"Ibrahim-in-a-plane": Feel safe with a guy like this reading, of all things, "The Al Qaeda Reader," in your plane?
Robert's comments today in regards to "flying etiquette" -- especially to be heeded by bearded, Mediterranean looking men, nonchalantly reading Islamic literature while in the air -- reminded me of the infamous "flying imams" debacle a little over a year ago. Back then, I wrote the following article for Front Page Magazine. Based on experience, if anyone should be extra prudent in airplanes -- bearded, olive-complexion, surreptitious-of-demeanor, and with an Arabic name -- I am he. And yet, for all that, I understand, and try to accommodate concerns: after all, I have nothing to hide -- which is perhaps the fundamental difference between me and those Muslims who whine about being "profiled" in airports.
As a 6’3”, 250 pound weightlifter of Middle Eastern descent, who sometimes wears a full beard, seldom wears a (perfunctory) smile, and who’s last name is “Ibrahim”—a name that sometimes appears in rather “unflattering” headlines, such as the recent attacks in Glasgow—I don’t mind telling you that, well, sometimes I get askance looks of “concern” whenever I board airplanes. Do I take any special delight in that? Not really. Do I understand it? Totally.Since 1984, 20 of the 27 airplane hijackings have been carried out by Arabs, Pakistanis, Turks, et al—all people of “Middle Eastern” appearance. Moreover, since 9/11, the lion’s share of dramatic and fatal terrorist attacks carried around the world—such as the Bali nightclub bombing, where 202 were killed, or the Madrid train bombings, where 191 killed, or the Chechen hostage crisis, where 344 civilians, including 186 children were killed, or the London train bombings, where 52 were killed, or the Sharm al-Sheikh bombings, where 64 were killed—have all been committed by Muslims. This is not to disparage but simply state a fact.
It is understandable, then, why I, a non-Muslim, whose last name is nonetheless Ibrahim, may be a source of special attention in an airport or airplane. Yet so long as I am not unduly harassed or slighted and am treated professionally—and, most importantly, since I have nothing to hide—I am always happy to comply. It simply makes sense. Even so, I don’t believe that I have ever been treated differently than the majority—no doubt because I don’t go out of my way to be conspicuous.
A practicing Muslim associate of mine—call him Ishmael—once told me that, while riding the train, he noticed a bearded man dressed in traditional Pakistani garb, swaying back and forth in his seat in recitation while holding a Koran. At the next stop, Ishmael exited the train and chose to wait for the next one, adding, “I pray and recite from the Koran, too, but since 9/11 I know better than to engage in easily misconstrued activities”—activities from a fellow Muslim which worried him enough to board another train.
It is in this backdrop that one should best appreciate the current debate about the “John Doe” provision and the infamous case of the “flying imams.” Unlike myself and Ishmael, these six imams, exploiting religious freedoms granted them that their own religion, Islam, does not grant others, and no doubt fully aware of the scene they’d inevitably cause, decided to fall prostrate in prayer in the middle of an airport, chanting “Allahu Akbar”—the usual last words of Islamist suicide bombers prior to detonation—and then when they boarded the plane, began talking loudly in Arabic, with only words like “Osama bin Laden” being intelligible to English ears.Why is it that Ishmael and myself and countless other people of Middle Eastern and/or Islamic backgrounds are cognizant enough to know that discreet behavior in airports and airplanes goes a long way in ensuring a hassle free flight, while these imams decided to take an “in-your-face” approach?
Ironically, airports provide non-denominational “meditation” rooms, but, as I’ve heard before, many “pious” Muslims—such as the “flying imams,” no doubt—feel their prayers are sullied if recited next to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, or Hindus—that is, infidels. So they take to the middle of the terminal floors.
