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In FrontPage this morning I discuss the implications of a new multiculturalist handbook in Australia that instructs police to be lenient with Muslims who beat their wives. (News links in the original.)
Can wife-beating be justified under any circumstances? According to some in Australia, yes — if the couple is Muslim.The Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau has published and distributed 50,000 copies of an 82-page handbook for Australian police officers, directing them on how to deal with people from all the unfamiliar cultures that an Australian policeman may encounter. A Sikh, for example, may receive a three-day reprieve from arrest if the arresting officer happens upon him while he is reading his holy scriptures — a practice that takes fifty hours, and must not be interrupted. And Muslim husbands who beat their wives must be treated differently from other domestic violence cases, as a matter of cultural sensitivity: “In incidents such as domestic violence,” says the handbook, “police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims.”
This handbook has been issued, not surprisingly, in Australia’s Victoria state, where late last year two Christian pastors in Australia fell victim to new and treacherously elastic religious hatred laws. They were found guilty of vilification of Muslims for crimes such as quoting verses of the Qur’an that Victoria Muslims evidently preferred that non-Muslims not know about. The silencing of free speech was bad enough; now the distribution of the handbook made Joumanah El Matrah of the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council concerned that women would be endangered: “The implication,” she explained, “is one needs to be more tolerant of violence against Muslim women but they should be entitled to the same protection. Police should not be advising other officers to follow those sorts of protocols. It can only lead to harm.”
Muslim husbands, of course, can point to Qur’an 4:34 to justifying wife-beating: “…good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them…” This sanction has become culturally ingrained: the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has determined that today over ninety percent of Pakistani wives have been struck, beaten, or abused sexually — for offenses on the order of cooking an unsatisfactory meal. Others were punished for failing to give birth to a male child.If Victoria police are to tolerate such behavior by Muslims on the grounds of multiculturalism, even though it contravenes Australian law, surely they must tolerate other behavior as well. After all, Islamic law also allows for polygamy. Western European governments already turn a blind eye to polygamous arrangements among Muslims, and the British have even considered legalizing polygamy for tax purposes. Will Victoria state allow it also? Will Victoria police turn a blind eye to thieves whose hands have been amputated in accord with Qur’an 5:38? That verse is clear: “As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands. It is the reward of their own deeds, an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise.” Muhammad is equally clear that anyone who leaves Islam must be killed (cf. Bukhari, vol. 9, bk. 84, no. 57): will Victoria police hesitate or even decline to prosecute murder cases if the victim is an apostate from Islam?
This backhanded endorsement of wife-beating in Australia has revealed in a harsh new light the bankruptcy of relativist multiculturalism. Is wife-beating intrinsically wrong? Evidently not in Victoria state. Indeed, it is doubtful that the learned members of the Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau think that moral categories have any relevance to the modern world. Yet if something that is endorsed by large numbers of people and ingrained in cultural habit cannot be condemned, then the Allies had no reason to oppose Nazi Germany or condemn Hitler. Murderous anti-Semitism? Well, yes, but you see, we need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Nazis.
All Muslim husbands are not wife-beaters, and it is condescending and irresponsible for the Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau to give those who are a free pass, instead of denouncing the practice unequivocally and calling upon Muslim men to heed the better angels of their nature. It is the same condescending irresponsibility that primly refuses to confront the elements of Islam that jihad terrorists use today to justify violence, for fear of offending moderate Muslims — thereby undercutting any chance sincere moderates may have had to speak out for reform within Islam. Why should they speak out if nothing needs reforming?
But the folly of Victoria state runs deeper also: it reveals a gaping weakness in the West’s defense against the global jihad: this is, or threatens to become, not so much a clash of civilizations as a clash of barbarisms. One side contends for certain values that are, in a word, monstrous: the subjugation of women and non-Muslims, the stifling of freedom of conscience, and so on. But the other contends for no values at all, and opposes this great maelstrom with nothing more than a moral and intellectual vacuum in which no behavior, no matter how heinous, is beyond the pale.
Which side will prevail in such a conflict? Well, nature abhors a vacuum. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It is the Judeo-Christian West that has given the world the great ideas of the equality of dignity and rights of all people, the freedom of conscience, the sanctity of the individual — all of which would be swept aside by the jihadists. Instead of sweeping it aside for them, as Victoria state seems determined to do, perhaps those who cherish these values will someday unite in their defense. But it is getting late, very late.
Posted by Robert at November 1, 2005 5:27 AM
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1. Why is it that whenever a small number of government officials advance some program under the banner of multiculturalism, some basic human right or freedom ends up being compromised?
