Honor Killings Not Simply Abuse

Are honor killings a simple matter of domestic violence or abuse? (Should chopping off your wife's head not raise an eyebrow?)  Phyllis Chesler, Middle East Quarterly:

When a husband murders a wife or daughter in the United States and Canada, too often law enforcement chalks the matter up to domestic violence. Murder is murder; religion is irrelevant. Honor killings are, however, distinct from wife battering and child abuse. Analysis of more than fifty reported honor killings shows they differ significantly from more common domestic violence.[1] The frequent argument made by Muslim advocacy organizations that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam and that it is discriminatory to differentiate between honor killings and domestic violence is wrong.

Families that kill for honor will threaten girls and women if they refuse to cover their hair, their faces, or their bodies or act as their family's domestic servant; wear makeup or Western clothing; choose friends from another religion; date; seek to obtain an advanced education; refuse an arranged marriage; seek a divorce from a violent husband; marry against their parents' wishes; or behave in ways that are considered too independent, which might mean anything from driving a car to spending time or living away from home or family. Fundamentalists of many religions may expect their women to meet some but not all of these expectations. But when women refuse to do so, Jews, Christians, and Buddhists are far more likely to shun rather than murder them. Muslims, however, do kill for honor, as do, to a lesser extent, Hindus and Sikhs. [snip]

Police, politicians, and feminist activists in Europe and in some Muslim countries are beginning to treat them as a serious social problem.[5]

Willingness to address the problem of honor killing, however, does not extend to many Muslim advocacy groups in North America.[snip]

For example, in response to a well-publicized 2000 honor killing, SoundVision.com, an Islamic information and products site, published an article that argued,

Four other women were killed in Chicago in the same month ... They were white, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian … Islam is not responsible for [the Muslim woman's] death. Nor is Christianity responsible for the deaths of the other women.[8]

In 2007, after Aqsa Parvez was murdered by her father in Toronto for not wearing hijab (a head covering), Sheila Musaji wrote in the American Muslim, "Although this certainly is a case of domestic violence … 'honor' killings are not only a Muslim problem, and there is no 'honor' involved."[9] Mohammed Elmasry, of the Canadian Islamic Congress, also dismissed the problem. "I don't want the public to think that this is an Islamic issue or an immigrant issue. It is a teenager issue," he said.[10]

Indeed, denial is rife.

Don't get along with your teenager? Murder is OK?  I don't think so. "There are lots of things to kill them for", and the extended family often joins in. The victims are young women, the murder premeditated. Some mothers collaborate in the killing.

What kind of a culture is this? Inhuman. Chesler points out organizations which are complicit:

As with issues relating to terrorism, law enforcement and civil servants must be mindful of which Muslim community activists they seek to engage. Many self-described civil rights organizations—CAIR or the Islamic Society of North America, for example—lean towards more radical interpretations of Islam. Groups such as the American Islamic Congress and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy advocate for gender equality and human rights, [28] but because their efforts against radicalism antagonize Saudi Arabia and other sources of funding, they often lack resources. Given alternative funding, they might be willing to assist in an effort to educate Muslims against honor murder.

The Islamic Society of North America is based in Chicago, and CAIR has a local chapter. They should be ostracized.

A Hijab with Your Name on it

So Cindy and Nancy---there's a hijab waiting with your name on it. It's already spread to a movement in Europe. Bret Stephens, WSJ:

Caroline Lucas, a member of the Green Party faction in the European Parliament, is a longtime activist in anti-nuclear, animal-rights and environmentalist causes, and not someone likely to describe herself as an anti-feminist. Yet in June 2004, she joined British MPs Fiona Mactaggart of Labor and Sarah Teather of the Liberal Democrats for a press conference in the House of Commons organized by the Assembly for the Protection of Hijab. The Assembly, better known as Pro-Hijab, is a pan-European organization formed "to campaign nationally and internationally for the protection of every Muslim woman's right to wear the Hijab in accordance with her beliefs and for the protection of every woman's right to dress as modestly and as comfortably as she pleases."

How about the protection of a Muslim woman's right not to wear one? How about protection of even more basic rights than that? In countries where a man's word is worth twice that of a woman's. Or where she can't leave the country, or even the house without her husband's or a man's permission. Or where she can't drive a car.
Or where she can be beaten on the slightest pretext or become the victim of an honor killing by the male members of her family after being raped because she is now unclean.



Or if she resists and kills in self-defense or in defense of a younger girl she can be charged with murder and face execution.

Even in America, where unfortunately Wahhabi Islam is widespread, imams counsel beating women "lightly", and we have seen at least one honor killing. And the most prominent Muslim organization in America, CAIR, is at the very least an apologist for terrorists, and there is evidence of terrorist ties. Groups like the Muslim Student Association present sweet little seminars in Kansas about how liberating the hijab is, while in San Francisco and Montreal they mob Jews.

