Why I Am Not a Muslim"
Ibn al-Rawandi
[This review was originally published in the New Humanist, Bradlaugh House, 47 Theobald's Road, London, England WC1X 8SP. Reproduced with permission.]
In one of his early works the traditionalist writer Frithjof Schuon makes an acute observation about the mentality of Muslims:
`The intellectual - and thereby the rational - foundation of Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslim's powers of imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the irresistible logic of things'. (Stations of Wisdom by Frithof Schuon).
How true this is will strike anyone who has tried to have a rational discussion on religion with a Muslim born of Muslim parents and raise d in a Muslim culture.
However, that this situation does admit exceptions is proved by the author of the book under review. Ibn Warraq was born into a Muslim family and grew up in a country that now describes itself as an Islamic republic. His earliest memories are of his circumcision and first day at Quran school, and his family still consider themselves Muslims... who believes that: `all religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious'.
"Given such views, arrived at against such odds and expressed at such risk, the pusillanimous attitude of many Western intellectuals to the Rushdie affair is described with scorn:
"The most infuriating and nauseating aspect of the Rushdie affair was the spate of articles and books written by Western apologists for Islam - journalists, scholars, fellow travellers, converts (some from communism) - who claimed to be speaking for Muslims. This is surely condescension of the worst kind, and it is untrue. Many courageous individuals from the Muslim world supported and continue to support Rushdie.
"For Ibn Warraq support for Rushdie has to be seen as part of a larger war against the rise of `fundamentalist` Islam:
"For those who regret not being alive in the 1930s to be able to show their commitment to a cause, there is, first, the Rushdie affair, and, second, the war that is taking place in Algeria, the Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, a war whose principal victims are Muslims, Muslim women, Muslim intellectuals, writers, ordinary decent people. This book is part of my war effort.
"Considering the number of Muslims now resident in Western countries this is a war towards which no one, who values critical thought, free speech and democracy, can afford to be indifferent.
"This is not simply a matter of `the demonisation of Islam', but of simply and honestly looking facts in the face, something that Muslims and their supporters are notoriously incapable of doing. It can be predicted now that the main response of the Muslim community to this book will be to shout `Apostate', accuse the author of every kind of moral degeneracy, and leave the facts and arguments he adduces completely unaddressed.
"These facts and arguments concern the wholly human origin of the Quran, the wholly tendentious and invented character of the hadith, the sexually-obsessed and anti-feminine nature of the sharia, the Arab empire spread by the sword and maintained by terror, the persecution of religious and intellectual minorities in that empire in the name of Islam, the incapacity of Muslims for any kind of critical or self-critical thought, and the abject intellectual and moral poverty of Islam compared to the modern secular West.
The amazing thing is that it has taken so long for such a book to appear and that it has been left to a non-Westerner to write it, since the material for its assembly has been around for anything up to a century. The mealy-mouthed and apologetic character of so much Western scholarship on Islam springs from the fact that many of these scholars, were, and are, believers, albeit in the rival creed of Christianity. While they might be willing to show Muhammad in a poor light compared to Jesus, they were not keen to press the non-historical and non-divine arguments too far, since they realised that such arguments could just as well be used against their own cherished beliefs. They preferred a complicity of intellectual dishonesty with the Muslims in the face of an increasingly skeptical and secular environment.
Perhaps the most important thing demonstrated by Ibn Warraq is that Islam is fundamentalist by nature, and not by some peculiar and aberrant recent development. All Muslims, not just the fanatics, believe that every word of the Quran is quite literally the word of God, absolutely and unquestionably true for all times, places, and people, and practically the same goes for the hadith and the sharia. Anyone who wishes to argue that the fanatics' interpretation of these elements is wrong and that a far more `liberal' interpretation can be made and that that is the real Islam, have really only their own tastes and inclinations to support them. There is no Pope in Islam, nor any Councils with authority to impose a Creed. The fanatic who thinks that all unbelievers should be killed has just as much authority as the Sufi who thinks that all religions are true and that even atheists go to heaven. Both parties could adduce Quranic texts and hadith to support their positions, and both would be drawing, in their own minds, upon the immutable word of God. As Ibn Warraq observes: `Even if we concede that Muslim conservatives have interpreted the sharia in their own way, what gives us the right to say that their interpretation is the inauthentic one and that of the liberal Muslims, authentic? Who is going to decide what is authentic Islam?'
With regard to so-called liberal Islam this manifests in the West chiefly in the form of `Sufism or Islamic Mysticism'. the title of Chapter 12. Unfortunately, this is the shortest chapter in the book, a mere six pages, and has the appearance of an afterthought, since Sufism is only really dealt with in the first two pages and there inadequately. This is unfortunate because Sufism has been taken up by many Western intellectuals for whom real Islam is Sufism, and real Sufism is the Sufism of Ibn Arabi.
(Corboy Many of these Westerners were and are drawn to Sufism via the writings of Guenon and Schuon. Guenon was influenced by Agueli, a Swedish artist who converted to Islam and then Sufism and who focused on the writings of Ibn Arabi. It was via the Agueli/Guenon friendship and Schuon's tutelage under Guenon that led Ibn Arabi being considered *the* most important Sufi author for most Western converts. Mark Sedgwick, in his book Against the Modern world, noted that for Sufis Ibn Arabi is one of many honored authors; but it is among Traditionalist converts to Islam and Sufism that Ibn Arabi is not merely important but supremely important. To use a very crude analogy, it would be a bit like advising students of Elizabethan drama to focus solely on Christopher Marlowe, while making it seem that Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, are not quite as important.
"This is in fact a ludicrous position, since it amounts to saying that real Islam is a minority view within a minority view, a view, moreover, that for most of the history of Islam (Sufism)has been suspected of heresy. What is needed with regard to Sufism is an in-depth critique of the metaphysics of Ibn Arabi as expounded in the works of such contemporary scholars as William Chittick and Michel Chodkiewicz, together with a sociological survey of the circus that surrounds such contemporary Sufis as Sheikh Nazim al-Qubrusi; but that would amount to another book.
(Corboy Sheikh Nazim leads a group of Naqshibandis which have a large presence but treat the Sheikh with idolatry. )
"Another important achievement of Ibn Warraq is that he explodes the myth of Islamic tolerance, a myth largely invented by Jews and Western freethinkers as a stick with which to beat the Catholic Church. Islam was never a religion of tolerance and it is not tolerant by nature. Despite the way the apologists would like to depict it, Islam was spread by the sword and has been maintained by the sword throughout its history, not to mention the scourge and the cross.
(Corboy-True. In his book, Infidels, Andrew Wheatcroft demonstrates that the supposed tolerance "la convivencia" of Islamic Andalusia was not a matter of solid principle but was fragile, based on avoidance of anything that could give offense. As Corboy would phrase it, this kind of 'tolerance' is like saying dry tinder is non flammable as long as one never, under any circumstances drops a spark.)
"In truth it was the Arab empire that was spread by the sword and it is as an Arab empire that Islam is maintained to this day in the form of a religion largely invented to hold that empire together and subdue native populations. An unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God's will. Religious minorities were always second-class citizens in this empire and were only tolerated on sufferance and in abject deference to their Arab/Muslim masters; for polytheists and unbelievers there was no tolerance at all, it was conversion or death.
"These repulsive characteristics are written into the Quran, the hadith and the sharia, and are an ineradicable feature of the religion. There is no way that Islam can reform itself and remain Islam, no way it can ever be made compatible with pluralism, free speech, critical thought and democracy. Anyone convinced they already possess the truth have no need for such things.
"Although Muslims resident in non-Muslim countries clamour for every kind of indulgence for their own beliefs and customs, there can be no doubt that given any kind of power they would impose their own beliefs and eliminate all difference. In short, as Ibn Warraq describes it in his Dedication, Islam is religious fascism, and it is only a feeble-minded political correctness that prevents it from being recognised as such.
"Finally, we should note two further important points made by Ibn Warraq. First, that Islam never really encouraged science, if by science we mean `disinterested enquiry'. What Islam always meant by ' knowledge' was religious knowledge, anything else was deemed dangerous to the faith. All the real science that occurred under Islam occurred despite the religion not because of it. Second, how indebted the Muslim world has always been to the West, not only to the Greeks in the beginning, but particularly in modern times in knowledge of its own intellectual and cultural history.