2. Robert used the phrase "...treacherously elastic religious hate laws," citing the case of the pastors who were charged for essentially quoting or paraphrasing honestly what was in the Koran. The elasticity of these laws is comparable to the elasticity in the Islamic sin/crime of "corruption on earth" (or "mischief on earth"). Practically anything (whether violent or non-violent) that could be deemed to go against Islam could be deemed corruption on earth, including criticism of the prophet or of Islamic tradition. It is always available as the ultimate flexible, trumped-up charge, a favourite tool of Islamic dictators since the times of Mohammad himself. The so-called religious hate laws, unfortunately, will only likely protect fundamentalist Islamists--the only group today that demands such 'protection' of its beliefs.
Posted by: Archimedes
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at November 1, 2005 7:35 AM
Didn't Aisha say that no women suffer as much as the believing women?
Even Aisha could see the difference in abuse levels by muslim men.
Accepting this violent behavior is wrong, even a child could see it.
Posted by: Borg at November 1, 2005 9:52 AM
We should do our own counter-Da'awa and try to liberate Muslima from the oppression of Islam. Why aren't we reaching out to them?
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What the Hadith says about wife beating:
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-wife-beating-hadith.htm
"A women complained to Muhammad that her husband slapped her on the face, (which was still marked by the slap). At first the prophet said to her: "Get even with him", but then added: "Wait until I think about it". Later on, Allah supposedly revealed 4:34 to Muhammad, after which the prophet said: "We wanted one thing but Allah wanted another, and what Allah wanted is best". [To beat your wife is best.] ("At-Tafsir al-Kabir" on 4:34, Razi (Quoted in "Beyond the Veil, Razi is one of the greatest Muslim scholars)
Jabir b. 'Abdullah reported: Abu Bakr came and sought permission to see Allah's Messenger. He found people sitting at his door and none amongst them had been granted permission, but it was granted to Abu Bakr and he went in. Then came 'Umar and he sought permission and it was granted to him, and he found Allah's Apostle sitting sad and silent with his wives around him. He (Hadrat 'Umar) said: I would say something which would make the Holy Prophet laugh, so he said: Messenger of Allah, I wish you had seen (the treatment meted out to) the daughter of Kharija when she asked me some money, and I got up and slapped her on her neck. Allah's Messenger laughed and said: They are around me as you see, asking for extra money. Abu Bakr then got up went to 'Aisha and slapped her on the neck, and 'Umar stood up before Hafsa and slapped her saying: You
at November 1, 2005 12:03 PM
We should do our own counter-Da'awa and try to liberate Muslima from the oppression of Islam. Why aren't we reaching out to them?
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What the Hadith says about wife beating:
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-wife-beating-hadith.htm
"A women complained to Muhammad that her husband slapped her on the face, (which was still marked by the slap). At first the prophet said to her: "Get even with him", but then added: "Wait until I think about it". Later on, Allah supposedly revealed 4:34 to Muhammad, after which the prophet said: "We wanted one thing but Allah wanted another, and what Allah wanted is best". [To beat your wife is best.] ("At-Tafsir al-Kabir" on 4:34, Razi (Quoted in "Beyond the Veil, Razi is one of the greatest Muslim scholars)
Jabir b. 'Abdullah reported: Abu Bakr came and sought permission to see Allah's Messenger. He found people sitting at his door and none amongst them had been granted permission, but it was granted to Abu Bakr and he went in. Then came 'Umar and he sought permission and it was granted to him, and he found Allah's Apostle sitting sad and silent with his wives around him. He (Hadrat 'Umar) said: I would say something which would make the Holy Prophet laugh, so he said: Messenger of Allah, I wish you had seen (the treatment meted out to) the daughter of Kharija when she asked me some money, and I got up and slapped her on her neck. Allah's Messenger laughed and said: They are around me as you see, asking for extra money. Abu Bakr then got up went to 'Aisha and slapped her on the neck, and 'Umar stood up before Hafsa and slapped her saying: You ask Allah's Messenger which he does not possess. They said: By Allah, we do not ask Allah's Messenger for anything he does not possess." (Hadith, Sahih Muslim, Book 009, #3506, Muhammad doesn’t slap his wives, but laughed at hearing about his friend Umar slapping his wife when they asked for more money. Muhammad’s wife was slapped by her father upon hearing she too had been asking for more money.)
There are more quotes there at the link.
Go there and read.