For feminists and the left, political expediency always, always trumps principle. Victimology always triumphs over the rule of law. Because you see, they view Muslims as an ethnic minority and as such they can not be questioned. Actually the multicultural approach is not non-judgemental and egalitarian in this case---Muslims have superior moral authority as supposed victims of the West. Hirsi Ali:

As to the charges that she is an "Enlightenment fundamentalist," she points out, rightly, that people who live in democratic societies are not supposed to settle their disagreements by killing one another.

And yet contemporary democracies, she says, accommodate the incitement of such behavior: "The multiculturalism theology, like all theologies, is cruel, is wrongheaded, and is unarguable because it is an utter dogmatism. . . . Minorities are exempted from the obligations of the rest of society, so they don't improve. . . . With this theory you limit them, you freeze their culture, you keep them in place."

And apparently it's Islamophobic to ask this: "Where do you stand on the statement that a wife should obey her husband and that he can hit her if she fails to do so?", as German immigration is doing now. The morality of the feminists and the left is very blinkered. I guess this is an issue of privacy, now extended from the fetus to the wife. The effect of this is to empower bullies of women, bullies of fellow Muslims who have more gentle beliefs, and bullies of non-believers in Islam. Some have murder in mind for us, starting as always with the Jews. And eventually the extremists will probably murder the left, unless they are stopped. One of them already murdered Theo van Gogh.

So feminists, liberals and Democrats, when you decry the war on terror we are fighting for your liberty as "not in our name", think about that hijab with your name on it. Or worse.

UPDATE: Ordinary Americans gathered on the mall to take on the anti-war left in numbers that shocked the media (they still downplayed the numbers of patriots and showed unrepresentative pix). Michelle Malkin here. Rick Moran:

History ended yesterday. Or at least one version of it. Or perhaps it didn’t end as much as it was overthrown, trampled by the feet of 30,000 ordinary Americans who gathered on the mall and along the broad avenues in Washington to confront those who have, either wittingly or witlessly, given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States for more than 40 years.

And this from another blogger who was there. Pix and video of the good guys outnumbering the bad guys:

In my opinion, this Gathering of Eagles rally has done more for the healing of the wounds these veterans have been burdened with for forty years than any wall or memorial could ever. It was if they’d finally been given the opportunity to face their oppressors. There were no sorrowful stares, no sympathetic words. It was all smiles and laughter.

All of those years of anger that had been bottled up was directed against their common enemy - moral and intellectual laziness. The world had to listen to them, the citizens who had sacrificed and paid the price and came home to the disapproval of the citizens who had never spent an uncomfortable moment in their lives.

One veteran told me, “We’re here because those guys who are fighting in Iraq deserve better than what we got when we came home. No one stood up for us, but by God, we’re standing up for them. And if we don’t, who will?”

More from Flopping Aces. And HotAir.

He had been disrespected

Well, this is a new one. Sun Times:

A man charged with the beating death of his wife and two female relatives allegedly videotaped himself on his cell phone after the attack, apologizing and saying he felt he had been disrespected, a law enforcement source said Sunday.

The man, recently arrived from Iran, also expressed regret to his surviving daughter. Investigators are reviewing the tape to determine a motive. He had been disrespected...motive enough for some.

If she'd killed him back in Iran, she might have been stoned to death. And he might have been hung, but probably not if it was considered an honor killing. They save the hangings for political prisoners over there.

Related post: Hirsi Ali Speaks Up

UPDATE: Trib story here. (Note, the earlier version of the Tribune story has been updated. The earlier version, which I linked to this morning, clearly stated that the man was a Christian, escaping religious persecution in Iran. But I would say, he didn't escape the culture.)

UPDATE: Honor killing spurs outcry in Syria. CSM via NRO.

Honor killing case? Gunmen hiding in Liege cathedral

So they take refuge in a cathedral after attempted murder. Did they mistake it for a mosque?

The attack took place around noon on Saint-Lambert square, home to the town's courthouse and located near a busy Christmas market, Belga news agency said.

A two-year-old child is reportedly fighting for life in hospital. Six other victims are said to be gravely injured.

More here.