These unpalatable, half realised home truths are manifest in the contemporary Muslim world in the form of a massive resentment and inferiority complex:
It is a depressing fact that during the Gulf War almost every single Muslim and Arab intellectual sympathized with Saddam Hussein, because, we are told, `he stood up to the West'. In this explanation is summed up all sense of Islamic failure, and feelings of inferiority vis-a-vis the West. The Muslim world must be in a dire way if it sees hope in a tyrant who has murdered literally thousands of his own countrymen.
Indeed, and a Westerner can hardly imagine the courage it must take for Ibn Warraq to say as much.
The problem with a book such as this is that it will most likely never reach those most in need of it. That is to say young people in general and young Muslims in particular, those whose minds have not already been closed by fanaticism.
How many libraries will stock it, or dare to stock it if they knew its contents?
A hardback at over twenty pounds, published by an American publisher, is not likely to find its way on to high-street* book shelves alongside all those uncritical, paperback apologies for Islam that seem to be appearing in ever increasing numbers. What is needed is more books like Ibn Warraq's, published by British publishers, at reasonable prices and with good distribution. But dare they do it?
(High Street is the UK equivalent of "Main Street")
A minor fault that could be corrected in future editions is that several important books and authors mentioned in text and notes fail to appear in the bibliography.
Note: on 'La convivencia' more here
The Popular Myth of Convivencia | Web Exclusives | First ThingsThe popular myth of convivencia ”the idyllic coexistence between Muslims,
Christians, and Jews in Spain from the Muslim invasion of a.d. 711 to the
expulsions ...
www.firstthings.com/web.../2010/.../the-popular-myth-of-convivencia - 37k - Cached - Similar pages
Review of "Why I Am Not a Muslim"
Ibn al-Rawandi
[This review was originally published in the New Humanist, Bradlaugh House, 47 Theobald's Road, London, England WC1X 8SP. Reproduced with permission.]
In one of his early works the traditionalist writer Frithjof Schuon makes an acute observation about the mentality of Muslims:
`The intellectual - and thereby the rational - foundation of Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslim's powers of imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the irresistible logic of things'. (Stations of Wisdom by Frithof Schuon).
How true this is will strike anyone who has tried to have a rational discussion on religion with a Muslim born of Muslim parents and raise d in a Muslim culture.
However, that this situation does admit exceptions is proved by the author of the book under review. Ibn Warraq was born into a Muslim family and grew up in a country that now describes itself as an Islamic republic. His earliest memories are of his circumcision and first day at Quran school, and his family still consider themselves Muslims... who believes that: `all religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious'.
"Given such views, arrived at against such odds and expressed at such risk, the pusillanimous attitude of many Western intellectuals to the Rushdie affair is described with scorn:
"The most infuriating and nauseating aspect of the Rushdie affair was the spate of articles and books written by Western apologists for Islam - journalists, scholars, fellow travellers, converts (some from communism) - who claimed to be speaking for Muslims. This is surely condescension of the worst kind, and it is untrue. Many courageous individuals from the Muslim world supported and continue to support Rushdie.
"For Ibn Warraq support for Rushdie has to be seen as part of a larger war against the rise of `fundamentalist` Islam:
"For those who regret not being alive in the 1930s to be able to show their commitment to a cause, there is, first, the Rushdie affair, and, second, the war that is taking place in Algeria, the Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, a war whose principal victims are Muslims, Muslim women, Muslim intellectuals, writers, ordinary decent people. This book is part of my war effort.
"Considering the number of Muslims now resident in Western countries this is a war towards which no one, who values critical thought, free speech and democracy, can afford to be indifferent.
"This is not simply a matter of `the demonisation of Islam', but of simply and honestly looking facts in the face, something that Muslims and their supporters are notoriously incapable of doing. It can be predicted now that the main response of the Muslim community to this book will be to shout `Apostate', accuse the author of every kind of moral degeneracy, and leave the facts and arguments he adduces completely unaddressed.
"These facts and arguments concern the wholly human origin of the Quran, the wholly tendentious and invented character of the hadith, the sexually-obsessed and anti-feminine nature of the sharia, the Arab empire spread by the sword and maintained by terror, the persecution of religious and intellectual minorities in that empire in the name of Islam, the incapacity of Muslims for any kind of critical or self-critical thought, and the abject intellectual and moral poverty of Islam compared to the modern secular West.
The amazing thing is that it has taken so long for such a book to appear and that it has been left to a non-Westerner to write it, since the material for its assembly has been around for anything up to a century. The mealy-mouthed and apologetic character of so much Western scholarship on Islam springs from the fact that many of these scholars, were, and are, believers, albeit in the rival creed of Christianity. While they might be willing to show Muhammad in a poor light compared to Jesus, they were not keen to press the non-historical and non-divine arguments too far, since they realised that such arguments could just as well be used against their own cherished beliefs. They preferred a complicity of intellectual dishonesty with the Muslims in the face of an increasingly skeptical and secular environment.
Perhaps the most important thing demonstrated by Ibn Warraq is that Islam is fundamentalist by nature, and not by some peculiar and aberrant recent development. All Muslims, not just the fanatics, believe that every word of the Quran is quite literally the word of God, absolutely and unquestionably true for all times, places, and people, and practically the same goes for the hadith and the sharia. Anyone who wishes to argue that the fanatics' interpretation of these elements is wrong and that a far more `liberal' interpretation can be made and that that is the real Islam, have really only their own tastes and inclinations to support them. There is no Pope in Islam, nor any Councils with authority to impose a Creed. The fanatic who thinks that all unbelievers should be killed has just as much authority as the Sufi who thinks that all religions are true and that even atheists go to heaven. Both parties could adduce Quranic texts and hadith to support their positions, and both would be drawing, in their own minds, upon the immutable word of God. As Ibn Warraq observes: `Even if we concede that Muslim conservatives have interpreted the sharia in their own way, what gives us the right to say that their interpretation is the inauthentic one and that of the liberal Muslims, authentic? Who is going to decide what is authentic Islam?'
With regard to so-called liberal Islam this manifests in the West chiefly in the form of `Sufism or Islamic Mysticism'. the title of Chapter 12. Unfortunately, this is the shortest chapter in the book, a mere six pages, and has the appearance of an afterthought, since Sufism is only really dealt with in the first two pages and there inadequately. This is unfortunate because Sufism has been taken up by many Western intellectuals for whom real Islam is Sufism, and real Sufism is the Sufism of Ibn Arabi.
(Corboy Many of these Westerners were and are drawn to Sufism via the writings of Guenon and Schuon. Guenon was influenced by Agueli, a Swedish artist who converted to Islam and then Sufism and who focused on the writings of Ibn Arabi. It was via the Agueli/Guenon friendship and Schuon's tutelage under Guenon that led Ibn Arabi being considered *the* most important Sufi author for most Western converts. Mark Sedgwick, in his book Against the Modern world, noted that for Sufis Ibn Arabi is one of many honored authors; but it is among Traditionalist converts to Islam and Sufism that Ibn Arabi is not merely important but supremely important. To use a very crude analogy, it would be a bit like advising students of Elizabethan drama to focus solely on Christopher Marlowe, while making it seem that Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, are not quite as important.
"This is in fact a ludicrous position, since it amounts to saying that real Islam is a minority view within a minority view, a view, moreover, that for most of the history of Islam (Sufism)has been suspected of heresy. What is needed with regard to Sufism is an in-depth critique of the metaphysics of Ibn Arabi as expounded in the works of such contemporary scholars as William Chittick and Michel Chodkiewicz, together with a sociological survey of the circus that surrounds such contemporary Sufis as Sheikh Nazim al-Qubrusi; but that would amount to another book.
(Corboy Sheikh Nazim leads a group of Naqshibandis which have a large presence but treat the Sheikh with idolatry. )
"Another important achievement of Ibn Warraq is that he explodes the myth of Islamic tolerance, a myth largely invented by Jews and Western freethinkers as a stick with which to beat the Catholic Church. Islam was never a religion of tolerance and it is not tolerant by nature. Despite the way the apologists would like to depict it, Islam was spread by the sword and has been maintained by the sword throughout its history, not to mention the scourge and the cross.