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-wife-beating-hadith.htm
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Sahih Bukhari
Volume 7, Book 72, Number 715:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/072.sbt.html#007.072.715
Narrated 'Ikrima:
Rifa'a divorced his wife whereupon 'AbdurRahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her. 'Aisha said that the lady (came), wearing a green veil (and complained to her (Aisha) of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah's Apostle came, 'Aisha said, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!"
Sahih Muslim
Book 004, Number 2127:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/004.smt.html#004.2127
Why is it, O 'A'isha, that you are out of breath? I said: There is nothing. He said: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me. I said: Messenger of Allah, may my father and mother be ransom for you, and then I told him (the whole story). He said: Was it the darkness (of your shadow) that I saw in front of me? I said: Yes. He struck me on the chest which caused me pain
I got the last two links from here
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4726
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IC
Posted by: Informed Christian at November 1, 2005 12:07 PM
What makes anyone think that "culture" is more important than individuals? Call me obsessive but I write about this almost daily because it is the most improtant thing I know of at this time: That counter-Enlightenment reactionaries live and breathe the same hatred of Modernity today they did in 1789. Germans are exceptional people, unlike those French on the border. Germans are authentic people, unlike those rootless comopolitian Jews in the cities. Germans share an identity that makes them German rather than anything else, and they can only be Germans by being Germans together. And their Germanness comes from the German soil, the mystic soil, the land of the German spirit and the gods. No man can be German by himself. He can only be German in the greater community of Germans. Culture. That is the definition of man and his purpose. And Germans are not Those People. tThey are not German. Forget that fancy French Universality. Germans are special, exceptional, elite, the pure, the master race.
Give this tripe a Left veneer, and one sees very clearly that the Australian pseudo-laws as above are simple-minded variations on Naziism. "Identity" and multiculturalism set apart those who are not part of the universe of Mankind. Why? What makes culture more important than people? Von Herder's emphasis on German language, the Muslim fetish for Arabic; Hegel's communitarian identity, the ummah; Fichte's German exceptionalism, the Australian exemptions from the law for Muslim wife beaters. Hey, call me stupid but I don't see a clear difference. The Left is fascist.
Posted by: sonofwalker at November 1, 2005 1:15 PM
"That counter-Enlightenment reactionaries live and breathe the same hatred of Modernity today they did in 1789."
The Enlightenment and its legacy itself also, paradoxically, nourishes the anti-Modern nebula: specifically (I must simplify for now) by transmitting what could be called the "utopianistic virus". The Paradox may be framed thusly: Insofar as Modernity is itself the vehicle of utopianism, then the Enlightenment is pro-Modern; insofar as Modernity (being carried along by imperfect humans) resists the realization of utopianist ideals, then the Enlightenment (and its legacy) begins to find ways to splinter off from Modernity into sub-movements in tension with Modernity's recalcitrance to perfection.
at November 1, 2005 1:24 PM
If the Enlightenment as a whole isn't perfect it still is better than anything in history before it, and it's our practical duty to improve on its failings rather than condemn it for its imperfections. But first we have to understand where we went wrong, and that is the reve of "kultur."
When our friends here panic at the sight of the conflation of Left and Right fascism it's because they rely on received opinion rather than on the texts of Romanticism and the German ideologies. A bit of study and a little less shrill ad hominem would clarify the minds of some. However, most people wil beleive what most people believe, and it's up to us to remake the popular meme so that most people believe something more sensible than the fasist rubbish floating atop the public intellectual swamp today. It's a never-ending project. It will never end because the urge to fascism is eternal in Man. So, one might hope, is the will to resist it.
It's not at all important that most people understand the origins of counter-Enlightenment and Romance fascism in the modern Left. What matters is the general attitude toward universality in law. If most people feel that everyone is equal, then equality is reified in society. It takes an agressive minority of people to create that mental climate change.
Yes, there are elements in the Enlightenment that are utopian, and so what? Get rid of them. The Enlightenment isn't Islam, not a perfect thing set out once for all forever. The essential facets of Enlightenment are rationality, democracy, privacy, and universality. If there are some strands of Swiss crypto-fascism in the Enlightenment, so what? Rip them out. Our project of Modernity isn't static.
What do we all hold in common? Modernity. That's why Christians and atheists can work together to combat Islam and Left dhimmi fascism, why Falacci and the Pope can chat together, why many of us can get along with Spencer, why I get on with Kepha and KJ doesn't: we allow that each person owns his own life as his private property, and he is not the possession of another or the state or the religious authority. Every man and woman is the owner of his/her privacy. That's tolerance, not sitting back and watching a man beat a woman because of cultural privilege. That is fascism. Almost all of us are against it, and it is the legacy of our modernist revolutions that we value the individual over the collective and that Islam and Left dhimmi fascism are against us.
