I know I've seen a reference in Islamic literature/scripture to the effect that men have the right to eat first, and only then the women. It might have been a hadith. Right now, however, I can't seem to find it. Does this ring any bells with anybody?

Posted by: Silvester at August 18, 2005 10:30 AM

We need to find out how prevalent this is, otherwise it will be dismissed as isolated cases revolving more around the fact that they married a scumbag than the argument that this is islam in action, although I completely agree with the point that the treatment of women codified in the Quran could/would lead to this.
A worn and trite expression applies here; " I wouldn't do it to a dog". As a matter of fact, in the West, if you DID do it to a dog, it would be a prosecutable offense!
Reminds me of a post or comment I read this morning about a muslim family at a waterpark. The men and boys are in shorts, laughing and playing, the women, burka'd, were just trying to not die. This absolute selfishness, no, criminal selfishness, disgusts me beyond words. How can a "man" act in such a mind-boggling inhuman manner, to his own family? How do you go SWIMMING for God's sake, and blissfully enjoy yourself, while mere feet away your wife and daughters are struggling with a potentially life-threatening situation that YOU intentionally put them in? Besides Islam taking your backbone and your mind, apparently it also demands your soul.

And you DARE talk to me about your honor?

Posted by: t-ham at August 18, 2005 10:49 AM

The un funding for Arab Palestinian tee-shirts, flags and coffee mugs to celebrate Juden free Gaza after disengagement would have been better spent feeding and clothing these women and children.

Does the sainted 'world community' even see the insaness of these actions and what money is spent on or not, as the case may be?

Posted by: bj at August 18, 2005 11:30 AM

I wish there was a way that all the women could disappear from these countries that so hate women.
I once heard a doctor (on a show about the practice of aborting female babies) say until the shortage of women forces men to value them, he expects no change.
It is said that homosexuality is forbidden in islam, well I think it is rampant, at least in latency. What is the saying? Women for children and boys for fun...?

Posted by: Carolyn2 at August 18, 2005 12:09 PM

This is a very sad situation. However, in many instances in Islamic countries, women in families are willing supporters of their men kidnapping and forcing marriage on non-Muslim women, of honor killings of female members of their families and act as cheerleaders as their teenagers become suicide bombers. I wonder if the food aid in Niger was given to women to distribute, how many would feed their sons and starve their daughters? In this case, the women are the victims, but often times, they are victimizers too.

Posted by: maryrose at August 18, 2005 12:41 PM

What is happening in Niger is similar to how Afghan women suffered under Taliban rule. Under Taliban rule, women were forced either to beg or engage in prostitution just to survive.

Posted by: Christian at August 18, 2005 1:03 PM

Below I've pasted in some excerpts from a piece on the Internet. One needn't even see the treatment first-hand to know how horrible it is. Do so, and you'll be a dedicated reader at Jihad Watch for life. this isn't just a Human rights issue. The truth is that it's a women's issue that most men, if I'm any good example, cannot comprehend or address properly. It takes women to deal with this.I just stand in shock and don't know what to do. Maybe I can boil water if the ladies here will tell me how.

Fistula, caused by obstructed and prolonged labor that usually results in the death of the baby, is a hole that forms between a woman's vagina and bladder or rectum.

Unable to stay dry, a woman who suffers fistula will face the discomfort and humiliation of constantly smelling like urine or feces. Often, the chronic incontinence leads to her ostracization from her family and friends.

The UNFPA estimates more than 2 million women suffer the condition, many of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa, where women have poor access to medical care during childbirth.

In Nigeria, where the Fistula Fortnight took place beginning Feb. 21, more than 800,000 women, according to UNFPA, live with the disease and 20,000 new cases were estimated to occur each year.

"I was impressed by how young a lot of these women are," Meyer said of his experience in the Nigerian clinic. "Basically, their life has been taken away from them. When you get a chance to operate on these patients and cure their leakage, you get a chance to give their lives back."