(Corboy-True. In his book, Infidels, Andrew Wheatcroft demonstrates that the supposed tolerance "la convivencia" of Islamic Andalusia was not a matter of solid principle but was fragile, based on avoidance of anything that could give offense. As Corboy would phrase it, this kind of 'tolerance' is like saying dry tinder is non flammable as long as one never, under any circumstances drops a spark.)
"In truth it was the Arab empire that was spread by the sword and it is as an Arab empire that Islam is maintained to this day in the form of a religion largely invented to hold that empire together and subdue native populations. An unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God's will. Religious minorities were always second-class citizens in this empire and were only tolerated on sufferance and in abject deference to their Arab/Muslim masters; for polytheists and unbelievers there was no tolerance at all, it was conversion or death.
"These repulsive characteristics are written into the Quran, the hadith and the sharia, and are an ineradicable feature of the religion. There is no way that Islam can reform itself and remain Islam, no way it can ever be made compatible with pluralism, free speech, critical thought and democracy. Anyone convinced they already possess the truth have no need for such things.
"Although Muslims resident in non-Muslim countries clamour for every kind of indulgence for their own beliefs and customs, there can be no doubt that given any kind of power they would impose their own beliefs and eliminate all difference. In short, as Ibn Warraq describes it in his Dedication, Islam is religious fascism, and it is only a feeble-minded political correctness that prevents it from being recognised as such.
"Finally, we should note two further important points made by Ibn Warraq. First, that Islam never really encouraged science, if by science we mean `disinterested enquiry'. What Islam always meant by ' knowledge' was religious knowledge, anything else was deemed dangerous to the faith. All the real science that occurred under Islam occurred despite the religion not because of it. Second, how indebted the Muslim world has always been to the West, not only to the Greeks in the beginning, but particularly in modern times in knowledge of its own intellectual and cultural history.
These unpalatable, half realised home truths are manifest in the contemporary Muslim world in the form of a massive resentment and inferiority complex:
It is a depressing fact that during the Gulf War almost every single Muslim and Arab intellectual sympathized with Saddam Hussein, because, we are told, `he stood up to the West'. In this explanation is summed up all sense of Islamic failure, and feelings of inferiority vis-a-vis the West. The Muslim world must be in a dire way if it sees hope in a tyrant who has murdered literally thousands of his own countrymen.
Indeed, and a Westerner can hardly imagine the courage it must take for Ibn Warraq to say as much.
The problem with a book such as this is that it will most likely never reach those most in need of it. That is to say young people in general and young Muslims in particular, those whose minds have not already been closed by fanaticism.
How many libraries will stock it, or dare to stock it if they knew its contents?
A hardback at over twenty pounds, published by an American publisher, is not likely to find its way on to high-street* book shelves alongside all those uncritical, paperback apologies for Islam that seem to be appearing in ever increasing numbers. What is needed is more books like Ibn Warraq's, published by British publishers, at reasonable prices and with good distribution. But dare they do it?
(High Street is the UK equivalent of "Main Street")
A minor fault that could be corrected in future editions is that several important books and authors mentioned in text and notes fail to appear in the bibliography.
Note: on 'La convivencia' more here
The Popular Myth of Convivencia | Web Exclusives | First ThingsThe popular myth of convivencia ”the idyllic coexistence between Muslims,
Christians, and Jews in Spain from the Muslim invasion of a.d. 711 to the
expulsions ...
www.firstthings.com/web.../2010/.../the-popular-myth-of-convivencia - 37k - Cached - Similar pages
What Happened to the U.N. Childrens Bill of Rights?
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: March 24, 2014 11:44PM
click on link:
Australia: Charges dropped against Muslim registered sex offender because of “cultural differences”
Australia: Charges dropped against Muslim registered sex offender because of “cultural differences”
Countries governed by sharia are not as generous
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 25, 2014 05:36AM
How often do we hear of a reciprocal 'cultural understanding' in countries or areas governed by sharia.
When girls and women flee arranged marriages and try to marry for love, are they given this same 'multicultural' tolerancesharia governed regions because they've opted reject a loveless arranged clan marriage?
Eh?
When girls and women flee arranged marriages and try to marry for love, are they given this same 'multicultural' tolerancesharia governed regions because they've opted reject a loveless arranged clan marriage?
Eh?
Teach your children well, Their father's hell did slowly go by...
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: March 31, 2014 12:50AM
Teaching Children to Hate
It's in the schools, in the textbooks, in UN sponsored summer camps, in the children's television programing, on the streets, in the mosques...
the romancing of death and suicide...
...and yet if you met an individual on the street, face to face, at a market, they would be polite and charming...
until time to let loose...
and yes even kill in the name of the cult of Islam.
I hope the future leaders of this generation of Arabs learn from their parent's mistakes and rebel against this insanity.
Even if Israel was an apartheid state (and it is decidedly NOT), but even if it was; it does not justify this glorification of the killing of Jews and "non-believers".
I fear no one in the upcoming generation will know how to build and govern their own state, having grown up only learning how to hate, kill, and destroy.
Recently, it was announced that Turkey is building a hospital in Gaza. Why? Because all the billions given to the Palestinians has gone to war and propaganda instead of infrastructure, education, business, and the arts. The Palestinian leadership keeps the population in a perpetual state of want and hate. The educated Palestinian doctors and professionals move to Israel or other countries to better their lives.
Why aren't the children being taught to live side by side with different groups, countries, and belief systems? (Just compare the Israeli text books which teach peace and tolerance with those from Gaza!)
Why aren't the Arab kids in Gaza and Ramala being taught to appreciate trade and cultural exchanges and the benefits of peace? How will they ever be prepared to run their own state without corruption and dependency?
It's in the schools, in the textbooks, in UN sponsored summer camps, in the children's television programing, on the streets, in the mosques...
the romancing of death and suicide...
...and yet if you met an individual on the street, face to face, at a market, they would be polite and charming...
until time to let loose...
and yes even kill in the name of the cult of Islam.
I hope the future leaders of this generation of Arabs learn from their parent's mistakes and rebel against this insanity.
Even if Israel was an apartheid state (and it is decidedly NOT), but even if it was; it does not justify this glorification of the killing of Jews and "non-believers".
I fear no one in the upcoming generation will know how to build and govern their own state, having grown up only learning how to hate, kill, and destroy.
Recently, it was announced that Turkey is building a hospital in Gaza. Why? Because all the billions given to the Palestinians has gone to war and propaganda instead of infrastructure, education, business, and the arts. The Palestinian leadership keeps the population in a perpetual state of want and hate. The educated Palestinian doctors and professionals move to Israel or other countries to better their lives.
Why aren't the children being taught to live side by side with different groups, countries, and belief systems? (Just compare the Israeli text books which teach peace and tolerance with those from Gaza!)
Why aren't the Arab kids in Gaza and Ramala being taught to appreciate trade and cultural exchanges and the benefits of peace? How will they ever be prepared to run their own state without corruption and dependency?
Brilliant Essay on the Rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: April 12, 2014 03:13PM
Europe possessed by a strange form of the Stockholm Syndrome...
European Anti-Semitism and the Fear of Muslims
From the article:
"When European history teachers omit the Holocaust from their curriculum, they do not do this because they hate their Jewish students more than their Muslim students. They omit it because they are afraid of their Muslim students. They might also believe they do it to be "nice," but then how come this same "niceness" is not afforded to the Jews?
In the "Stockholm Syndrome," now seen, ironically, in Sweden, victims start bonding with their abusers in the wish that if they share the same values as their abusers, their abusers might stop abusing them. "We must be open and tolerant toward Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so toward us." — Jens Orback, former Swedish government minister."
European Anti-Semitism and the Fear of Muslims
From the article:
"When European history teachers omit the Holocaust from their curriculum, they do not do this because they hate their Jewish students more than their Muslim students. They omit it because they are afraid of their Muslim students. They might also believe they do it to be "nice," but then how come this same "niceness" is not afforded to the Jews?