...Meanwhile, back at the ranch: Obama to Iran: Pretty please

Related posts: That Erotic Islamist Carrot, Honor Killing: Groomed for sex at 12, stabbed to death at 17, Let the men cover their faces too

The Whole Village Was Invited

An honor killing in Syria, where it is not against the law. NY Times is on the story. (Gee, why report this now, 9 months later? Why not in April? Nancy, anything to say?). Her husband left for work, locking the door carefully:

Zahra was most likely still sleeping when her older brother, Fayyez, entered the apartment a short time later, using a stolen key and carrying a dagger. His sister lay on the carpeted floor, on the thin, foam mattress she shared with her husband, so Fayyez must have had to kneel next to Zahra as he raised the dagger and stabbed her five times in the head and back: brutal, tearing thrusts that shattered the base of her skull and nearly severed her spinal column. Leaving the door open, Fayyez walked downstairs and out to the local police station. There, he reportedly turned himself in, telling the officers on duty that he had killed his sister in order to remove the dishonor she had brought on the family by losing her virginity out of wedlock nearly 10 months earlier.

“Fayyez told the police, ‘It is my right to correct this error,’ ” Maha Ali, a Syrian lawyer who knew Zahra and now works pro bono for her husband, told me not long ago. “He said, ‘It’s true that my sister is married now, but we never washed away the shame.’ ”

By now, almost anyone in Syria who follows the news can supply certain basic details about Zahra al-Azzo’s life and death: how the girl, then only 15, was kidnapped in the spring of 2006 near her home in northern Syria, taken to Damascus by her abductor and raped; how the police who discovered her feared that her family, as commonly happens in Syria, would blame Zahra for the rape and kill her; how these authorities then placed Zahra in a prison for girls, believing it the only way to protect her from her relatives. And then in December, how a cousin of Zahra’s, 27-year-old Fawaz, agreed to marry her in order to secure her release and also, he hoped, restore her reputation in the eyes of her family; how, just a month after her wedding to Fawaz, Zahra’s 25-year-old brother, Fayyez, stabbed her as she slept.

Zahra died from her wounds at the hospital the following morning, one of about 300 girls and women who die each year in Syria in so-called honor killings, according to estimates by women’s rights advocates there.

She was so young, she took a teddy bear to bed with her every night in prison.

Her widowed husband said of her brother:

“He couldn’t afford to have a mobile,” Fawaz said. “I’d been wondering about that. It turned out that his uncle had given him the phone so that he could call and tell the family that he’d killed his sister. We learned later that they had a party that night to celebrate the cleansing of their honor. The whole village was invited.”

Previous post: Women Under Attack

That Erotic Islamist Carrot

Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas, cucumbers for sexual resemblance How bout they should just cover their eyes too. No peeking.

And carrots. Do the itty bitty ones count as safe?:

The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve. [snip]

Answering another question about what to do if women in the family like these foods, the sheikh advised the interviewer to take the food and cut it for them in a hidden place so they cannot see it.

This sounds dangerous.

P.S. WH classifies Fort Hood massacre as 'workplace violence'...

Related posts:  Honor Killing: Groomed for sex at 12, stabbed to death at 17, Let the men cover their faces too

Will Obama bow to Iran next?

Iran says Obama should apologize for downed drone 

They know this president well. Iran goes on. "radical youths"? Read Ahmadinejad's goons. Remember, he was a "radical youth" who stormed our embassy over 30 years ago. During the Carter administration. Deja vu all over again, n'est-ce pas? :

In response to tightened economic sanctions against Iran, radical youths stormed the British embassy in Tehran on November 29, causing London to recall all its staff and close its mission.

Republican presidential candidates in the United States have upped rhetoric on a possible military strike against Iran, something Israel says it may carry out as a last resort to stop the Islamic Republic getting the bomb.

"It's better that they don't use phrases like 'all options are on the table'," Mehmanparast said, referring to the stock phrase used by Israeli and U.S. leaders about the military option.

"The phrase has been used so often it has become tiresome," he added.

You know what's tiresome? Death to Israel, Death to America. Death to women. Death to boys. Death. Death to children:

Watching Newt and Huntsman talk about Iran.Really shocking.What kind of a country builds nukes not only under their mosques,but their cities

14 hours ago

#LDdebate Newt is sure this regime will use nukes--after all, they train their children to be suicide bombers.Start by cutting them off

14 hours ago

#LDdebate I mean,how much does Iran care about its people--swimming in oil for energy but spending big bucks on nukes for"peaceful" purpose
14 hours ago

Related post: Honor killing case? Gunmen hiding in Liege cathedral

Code Pinkos Next Target

Obama Ally Code Pink Invites Muslim Brotherhood: ‘Join Us In Cleansing Our Country’

I mean really, the Darwin effect kicks in.

You ladies like pink burkas?