More ironic still, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is trying to make it so that any American who observes such “aberrant” behavior and decides to report it—you know, to avert another 9/11—can be sued. So now, Muslims who were raised in stoic environments—whether run by dictatorial, authoritarian, or theocratic governments—and who themselves support the draconian dictates of sharia law (stoning adulterers and murdering “apostates”); Muslims whose attire is markedly different from their Western hosts and who must therefore be used to constant stares—supposedly these same Muslims are now “hurt” and “traumatized” and need monetary compensation because some concerned citizens thought, due to their totally inappropriate behavior in an airport, that they may have had nefarious intentions and thus reported them to the authorities. This is CAIR’s approach at trying to foster better “American-Islamic relations”—its own namesake: threats, fear, and intimidation.
Of course and for the record, should the imams wish to avoid a similar incident next time they board a plane, behaving “normally” (yes, there is such a thing) and like everyone—both Middle Eastern and non-Middle Eastern, Muslim and non-Muslim—is a sure bet that they most likely won’t be harassed.
Maybe the picture doesn't show it, but he doesn't really look "middle eastern" to me. He actually looks more like maybe a German from southern or western germany.
But the last name.... I might consider changing it if I were him (I also realize how important a name is) to Abraham.
My 2 cents... feel free to ignore :)
It is silly to ignore the way in which we now -- reasonably, not irrationally -- look at groups of easily-identified Musliims on planes. They worry us. And why not? Who brought about this state of affairs? Actions by what group of people make Englishmen in London, Spanish people in Madrid, Russians in Moscow, Dutch -- liberal, tolerant Dutch -- in Amsterdam, Danes in Copenhagen, and of course Americans, worry when we see, on a plane, a group of six or seven bearded Muslim men, with women similarly attired according to the commands of Islam, so that none of these could be thought of as Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only Muslims. It is irrational, it is absurd, to expect ordinary people, with the ordinary apprehensions, not to be worried, and not, if they overhear discussions of the placement of engines and the safest place to sit, and other matters pertaining to airline safety, not to be alarmed. Flying is never easy. We already endure the nightmare of increased security, and the billions of man-hours now lost in arriving an extra hour or two early for every flight, man-hours that are directly attributable to Muslim plots, successful in some cases, unsuccessful in others. Need one recall those three planes hijacked on 9/11/2001, two hitting the World Trade Center, one hitting the Pentagon, and a fourth sent plunging into a field in Pennsylvania, killing all aboard. Are we to forget all of the planes exploded in midair, such as that TWA plane near Athens, that the PLO took care of, or the Pan Am plane exploding over Lockerbie, or the Egyptian plane brought down by the co-pilot having his Sudden Jihad Syndrome, or all the other planes blown up, or seized (think of that Air France plane that ended up in Entebbe)? Are we to forget the plot that almost came of, to explode six or eight or ten planes over the Pacific simultaneously? What are we expected to overlook?
Would you, if you got on a plane with six or seven or eight bearded Muslims, with their wives in burqaed tow, and then overheard them talking about plane safety, not bring this to the attention of the plane crew, not be more than mildly alarmed but in fact in a state of deep unease, or even, in some casese, panic? If you weren't, your sangfroid would not be widely shared.
Thank you, Raymond, for that eminently rational post. Great last bit of advice. But then, your 'should the imams wish to avoid a similar incident' begs the question.
(Hey, I spotted you for a bodybuilder just from the photo posted! And yeah, you'd scare the bejesus out of me if I was seated next to you on a plane, and you were perusing the al-Qaeda Reader, and I didn't know who you were.)
What a handsome fellow. I always was a sucker for a big man with a beard!
Here are some comments made at the website of the newspaper Corriere della Sera, under the story about the Muslims taken off the plane in America:
sono i musulmani che devono convincerci di essere persone per bene
2.1|19:20
Lettore_731472
Decapitare, infibulare, lapidare, uccisioni per ragioni di fede, leggi che violano i diritti più elementari, deliri contro gli animali puri e impuri (perchè un maiale o un cane siano meno carini di un gatto o di un cammello deve essere spiegato bene, ma è difficile da credere), vilenze e prepotenze intollerabili e legali nei loro paesi verso le bambine. Non sono io che devo riconoscere i diritti di chi viola le regole più elementari del vivere civile, siono loro che devono dimostrare di essere persone che rispettano gli altri. Quando si decideranno non sarà mai troppo tardi.