In the "Stockholm Syndrome," now seen, ironically, in Sweden, victims start bonding with their abusers in the wish that if they share the same values as their abusers, their abusers might stop abusing them. "We must be open and tolerant toward Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so toward us." — Jens Orback, former Swedish government minister."
Wonder if the mayor ever found occasion to dress in the ethnic clothing of her city’s other ethnicities – the Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, English, Poles, Irish, French Canadians, Native Americans?
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: April 21, 2014 04:56PM
"When the intruder or invader makes demands (no matter how subtle) that are met with compliance and submission from the host culture, this is conquest, not assimilation."
READ ARTICLE: From Hijab to Jihad
READ ARTICLE: From Hijab to Jihad
Killer Kids in Islamic Pan Uber Cult
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: April 21, 2014 08:40PM
I don't make this stuff up...
Killer Kids for Islam in the Philippines
Published on Jan 24, 2014
Watch VICE on HBO Fridays at 11 PM, only on HBO: [bit.ly]
In this first episode of VICE on HBO, Ryan Duffy travels to the Philippines to explore the rampant political violence during election season and VICE co-founder Shane Smith heads to Afghanistan to speak with would-be child suicide bombers who were captured before they could kill themselves and others.
Killer Kids for Islam in the Philippines
Published on Jan 24, 2014
Watch VICE on HBO Fridays at 11 PM, only on HBO: [bit.ly]
In this first episode of VICE on HBO, Ryan Duffy travels to the Philippines to explore the rampant political violence during election season and VICE co-founder Shane Smith heads to Afghanistan to speak with would-be child suicide bombers who were captured before they could kill themselves and others.
Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: April 25, 2014 07:27PM
To be sure, no two Muslims are alike. Living in Israel one lives and works with both the religious and non-religious Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze, Bedouin and otherwise not specified peoples. Within the borders of Israel all citizens enjoy peace, freedom, and human rights not afforded in near by Islamic-centric countries and populations. This article addresses the patho-Islamic form that is clearly a cult. It is written by a psychologist.
Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters
Psychopathic people and behaviour are found within all cultures and religions. But one tops them all — by many lengths. The daily mass killings, terror, persecutions and family executions committed by the followers of Islam are nauseating, and the ingenuity behind the attacks — always looking for new and more effective ways of killing and terrorising people — is astonishing: hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into skyscrapers, hunting unarmed and innocent people with grenades and automatic rifles in shopping malls, planting bombs in one’s own body, using model airplanes as drones, attaching large rotating blades to pickup trucks and using them as human lawn movers, killing family members with acid or fire, hanging people publicly from cranes in front of cheering crowds, etc. It makes one ask oneself: what creates such lack of empathy and almost playful and creative attitude towards murdering perceived enemies?
This is a question for psychologists like me.
Studying the Muslim mind
Nobody is born a mass murderer, a rapist or a violent criminal. So what is it in the Muslim culture that influence their children in a way that make so relatively many Muslims harm other people?
As a psychologist in a Danish youth prison, I had a unique chance to study the mentality of Muslims. 70 percent of youth offenders in Denmark have a Muslim background. I was able to compare them with non-Muslim clients from the same age group with more or less the same social background. I came to the conclusion that Islam and Muslim culture have certain psychological mechanisms that harm people’s development and increase criminal behaviour.
I am, of course, aware that Muslims are different, and not all Muslims follow the Quran’s violent and perverted message and their prophet’s equally embarrassing example. But as with all other religions, Islam also influences its followers and the culture they live in.
One could talk about two groups of psychological mechanisms, that both singly and combined increase violent behaviour. One group is mainly connected with religion, which aims at indoctrinating Islamic values in children as early as possible and with whatever means necessary, including violence and intimidation. One can understand a Muslim parent’s concern about his offspring’s religious choices, because the sharia orders the death penalty for their children, should they pick another religion than their parents. The other group of mechanisms are more cultural and psychological. These cultural psychological mechanisms are a natural consequence of being influenced by a religion like Islam and stemming from a 1,400 year old tribal society with very limited freedom to develop beyond what the religion allows.
Classical brainwashing methods in the upbringing
Brainwashing people into believing or doing things against their own human nature — such as hating or even killing innocents they do not even know — is traditionally done by combining two things: pain and repetition. The conscious infliction of psychological and physical suffering breaks down the person’s resistance to the constantly repeated message.
Totalitarian regimes use this method to reform political dissidents. Armies in less civilized countries use it to create ruthless soldiers, and religious sects all over the world use it to fanaticize their followers.
During numerous sessions with more than a hundred Muslim clients, I found that violence and repetition of religious messages are prevalent in Muslim families.
Muslim culture simply does not have the same degree of understanding of human development as in civilized societies, and physical pain and threats are therefore often the preferred tool to raise children. This is why so many Muslim girls grow up to accept violence in their marriage, and why Muslim boys grow up to learn that violence is acceptable. And it is the main reason why nine out of ten children removed from their parents by authorities in Copenhagen are from immigrant families. The Muslim tradition of using pain and intimidation as part of disciplining children are also widely used in Muslim schools — also in the West.
Combined with countless repetitions of Quranic verses in Islamic schools and families, all this makes it very difficult for children to defend themselves against being indoctrinated to follow the Quran, even if it is against secular laws, logic, and the most basic understanding of compassion.
And as we know from so many psychological studies, whatever a child is strongly influenced by at that age takes an enormous personal effort to change later in life. It is no wonder that Muslims in general, in spite of Islam’s inhumane nature and obvious inability to equip its followers with humor, compassion and other attractive qualities, are stronger in their faith than any other religious group.
Four enabling psychological factors
Not only does a traditional Islamic upbringing resemble classical brainwashing methods, but also, the culture it generates cultivates four psychological characteristics that further enable and increase violent behaviour.
These four mental factors are anger, self-confidence, responsibility for oneself and intolerance.
When it comes to anger, Western societies widely agree that it is a sign of weakness. Uncontrolled explosions of this unpleasant feeling are maybe the fastest way of losing face, especially in Northern countries, and though angry people may be feared, they are never respected. In Muslim culture, anger is much more accepted, and being able to intimidate people is seen as strength and source of social status. We even see ethnic Muslim groups or countries proudly declare whole days of anger, and use expressions such as “holy anger” — a term that seems contradictory in peaceful cultures.
In Western societies, the ability to handle criticism constructively if it is justified, and with a shrug if it is misguided, is seen as an expression of self-confidence and authenticity. As everyone has noticed, this is not the case among Muslims. Here criticism, no matter how true, is seen as an attack on one’s honor, and it is expected that the honor is restored by using whatever means necessary to silence the opponent. Muslims almost never attempt to counter criticism with logical arguments; instead, they try to silence the criticism by pretending to be offended or by name-calling, or by threatening or even killing the messenger.
The third psychological factor concerns responsibility for oneself, and here the psychological phenomenon “locus of control” plays a major role. People raised by Western standards generally have an inner locus of control, meaning that they experience their lives as governed by inner factors, such as one’s own choices, world view, ways of handling emotions and situations, etc. Muslims are raised to experience their lives as being controlled from the outside. Everything happens “insha’ Allah” — if Allah wills — and the many religious laws, traditions and powerful male authorities leave little room for individual responsibility. This is the cause for the embarrassing and world-famous Muslim victim mentality, where everybody else is blamed and to be punished for the Muslims’ own self-created situation.
Finally, the fourth psychological factor making Muslims vulnerable to the violent message in the Quran concerns tolerance. While Western societies in general define a good person as being open and tolerant, Muslims are told that they are superior to non-Muslims, destined to dominate non-Muslims, and that they must distance themselves socially and emotionally from non-Muslims. The many hateful and dehumanising verses in the Quran and the Hadiths against non-Muslims closely resemble the psychological propaganda that leaders use against their own people in order to prepare them mentally for fighting and killing the enemy. Killing another person is easier if you hate him and do not perceive him as fully human.
Why Islam creates monsters
The cultural and psychological cocktail of anger, low self-esteem, victim mentality, a willingness to be blindly guided by outer authorities, and an aggressive and discriminatory view toward non-Muslims, forced upon Muslims through pain, intimidation and mind-numbing repetitions of the Quran’s almost countless verses promoting hate and violence against non-Muslims, is the reason why Islam creates monsters.