P.S. Kuwait: Woman nabbed for chewing gum on the first day of Ramadan

Attorney: Man accused in 'honor killing' may need evaluation

Creeping Sharia

creepingsharia

Washington: Afghani man kills brother, tells cops it was ‘honor killing’ http://kl.am/4CGf #sharia #jihad #a4a #news

Women Under Attack

Some of this kind of thing has been going on for a long time, some of it is getting worse--women under attack. World Tribune:

The U.S. embassy in Damascus has reported a spate of sexual attacks on foreigners in Damascus. In a June 6 warden message, the embassy said the attacks targeted foreign women.

"Two incidents in the past week involved women walking alone, either in the early morning or early evening," the embassy said. "Another incident occurred several months ago when two women were walking together in one of the tunnels crossing underneath the Autostrad near Damascus University."

The warden message cited other reports of female U.S. embassy employees being sexually harassed by Syrian taxi drivers. The embassy reported two cases of female staffers being fondled during taxi rides.

A horrible honor killing in the UK. The Telegraph:

His daughter's crime? To leave the husband - from her arranged marriage - whom she claimed was abusive, and then to fall in love with someone else; someone who was not of the family tribe, nor a strict Muslim.

Even though Banaz grew up here, her decision to act as an individual of free will, like the rest of us, was like signing a medieval death warrant. Strangled with a bootlace, stuffed into a suitcase, then buried 10ft deep in a suburban garden on her father's wishes? What a terrible way for a young woman to die.

And a young woman came to England for an arranged marriage, then her husband wants to arrange for her death. Video at LGF. (HT Reverse Spin). .

Secretary of State Rice presents the annual report (full text) on human trafficking. Radio Liberty:

A total of 16 states are listed as Tier-3 countries, including Iran, Uzbekistan, and North Korea. Also joining the worst offenders this year are U.S. allies Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

"It's especially disappointing that so many wealthy countries in the Near East that aren't lacking adequate resources to make significant progress are on Tier 3," Lagon said. "For instance, Saudi Arabia is on Tier 3 for the third year. These are countries in that region that rely extensively on foreign migrant laborers."

Video of Secretary Rice: 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report

Related post: Freedom of Dress Code

And post on last year's report: Axis of Evil Plus

America Must Stand Behind Hirsi Ali

Christopher Hitchens, Slate, RCP on Ayaan Hirsi Ali (see my previous post, Great Expectations Go Bust):

The Dutch parliament debates this question later this week, and I hope that its embassies hear from people who don't regard this as an "internal affair" of the Netherlands. If a prominent elected politician of a Western country can be left undefended against highly credible threats from Islamist death squads, what price all of our easy babble about not "appeasing terrorists"? Especially disgraceful is the Dutch government's irresponsible decision to announce to these death squads, without even notifying Hirsi Ali, that after a given date she would be unprotected and easy game. (Lest I inadvertently strengthen this deplorable impression, let me swiftly add that at present she is under close guard in the United States.)

Suppose the narrow and parochial view prevails in Holland, then I think that we in America should welcome the chance to accept the responsibility ourselves. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become a symbol of the resistance, by many women from the Muslim world, to gender apartheid, "honor" killing, genital mutilation, and other horrors of clerical repression. She has been a very clear and courageous voice against the ongoing attack on our civilization mounted by exactly the same forces.

A brave woman being left to twist in the wind by the Dutch. If America means anything, we must stand behind her.

Related posts: Raping Women and Children, Coming to America, Lifting the Veil, Hirsi Ali Targeted, A Hijab with Your Name on it, Burying Girls Alive, Hirsi Ali Speaks Up

Honor Killing: Groomed for sex at 12, stabbed to death at 17

Daily Mail

Previous post: Let the men cover their faces too

The Disgrace that is PBS

Follow up on the story of PBS censoring a film (Note: the panel at DePaul as part of the series was stacked 3-1 in favor of extremists) on moderate Muslims, paid for with our tax dollars. Alex Alexiev, Family Security Matters:

Beginning on Sunday, April 15 and for the next six days, PBS will air 11 prime-time documentaries on its 300 affiliates nationwide. The films are all part of a series called America at the Crossroads, designed and commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and aiming to present to the American viewing public a comprehensive look at the causes, circumstances and implications of the events of 9/11.Heavily promoted by PBS, the series was envisaged as a television event of the first order that was to help Americans come to terms with this traumatic chapter of their history, and, more importantly, the nature of the radical Islamist challenge facing the West.

Undoubtedly, at least some of the films to be shown will make a contribution to that end. One that will not be allowed to is a film called Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center.Originally chosen by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as one of the first eight finalists scheduled to be aired already in the Fall of 2006, Islam vs. Islamists ran afoul of PBS for reasons that had nothing to do with its merits and has now been dropped out of the series. The story of the spiking of this film by PBS, replete as it is with hard to believe tales of blacklisting, pandering to radical Islamists, blatant conflicts of interest, political correctness and bureaucratic arrogance, has a lot to tell us not only about PBS, but it also answers the much more important question: why has radical Islam found such fertile soil in the very society it seeks to destroy? This is the story of the film that PBS does not want you to see.

