Tag Archives: psychology

Islamic Terrorism at Westgate Mall – Atrocity, Barbarism, Savagery – A Complete Collapse of Boundaries and Limits

28 Saturday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology

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Eyes gouged out, bodies hanging from hooks, and fingers removed with pliers’: Horrific claims of torture emerge as soldiers reveal gory Kenyan mall massacre details

Headline – Kenya mall attack torture claims emerge from soldiers: ‘Eyes gouged out, bodies on hooks, fingers removed’ | Mail Online 9/26/2013.

Psychopathic people and behaviour are found within all cultures and religions. But one tops them all — by many lengths.

Lead – Nicolai Sennels: Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters – Jihad Watch, 9/27/2013.

In Western news-making and opinion-forming circles, there’s a palpable reluctance to talk about the most noteworthy thing about modern Islamist violence: its barbarism, its graphic lack of moral restraint.

Lead – I’m sorry, but we have to talk about the barbarism of modern Islamist terrorism – Telegraph Blogs, 9/28/2013.

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Many years ago and with reference to Al Shabaab, I have mentioned the unbridled aspect of a force of nature that may cloak itself in some kind of program but that in reality has no program apart from its own hypnotic inclination to indulge itself in mayhem, murder, and sadism beyond all limits.

Has Islam helped them along?

Probably — certainly no other major religion today supports the breadth, frequency, intensity, and undeniable and inexhaustible sadism associated with atrocious acts of violence committed most often against unprepared innocents with the war cry, “Allahu Akbar!”

With twisted political force, double-binds, intimidation and darkly teased loyalty one may warp the child whose greatest possession would seem to become his hate and his liability, equally consuming, his inability to contain it.

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Hitler exhibited many psychiatric symptoms, including extreme paranoia and defenses that ”could fill a psychiatry textbook,” he most likely was not truly mentally ill. Hitler’s paranoid delusions, Dr. Redlich writes, ”could be viewed as a symptom of mental disorder, but most of the personality functioned more than adequately.” Hitler, he added, ”knew what he was doing and he chose to do it with pride and enthusiasm.”

Insane or Just Evil? A Psychiatrist Takes a New Look at Hitler – New York Times, 11/17/1998.

Readers of this blog know that I’ve an expanding toolkit built around “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy“, and it seems to be working just fine with such as Adolph Hitler, Al Shabaab, and Charles Manson.

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With every “Islamist” attack, Islam draws greater scrutiny, and even though as a class Muslims may not identify with terrorism or terrorists, especially with themselves comprising the vast majority of victims of this brand of criminal behavior, the same may taint them.  This, of course, is part of “shimmer“.  The more murder that takes place beneath the banner of Islam, the more conflict generated in its name, the more breathtaking — or numbing — the violence indulged, the more difficult it becomes to claim cultures associated with it equal, noble, or virtuous, their children and their doings becoming the most important gauge of their acumen and success.

Manson relocated the Family to a ranch near the Simi Valley owned by a friend of one his followers. Life there was dominated by rules meant to render Family members — particularly the women — enslaved and dependent. Suddenly, no female was to ever carry money. At the two daily meals, men were served first and “the women got what was left.”

‘Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson’ draws portrait of psychopath as a young man – NY Daily News, 8/28/2013

Has the treatment of women in, say, Saudi Arabia, been so much different?

Notably for Americans, Manson occupies his one legendary true-crime space.

The assorted criminals and nut sacks associated with similarly outrageous crimes have no central connection to him apart from their recognition as comparatively isolated psychopaths.

What Al Shabaab does — and Al Qaeda and Taliban and . . . . well, you get the point: it’s a little different, more tied together across time and space and shared gruesome fantasia.