The psychological problem within Islam
The problem with Islam and Muslim culture is that there are so many psychological factors pushing its followers towards a violent attitude against non-Muslims that a general violent clash is — at least from a psychological perspective — inevitable. With such strong pressure and such strong emotions within such a large group of people — all pitched against us — we are facing the perfect storm, and I see no possibilities of turning it around. For people to change, they have to want it, to be allowed to change, and to be able to change — and only a tiny minority of Muslims have such lucky conditions.
Far too many people underestimate the power of psychology embedded in religion and culture. As we have already seen, no army of social workers, generous welfare states, sweet-talking politicians, politically correct journalists or democracy-promoting soldiers can stop these enormous forces. Sensible laws on immigration and Islamisation in our own countries can limit the amount of suffering, but based on my education and professional experience as a psychologist for Muslims, I estimate that we will not be able to deflect or avoid this many-sided, aggressive movement against our culture.
I do believe that we, as a democratic and educated society can become focused and organised concerning the preservation of our values and constitutions, can win this ongoing conflict started by the often inbred followers of sharia. The big question is how much of our dignity, our civil rights, and our blood, money and tears will we lose in the process.
By Dr. Nicolai Sennels
Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters
Psychopathic people and behaviour are found within all cultures and religions. But one tops them all — by many lengths. The daily mass killings, terror, persecutions and family executions committed by the followers of Islam are nauseating, and the ingenuity behind the attacks — always looking for new and more effective ways of killing and terrorising people — is astonishing: hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into skyscrapers, hunting unarmed and innocent people with grenades and automatic rifles in shopping malls, planting bombs in one’s own body, using model airplanes as drones, attaching large rotating blades to pickup trucks and using them as human lawn movers, killing family members with acid or fire, hanging people publicly from cranes in front of cheering crowds, etc. It makes one ask oneself: what creates such lack of empathy and almost playful and creative attitude towards murdering perceived enemies?
This is a question for psychologists like me.
Studying the Muslim mind
Nobody is born a mass murderer, a rapist or a violent criminal. So what is it in the Muslim culture that influence their children in a way that make so relatively many Muslims harm other people?
As a psychologist in a Danish youth prison, I had a unique chance to study the mentality of Muslims. 70 percent of youth offenders in Denmark have a Muslim background. I was able to compare them with non-Muslim clients from the same age group with more or less the same social background. I came to the conclusion that Islam and Muslim culture have certain psychological mechanisms that harm people’s development and increase criminal behaviour.
I am, of course, aware that Muslims are different, and not all Muslims follow the Quran’s violent and perverted message and their prophet’s equally embarrassing example. But as with all other religions, Islam also influences its followers and the culture they live in.
One could talk about two groups of psychological mechanisms, that both singly and combined increase violent behaviour. One group is mainly connected with religion, which aims at indoctrinating Islamic values in children as early as possible and with whatever means necessary, including violence and intimidation. One can understand a Muslim parent’s concern about his offspring’s religious choices, because the sharia orders the death penalty for their children, should they pick another religion than their parents. The other group of mechanisms are more cultural and psychological. These cultural psychological mechanisms are a natural consequence of being influenced by a religion like Islam and stemming from a 1,400 year old tribal society with very limited freedom to develop beyond what the religion allows.
Classical brainwashing methods in the upbringing
Brainwashing people into believing or doing things against their own human nature — such as hating or even killing innocents they do not even know — is traditionally done by combining two things: pain and repetition. The conscious infliction of psychological and physical suffering breaks down the person’s resistance to the constantly repeated message.
Totalitarian regimes use this method to reform political dissidents. Armies in less civilized countries use it to create ruthless soldiers, and religious sects all over the world use it to fanaticize their followers.
During numerous sessions with more than a hundred Muslim clients, I found that violence and repetition of religious messages are prevalent in Muslim families.
Muslim culture simply does not have the same degree of understanding of human development as in civilized societies, and physical pain and threats are therefore often the preferred tool to raise children. This is why so many Muslim girls grow up to accept violence in their marriage, and why Muslim boys grow up to learn that violence is acceptable. And it is the main reason why nine out of ten children removed from their parents by authorities in Copenhagen are from immigrant families. The Muslim tradition of using pain and intimidation as part of disciplining children are also widely used in Muslim schools — also in the West.
Combined with countless repetitions of Quranic verses in Islamic schools and families, all this makes it very difficult for children to defend themselves against being indoctrinated to follow the Quran, even if it is against secular laws, logic, and the most basic understanding of compassion.
And as we know from so many psychological studies, whatever a child is strongly influenced by at that age takes an enormous personal effort to change later in life. It is no wonder that Muslims in general, in spite of Islam’s inhumane nature and obvious inability to equip its followers with humor, compassion and other attractive qualities, are stronger in their faith than any other religious group.
Four enabling psychological factors
Not only does a traditional Islamic upbringing resemble classical brainwashing methods, but also, the culture it generates cultivates four psychological characteristics that further enable and increase violent behaviour.
These four mental factors are anger, self-confidence, responsibility for oneself and intolerance.
When it comes to anger, Western societies widely agree that it is a sign of weakness. Uncontrolled explosions of this unpleasant feeling are maybe the fastest way of losing face, especially in Northern countries, and though angry people may be feared, they are never respected. In Muslim culture, anger is much more accepted, and being able to intimidate people is seen as strength and source of social status. We even see ethnic Muslim groups or countries proudly declare whole days of anger, and use expressions such as “holy anger” — a term that seems contradictory in peaceful cultures.
In Western societies, the ability to handle criticism constructively if it is justified, and with a shrug if it is misguided, is seen as an expression of self-confidence and authenticity. As everyone has noticed, this is not the case among Muslims. Here criticism, no matter how true, is seen as an attack on one’s honor, and it is expected that the honor is restored by using whatever means necessary to silence the opponent. Muslims almost never attempt to counter criticism with logical arguments; instead, they try to silence the criticism by pretending to be offended or by name-calling, or by threatening or even killing the messenger.
The third psychological factor concerns responsibility for oneself, and here the psychological phenomenon “locus of control” plays a major role. People raised by Western standards generally have an inner locus of control, meaning that they experience their lives as governed by inner factors, such as one’s own choices, world view, ways of handling emotions and situations, etc. Muslims are raised to experience their lives as being controlled from the outside. Everything happens “insha’ Allah” — if Allah wills — and the many religious laws, traditions and powerful male authorities leave little room for individual responsibility. This is the cause for the embarrassing and world-famous Muslim victim mentality, where everybody else is blamed and to be punished for the Muslims’ own self-created situation.
Finally, the fourth psychological factor making Muslims vulnerable to the violent message in the Quran concerns tolerance. While Western societies in general define a good person as being open and tolerant, Muslims are told that they are superior to non-Muslims, destined to dominate non-Muslims, and that they must distance themselves socially and emotionally from non-Muslims. The many hateful and dehumanising verses in the Quran and the Hadiths against non-Muslims closely resemble the psychological propaganda that leaders use against their own people in order to prepare them mentally for fighting and killing the enemy. Killing another person is easier if you hate him and do not perceive him as fully human.
Why Islam creates monsters
The cultural and psychological cocktail of anger, low self-esteem, victim mentality, a willingness to be blindly guided by outer authorities, and an aggressive and discriminatory view toward non-Muslims, forced upon Muslims through pain, intimidation and mind-numbing repetitions of the Quran’s almost countless verses promoting hate and violence against non-Muslims, is the reason why Islam creates monsters.
The psychological problem within Islam
The problem with Islam and Muslim culture is that there are so many psychological factors pushing its followers towards a violent attitude against non-Muslims that a general violent clash is — at least from a psychological perspective — inevitable. With such strong pressure and such strong emotions within such a large group of people — all pitched against us — we are facing the perfect storm, and I see no possibilities of turning it around. For people to change, they have to want it, to be allowed to change, and to be able to change — and only a tiny minority of Muslims have such lucky conditions.