U.N.: 545 African fistula ops in two weeks

By By LEELA de KRETSER
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

United Nations, United States, Mar. 11 (UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com

Posted by: sonofwalker at August 18, 2005 3:16 PM

sonofwalker:

I suspect the full context of this story is that the high rate of fistulas is the result of female genital mutilation, which is the likely underlying condition that led to the difficulties in childbirth, and either the UNFPA or the journalist who wrote this story didn't want to talk about that.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 18, 2005 3:47 PM

Yes, we've gone into FGM before, and it's hard to read about. I'm all for unsophisticated stuff like making people stop it regardless of their sensitivities. Not a hope in hell of accomplishing anything with an approach like that. So, what does one do?

I do lose my patience at times with those who offer "Melt Mecca" as the solution to everything. But what does one do? What real thing can anyone of us do to stop these practices?

Many of us have tried to make concrete improvements in the conditions of the entire world, but recently, having grasped the fact that we can't do as much as we'd like on the global scene I've come to the conclusion that an oblique approach might work better than thunder and rage: I've picked out one man, a pastor in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, a man at a Presbyterian church who is such a vile dhimmi that I can hardly restrain myself from insulting him. Oh, wait. I do attack him personally. Well, shame on me.

I go after the man because he's there, he's representative of the greater problem, he has a name, a face, a personality, and if I can ridicule him, humiliate him, drag him into the open where his congregants can see him for what he is they might see themselves for what they and their church are. If I can chip away at one man and one man's church in one small town, then maybe others can do the same and eventually bring some light into the dungeon world of the p.c.PCUSA. It's not fair to pick on the man, and I don't care.

Presbyterians have churches in Africa, and they have a voice and power there. It depends on how they view reality: if they think all cultures are relative and hippy-dippy, then they'll find excuses for inaction--or worse, for enabling the continuation of FGM and the resultant fistulae and all the rest of the evil that goes on in the lives of African women and Muslim women, and women everywhere who suffer from Islam. I think it starts with one man in small town Pennsylvania.

I hasten to add that I don't know the pastor I'm on to. In most ways he seems like a decent middle class guy. That's hardly interesting to me in light of the work he does that results in the terrorism of women across the face of the Earth. I'm not sentimental about the man. He is the paradigm of evil for me, and if it hurts his feelings to be singled out and shamed, too bad for him. Wil it make any difference in the lives of girls and women in Niger, Nigeria, Egypt, or America? It might if we can turn the tide of public opinion against first one man and then his parish church and then perhaps the whole rotten edifice of the Presbyterian Church itself. And if the Presbyterians collapse into a huddle of shame, maybe the Baptists will follow. Maybe others, and maybe sometime the whole of the West will look back at this time in revulsion, wondering why seemingly decent people acted as they did. So I kick the living daylights out of the pastor. If he screams loud enough maybe others will look at him and wonder why he's so hated. Maybe others will look at themselves and hope they don't get the same treatment. And maybe others will say in their churches: "I'm not going to give money to an organization that enables FGM and the torture of women just because I have a social pose to parade in from of my friends at cocktail parties."

I beat that sucker with all I can. Does it help even one girl anywhere on Earth? I doubt it. But it might start the change of attitude that people need to make the needed change from their vanities to real Christian compassion for those they pretend to care about. Fashion sucks. I hope that guy hates me.

And I hope that better men than I will look at him and say: "That's enough, mister. We won't put up with anymore of this excusing of torture and murder of women. It's got to stop."

Posted by: sonofwalker at August 18, 2005 4:39 PM

I think one of the keys that I have developed in my understanding of islam is the realization that islam is a very selfish religion, and a very selfish or self-centered outlook on life. Many things flow from that.

The looting of infidels in jihad is the basic doctrine of selfishness. It is indicative of an "entitlement" mentality. The whole concept of dhimmitude is based on self-centeredness, an arrogance that demeans everything that is not self. The inability of muslims, individually and as a group, to admit wrongdoing, and their constant blaming of others, are additional examples. Like criminals. And, of course, the selfish treatment of women.

The attitude is so pervasive that even when a muslim tries to evoke sympathy or explain some action, their words are "scripty" and hollow. They may know the language very well, but not the feelings they are trying to convey.

Hollow men. No souls. Traded off in a pact with evil.