The reason one may note how Charlie Manson treated women and ask whether similar arrangements have not been as true of Saudi Arabia is that with the unnatural horror unleashed in Al Shabaab’s mindless zombie attack in Nairobi, the Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murder comes naturally to mind.  It’s not only a convenient analog — again, one an isolated American lunatic crime (knives more than guns, if any, in that one too): the other as lunatic but predictable given the many nations hosting each a part of the Islamic Small Wars and how often similar mayhem occurs — but a key also to what the two entities may have had in common in part: a narcissism similar in its contemptuous and malignant aspects.

and why is that?

To shake the head and not understand seems only that much more dumb given what happened in Kenya at whose hands and with the authority, at least in their own heads, of what book beneath what banner associated with whom and what.

Whatever it is, it is not primarily “the west’s” fight.

Additional Reference

Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet: Fritz Redlich: 9780195057829: Amazon.com: Books (1998).

The Making of a Serial Killer | Psychology Today, 12/7/2012.

Official Tate-LaBianca Murders Blog, 9/25/2013

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Guilt and Jealousy in Two Lines

26 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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Finish your supper. Don’t you know there are children starving in Africa?”

* * *

“If you don’t finish what’s on your plate, I shall give it to your brother.

Guilt has always to do with others, some perception of their suffering, and the role we may play in aiding, alleviating, or appreciating the same in light of our own perceived better-off capabilities, luck, and comparative wellbeing.

Jealousy has primarily to do with ourselves, doubts about our grasp and power, and our worried perception of cheat and theft by assorted and presumably conspiring others.

For the most part, grammar in language refers to structural properties and rules guiding the management of the written and spoken word; however, grammar may also refer to basic sets of social and psychological instructions — count the mother’s inventions for encouraging an economical approach and value to eating (waste not — want not) among such — that once interiorized may be forgotten but quite elaborated, for in both examples, food on the child’s plate may serve as a convenient subject for an integrated cluster of ideas involving the properties of other things:

“Take care of your things because . . . ” (you are lucky to have them . . . they’re expensive . . . somebody sacrificed something else for you to have them . . . etc.) and “If you don’t take care of your things . . . ” (somebody will steal them . . . they may be ruined . . . you’ll lose the use of them . . . you’ll be found out as incompetent or defenseless or both, and so on).

I wouldn’t presume to say with authority that the two lines offered here demonstrate precisely how a binary rule may be planted in the mind.

On the other hand, I would suggest tabula rasa applies only up to the moment a child first 1) hears an adult speak and with some accuracy interpolates the meaning of adult utterance and 2) subsequently discovers surfacing in language themes that embed socially reinforced rules that will go on to influence the development of attitudes, the recognition and interpretation of emotions, and perception itself with social perception — how to perceive others; how to behave among others — a crucial part of the psychology.

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Obscenity, Savagery, Boundary Disorders, and, Alas, Pussy Riot

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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First, in case you never heard of it, a couple of years ago one of the band’s members put up three effigies in one of Moscow’s big supermarkets, with a sign saying that Jews, gays and migrant workers should be driven out of Moscow. I think the authorities should have looked into their activities back then.

After that, they staged an orgy in a public place. Of course, people are allowed to do whatever they want to do, as long as it’s legal, but this kind of conduct in a public place should not go unnoticed by the authorities.

Putin Jokes About Orgies to Cast Pussy Riot Protesters as Degenerates – NYTimes.com 9/6/2012

I’ve seen the orgy in the museum pictures.

While one in the west and of a Jewish background may lend more attention to abuses and abusers of power, one may become mindful too of abuses of freedom, and then too, within the bipolar and narcissistic constructs with which I’ve played on this blog, the clinical observation of ignored boundaries comes into play.

Perhaps it is one thing within the way of both Playboy and punk ethos to adapt a private space, an hotel room, a mansion, a club to to one’s enthusiasms and quite another to carry them into the public’s cherished secular and religious institutional space.

Where is the ethic in “pushing the boundaries” so far as to breach them entirely?

Hillel the Elder famously stated as the way of Torah, “That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another.”