Far too many people underestimate the power of psychology embedded in religion and culture. As we have already seen, no army of social workers, generous welfare states, sweet-talking politicians, politically correct journalists or democracy-promoting soldiers can stop these enormous forces. Sensible laws on immigration and Islamisation in our own countries can limit the amount of suffering, but based on my education and professional experience as a psychologist for Muslims, I estimate that we will not be able to deflect or avoid this many-sided, aggressive movement against our culture.
I do believe that we, as a democratic and educated society can become focused and organised concerning the preservation of our values and constitutions, can win this ongoing conflict started by the often inbred followers of sharia. The big question is how much of our dignity, our civil rights, and our blood, money and tears will we lose in the process.
By Dr. Nicolai Sennels
Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters
Posted by:
Vera City
()
Date: April 25, 2014 07:28PM
To be sure, no two Muslims are alike. Living in Israel one lives and works with both the religious and non-religious Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze, Bedouin and otherwise not specified peoples. Within the borders of Israel all citizens enjoy peace, freedom, and human rights not afforded in near by Islamic-centric countries and populations. This article addresses the patho-Islamic form that is clearly a cult. It is written by a psychologist.
Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters
Psychopathic people and behaviour are found within all cultures and religions. But one tops them all — by many lengths. The daily mass killings, terror, persecutions and family executions committed by the followers of Islam are nauseating, and the ingenuity behind the attacks — always looking for new and more effective ways of killing and terrorising people — is astonishing: hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into skyscrapers, hunting unarmed and innocent people with grenades and automatic rifles in shopping malls, planting bombs in one’s own body, using model airplanes as drones, attaching large rotating blades to pickup trucks and using them as human lawn movers, killing family members with acid or fire, hanging people publicly from cranes in front of cheering crowds, etc. It makes one ask oneself: what creates such lack of empathy and almost playful and creative attitude towards murdering perceived enemies?
This is a question for psychologists like me.
Studying the Muslim mind
Nobody is born a mass murderer, a rapist or a violent criminal. So what is it in the Muslim culture that influence their children in a way that make so relatively many Muslims harm other people?
As a psychologist in a Danish youth prison, I had a unique chance to study the mentality of Muslims. 70 percent of youth offenders in Denmark have a Muslim background. I was able to compare them with non-Muslim clients from the same age group with more or less the same social background. I came to the conclusion that Islam and Muslim culture have certain psychological mechanisms that harm people’s development and increase criminal behaviour.
I am, of course, aware that Muslims are different, and not all Muslims follow the Quran’s violent and perverted message and their prophet’s equally embarrassing example. But as with all other religions, Islam also influences its followers and the culture they live in.
One could talk about two groups of psychological mechanisms, that both singly and combined increase violent behaviour. One group is mainly connected with religion, which aims at indoctrinating Islamic values in children as early as possible and with whatever means necessary, including violence and intimidation. One can understand a Muslim parent’s concern about his offspring’s religious choices, because the sharia orders the death penalty for their children, should they pick another religion than their parents. The other group of mechanisms are more cultural and psychological. These cultural psychological mechanisms are a natural consequence of being influenced by a religion like Islam and stemming from a 1,400 year old tribal society with very limited freedom to develop beyond what the religion allows.
Classical brainwashing methods in the upbringing
Brainwashing people into believing or doing things against their own human nature — such as hating or even killing innocents they do not even know — is traditionally done by combining two things: pain and repetition. The conscious infliction of psychological and physical suffering breaks down the person’s resistance to the constantly repeated message.
Totalitarian regimes use this method to reform political dissidents. Armies in less civilized countries use it to create ruthless soldiers, and religious sects all over the world use it to fanaticize their followers.
During numerous sessions with more than a hundred Muslim clients, I found that violence and repetition of religious messages are prevalent in Muslim families.
Muslim culture simply does not have the same degree of understanding of human development as in civilized societies, and physical pain and threats are therefore often the preferred tool to raise children. This is why so many Muslim girls grow up to accept violence in their marriage, and why Muslim boys grow up to learn that violence is acceptable. And it is the main reason why nine out of ten children removed from their parents by authorities in Copenhagen are from immigrant families. The Muslim tradition of using pain and intimidation as part of disciplining children are also widely used in Muslim schools — also in the West.
Combined with countless repetitions of Quranic verses in Islamic schools and families, all this makes it very difficult for children to defend themselves against being indoctrinated to follow the Quran, even if it is against secular laws, logic, and the most basic understanding of compassion.
And as we know from so many psychological studies, whatever a child is strongly influenced by at that age takes an enormous personal effort to change later in life. It is no wonder that Muslims in general, in spite of Islam’s inhumane nature and obvious inability to equip its followers with humor, compassion and other attractive qualities, are stronger in their faith than any other religious group.
Four enabling psychological factors
Not only does a traditional Islamic upbringing resemble classical brainwashing methods, but also, the culture it generates cultivates four psychological characteristics that further enable and increase violent behaviour.
These four mental factors are anger, self-confidence, responsibility for oneself and intolerance.
When it comes to anger, Western societies widely agree that it is a sign of weakness. Uncontrolled explosions of this unpleasant feeling are maybe the fastest way of losing face, especially in Northern countries, and though angry people may be feared, they are never respected. In Muslim culture, anger is much more accepted, and being able to intimidate people is seen as strength and source of social status. We even see ethnic Muslim groups or countries proudly declare whole days of anger, and use expressions such as “holy anger” — a term that seems contradictory in peaceful cultures.
In Western societies, the ability to handle criticism constructively if it is justified, and with a shrug if it is misguided, is seen as an expression of self-confidence and authenticity. As everyone has noticed, this is not the case among Muslims. Here criticism, no matter how true, is seen as an attack on one’s honor, and it is expected that the honor is restored by using whatever means necessary to silence the opponent. Muslims almost never attempt to counter criticism with logical arguments; instead, they try to silence the criticism by pretending to be offended or by name-calling, or by threatening or even killing the messenger.
The third psychological factor concerns responsibility for oneself, and here the psychological phenomenon “locus of control” plays a major role. People raised by Western standards generally have an inner locus of control, meaning that they experience their lives as governed by inner factors, such as one’s own choices, world view, ways of handling emotions and situations, etc. Muslims are raised to experience their lives as being controlled from the outside. Everything happens “insha’ Allah” — if Allah wills — and the many religious laws, traditions and powerful male authorities leave little room for individual responsibility. This is the cause for the embarrassing and world-famous Muslim victim mentality, where everybody else is blamed and to be punished for the Muslims’ own self-created situation.
Finally, the fourth psychological factor making Muslims vulnerable to the violent message in the Quran concerns tolerance. While Western societies in general define a good person as being open and tolerant, Muslims are told that they are superior to non-Muslims, destined to dominate non-Muslims, and that they must distance themselves socially and emotionally from non-Muslims. The many hateful and dehumanising verses in the Quran and the Hadiths against non-Muslims closely resemble the psychological propaganda that leaders use against their own people in order to prepare them mentally for fighting and killing the enemy. Killing another person is easier if you hate him and do not perceive him as fully human.
Why Islam creates monsters
The cultural and psychological cocktail of anger, low self-esteem, victim mentality, a willingness to be blindly guided by outer authorities, and an aggressive and discriminatory view toward non-Muslims, forced upon Muslims through pain, intimidation and mind-numbing repetitions of the Quran’s almost countless verses promoting hate and violence against non-Muslims, is the reason why Islam creates monsters.
The psychological problem within Islam
The problem with Islam and Muslim culture is that there are so many psychological factors pushing its followers towards a violent attitude against non-Muslims that a general violent clash is — at least from a psychological perspective — inevitable. With such strong pressure and such strong emotions within such a large group of people — all pitched against us — we are facing the perfect storm, and I see no possibilities of turning it around. For people to change, they have to want it, to be allowed to change, and to be able to change — and only a tiny minority of Muslims have such lucky conditions.
Far too many people underestimate the power of psychology embedded in religion and culture. As we have already seen, no army of social workers, generous welfare states, sweet-talking politicians, politically correct journalists or democracy-promoting soldiers can stop these enormous forces. Sensible laws on immigration and Islamisation in our own countries can limit the amount of suffering, but based on my education and professional experience as a psychologist for Muslims, I estimate that we will not be able to deflect or avoid this many-sided, aggressive movement against our culture.