Posted by: texan at August 18, 2005 11:25 PM

Sonofwalker,

While reading your Washington Times link, I noticed the following concerning illegal aliens crossing our southern border.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050818-124840-9453r_page2.htm

Mexico funds staging areas for illegals

"Another U.S. group, known as No More Deaths, set up an aid camp last month near Arivaca, Ariz., helping stranded border-crossers with food, water and medical assistance. The Ark of the Covenant camp will remain in operation through September.
The group has received much of its support from Presbyterian churches in Arizona and elsewhere."

I'm not sure what the deal is with Presbyterians, but have noted your interest in one particular minister these last few days.

What's the scoop?

Posted by: PRCS at August 19, 2005 2:37 AM

Has anyone seen a movie called "Osama"? It's available at blockbuster from MGM. It's about a little girl who poses as a boy in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It's true to form. It's in Pashtun, but captioned in English. It's very good, but sickening at the same time. You know what I mean. As a boy she can work and get food. If you haven't seen it, you should. Of course this puts her in danger, but....that's all I can tell you without ruining it for you.

Posted by: Infidel One at August 19, 2005 5:33 AM

PRCS,I have an intense dislike of those who pose as liberal defenders of "the oppressed," like the Pennsylvania pastor I'v been ridiculing recently. In the back pages of my blog you'll find some comments he posted on the Internet claiming that the Jews are at fault for Islamic terrorism in Israel, and I have been on a rampage against him and his church since I found the website.

I've been putting up background-reading on the history of fascism, as it was and as it is today, and often I concentrate on our post-modernist variant fascism, the kind that developed from Neitzche through Foucault and is now common intellectual currency in the West. Unknowingly, (I think and hope,) many people who consider themselves liberal and compassionate people are caught up in a philosophical stance they do not understand the depths of. Because of that, the PCUSA feels it's justified in attacking Israel via the Caterpillar Corp. By extention, PCUSA feels it's justified to commit murder on city buses in Netanya.That kind of moral idiocy is fascist at root, according to the texts I find on classical fascism, and certainly post-modernist thinking. It's not "nice." It's mostly a pose by conformists, and when powerful and wealthy organizeations such as PCUSA propagate the p.c. pose of siding with terrorism, then it trickles down, as it were, to the masses, to the congregants of the church. Eventually, too many people don't think at all but simply rely on what others say to find out what's good, right, and true. But rather than simply bash the pastor I do put up historical texts as evidence of the philosophical development of fascism from the 1790s through to what it is today.

My feeling is that most Presbyterians, including the minister I go after, are not evil people but people who are totally uninformed unless they're misinformed. We have fascist rallies against democracy and social progress, and in part it's paid for and organized by the Presbyterian Church of the USA. That's why I'm on about the pastor and his church.He's one example, and one I can focus on. For me, here, he represents the whole.

Posted by: sonofwalker at August 19, 2005 12:41 PM

Sonofwalker,
I'm glad somebody is taking on PCUSA. Every time I think of their stand on Israel's wall, my blood pressure goes up. And, as PCRS points out above, PCUSA takes on other "liberal" causes. For Pete's sake, we're DROWNING in illegal aliens here in Texas, and people like the PCUSA want to offer those criminals sanctuary. And welfare (the dole). And tax-payer funded medical care. And schools. And free this, and free that.

Tell me, is PCUSA a part of the World Council of Churches, that leftist outfit that used to push "Liberation Theology" etc., etc.?

Posted by: texan at August 19, 2005 4:18 PM

texan:

I am pretty sure that PCUSA is a member of the WCC.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 19, 2005 4:57 PM

This is late in the game today, but if you find it, and if you'd like to contribute to the discussion on PCUSA, turn to my blog and jump in at the comments section. I have some irate theology students from Princeton University reading it, and though they don't write much to me, they are pretty pissed off.

What brings me up against the Presbyterians, of whom I care not a whit, is that they are for the most part, "mainstream" Americans. If we can't fight THEM and win, then what hope is there ofr the rest of the world we live in?

I don't get int the comments section at my blog. I leave it to others to discuss as they will whatever they please. Write what you like, if you'd like to.

Hope to see you there.

Dag.

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com

Posted by: sonofwalker at August 19, 2005 7:17 PM