The book I own on Hillel, and by the prolific Rabbi Telushkin, is Hillel: If Not Now, When?

Perhaps the volume should be available for reading in prison.

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An RT clip (clean enough and informative just in case you’ve come out of a cage and are blinking in the sun muttering “pussy riot, wha’?”

▶ Pussy Riot has Orgy in museum and has sex with chicken in a supermarket – YouTube

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We’re a wild species.

It’s a fact of nature borne out in thousands of clans, cultures, languages, and religions, and in addition we’re endowed with a remarkably creative survival psychology: our ears turn on and we start scanning for meaningful or useful sound and with just that part active acquire a fair part of our primary or “mother tongue” language and its social rules.

Whether for boredom — a hot mind plays havoc with time — or simple creative misapprehension, one may get things a little bit inside-out.

Add hormones.

And youth culture.

http://youtu.be/u7hZ9jKrwvo

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Cultural and personal self-containment become dimensional themes within the concept of “maturity”.  Whether person or state, what does it mean “to mature”?

In the combat- and other war-related videos, one sees both an ugly and kind of stupid side to humanity, but perhaps one sees that too at the edge of a boxing ring or soccer pitch.  Still, when the boxer bites an opponent’s ear, cuts out a liver for eating, drags a body naked through the streets — no less did Achilles with Hector’s body, but that was a long time ago — one wants a powerful hand to stay the excesses.  There is in that concept of limits, even in war, even with one’s gravest enemy, the ugliness of the Banu Qurayza legend.

Where and when to stop?

Perhaps when and where one has been heard fairly, soundly, and widely and the compromise and respect attending one’s own position becomes certain and mutually beneficial and engaged.

That is the end of the spirit’s suffocation and the annulment of limitless, ruthless self-absorption and its political and social consequences.

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In addition to the politics attending Pussy Riot’s antics, other figures come up frequently in relation to Putin’s autocracy, and they too may bear their own second and closer look in the cause of a more accurate and encompassing comprehension.

Related Reference

Antisocial personality disorder – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bipolar disorder – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Narcissistic personality disorder – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Syria – Owned by Old Relationships, Old Ideas, Old Menace

06 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Syria

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One says, “Lean forward.”

The other may be saying, “Push back.”

* * *

Perhaps the two boys are playing an old game with old cards and broken chips.

“I see you lost some states there,” says one.

“The cause lost some states, but, you know, people don’t change much.  They’re still ours, and I see there’s more like them on the table.”

* * *

It’s an evil old game cooked by one party with crude assumptions: the other cannot walk away; the other cannot win; the other is there for beating and controlling; the stakes will be useful, pleasing, but of themselves are not important.

* * *

For one player, Syria may seem to afford payback for Afghanistan, February 15, 1989 and for an evening at the Kremlin, December 25, 1991.

It’s personal.

And why not?

Others fight old battles over and over, and the origins or their legends and myths are even farther back in time.

Banners, causes, flags: shields.

Methods, outlooks, visions: those are more to the point.

* * *

Winning empathetically, ethically, rightly: satisfying.

Winning by force of will alone: delicious!

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Iran: U.S. will ‘definitely suffer’ if it leads strike on Syria – CNN.com (9/6/2013):

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday the United States — which, in addition to being one of his country’s chief adversaries, has led the push to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government over chemical weapons — has no right to make “humanitarian claims (given) their track record” in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Obama, Putin in battle over purported Syria chemical weapons evidence at G-20 summit in Russia – CBS News (9/6/2013):

Putin said this week that any one-sided action would be rash. But he said he doesn’t exclude supporting U.N. action if it’s proven that the Syrian government used poison gas on its own people.