Se la sono cercata..
2.1|17:47
occhiodayan
La consapevolezza che ogni musulmano è un potenziale nemico viene perseguita dai musulmani stessi che prima emigrano nei paesi democratici e cristiani e poi pretendono di imporre i loro costumi incompatibili con i nostri.. Abbiamo lottato per millenni per avere una società democratica e loro ne vorrebbero una teocratica come quella dei paesi da dove sono fuggiti per paura della legge islamica.. In Europa ed i USA i loro diritti dovrebbero essere rispettati ma loro fanno di tutto per essere un mondo a parte e questo significa una sola odiosa parola: apartheid che i musulmani invocano di fatto dimostrando di essere incapaci di vivere secondo i dettami dei luoghi dove vanno a vivere.. Sarebbe come se recandomi in Inghilterra pretendessi di circolare a destra perchè al mio paese è così.. Credo che dopo il primo frontale mi adeguerei..
avete tutti ragione ma....
2.1|18:41
Lettore_721535
mio marito di fede musulmana non avrebbe mai fatto nessun apprezzamento all'aereo perchè sa che ora i controlli sono ferrei. sapete invece che cosa hanno fatto a lui la sua famiglia? tagliato fuori da tutti nemmeno gli auguri di buon anno e auguri per le loro feste. e allora come ci dobbiamo comportare noi occidentali nei loro riguardi? essere più rigidi e sempre più controlli perchè con questa gente c'è poco da fidarsi. credetemi li vivo da vicino e posso assicurare che sono dei veri falsi, ipocriti, bugiardi e approfittatori. non credete a quello che dicono che vogliono la pace perchè si stanno solamente creando un loro mondo da noi e poi .......
That last one, by the lady who is married to a Muslim, and whose family has essentially disowned him (because he married a non-Muslim woman who clearly has no intention of becoming a Muslim), is the most interesting.
She says (and it's a little free because I've just renewed my license) that "with these people there's little to trust. Believe me, I live up close and personal with them, and I can assure everyone that they are deeply false, hypocritical, liers, extracting profit from every situation. Don't believe them for a minute when they say they want to live in peace; they are building their very own world in our midst and then...
If I saw you on a plane, I'd go for a fist-bump and call it good.
Offer your hand in friendship and see how it is recieved.
Raymond, I have to agree with Canadian Christian, with regard to the photo above. Maybe in person, you're more olive complected than you appear in the pic.
As for your article--I don't know that I could be so rational, if I were in your shoes. But, in my own shoes, yes, I'd be worried about flying with known Muslims, even if they brought their Muslimahs aboard.
It's beginning to cut both ways, in my neighborhood, though. I received a very apprehensive look from a hijab in a car, as she passed me, this morning. I don't know if the black German Shepherd on the end of my leash was the cause, or my "Uncovered Meat" T-shirt.
I swear to all and sundry, I wasn't out to provoke anyone's anxiety. I just wanted a good look at the new mosque, so I decided to walk my dog in that direction. Coincidence can be fun, sometimes. ;)
Excellent! Thank you Raymond for speaking common sense.
That's just such a simple idea isn't it? Common sense. This is lost on the MSM. If I, as a white Christian woman, watch my P's and Q's at the airport and on the plane then it makes even more sense that muslims should. And they get so ticked off, that's unbelievable to me too!
SO SURPRISED AND SHOCKED!!
Please....
An IDF T-shirt goes a long way in breaking that up (works for me). The real ones are a bit lighter green that the "tourist-sort" ... let me know ... I can hook you up.
I couldn't disagree with undaunted more. I regret to say this because I know Raymond is a good guy; but the whole point of profiling is when we don't know who is good and who is not, combined with the fact that Muslims don't just look like everybody under the sun. I therefore support profiling Raymond, and I'm glad he has the good sense to "understand, and try to accommodate concerns".