I do believe that we, as a democratic and educated society can become focused and organised concerning the preservation of our values and constitutions, can win this ongoing conflict started by the often inbred followers of sharia. The big question is how much of our dignity, our civil rights, and our blood, money and tears will we lose in the process.
By Dr. Nicolai Sennels
Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters
Psychopathic people and behaviour are found within all cultures and religions. But one tops them all — by many lengths. The daily mass killings, terror, persecutions and family executions committed by the followers of Islam are nauseating, and the ingenuity behind the attacks — always looking for new and more effective ways of killing and terrorising people — is astonishing: hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into skyscrapers, hunting unarmed and innocent people with grenades and automatic rifles in shopping malls, planting bombs in one’s own body, using model airplanes as drones, attaching large rotating blades to pickup trucks and using them as human lawn movers, killing family members with acid or fire, hanging people publicly from cranes in front of cheering crowds, etc. It makes one ask oneself: what creates such lack of empathy and almost playful and creative attitude towards murdering perceived enemies?
This is a question for psychologists like me.
Studying the Muslim mind
Nobody is born a mass murderer, a rapist or a violent criminal. So what is it in the Muslim culture that influence their children in a way that make so relatively many Muslims harm other people?
As a psychologist in a Danish youth prison, I had a unique chance to study the mentality of Muslims. 70 percent of youth offenders in Denmark have a Muslim background. I was able to compare them with non-Muslim clients from the same age group with more or less the same social background. I came to the conclusion that Islam and Muslim culture have certain psychological mechanisms that harm people’s development and increase criminal behaviour.
I am, of course, aware that Muslims are different, and not all Muslims follow the Quran’s violent and perverted message and their prophet’s equally embarrassing example. But as with all other religions, Islam also influences its followers and the culture they live in.
One could talk about two groups of psychological mechanisms, that both singly and combined increase violent behaviour. One group is mainly connected with religion, which aims at indoctrinating Islamic values in children as early as possible and with whatever means necessary, including violence and intimidation. One can understand a Muslim parent’s concern about his offspring’s religious choices, because the sharia orders the death penalty for their children, should they pick another religion than their parents. The other group of mechanisms are more cultural and psychological. These cultural psychological mechanisms are a natural consequence of being influenced by a religion like Islam and stemming from a 1,400 year old tribal society with very limited freedom to develop beyond what the religion allows.
Classical brainwashing methods in the upbringing
Brainwashing people into believing or doing things against their own human nature — such as hating or even killing innocents they do not even know — is traditionally done by combining two things: pain and repetition. The conscious infliction of psychological and physical suffering breaks down the person’s resistance to the constantly repeated message.
Totalitarian regimes use this method to reform political dissidents. Armies in less civilized countries use it to create ruthless soldiers, and religious sects all over the world use it to fanaticize their followers.
During numerous sessions with more than a hundred Muslim clients, I found that violence and repetition of religious messages are prevalent in Muslim families.
Muslim culture simply does not have the same degree of understanding of human development as in civilized societies, and physical pain and threats are therefore often the preferred tool to raise children. This is why so many Muslim girls grow up to accept violence in their marriage, and why Muslim boys grow up to learn that violence is acceptable. And it is the main reason why nine out of ten children removed from their parents by authorities in Copenhagen are from immigrant families. The Muslim tradition of using pain and intimidation as part of disciplining children are also widely used in Muslim schools — also in the West.
Combined with countless repetitions of Quranic verses in Islamic schools and families, all this makes it very difficult for children to defend themselves against being indoctrinated to follow the Quran, even if it is against secular laws, logic, and the most basic understanding of compassion.
And as we know from so many psychological studies, whatever a child is strongly influenced by at that age takes an enormous personal effort to change later in life. It is no wonder that Muslims in general, in spite of Islam’s inhumane nature and obvious inability to equip its followers with humor, compassion and other attractive qualities, are stronger in their faith than any other religious group.
Four enabling psychological factors
Not only does a traditional Islamic upbringing resemble classical brainwashing methods, but also, the culture it generates cultivates four psychological characteristics that further enable and increase violent behaviour.
These four mental factors are anger, self-confidence, responsibility for oneself and intolerance.
When it comes to anger, Western societies widely agree that it is a sign of weakness. Uncontrolled explosions of this unpleasant feeling are maybe the fastest way of losing face, especially in Northern countries, and though angry people may be feared, they are never respected. In Muslim culture, anger is much more accepted, and being able to intimidate people is seen as strength and source of social status. We even see ethnic Muslim groups or countries proudly declare whole days of anger, and use expressions such as “holy anger” — a term that seems contradictory in peaceful cultures.
In Western societies, the ability to handle criticism constructively if it is justified, and with a shrug if it is misguided, is seen as an expression of self-confidence and authenticity. As everyone has noticed, this is not the case among Muslims. Here criticism, no matter how true, is seen as an attack on one’s honor, and it is expected that the honor is restored by using whatever means necessary to silence the opponent. Muslims almost never attempt to counter criticism with logical arguments; instead, they try to silence the criticism by pretending to be offended or by name-calling, or by threatening or even killing the messenger.
The third psychological factor concerns responsibility for oneself, and here the psychological phenomenon “locus of control” plays a major role. People raised by Western standards generally have an inner locus of control, meaning that they experience their lives as governed by inner factors, such as one’s own choices, world view, ways of handling emotions and situations, etc. Muslims are raised to experience their lives as being controlled from the outside. Everything happens “insha’ Allah” — if Allah wills — and the many religious laws, traditions and powerful male authorities leave little room for individual responsibility. This is the cause for the embarrassing and world-famous Muslim victim mentality, where everybody else is blamed and to be punished for the Muslims’ own self-created situation.
Finally, the fourth psychological factor making Muslims vulnerable to the violent message in the Quran concerns tolerance. While Western societies in general define a good person as being open and tolerant, Muslims are told that they are superior to non-Muslims, destined to dominate non-Muslims, and that they must distance themselves socially and emotionally from non-Muslims. The many hateful and dehumanising verses in the Quran and the Hadiths against non-Muslims closely resemble the psychological propaganda that leaders use against their own people in order to prepare them mentally for fighting and killing the enemy. Killing another person is easier if you hate him and do not perceive him as fully human.
Why Islam creates monsters
The cultural and psychological cocktail of anger, low self-esteem, victim mentality, a willingness to be blindly guided by outer authorities, and an aggressive and discriminatory view toward non-Muslims, forced upon Muslims through pain, intimidation and mind-numbing repetitions of the Quran’s almost countless verses promoting hate and violence against non-Muslims, is the reason why Islam creates monsters.
The psychological problem within Islam
The problem with Islam and Muslim culture is that there are so many psychological factors pushing its followers towards a violent attitude against non-Muslims that a general violent clash is — at least from a psychological perspective — inevitable. With such strong pressure and such strong emotions within such a large group of people — all pitched against us — we are facing the perfect storm, and I see no possibilities of turning it around. For people to change, they have to want it, to be allowed to change, and to be able to change — and only a tiny minority of Muslims have such lucky conditions.
Far too many people underestimate the power of psychology embedded in religion and culture. As we have already seen, no army of social workers, generous welfare states, sweet-talking politicians, politically correct journalists or democracy-promoting soldiers can stop these enormous forces. Sensible laws on immigration and Islamisation in our own countries can limit the amount of suffering, but based on my education and professional experience as a psychologist for Muslims, I estimate that we will not be able to deflect or avoid this many-sided, aggressive movement against our culture.
I do believe that we, as a democratic and educated society can become focused and organised concerning the preservation of our values and constitutions, can win this ongoing conflict started by the often inbred followers of sharia. The big question is how much of our dignity, our civil rights, and our blood, money and tears will we lose in the process.
By Dr. Nicolai Sennels
One Hundred and Forty Plus Years Ago - Life Under Sharia
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: April 25, 2014 10:34PM
Richard Francis Burton disguised himself as an Afghani and lived
as a Muslim in Alexandria and Cairo in the late 1850s.