Don't blame Modernity for fascism, blame our lack of concern for our own values. If Modernity isn't perfect, and if we don't sort and sift to the best of our ability, then we would not have progressed from 1792, and we'd still be killing reactionaries in the market square. 1792 was not the end of history, and if we don't move ahead with the best of our best ideas we will be overwhelmed by the stasis of Islam and Left dhimmitude. So we fight.
Universal and equal Human rights is a revolutionary concept that we do not find in one law for Muslims, another for kafirs and dhimmis and whimmis and so on. The Australian exceptionalism above is fascism. We need a renewed Enlightenment and further Modernity. Death to culture. The right of every person to equality under the rational law regardless of cultural background or religious persuasion or sexual orientation or sex or fashion sense is essential to the Human project. No exceptions--ever. No one is less Human than another, and I don't care who he is or what he looks like or where he comes from or what his evil religion is. No exceptionalism, and no exceptions. Muslims must obey the same laws as everyone else on Earth, even if their miserable religion says it's ok to beat up girls. No way.
Posted by: sonofwalker at November 1, 2005 2:45 PM
The Left is fascist.Yeh, sure, since for your purposes it is you that is doing the defining. One can define anything and sit back with a smug look on their face, but you lack the intellectual acumen, maturity, education, power and ability to define but get an A for effort.
Your whole diatribe was nothing but non sequiturs, trying to stitch together a quilt out of incompatible pieces of material.
But the important thing is that you have convinced yourself.. and you are sounding more and more Muhammad like with each post.(Self satisfied, self justifying and smug).
Laurence Britt did a survey of fascistic regimes and found 14 COMMON Defining Characteristics of Fascism
I've been around since the 1930's and walked all sides of the political aisle and quite agree with Laurence.
BTW, SoW, your namesake William Walker was a doofus.
If we lose this vital war to preserve western culture, it will be because of divisive, eatup, self righteous and less than perceptive doofus's.
For an expose of William Walker, read Brad Williams and Choral Peppers The Mysterious West
at November 1, 2005 3:03 PM
Allah and his messenger may have a case here!
Lately, I have seen a lot of Muhammedan females, on TV mostly, but always with a mouth and doing that Da'wa thing, you know what I mean?
They weasel and lie, they deflect and obscure, and if I was a proper Mohammedan, with the coffee-filter in the right place, and my female(s) treats me like some stupid infidels, I mean I couldn't guarantee their safety....
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at November 1, 2005 3:54 PM
We might get and expert opinion here: How about it, Saladin, 1a, King of Ignorance? Lets hear it!
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at November 1, 2005 3:56 PM
Where are these so-called feminists? yeah these loud mout lefties!!! You would think they would decry the abuse of women in the mulsim culture!
l just cant believe their silence.. l thought the feminist and liberals would love to free these people! no they are all talk.. just want to spend your money on their pet projects!!!
at November 1, 2005 5:36 PM
Just a thought: Be lenient with anyone who deports a muslim. Or, otherwise causes him to fold his tent and, silently, steal away.
Posted by: Havoc at November 1, 2005 6:04 PM
Nariz the site you linked is a LLLefty site,
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
proving your point with that "evidence" won't wash. The part about scapegoats is especially funny, the left is using Christianity as their scapegoat. We see that in your posts all the time.
at November 1, 2005 6:18 PM
I wasn't blaming Modernity itself for Fascism.
Western Modernity (the only Modernity there is) is a complex bundle of inherited tensions. These tensions can be fruitful, good and productive; or they can degenerate into competing frictions and factions.
Many Enlightenment virtues are good; but they are practically good only in a symbiotic tension with the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition.
It's good for the Enlightenment nebula to have an ongoing critical dialogue with that Judaeo-Christian tradition -- since, for one thing, that critical dialogue has enabled the long, slow, painful, but ultimately beneficial deconstruction of the theocracy of Christendom.
However, where the Enlightenment veers off into unproductive and dangerous paths is where it overly criticizes the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition -- since, for one thing, many of the virtues of the Enlightenment owe much of their substance to that tradition. The Enlightenment didn't just pop out of the blue sky: it has historical roots, and all those roots don't simply bypass the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition to draw from Classical Greece and Rome -- they grew out of the rich soil of that tradition (indeed, the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition helped preserve and unfold the Classical Greek and Latin heritage).