Read the whole thing.

PBS should be privatized. Their blind pursuit of multiculturalism and moral relativism has led to their disgrace. Let them sink or swim with support from their limousine liberal friends. Maybe they will develop a healthier respect for the free flow of ideas in a free society.

UPDATE: Frank Gaffney, Washington Times, RCP:

Among these is a film about Muslims in America by MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, in which the host of "Crossroads," Robert MacNeil, is a partner. Interestingly, Mr. MacNeil's film was not in the original competition; it was added on by PBS and WETA and assigned one of the 11 prized slots in the initial line-up.
As it happens, I was involved in making a film for the "America at a Crossroads" series that also focused on, among others, several American Muslims. Unlike Mr. MacNeil's, however, this 52-minute documentary titled "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," was selected through the competitive process and was originally designated by CPB to be aired in the first Crossroads increment.

Also unlike Mr. MacNeil's film, "Islam vs. Islamists" focuses on the courageous Muslims in the United States, Canada and Western Europe who are challenging the power structure established in virtually every democracy largely with Saudi money to advance worldwide the insidious ideology known as Islamofascism. In fact, thanks to the MacNeil-Lehrer film, the PBS audience soon will be treated to an apparently fawning portrait of one of the most worrisome manifestations of that Saudi-backed organizational infrastructure in America: the Muslim Student Association (MSA). The MSA's efforts to recruit and radicalize students and suppress dissenting views on American campuses is a matter of record and extremely alarming.

Here is background on the MSA from a previous post: Even in America, where unfortunately Wahhabi Islam is widespread, imams counsel beating women "lightly", and we have seen at least one honor killing. And the most prominent Muslim organization in America, CAIR, is at the very least an apologist for terrorists, and there is evidence of terrorist ties. Groups like the Muslim Student Association present sweet little seminars in Kansas about how liberating the hijab is, while in San Francisco and Montreal they mob Jews.

Befriending Men

The latest honor killing, this one thankfully did not succeed. Brother shoots sister after cheerfully informing other family members that morning. Family celebrates on his return. Her crime? Befriending men.

Fortunately for the victim this happened in Israel, where she was given prompt medical attention and her brother will be prosecuted. HotAir.

Related posts: The Tolerance of Abuse, Berkeley Unrepentent, No Roses in Riyadh, Dry Scholars for Defeat

kitchen workers at the Michelin-starred Ledbury restaurant in Notting Hill fought off looters with rolling pins and fry baskets

Via the presumably shocked leftie Beast:

London burned for the third night in a row Monday, as rioters and looters continued to roam the city. The 6,000 police officers working Monday night and Tuesday morning used armored vehicles called Jankels to push back a crowd of 150 looters in Lavendar Hill. Elsewhere in London, residents jumped from burning buildings, while kitchen workers at the Michelin-starred Ledbury restaurant in Notting Hill fought off looters with rolling pins and fry baskets. British Home Secretary Theresa May has ruled out using water cannons. Scotland Yard has said 13,000 police officers will be on duty by the end of the day Tuesday; so far, 400 people have been arrested.

Well, what could possibly be going on around here? Around the entitled world? What?

And there's this brazen behavior, yesterday afternoon, in Chicago. Just steps from the Obama campaign HQ.

Listen and learn.

...will France riot again next?

Shocked leftists in London and around the world. P.S. In other news, Tampa Police crime scene tech now admits "fear of Muslim reprisal" in honor killing classified as accidental death

Women Key Players in Arab Spring

Sounds hopeful, right? The leftie Guardian.

Then they show a pix in Yemen, the cradle of Bin Laden, where they probably will end up with something worse. Though perhaps not in some of their eyes.

At least, though, the death to Israel, America the Great Satan organized chants of the past can't distract from the problems facing many of these societies. Routine demeaning treatment of women, whether they are beaten lightly or brutally, or merely have it hanging over their heads their entire lives, tells us much about a country in this part of the world.

...And reminds us what we face here: Minnesota: Muslim women urged donors to focus on jihad

Illinois: Muslim teen ran away to avoid arranged marriage (and ‘honor’ killing?)

Peggy Noonan left that part out. Can we ask who in the world is coming to our America.

P.S. Chris Muir, Day by Day

Related homeland posts here, here and here.

Liberals are a con artist's turkey farm

Now Sarah's done it! Killing a fish on TV!

Let's fade out of that horror scene for a second and watch the liberals moan about Sarah Palin killing a halibut.