Putin Fights War of Images and Propaganda with Russia Today Channel – SPIEGEL ONLINE (8/13/2013):

Russia releases key findings on chemical attack near Aleppo indicating similarity with rebel-made weapons — RT News (9/4/2013)

Rumsfeld’s War – Newsweek and The Daily Beast (9/15/2002):

“Leaning forward” is one of Donald Rumsfeld’s favorite expressions. An old cold-war term, familiar to soldiers and spies, it means the willingness to be aggressive, to take risks. “I want every one of you to know how forward-leaning we are,” the secretary of Defense told a room full of Marine generals and Navy admirals at the North Island Naval Air Station, near San Diego, last month.

Syria crisis: War of words between Russia, U.S. heats up – CNN.com (9/6/2013):

The Cold War is over, though given the increasingly heated exchanges of late, it’s hard to tell.

What’s the evidence of Syrian chemical weapons attack? – CNN.com (9/4/2013)

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Syria – Marking Time

30 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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The absence of conscience on the part of the Assad regime in its military actions, an aspect that reaches its nadir with the use of chemical weapons, and the historically astigmatic vision of the Al Qaeda-types serve to keep “awareness, self-awareness, and conscience” — God’s gift to humanity in my interpretation of the Jewish ethos expressed in Genesis 2 and 3 — restricted to their own minds, concerned only with themselves, and consequently locked in true “mortal combat” on a small stage surrounded by mirrors of their own image.

The primers are out.

Fisher, Max.  “9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask.”  The Washington Post, August 29, 2013.

I like Max Fisher’s term in the lead, ” . . . possibly imminent series of limited military strikes . . .” and the later too true observation, “The government responded, there is no getting around this, like monsters.”

Rankin, Seija.  “What you Need to Know About the Crisis in Syria.”  Refinery29, August 28, 2013:

However, over time the FSA became dominated by Islamist extremists (including some affiliated with Al Qaeda), bolstered by Sunni rulers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The rebels, as the overarching group is now referred to, slowly split into fractured groups, with the more radical fighters taking over areas to the north and east of Damascus, and the more secular fighters holding court in the southern suburbs.

In Seija’s backgrounder, the Assad will-to-dynasty gets referenced but not its dependence on the politics of the Cold War and the prism provided by Putin’s now delicate diplomacy of the day, which has seen the retrieval of Russian civilian and military personnel and assets from Syria while fulfilling old military contracts at the Iran-Syria nexus.

Russia may be yet interested in defeating the “Yankee Imperialists” in the cause of the “New Russian Oligarchs” — just a thought — but it has to work at keeping itself apart from the European part of NATO identity as a Christian state fending off Islamist intentions in Chechnya and as a modern proto-democratic (all the parts are in place) still autocratic state enjoying a somewhat pagan muscularity.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Is that above an Ayatollah’s best buddy?

* * *

Back on center stage, Amos Harel writing for Haaretz asks, “In all the global talk over the last week about the chemical weapons attack in Syria and the expected U.S. response, one interesting question has been shunted aside: Why on earth did Syrian President Bashar Assad do it?”

(Harel, Amos.  “Despite words of warning, Israel wants to stay out of Syria conflict.”  Haaretz, August 30, 2013).

Harel’s piece also covers the strategic basics.

Syria, specifically, and Putin in Syria, specifically, and a fair number of interlopers, not so specifically, would seem to be running around in there without much of a moral compass.

Again, “Syria Dark Star” consumes energy without transforming itself into a positive region although some of what has been taking place may be moving toward that, e.g., the Kurdish separation from Syria forced by the presence of Al Qaeda in the Kurdish sphere amid the absence of Syrian state forces; the fact that the seemingly moderate General Idris remains afield with a capable force fighting both Assad’s military and such as Al Nusra.

Still: where can the Syrian Civil War resolve?

The inability of Syrians and the world at large to address that question both ideally and politically serves to keep the conflict, in the way of fire, consuming and deadening.

* * *

An Aside on Generalized Syrian Anti-Semitism

The presence and effects of general Syrian anti-Semitic acculturation also spells a dismal future, for that facet also stands signal to a lost humanity.