He spent some time in a household in Medina and his description of
children's behavior echoes what the Danish psychologist describes.
And these young boys were the children of a gentleman and lived in their
own house, in their home city--no trauma of immigration.
Burton had arrived as a guest.
"No sooner did the parlour become, comparatively speaking, vacant than (the children) rushed in en masse treading upon our toes, making the noise of a nursery of madlings, pulling to pieces everything they could lay their hands upon, and using language that would have alarmed an old man-o-war'sman." (tranls they swore like sailors. Insert all varieties of four letter words here -Corboy)
"One urchin, scarcely three years old, told me, because I objected to his perching upon my wounded foot, that his father had a sword at home with which he would cut my throat from ear to ear suiting the action with the word....Another scamp caught up one of my loaded pistols before I could snatch it out of his hand, and clapped it to his neighbor's head; fortunately it was on half-cock and the trigger was stiff."
Burton, who had been a menance when he was a boy, tells us "They had their redeeming pointsw, however: they were manly angry boys, who punched one another
like Anglo Saxons in the house, whilst abroad they were always fighting with sticks and stones."
In a page note, Burton tells us "Parents and full-grown men amused themselves
with grossly abusing children, almost as soon as they can speak, in order to
excite their rage rage, and to judge of their dispositions. This supplies
the infant population with a large stock-in-trade of ribaldry. They literally
lisp in bad language."
R.F. Burton Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah Vol 1 pp 292-294 - Dover Edition.
(Corboy note: This was in Medinah, in what is now Saudi Arabia. In his books
on Sindh, in what is now southern Pakistan, Burton described how tenderly
Hindu mothers treated their children, especially their sons.)
Now, let us backtrack to Burton, living as a Muslim, in Alexandria and Cairo. It is the late 1850s.
Corboy wishes to emphasize that at this time Cairo was ruled by Mohammed Ali,
and was part of the Ottoman Empire. And...that Egypt was governed by sharia.
So..let us see what this sitaution was like--for it is that which today's fanatics long for -- and would impose on us.
He tells us this.
"Few Franks, save those who have mixed with the Egyptians in Oriental disguise, are aware of their repugnance to, and contempt for, Europeans--so well is that feeling veiled under the garb of innate politeness, and so great is their reserve when conversing with those of strange (foreign) religions.
On the prior page, Burton gives us some street scenes - in translation.
"It is not to be supposed that a nation in this stage of civilisation could be so fervently devout as the Egyptians without the bad leaven of bigotry. The same tongue which is employed in blessing Allah, is it is conceived doing its work equally well in cursing Allah's enemies.
"If you asks your friend who is the peson with a black turband, he replies,
"A Christian. May Allah make his countenance cold!"
If you inquire of your servant, who are the people singing in the next house, it is ten to one that his answer will be,
"Jews. May their lot be Jehannam!"
"It appears unintelligble, still it is not the less true, that Egyptians have have lived as servants under European roofs for years, retain the liveliest loathing for thier masters.
Burton continues. Again, this is the 1850s.
Israel did not yet exist as as a blame - bin. And it was just 2 years prior to the official British takeover of India.
Let us see what a political conversation looked like. Burton, our Cairo correspondant, fills us in.
"I had a good opportunity of ascertaining the truth when the first rumour of a Russian war arose. (The Crimean war was a few years in the future)
"Almost every ablebodied man spoke of hastening to the Jihad--a crusade or holy war -- and the only thing that looked like apprehension (fear) was the too eager depreciation of their foes. All seemed delighted with the idea of French co-operation for somehow or other (this is the 1850s) the Frenchman is everywhere popular.
"When speaking of England, they were not equally easy: heads were rolled, pious sentences uttered, and finally out came the old Eastern cry, "Of a truth they are Shaytans, the English!"
"The Austrians are despised , because the East knows nothing of them since the days when the Osmanli hosts threatened the gates of Vienna. Th Greeks are hated as clever scoundrels, ever ready to do Al-Islam a mischief...Italians are known chiefly as instruttori, and distruttori--doctors, druggests, and pedagogues.
"
as a Muslim in Alexandria and Cairo in the late 1850s.
He spent some time in a household in Medina and his description of
children's behavior echoes what the Danish psychologist describes.
And these young boys were the children of a gentleman and lived in their
own house, in their home city--no trauma of immigration.
Burton had arrived as a guest.
"No sooner did the parlour become, comparatively speaking, vacant than (the children) rushed in en masse treading upon our toes, making the noise of a nursery of madlings, pulling to pieces everything they could lay their hands upon, and using language that would have alarmed an old man-o-war'sman." (tranls they swore like sailors. Insert all varieties of four letter words here -Corboy)
"One urchin, scarcely three years old, told me, because I objected to his perching upon my wounded foot, that his father had a sword at home with which he would cut my throat from ear to ear suiting the action with the word....Another scamp caught up one of my loaded pistols before I could snatch it out of his hand, and clapped it to his neighbor's head; fortunately it was on half-cock and the trigger was stiff."
Burton, who had been a menance when he was a boy, tells us "They had their redeeming pointsw, however: they were manly angry boys, who punched one another
like Anglo Saxons in the house, whilst abroad they were always fighting with sticks and stones."
In a page note, Burton tells us "Parents and full-grown men amused themselves
with grossly abusing children, almost as soon as they can speak, in order to
excite their rage rage, and to judge of their dispositions. This supplies
the infant population with a large stock-in-trade of ribaldry. They literally
lisp in bad language."
R.F. Burton Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah Vol 1 pp 292-294 - Dover Edition.
(Corboy note: This was in Medinah, in what is now Saudi Arabia. In his books
on Sindh, in what is now southern Pakistan, Burton described how tenderly
Hindu mothers treated their children, especially their sons.)
Now, let us backtrack to Burton, living as a Muslim, in Alexandria and Cairo. It is the late 1850s.
Corboy wishes to emphasize that at this time Cairo was ruled by Mohammed Ali,
and was part of the Ottoman Empire. And...that Egypt was governed by sharia.
So..let us see what this sitaution was like--for it is that which today's fanatics long for -- and would impose on us.
He tells us this.
"Few Franks, save those who have mixed with the Egyptians in Oriental disguise, are aware of their repugnance to, and contempt for, Europeans--so well is that feeling veiled under the garb of innate politeness, and so great is their reserve when conversing with those of strange (foreign) religions.
On the prior page, Burton gives us some street scenes - in translation.
"It is not to be supposed that a nation in this stage of civilisation could be so fervently devout as the Egyptians without the bad leaven of bigotry. The same tongue which is employed in blessing Allah, is it is conceived doing its work equally well in cursing Allah's enemies.
"If you asks your friend who is the peson with a black turband, he replies,
"A Christian. May Allah make his countenance cold!"
If you inquire of your servant, who are the people singing in the next house, it is ten to one that his answer will be,
"Jews. May their lot be Jehannam!"
"It appears unintelligble, still it is not the less true, that Egyptians have have lived as servants under European roofs for years, retain the liveliest loathing for thier masters.
Burton continues. Again, this is the 1850s.
Israel did not yet exist as as a blame - bin. And it was just 2 years prior to the official British takeover of India.
Let us see what a political conversation looked like. Burton, our Cairo correspondant, fills us in.
"I had a good opportunity of ascertaining the truth when the first rumour of a Russian war arose. (The Crimean war was a few years in the future)
"Almost every ablebodied man spoke of hastening to the Jihad--a crusade or holy war -- and the only thing that looked like apprehension (fear) was the too eager depreciation of their foes. All seemed delighted with the idea of French co-operation for somehow or other (this is the 1850s) the Frenchman is everywhere popular.
"When speaking of England, they were not equally easy: heads were rolled, pious sentences uttered, and finally out came the old Eastern cry, "Of a truth they are Shaytans, the English!"
"The Austrians are despised , because the East knows nothing of them since the days when the Osmanli hosts threatened the gates of Vienna. Th Greeks are hated as clever scoundrels, ever ready to do Al-Islam a mischief...Italians are known chiefly as instruttori, and distruttori--doctors, druggests, and pedagogues.
"
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