The Fascisms of the 20th century were strengthened by the Enlightenment nebula turning away from the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition and turning instead to darker currents of Gnosticism, alchemy, magic, heterodox mysticism, utopianism and paganism.
Thus, the greatness of Western Modernity lies in a tensional symbiosis of both secular Enlightenment and the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition. It's not Either/Or. It's an ongoing dialogue between the two. And, unlike Islam, there is much good in the West's Judaeo-Christian tradition to draw from for our ongoing human adventure of freedom and human rights and progress.
at November 1, 2005 8:27 PM
Just what the Doctor ordered. I posted a very short bit just now on Tyndale, Luther, and Wesley. There's no Bacon without those people. In fact, I'm going to sit by the fireplace and just dream of the legacy of the West, of the men and women who pitched in their lives' work to give us the chance we're pissing away right now letting fascist obscurantists rule our mental lives.
There are times it seems a real shame that literacy is wasted on the foolish, but for every fool there's someone else who comes up with a comment that makes the project worth the while. And there are many who don't comment, who stay in the background reading and thinking and wondering, and who will come to the fore when the need arises. We have a lot of silent friends who don't feel the need I have to write constantly.
I posted a picture this evening of a Spanish Civil War figure, the caption, in Spanish, reading "Illiteracy is the Blindness of the Soul." I think of Ecclesiastes, Socrates, Tyndale, Luther, and Wesley with guns bringing literacy and criticism to the masses. It takes men like William Walker to make a space for school teachers so they can make a path for people who want to see clearly as they follow it wherever it might lead them. That's worth fighting for, and our friends, public and private, will come in the time of need.
Posted by: sonofwalker at November 1, 2005 8:59 PM
Dr Pepper, re: ..."turning instead to darker currents of Gnosticism, alchemy, magic, heterodox mysticism, utopianism and paganism." If by chance you have essays written, or if you're interested in writing some, I'd love to get hold of some on Blavatsky and Ospenski and such and their influence of Naziism. Crowley, Jung, Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and so on. Will check tomorrow.
Posted by: sonofwalker at November 1, 2005 9:29 PM
sonofwalker,
I haven't written any essays on those you listed; they and hundreds others would be good sources. The paradox of health/disease of Western Modernity would be a monumental task to analyze and diagnose. I've come to this point mainly through my readings of Eric Voegelin, though I find him somewhat deficient in noticing the health of Western Modernity, and he is a bit harsh on the Enlightenment. Still, Voegelin was good at spotting the Gnostic tendencies of our charlatans like Eliade and Campbell, Marx and Hegel, etc. (His writings on Hitler and the Nazis (he himself had to flee the Nazis in the late 1930s and take refuge first in England, then the USA) I have not yet read, but I would bet that they probe the medieval mystic, Gnostic, alchemic and pagan influences.) Voegelin was an admirer of Churchill during the 40s; and though he spent woefully too little time studying Islam, his few comments about it in The Ecumenic Age define it succinctly as a movement geared to eschatologize existence through Imperial conquest.
(At the official Voegelin website in the months after 911, a Muslim member, a professor of something, made it clear through an interchange with me, that she had become attracted to Voegelin's thought precisely because he spent so much time uncovering how diseased the modern West is. When I retorted to her that it would be nice if one Muslim intellectual would take Islam to task as honestly and searingly as Voegelin (let alone the literally hundreds of Western critics of their own West over the last two or three centuries) has taken his own civilization to task, I was reprimanded by the manager of the forum and then banned.)
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at November 2, 2005 11:11 AM
Dr. Pepper, I'll go with Voegelin and see where he leads me. I've been blogging on this subject daily for five months now, and still have a long way to go, though there is an end to it. My intention is to sort out and show the main themes of post-modernist fascism, the decay of the Left into a reactionary fascism that spreads from the 1790s to our day, by showing how the main ideas of our public intellectuals are deeply rooted in fascism without most people knowing what they're thinking and saying, naive fascism, a benevolent fascism, as it were. Joseph Campbell was a certifiable and self-confessed fascist. But when people see him on PBS talking about myths and fairies they think he's a wonderful old guy, like C.G. Jung. So, lots of fun digging up these little monsters and exposing them as they are. And does it ever piss off the conformists and wanna-be radicals who are truly so rigid that a strong wind makes them snap at the ankles.
Thanks for the tip.
Posted by: sonofwalker at November 2, 2005 1:02 PM
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