Over 1,400 girls were raped in Rotherham, UK by gangs of Pakistani pedophiles. Similar horrors have been taking place in Rothdale, Derby, Oxford and Telford. I’ve read some articles about these crimes but every single source I’ve seen so far is disappointingly stupid.
The most painful and dangerous issue facing humanity today is the unequal entrance into modernity. Some societies, cultures and groups are handling the inevitable advent of modernity better than others. The ones who are not handling it well (e. g. ISIS) are erupting in rage against those who are managing it better (e. g. USA).
What is modernity? It is the era of human existence where human beings started losing their terror of the unknowable universe and realized that human reason can learn to understand and even change the world. This intellectual and philosophical revolution took place in the XVIIITH-century Europe and culminated in the realization that it was not only possible but also necessary to improve the lives of individuals and the structure of societies.
This led to a rethinking of the concept of individuals. It soon became clear that considering women – half of the population of the planet – subhuman was neither reasonable nor productive. It also became clear that treating children as small-statured adults was also neither reasonable nor productive. Of course, these things became clear only to a tiny highly educated minority. The rest of the population preferred grasping onto its stupidity and terror of life.
Little by little, the tiny minority of these enlightened thinkers managed to attract more people to their ranks. They also developed brilliant means if propaganda to disseminate their ideas. The struggle between civilization and barbarity is still ongoing. Dragging the entire humankind out of the quagmire of fear, stupidity and impotent rage at life isn’t easy.
[To be continued…]
Clarissa's Blog 
\\ The struggle between civilization and barbarity is still ongoing. Dragging the entire humankind out of …
Made me think of “Life is struggle.” —Karl Marx.
Seems no matter which worldview one adopts, it must involve struggle both on personal and social levels.
Christianity / Judaism:
life-long struggle against your sins, creating a perfect society to hasten the arrival of Messiah.
Communism:
remaking yourself as a new person, building world-wide perfect Communistic society.
Clarissa:
life-long painful process of achieving and preserving one’s individuality, dragging the entire humankind…
No ideology / narrative that lets one to rest ever …
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Yes, there is. Death. 🙂
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As I see it, girls are targeted not only because of sexual reasons and because of being easy to victimize, but since attack on them is perceived in the attackers’ culture as the ultimate attack on (‘honor’ of) the entire host society.
Now I see that the 3 examples all begin from the letter ‘C’ too, in addition to including dragging yourself and the entire humankind. 🙂
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“As I see it, girls are targeted not only because of sexual reasons and because of being easy to victimize, but since attack on them is perceived in the attackers’ culture as the ultimate attack on (‘honor’ of) the entire host society.”
– In short: pre-modern thinking. Which is exactly what I’m talking about.
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Here are three sources you might want to consider.
Remarks of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim, at Yale. She spoke on September 15th, and my comments on her remarks are at the link.
Muslims Sexually Enslaving Children: A Global Phenomenon. The article attempts to explain the bases for it.
Will Islam become a peaceful, tolerant religion? A Muslim explains that Islam is not yet a peaceful, tolerant religion but hopes that it may become one.
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I don’t know if the rapists of Rotherham did namaz 5 times a day, avoided all alcohol, were saving for a haj and protected the dhimmi as the Koran tells them to. Doing all this is as compatible with raping as not doing it. Getting into these theological debates is not extremely useful because holy books, just like any books, tell people whatever these people want and are prepared to hear. What interests me is why the need to hear such things arises, not which old text is used or not used to justify the actions.
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You have provided excellent reasons to listen to the remarks of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and those of the Muslim who hopes that Islam will become a non-violent, tolerant religion and cease to engage in the disparagement, and far worse, of women.
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Modernity has much to offer, but in terms of gender many people are still confused. On one of my YouTube videos I have trolls masturbating themselves like nobody’s business because there is a female philosopher — Luce Irigaray — who seems to be stepping out of her proper feminine bounds by saying things in a way that people can’t immediately understand. (It seems the obligation of women everywhere is to be immediately understandable or risk extreme male wrath and put-downs regarding one’s intellectual acumen.) The trolls are in terror because to their mind, Irigaray is a “postmodernist”.
And then we have actual postmodernism preaching its extreme cultural relativism, in terms of which “honor” killings and female genital mutilation are A-OK.
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And don’t forget “the liberating potential of the burqa” as a new feminist fad in the US.
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The inability of people to make sense of matters in a reasonable way is mind boggling. For instance some semi-ignorant new politician we have here posts a picture of a woman in a burka with a pistol. She insinuates that the burka is a security risk. Then it turns out that this was an Afghani policewoman who was murdered by the Taliban.
Now, take note. This woman was MURDERED by violent Islamic extremists. But that is not the focus on the subsequent debate by people commenting on social media. No. They are much more interested in how the DEAD Afghani policewoman would feel about her identity and whether she would be offended by low brow Australian politicians using her image in that way. But once again, let us pay attention to the unmentionable fact. The woman in the picture is DEAD. Furthermore she was murdered by religious extremists. Therefore, she does not care how her identity is being portrayed and nor is she worried that a photograph may be used in such a way that misrepresents her identity. She has no concern whatsoever about her identity. She was murdered.
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There is some extent to which religion is a factor here.
There are two ways of looking at holy texts (I’m simplifying here, bear with me).
1. literalism – the world was created in six days, that means 144 hours. the text is perfect and all we have to do is apply its commands to the letter of the law, forever and ever.
2. metaphoric interpretation – a day for god might be millions of years for human beings, the text is god talking to humans in a way humans can understand, but still its hard and we have to use all our resources to understand the spirit of the law (and some things in the text come from a place and time that’s not relevant for us now)
I won’t speak of Judaism since I don’t know enough about it, but both traditions can be found in Christianity and the metaphoric interpretation is ascendant. Pope JPII even said openly that there was no conflict between Genesis and theories of evolution.
The literalists in Christianity are mostly extreme weirdos and have no mainstream support.
Islam has been stuck in literalism for centuries now and metaphoric interpretations can gain no purchase (the decline in the Islamic world into tradition-bound stagnation can pretty much be pinpointed with the ascendancy of literalism). Of course many muslims take a metaphoric view in their daily lives picking the nice parts and leaving out the nastier ones but they can’t really speak of that openly.
Within that context it’s worth remembering that the Quran does not condemn slavery (which explains a lot about how servants and imported workers are treated in oil rich countries) and actually explicitly allows sex slavery (more space is devoted to the protocal of sex slavery than praying to mecca).
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I was recently reading about some very inventive interpretation of the Koran that Osama bin Laden engaged in to justify his terrorism. And we all know he was not sitting there all lonely with his ideas.
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