In public. In front of God and everybody.

This is as bad as not aborting her baby. How could she do this?

***

She doesn't usually need a teleprompter because she believes what she says.

***

As people watch the train-wreck that is the Obama administration unfold, they are beginning to realize just how much the press, the politicians and their government has lied to them. There is a dawning realization that being a mayor of a good-sized town gives a person some very useful skills. Taxes, utilities, law enforcement, education, and myriad other things fill a mayor's day. Palin did it for ten years and did it well. It is true community organizing. It is a leadership proving ground with measurable human consequences -- America and America's problems in a microcosm. Palin cut her teeth there and made it to the governor's office, where, brief though her tenure was, she excelled. Her entry into national politics was perhaps premature, but the crucible of the 2008 election cut away much of her naïveté.

And this.

Taking on the Dysfunctional Elites

Palin on point, time and time again.

P.S:) My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come.

P.P.S. My friend Pundette: Too much Sarah. Maybe. But. Just who the hell do we TEA partiers think we are, anyway. We. don't. want. this. political. class.

...If Chris Christie wants to snark that's up to him. He drops in my estimation. Anyone else who may or may not want to run should welcome her to the fray--or they drop in my estimation as well. What are they afraid of. If they can't debate Sarah Palin openly on the issues rather than send their paid minions out to bloody her up why should we trust them to take on Obama or whoever else the Dems run.

...Looking at the rest of the presumed field I'd better see more guts with honor, and soon...and that goes for whoever heads the RNC as well.

Related posts: Trib Hit Piece on Palin, Depose the Left. Palin vs. Gawker. A Case Study:), Classless Ruling Class on Palin. Barbara Bush

Obama's "Faith" in Action

On the way home from the rightie conclave in Austin I had plenty of time to read the Sunday papers. Tucked into the NY Times Magazine was this explosive profile of DNC Chairman Howard Dean's left-hand--his chief of staff and CEO of the Dem convention, Leah Daughtry.

Appointed a year ago spring, right about when Barack Obama shunted the Rev. Jeremiah Wright off the stage for his Springfield campaign kickoff, Daughtry is a ticking time bomb. For she's a Rev. in her spare time, and she espouses the same black liberation theology Obama finally repudiated a few months ago. Daniel Bergner, NY Times, "Can Leah Daughtry bring faith to the party?" A few excerpts, starting with her father's ministry:

A prison convert who served time in his early 20s for armed robbery and passing bad checks, Herbert Daughtry — whose father founded the church and whose grandfather and great-grandfather were also ministers — became the church’s pastor 50 years ago, and today Leah was delivering the sermon as part of an anniversary celebration. Below the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, a banner for slavery reparations proclaimed, “They Owe Us.” Fliers recounted Herbert Daughtry’s arrest, a few weeks earlier, as he led marchers protesting the not-guilty verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man. His ministry has always combined consuming spirituality with black liberation theology — the theology Jeremiah Wright invoked this spring to defend his controversial sermons — and zealous political activism. Leah holds these forces within her.

She usually has her own church in a meeting room in her condo building, but celebrated with her father that day. More:

“THERE WERE THE YORUBAS dressed in all-white,” Daughtry said, thinking back to the 1970s, to the disparate array of black New Yorkers who gathered at her father’s House of the Lord Church to fight injustice. “There were the black nationalists and separatists. The black polygamists who were trying to model their lifestyle on African ways. The Black Hebrews with their long beards, walking with their wooden staffs.” In 1976, when a 15-year-old African-American, Randolph Evans, was fatally shot by a police officer in Brooklyn, Daughtry’s father, despite death threats, led demonstrations and boycotts for a year in the borough’s downtown, until businesses agreed to finance a scholarship program in Evans’s honor. Leah, who was raised according to a strict religious code that forbid females to wear pants, lipstick or makeup, took part in the protests at the age of 13. Her eyes brightened when she recalled those demonstrations and the assorted groups that joined together to give them strength, just as her voice took on extra passion when she discussed black liberation theology and the writing of James Cone.

It was this writing that Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor, cited to support the sermons that led Obama to cut ties with Wright in April. Daughtry didn’t want to comment on the sudden distance Obama put between himself and his pastor, except to say that it pained her to see such a meaningful and private relationship come to such a public and distorted end. But she didn’t put any distance between herself and Cone’s book “A Black Theology of Liberation,” which she suggested I read and which relies on the words of Malcolm X to make its religious arguments. “Some may find it disconcerting,” she replied, when I asked if she feared driving away voters by standing behind ideas that could be deemed radical. “But they are far outnumbered by Americans who are concerned about the disparities.