The absence of conscience on the part of the Assad regime in its military actions, an aspect that reaches its nadir with the use of chemical weapons, and the historically astigmatic vision of the Al Qaeda-types serve to keep “awareness, self-awareness, and conscience” — God’s gift to humanity in my interpretation of the Jewish ethos expressed in Genesis 2 and 3 — restricted to their own minds, concerned only with themselves, and consequently locked in true “mortal combat” on a small stage surrounded by mirrors of their own image.

In a sense, these actors cannot see themselves.

Those not a part of it and out searching on the World Wide Web may nonetheless see the same as they are and caught in a predicament of their own making, starting with the “malignant narcissism” so well displayed by the Assad’s in their “Arab Spring” response to their constituents.

“The government responded, there is no getting around this, like monsters,” wrote Max Fisher a few hours ago, and that is the truth.

How is it that they could not see themselves when they needed to see themselves most accurately, most completely, and most of all?

The coin “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” may apply, but it serves as an aid to observation of leadership type and may not provide quite the key to insight and guidance needed in Syria.

Unfortunately, the conventions of diplomacy and war fighting won’t quell the dark energy in Syria either because in some the accumulated language-based “content of mind” has pushed them beyond the reach of their own and better humanity.  In reach-out, one may point to those who have exceeded limits, but, here’s the problem, they are also those fulfilling their programming.

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Syria – Gaslighting

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology

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“There are, within some of the videos, examples which seem a little hyper-real, and almost as if they’ve been set up . . . .”

Forensics specialist Stephen Johnson quoted in Euronews, “Expert casts doubt on Syria chemical weapons footage,” August 21, 2013.

The rebels blamed the government, the government denied involvement and Russia accused the rebels of staging the attack to implicate President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Hubbard, Ben and Hwaida Saad.  “Images of Death in Syria, but No Proof of Chemical Attack.”  The New York Times, August 21, 2013.

No responsible nation-state actor would want to go off to war half cocked, but there are those who want to manipulate the look of their conflict to either inveigle foreign military or, alternatively, keep the same at bay — and they believe they can do it by controlling information.

Now you see it.  It’s obvious.  Look.

Now you don’t.  It didn’t happen.

This behavior goes well with the idea of dictators and their mirrors in power as “malignant narcissists” — they’re not about being helpful to others but rather out to help themselves in the cause of their own aggrandizement.

If “Allah favors those who restrain themselves,” these are those who have lost their brakes, their self-containment, their ability to keep themselves from becoming the cause of evil.  Beyond the bubbles in which those live are those still able to take one step back before going in, if they can get in with some degrees of freedom, with the methods and tools of empirical investigation.

Syria is not necessarily about two sides lying for their respective causes.

It is about darkness and the truth being in it and crying for light.

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http://youtu.be/MEbWdByrrdU

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Something happened.

Something exceeded limits and took the lives of innocents and did so without conscience.

I’m uncertain about having seen in the news an end-to-end false flag on the rebel side.

On state television, a Syrian military spokesman rejected claims that the Bashar al-Assad regime used chemical weapons.

“The media channels of sedition and misinformation who shed Syrian blood have lied as usual that the Syrian Arab Army used chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus today,” the spokesman said.

RFE/RL.  “U.S. Demands UN Access to Alleged syria Chemical-Attack Site.”  August 22, 2013.

I’m equally uncertain about the Assad regime’s ability to tell the truth.

About anything.

Additional Reference

Rubin, Alissa J. and Alan Cowell.  “France Urges ‘Force’ in Syria if Chemical Attacks are Confirmed.”  The New York Times, August 22, 2013.

Wikipedia.  “Gaslighting”.

Zirulnick, Ariel.  “Chemical weapons in Syria: Latest suspicions revive ‘red line’ debate.”  The Christian Science Monitor (via Yahoo), August 22, 2013.