Um, I happen to know what Raymond looks like from before the very nice picture posted here today. I would recognize him in public.
I wasn't suggesting profiling is not a good idea but that, knowing who Raymond is, a simple and subtle greeting would suffice for me.
Flowerknife, not sure where you're going. Did you also infer something I did not mean?
Undaunted: It's (as they say) "all good": I got what you meant.
As Raymond points out:
CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations): as the two really are quite incompatible.
Suspecting that they're simply not necessary being the likely reason I've never noted similar Jewish or Christian organizations.
Thank you.
Respects...
Perhaps flowerknife_us doesn't know what a fist bump is, and perhaps took it to mean you'd hit Raymond, undaunted. Could that be?
Yea. That's why there's one of these ? at the end of my sentence.
"Ibrahim-in-a-plane": Feel safe with a guy like this reading, of all things, "The Al Qaeda Reader," in your plane?
Yes. Raymond is huggable. Not the kind of guy you run away from. I would strike up a conversation with someone reading The Al Qaeda Reader. I look more Middle Eastern than he does and I'm of entiely Western European descent and have blonde hair and blue eyes (and a Roman nose and olive skin). You can tell a Muslim by talking to them, not by their features. Muslims look at your whole face, not your eyes. They can never connect with you as a human being.
Hugh, could you translatre tyhose comemnts please? They look interesting.
Thank you.
jdamn
you wrote "You can tell a Muslim by talking to them, not by their features. Muslims look at your whole face, not your eyes. They can never connect with you as a human being."
That bit - 'Muslims look at your whole face, not your eyes' - is really interesting.
Because among us non-Muslims, that behaviour - to look at someone's whole face, not their eyes - is *only* really seen in people who are severely autistic - people, that is, who have a problem with their neurological 'wiring'.
Look up Malcolm Gladwell's 'Blink' and read the chapter 'Seven Seconds in the Bronx' - the subsection entitled A Man, a Woman and a Light-Switch.
It's all interesting, but here's one bit - it describes an experiment a researcher did where he looked at which parts of the brain people used when they were looking at (1) a chair and (2) a face. In non-autistic people, they used two entirely different parts of the brain - one for persons (faces), one for objects. Autistic people "used their object-recognition area [of the brain] for both the chairs and the faces. In other words, on the most basic neurological level, for someone with autism, a face is just another object."
Question: does something in Islamic culture tend to damage or 'rewire' the 'relating to humans' wiring, so that even people *born* with perfectly normal neurological wiring, who if reared in Infidel society would NOT be autistic, become 'artificially' autistic ?
Further question: if so - does this then mean that the victim of the rewiring will tend to treat all humans as objects (as would an unfortunate 'born autistic' infidel), or, supposing you could do the MRI imaging and present a Muslim subject with a. a fellow Muslim and b. an Infidel, you would see them using the 'relating to people' area of the brain, when presented with a fellow Muslim or picture of a fellow Muslim, but using the 'relating to objects' area of the brain, when presented with a non-Muslim or a picture of same??
Here's a rough, quick translation so I can feel like I did something tonight/this morning:
Reader_731472
Decapitate, infibulate, lapidate, murders for reasons of faith, laws which run contrary to the most basic [human] rights, frenzies against the pure and impure animals (how a pig [the nice way of saying it, like "piggy"] or a dog is somehow less cute than a cat or a camel may be well-explicated, but it's still hard to believe), intolerable and illegal child abuse and bullying in their countries. It's not me who needs to recognize the rights of those who violate the most basic principles of civility, but rather they who need to demonstrate themselves to be people who respect others. Whenever they decide to do so it will never be too late.
I will be waiting...