Just as a reminder, Cone's core philosophy in his own words:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Bergner also delves into her track record on setting up the Dem's Faith in Action team (the current advisory council is effectively defunct, and at the very least discredited among those who are more than nominally Catholic anyway) among evangelicals in red-state Alabama in 2006:

F.I.A. has also financed the faith outreach of state parties, sometimes in striking ways. In Alabama, the pro-life party chairman was given F.I.A. money to publish a “Faith and Values Voters Guide” in local newspapers just before Election Day in 2006. The 12-page insert provided the religious narratives of statewide Democratic candidates — “I was richly blessed in my life with parents who raised me in a Christian home. . . .” — and concluded with a Democratic “covenant for the future.” The covenant pledged to “require public schools to offer Bible literacy as part of their curriculum” and made at least two vows that run counter to positions of the national party: to “pass a constitutional amendment confirming that all life is a gift from God and should be protected; and that life begins at conception” and to “defeat any efforts to redefine marriage or provide the benefits of marriage to a same-sex union.”

Daughtry sounded surprised when I read her these vows. Though she is a biblical literalist who sees no problem with teaching creation theory side by side with evolution — “For me, the Bible is history” — she, following the teaching of her father’s church, is also pro-choice. “God allows us to choose in the biggest matter,” she said, “whether to accept Him in our lives. How then can we take away choice on other profound issues? We don’t believe the government should interfere.” Hearing Alabama’s covenant, she said right away that F.I.A. has not vetted everything the state parties have done with its money. Then she leaned heavily on the poles of the big tent: “The wonderful thing about the Democratic Party is that we have room for all kinds of opinions.”

On the basis of all this wonderfulness, I would say no on faith as a plus for the party. Perhaps all this works for the Rev. Daughtry, but many on the secular left will object to her and the Dems turning a blind eye to the Alabama anti-abortion stance and push for Bible-literacy in the schools, while many center-right voters will once again be appalled by the racist black supremacist creed of the Rev. Wright which Daughtry apparently shares.

UPDATE: Displaying some nuance, but not nearly enough, Dawn Turner Trice in today's Trib:

The other part of this disconnect in the poll is that Americans still have so few substantive interactions across racial lines. Though most people, no matter their race, resist being lumped into faceless, soulless categories, it's so easy for all of us to rely on stereotypes. It's also easy to not see people and issues regarding race in a nuanced way.

The Rush Limbaugh types, the Fox News types, the Rev. Jesse Jackson types have made a living drawing an all-too-willing flock into their one-dimensional echo chamber of ideas.

At least she dissed Jesse, who has been around how long? But I listen to Rush and watch Brit's show on FoxNews--are you condemning me as one-dimensional Ms. Trice? By the way, I listened Saturday to a number of disparate speakers at the conservative Americans for Prosperity American Dream Summit, including top blogger Michelle Malkin, rising star and Texas RR Commissioner Michael Williams and GOPAC head Michael Steele.

--crossposted at UNCoRRELATED

An Established Menace

One thing we can agree on with madman Ahmadinejad of Iran, he suggests UN headquarters should be moved from the US.

But where? Perhaps a country most emblematic of its "decayed, despot-infested collective", la Belle France. They do like to listen to themselves talk there, and make deals under the table.

The point is moot, though, as the UN is on its last legs anyway, unless it confronts Iran and means it.

As Tim Hames puts it in The Times, RCP, Iran having nukes is different, it is an "established menace", and it would be a Shia bomb, triggering a nuclear arms race in the middle east, as Sunni countries would probably not like to depend on Israel for their nuclear umbrella.

Meanwhile, Kofi Annan in Iran mustered up the courage to express displeasure about Iran's exhibit of cartoons mocking the Holocaust. In response, Iran announced a conference to examine exaggerations of the Holocaust.

Guess they don't want the Nazis to get all the credit for killing Jews.

UPDATE: Mary Laney, Sun Times, "Once again, we learn appeasement doesn't work":

Today is Labor Day, a day to honor yourselves for all the hard work you've done to make America the great nation it is today. But, have no doubt about this: There are Islamofascists who want to destroy you and all you've worked for.

They're not looking to take your jobs. They're looking to take your lives.

The president of Iran has openly said he wants to destroy America and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. He has defied the United Nations in continuing to build nuclear strength.

Hirsi Ali Speaks Up

Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to town last night. The audience was mostly women, as her talk was sponsored by a women's group as part of the tour for her book, Infidel. We gathered in an old church turned meeting hall. Her bodyguards flanked the stage. She entered quietly and we stood and applauded.