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FTAC – Answering the Promotion of Islam as Regards a Woman’s Place – An Excerpt

21 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion

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I have altered the provocative voice to maintain only the line of thought pursued.

The answering voice, and more at length here, enough so to justify my noting that I have Martin Pembroke Harries’ permission to reprint his views here, takes an atheist’s stance in the formulation of ethics.  We’ve had some back-and-forth about circumcision, Abraham, obedience, and conscience, but here the topic around which the notes weave is grrrrrl power, which he defends well.

Other editing: I’ve added line breaks for readability and italicized the “point” voice to Pembroke’s counterpoint.

* * *

Women are shy in the Koran and won’t perceive the crime the way a male would.

Is this a wind-up? I can’t decide whether you’re serious or a master of sarcasm.

If you are being serious, when you suggest to, say, Sheikh Hasina the prime Minister of Bangladesh, or Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the prime Minister of Argentina, or Hilary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, that their testimony would be worth half that of yours simply because you are a man, you would be well to stand well beyond their swinging fist distance!

While the Koran authorizes beating a wife after other steps have been tried, it tells us not to maim them.  In the west, it seems there are no rules.about how to beat one’s wife.

Again, is this for real?

If so, this is what religion can do to a nominally decent man, it forces him to justify the indefensible.

Do you think that because Sharia states that you can’t break her face when you beat your wife, that is some how a reflection of the nobility of Islam?

That is so sad first of all, but monstrously embarrassing soon afterward.

And let’s be honest, there is nothing in the Quran that states you can’t break your wife’s face when you’re beating her – If you actually read the Quran 4:34, you’ll find that there is no restriction at all.

Please don’t tell me I can find on the book shelves of my local mosque library “101 Halal ways to beat your wife!”, or “How to lovingly protect your wife from the shame of her disobedience through the use of a good timely thrashing” or “Sharia Wife-beating made simple and with a Smile – avoid the face, and Carry On!”

A woman in Islam may be a wife, mother, sister, or daughter.  There is no disrespect in that.

I’ve read numerous Muslims state that there is this nominal respect for one’s OWN mother and one’s OWN sister, but once your average MENA Muslim male leaves the house, that’s where respect for women, in general, ends.

Women lead in the percentage of Muslim reverts in the United States.  If the religion was so bad for them, why would they revert?

Yes, This is the case because non-Muslim females are marrying Muslim males – for love no less!

It’s probably to please the groom’s parents more than actually believing Mohamed’s story; whereas Muslim females are forbidden to marry non-Muslim men – often at the threat of her life. Again, this a shameful example of not giving equal rights to women. If Muslim men were forbidden to marry non-Muslim women the number of ‘converts’ would plummet.

Lastly, have you got the statistic of how many ‘converts’ have subsequently unconverted? Or how many have converted only nominally in order to facilitate the marriage? Those numbers would be far less flattering wouldn’t they?

Islam disallows Muslim daughters from marrying non-Muslims.  If you have a problem with that, it’s your problem.

Well, first of all it’s the daughters’ problem.

I respect your atheism.  I want you tor respect my belief in Allah.

No. I respect *your right to believe* what you want, but there is no way you should expect me to automatically respect *what you believe*. Nor should you expect me to automatically respect your right to practice your religion if the tenets of the religion are anathema to rational social harmony – and on those grounds masking the face would be contrary to those ideals. I’ll respect what you believe with respect to Mohamed’s story and social mores only if it reflects justice, morality and rationality – and there is your problem. But it shouldn’t be a big problem, it’s only unsubstantiated religion – folklore – after all.

There are probably a number of non-religious issues upon which we might agree. For instance, I reckon chicken biryani is a food of the gods!

* * *

Harries is entitled to his opinion, but I myself never regard folklore as trivial: language is always (always) a cultural tool and what is invented in it, whether out of necessity and the need for useful signals or out of desire or play or the want of excitement and greatness (even if only in our own heads), each language and its lore and literature becomes a suspension for cultural self-concept.

