Monday, November 06, 2006

Of Sex, Wealth, and Imperialism

jihadists_rally
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Are these the Delphic reasons that will usher in an impending demise of western civilization?

Might be. But not necessarily because western civilization suffers from the above shortcomings.

What about reasons to explain the seeming unexplainable irrationality of fundamentalist Muslim extremism, inextricably unique and laden with the signature traits of its ever-abundant cadre of suicide bombers?

One former fundamentalist Muslim extremist believes so.

His name is Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former disciple of Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos.

His critical pronouncements may not be novel to many, nor far from the thinking of those who eruditely study Middle Eastern affairs.

But we are hopelessly predisposed to giving more credence and creditability to statements if they originate from the “horse’s mouth” so to speak.

Thus, with regard to the Sex angle, first.

Dr. Hamid takes pain to dissect a core difference between Sunnis and Shiites in this particular regard. Sunnis are typically the suicide bombers and not Shiites, though admitting that both are predisposed to gratuitous violence and mayhem. The reason given is that Sunnis are essentially sexually repressed and frustrated individuals in their lives, credit that to very strict religious precepts taught from very early on. Thus, the negotiated promise of a certain number of virgins and consequent heavenly sexual gratification in exchange for martyrdom is one deal very hard for them to refuse. Shiites suffer from no such repression. After all in their culture they are allowed “temporary marriages” lasting from an hour to past 95 years. Ample enough opportunities for release of sexual frustrations.

Now on to Wealth.

We can forget about the argument that these suicide-prone extremists are so because of ignorance and poverty. Here is the lowdown, “most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free” Of course, there are countless of the poor and needy who are also so predisposed, but many are passively predisposed.

So why are the wealthy so predisposed? Well, comes the next angle.

Imperialism.

Dr. Hamid intones, as clear and simple as it gets:

"..the deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

They do it because they strongly believe so. This with their other messianic “voices in their mind”. Like that the rich oil fields of Saudi Arabia were destined by Allah to be the prophetic instrument for Islam world domination. The resurgence of the caliphate from a distant era. Or the apocalyptic prophesy that the current Iranian president is reported to be seriously engrossed in – the expected re-incarnation of a numbered grand imam?

The West better get up to par on this, and quickly. Or it may be too late. Remember these are not just faddish and whimsical preoccupations.

These people truly believe that it is their way, or no way.

2 comments:

  1. "The West better get up to par on this, and quickly. Or it may be too late."

    re

    Amadeo, I think it is already too late for I believe Muslim extremism is directly or indirectly tied into the following:

    "And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men." - Revelation 9:15

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  2. Tubby:

    I still feel optimistic.

    But this added trivia could give the west more cause to worry:

    In Europe, the typical Muslim family has 3.5 children while the rest of Europe can only show 1.3 children. A few generations more and the population landscape of the continent will have changed greatly.

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