She spoke with grace and dignity, with flashes of wit and spirit. The genesis of the book was a post-Sept. 11th debate in the Netherlands on Islam vs. the West, held about a year after the attack. She was appalled that 5 of the 6 speakers baldly accused America of being under the control of the Jews and responsible for much of the violence in the world, and portrayed Muslims as victims and Islam as the source of civilization and peace. Ayaan spoke up, and was immediately besieged with questions. She felt the tribal culture longing for a utopia based on the Koran had failed and needed to allow self-reflection. She described herself then as a liberal Muslim. Now she describes herself as a classical liberal.

A woman publisher approached her to write a book about her experiences, to "give us an insight into a world that is closed to us". The publisher gave her books to read written by feminists, but Ayaan "didn't want to write a self-help book based on my life, I thought that was pathetic". She didn't agree with the premise of multiculturalism that was being pushed on her---"cultures are not equal, individuals are"---equality before the law, respect for individuals and private property, that was what was important. All this anti-white male talk seemed wrong to her, as it was white males in America, "the Great Satan" who enshrined in law the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She wrote her book for the 140 million women who have endured genital mutilation, to put a face on what was wrong with the culture she came from. After her talk, she graciously answered questions. I took her picture before she signed books.

Q. Had she read, While Europe Slept, and was the book accurate?
A. She had, and said it was, that the author had fled the US because fundamentalist people here wanted to deny him as a gay person the right to marry, but he realized that in Europe they wanted to kill him. As the book relates, there is a tendency toward anti-Americanism in Europe and appeasement of radical Islam, but she said more people are waking up.

Q.Why do Leftists ally themselves with jihadists?
A. They confuse faith with race. People on the Left fought for blacks, and present Islam as race, so those who criticize are called racists and Islamophobic, and they have grown up with multiculturalism which does not make judgements about culture, so they view all cultures as equal. She finds this very curious, to suggest that a culture which champions life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should be viewed on the same level as a dogmatic culture incapable of self-reflection.

Q. How comfortable a home at a conservative think tank?
A. Very comfortable in the US. Democrats took her to AEI. AEI said they like to attract controversial scholars to advance debate, which she found very impressive, and they allow her the freedom to pursue her ideas.

Q. Why does Islam demand we convert? How do we prevent the practice in the US under Islam of beating women and treating them as inferior?
A. Need to make a distinction between Islam as a philosophy and Muslims. She does not believe Islam withstands the test of reason. It must reform. They demand rights! To beat women!! Europeans have taken the value of freedom very much for granted. They see the Muslims as the new Jews. They don't want to make the mistakes their fathers did in WWII, but the demands are all one-sided, intolerant, and take away individual freedom.

Q. Why does the press hide the truth during the cartoon riots and other riots, calling rioters immigrants and not Islamists?
A. Yes, this is very disturbing. But in The Netherlands, and even in France, the greatest appeaser, they republished the Danish cartoons. Yet they were NOT published in the UK and the US. There is an element of accommodation and fear in the US, with one difference---in Europe people look to the government for leadership---Americans seem to organize themselves to defend freedom of speech.

Q. Why don't we hear from American Muslims to renounce these acts of violence?
A. There are some, but so few we know them all by name: Irshad Manji, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, and Salman Rushdie in the UK. They are afraid if they speak up they will risk their lives and those of their families. She herself has bodyguards. That is the physical fear. The other is psychological---if you disagree with Allah, with the Koran, if you don't want to kill infidels, you risk hell. There must be a generally accepted move toward less literal interpretations of the Koran, but there is a large group of believers in jihad being paid by the Saudi government to spread jihad. (many US mosques are financed by this extreme Wahhabi sect). And if you as a moderate Muslim oppose this extreme view you are labeled infidel, Islamophobic, racist, and the argument is shut down, because some of these extremists as we know believe in using violence.

Q. (A woman got up and described herself as an American Muslim woman, a feminist and a professor. She made a rambling accusation about you people and your remarks condemning all Muslims and doesn't it bother you that you are harming the image of Islam, and that the West has had slavery and that she has suffered discrimination in this country as a Muslim, and Americans and Christians are Islamophobic.) A woman got up from the audience and said in response---they are not blowing up women and children!
A. Hirsi Ali said I would like to ask you---why doesn't it bother you that 140 million Muslim women have suffered genital mutilation, that many suffer honor killings, get little or no education and in some countries as many as 80% are raped (I think I heard that right). And if you want to protect the image of Islam, then the first step is to acknowledge what is wrong with Islam. Killing infidels, beheading cartoonists, while holding the Koran---not one Muslim stands up and says---this is not my faith! I am not making excuses for the West, but it is a culture of self-reflection.

Q. What next?
A. She is working on another book, a scholarly work. The prophet Mohammad wakes up in the NY Public Library and has a conversation with John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek, and Colin Powell.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.


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