With that, I’ll take this post a little further.

* * *

Surat 4:34:

“Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.” (Pickthall’s version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

The first commentary I’ve opened from web search: A Commentary on The Qur’an 4:34 By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat

Dr. Shafaat gets into the matter of entangled loyalty well with this statement on the violence involved:

“Beat them”. If even separation fails to work, then it is suggested that men use beating. To this suggestion of the Holy Qur’an there have been two extreme reactions on the part of some Muslims. The first reaction is being apologetic or ashamed of the suggestion. The second is to use it as a justification for indulging in habitual wife battering. Needless to say that both these reactions are wrong. The Quran as we believe is the word of God and is thus every word in it is full of wisdom and love. To be apologetic about any part of the Quran is to lack both knowledge and faith.

For every word to be “full of wisdom and love”, some additional exegesis seems necessary, for Dr. Shafaat continues:

In regard to the suggestion about beating, the following further points should also be noted:

a) According to some traditions the Prophet said in his famous and well-attended speech on the occasion of his farewell pilgrimage that the beating done according to the present verse should be ghayr mubarrih, i.e. in such a way that it should not cause injury, bruise or serious hurt. On this basis some scholars like Tabari and Razi say even that it should be largely symbolic and should be administered “with a folded scarf” or “with a miswak or some such thing”. However, to be effective in its purpose of shaking the wife out of her nasty mood it is important that it should provide an energetic demonstration of the anger, frustration and love of the husband. In other words, it should neither seriously hurt the wife nor reduce it to a set of meaningless motions devoid of emotions.

That power continues to reside in the man (this is a locus-of-control issue) and not in the woman (how should one of the fair sex respond to or treat a “rebellious man”?) seems less an issue than the management of the degree of violence expressed, either physically or symbolically.

* * *

In working with thought as language behavior subject to modification by context in time plus the relative insularity of minds and the language-inventing cultures that create content and self-concept as well as a righteous sense of both license and prohibition, there’s much conversation needed about what I’ve started calling the “humanity of humanity”, i.e., mankind’s better potential in character, and in relation to that, a reconciled psychological outlook.

I have recently promoted Fazeela Siddiqui’s article in the Huffington Post, “10 Muslim Women Every Person Should Know” (March 24, 2012) on this blog and on Facebook.

It’s worth a look, especially to men who may have doubts about how tough may be the “rebellious” woman they have been otherwise so licensed to beat, they themselves having been so pandered to as to have been granted by power on high exclusive control over what many other humans might as fervently and justifiably believe ideal as an equally empowered and inclusive love and partnership.

* * *

One more note on the laying on of hands by either partner in a marriage: when it has come to that, somebody, one or the other, please, leave the home, call a lawyer, and arrange for a separation.

* * *

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Syria – Of Refugees and Bloody Optimists

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Described by some foreign relief officials as a ‘”five-star camp”, the Emirati-funded operation is a study in contrasts with Zaatari, the chaotic, sprawling UN-run camp that is home to 120,000 and is described as Jordan’s fifth-largest city.

Reed, John.  “‘Five-star’ refugee camp illustrates Gulf’s growing role in Syria.”  Financial Times, July 1, 2013.

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Jordanian soldiers in riot gear try to keep order in a crowd desperate to get back to Syria. More than 9,000 headed home in June, according to the official Jordanian count.

Amos, Deborah.  “Reversing Direction, Some Syrian Refugees Now Head Home.”  Parallels, NPR, July 8, 2013.

Deborah Amos reports Jordan as hosting today 500,000 Syrian refugees.

**

The UN says nearly 90,000 Syrians have registered with the High Commissioner for Refugees in Egypt.

But the actual number of Syrians who have sought refuge in Egypt is believed to be much higher, in part because the country did not require Syrians to have visas until this week.