[I have no idea what this name means, but the first part is "eye"]
The awareness of the fact that every Muslim is a potential enemy and gets persecuted by the same Muslims who, before emigrating [Italians often confuse emigrate/immigrate, having been a nation of emigrators for so long] to democratic, Christian nations and then demand to be able to import customs which are inimical to ours...we fought for millenia in order to have a democratic society and they want a theocracy like that of the nations they left out of fear of Islamic law.. In Europe and the US their rights must be respected but they do everything to live in a parallel world [society], which means one odious word: apartheid, which Muslims invoke, thereby demonstrating their inability to live according to the principles of the places to which they come to live.. It would be like if I were to drive around England on the right side of the street because in my country that's how it's done. Maybe I'll adjust after the first big clash.
You're all correct, but...
Reader_721535
My Muslim husband has never made an assessment [like, taken a good look around] on a plane because he knows that the regulations are air-tight. Do you know what his family did to him? They cut themselves off from everyone, even on celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries [which Muslims don't celebrate, duh]. And then how do we Westerners have to behave ourselves according to them? We have to be extra-rigid and regulated because with these people there's no trust. Believe me, I live near them and I can assure you that they are true fakers, hypocrites, liars, and scammers. Don't believe what they tell you, that they want peace, because they are here for the sole purpose of creating their [sharia parellel] society among us and then...
DDA, I was about to write off your last post as irrelevant, but then I read further and realized that you were providing valuable insight. You wrote:
Because among us non-Muslims, that behaviour - to look at someone's whole face, not their eyes - is *only* really seen in people who are severely autistic - people, that is, who have a problem with their neurological 'wiring'.
It's also characteristic of malignant narcissists and regular narcissists, particulary those who aren't that bright because they're basically acting (with varying degrees on convincingness) their entire lives since there's no real "them" inside, just ways of acting in order to seem human and be liked. Even though they live to be liked and approved of by people, there are never really other people to them, just objects, mirrors basically, which reflect how effectively they can act. Also paradoxically, it's the fake image which they need to be liked. So yes, people are objects to these people as are they themselves to some degree, since they're only as good as their neighbor perceives them to be in their own minds.
I had a professor last summer who immediately identified himself as Persian, but he interacted with us normally right off the bat. He was a guy who looked Middle Eastern. Still does, I'm sure. I knew instinctively that he was not a Muslim because I had never seen a Muslim actually interact with non-Muslim like a human being with the exception of a couple of quasi-apostates who run around with non-Muslims and stay away from Muslims (which is unfortunately conducive to delusion that Islam in an RoP, etc., basically a recipe for an Irshad Manji). He later told us that he was "not a religious person."
There's also been a fair amount of linguistic and psychological research on lying. Mohammedan body language is completely different among non-Muslims, I've noticed, and riddled with lie markers. There's a reason why poker players never look each other in the eye but watch each other's faces for little tics and lie markers. Not looking people in the eye is a way of distancing themselves from their lies/false fronts. It would be really interesting to study Mohammedan body language just among themselves when they're not playing to a camera, but that's nearly impossible to do.
More interesting is Abdullah Mikhail. Watch him in that video on YouTube, American Ramadan. He doesn't believe his lies. Whether consciously or not, I don't know, but he's either aware that he's lying by presenting Islam as something good and decent or he really hates infidels and feels the need to distance himself from us. You can see it in the dead-cow eyes. It shows up on camera. Muslims will always try to either distance themselves from Islam or from non-Muslims somehow, whether through body language, personal association, or language. They have to. We are really that incompatible.
The single person who exemplifies this more than any other would be Anjem Choudary. Most narcissists are able to at least sound like they're talking to you, not at you, even if their faces give them away. I doubt he can even look himself in the mirror. Not shaving must make it easier to avoid mirrors, too. Bin Laden is more convincing as a decent human being by a long shot.
The only kind of weightlifting that slaves of allah seem to be able, or willing, to do is Mein-Qurampf lifting for their prayers; and looking like an obese toad certainly meets A-rab muslim standards of attractiveness, for males and females, like nothing else (and that's certainly a reason why A-rab countries make up the overwhelming majority of the top 10 fattest populations in the world according to The Economist's "World in Figures" pocketbook; a ranking that, according to WHO data from 1999-2003, includes among those very top 10 the male and female populations of the West Bank and Gaza.)