AFP.    “Syrian refugees to Egypt facing restrictions following unrest.”  thejournal.ie., July 9, 2013.

**

For Lebanon, UNHCR reports 503,724 registered refugees and an additional 84,071 awaiting registration (“Syria Regional Refugee Response: Lebanon”, viewed today).

**

According to figures obtained by Kirisci from government sources, Turkey is currently hosting close to half a million Syrian refugees. As of mid-June, over 200,000 reside in one refugee camp, while nearly 290,000 live outside these camps. Around 100,000 internally placed Syrians are reported to be awaiting entry into Turkey.

Idiz, Semih.  “Turkey’s Syria Refugee Crisis.”  Turkey Pulse, Al Monitor, July 2, 2013.

**

Also Monday, the newly elected head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, told Reuters news agency he expects advanced weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia to reach rebel fighters soon, strengthening their military position.

VOA News.  “Syrian Fighting Intensifies, Rebels Expect Weapons.”  July 8, 2013.

The fall last week of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt prompted a defiant Assad to proclaim the defeat of political Islam. The Brotherhood’s Syrian branch, already under pressure from more radical opposition groups, was dealt a psychological blow that comes on top of delays to promised supplies of weapons from Washington.

Reuters.  “Analysis: Confident Assad sees Syria tide turning.”  The Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2013.

* * * * *

Now there’s a picture.

Qatar and Company, heavily backing the Syrian Revolt (so far — Assad’s still in Damascus and his army is still fighting), have also plunged some money into producing a somewhat comfy, modern, and well administered model refugee camp for families (single men have to drift with the riffraff elsewhere) while remaining confident that some adjustment in the arms mix will hasten the end of the Reign of Assad.

Assad himself seems to remain a believer.

I have much, much less confidence in those confident that they will win . . . something.

Within Islam as al-Nusra and others may have it, “winning” will not lead to freedom but rather the imposition of their own sanguine tyranny.

For most involved in developing and sustaining the abysmal crisis in Syria, their history will not be written by “the winners” but rather by dowdy old historians poring over casualty figures, displacements, communique, rhetoric, bank transfers, arms shipments, manufacturer’s labels, newspaper clippings — or online ones like this one — and weighing within their independent souls the various causes and effects.

Some may stumble upon the role language has played in the nightmare, for Syria, perhaps more than in any corresponding contemporary conflict, points out a failing in language and mind by way of the beliefs and rhetoric driving toward so much suffering: that “content of mind” has had little to do with anyone’s day to day experience in living and the many challenges encountered, from making some money to attending to the happiness and security of children.

Instead, black and white thinking, extraordinary greed, unbridled egotism, and magical thinking all look away from the horror created by their possession or diminish the same — more than 90,000 dead, upwards of four million internally displaced or refugee — by way of language attending deflection of responsibility and the denial of the depth of the misery and depravity involved.

Is the good cause Alewite, Shiite, or Sunni?

Is it about cash in the till for a family and everyone else depending on that family be damned?

Is it about nobility?

What matter the purity of the white robes where the soles of the sandals remain  always wet with blood?

The civil war, noble cause, revolt, and revolution — all deeply anachronistic, anarchic, confused, disorganized, and disorganizing — will go on.

“Geneva in these circumstances is not possible. If we are going to go to Geneva we have to be strong on the ground, unlike the situation now, which is weak,” al-Jarba said July 7 after returning from the northern Syrian province of Idlib, where he met commanders of rebel brigades.

Huriyet Daily News.  “Saudi arms will arrive soon: Syria rebel chief.”  July 9, 2013.

Additional Reference

Reuters.  “Syrian opposition head expects advanced weapons to reach rebels.”  Al Arabiya, July 8, 2013.

O’Connor, Sean.  “Strategic SAM Deployment in Syria.”  Air Power Australia, January 2010; updated April 2012.

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