Since Raymond doesn't look anything like a fat desert frog, I'd have no reason to be suspicious of him.
Apropos narcissism...here are some lines from a Dylan song called 'I and I':
'I and I
In creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and I
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjFGqZ8Jeno&feature=related
I'm not sure but I suspect Dylan is referring to Martin Buber's 'I and Thou', contrasting the fragmented narcissistic rejection of another's reality (when your interlocutor is just an extension of yourself to talk at) with the state of openness which addresses the other and the world fully....the total attention of 'thou' that can only come from wholeness.
Appropo manners and understandings
An Israeli guy I knew, a darker skinned guy, told me he felt he should be asked for his identification papers a whole lot more, since he looks like a middle easterner and this would only make sense after all the attacks worldwide.
This was back in 04'.
Once I boarded a plane in 05' I think, and I didn't have a picture ID, so, I was asked, or told, that I was chosen to be randomly searched since I had no picture ID.
I told them. "I'm so happy to see a higher level of security, and that I'd be happy to let them examine me or my belongings anytime."" However," I said, "if any of you wants to do a strip search of me, that if you haven't had lunch yet, I wouldn't recommend it...I've lost my youthful looks quite a while ago".
Something like that....
And I grinned at them and laughed. I was glad to be searched and happy they were checking me out, or anyone, for that matter.
It was cracking them up to hear my banter, and all they did was take off my belt, frisk me (I joked that I'm ticklish) they look at my stuff, the shoes and whatever, and I commented on how tough a job they had, and how glad most people would be to know that they really were checking out people. They worked fast enough and I was on my way.
Now...if anyone would like to be 'pissed' or merely annoyed, or put upon, please send your complaints to the OIC, I think it's called- the organization of Islamic countries and thank them for the 12,510 homicidal assaults, all the airline assaults, almost all the attacks worldwide with that finely attuned 'personal spiritual quest' or Jihad, that they are so attached too.
You know... the kind that blows up airplanes, trains, boats, cars, market places, buildings, and people.
Do mail them and the kingdoms of the Arabs, and the Iranians and a host of other 'arab'and non arab muslim nations for inculcating into 'youth' such thoughts as the rest of us need to be wary of any arab and or muslim types who have misconstured the finer points of Islam and thought it marvelous to turn everyone, into spam in an exploding can.
Yes... I'm so sorry muslims feel so 'oppressed' these days.
Me? Hell... search me and everyone to my delight.
But we should all send the bill to the arab states and the OIC. Yes- let them pay their share of the 5 or 10 billion or so spent on security such as the above. I think that would amount to what....99% of the bill, if we're generous and allow that 1% of the homicidal attacks worldwide are from anyone else.
Yes... let's be generous. And we should start an international campaign to thank the leaders and heads of that religion, and those states for making that much more expensive to travel and to buy tickets.
Yes... an ongoing thank you card, for every ticket purchased, telling them, how, we feel.
Mark
To me, the article centers on the issue of determining friend or foe. Offering the hand of friendship helps one determine the difference. As for Ibrahim, it may get him to crack a smile and feel at ease. Others may be less than receptive, requiring other actions.
The good at ease, the bad on notice.
jdam, do you have a link to the video on YouTube you're referring to? And is that our very own Abdullah Mikhail you are talking about?
I went to a video on YT called "American Ramadan", but it seemed to be from Philadelphia, and didn't have anyone by that name on it.
And oh, Mark G - priceless post!
Vee, here you go. He's the white guy with the beard, the Indonesian wife, and the little girl. It is definitely him. It's his real name, his geographical location, and, presented with the fact that we know who he is, he has never denied it. He denies that he and his wife worked for Ikwan front groups in Dallas, but never that it's him in the video. There was another video, mostly featuring his wife, making iftaar for some puff piece on the local news too, but he never really looks at the camera in that.