Feminist Phyllis Chesler is Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York and author of over 20 books. The return of Taliban jihadists to power in Afghanistan has particular resonance for her, as in 1961 she endured five months of seclusion in Kabul, Afghanistan, under her new Afghan husband’s command, who ruled his household according to traditional Muslim mores, like his polygamous father. Chesler joined Conservative Casual Friday host Andrew E. Harrod to discuss the fate of Afghan women as the victorious Taliban implements anew Islamic law and what Westerners can do to help fleeing Afghan refugees, among other matters.
mortimer says
Phyllis Chesler is 100% on target with her observations about Islamic culture in Afghastlistan. She has lived it and almost died from it. With the heroic help of a friend she escaped to the US embassy and was freed from captivity where starvation and ill health would have killed her. Her Muslim Afghan mother-in-law hated kafirs and Jews and wanted Chesler dead, because the marriage offended her honor. Another honor killing would not have alarmed anyone, especially if the victim were a kafir-Jew.
“An American Bride in Kabul” by Phyllis Chesler is a book I would give to Leftish women who know nothing about Islam. Then I would give them ‘Inside the Kingdom’ by Carmen bin Laden. The two books from the woman’s perspective tell women in an articulate language they relate to the ghastliness of women’s live enslaved within Islam.
“Honor Killing: A Form of Femicide” by Phyllis Chesler is also recommended. In Islam, it is often WOMEN who participate enthusiastically in honor killing.
Islam is not ‘benign’.
bill says
Mortimer:
There is also another interesting book about life in Muslim families. It may be out of print now but folks may find it in libraries.
The Price of Honour by Jan Goodwin 1994
All those who think Islam is just another religion should read it, especially feminists, but I doubt they would
bill says
I just saw it on Amazon,uk if you do not mind dealing with them!
LB says
“…what Westerners can do to help fleeing Afghan refugees…”
How about nothing. Afghanistan was under liberal democratic USA occupation for 20 years and Afghans still remained as they always were: muslims stuck in 7th century. If they truly wanted to be helped, they had every opportunity to renounce their stone-age ways and turn to the modern era. Not to mention that after the US army pulled out, Taliban overtook everything in a matter of days without a single shot fired in opposition from the American puppet regime’s 600,000 strong army that was trained by the US itself.
My point is this: every action by the Afghan people in these past 20 years indicate that they DON’T WANT to be saved by the Western “democracy”, so why do we need to help them come into our countries now when they’ve done nothing to help themselves in Afghanistan? So no, there is nothing that needs to be done by Westerners for Afghani refugees except to send them back to Afghanistan and let them lay in the bed they made.
“But think of the women! They are getting killed over there!” Yeah, they get killed all the time in all other muslim countries as well, doesn’t change the fact that if Afghans truly wanted to change as a society (which inevitably includes renouncing islam), they would have done so. Don’t blame me for not shedding a tear for the people who chose to remain in the past.
Kepha says
Expose Afghan immigrants to the Gospel of Christ.
Dave Mcloughlin says
So true. A country of 30 million over run by 70,000 thugs in a week end.
The afghan majority want to be ruled by the taliban. Let them enjoy it.
Barbara says
It takes at least three generations to make change in traditions and beliefs. This was generation one.
gravenimage says
Barbara, Afghanistan is statistically 100% Muslim. At the time of the Taliban takeover there were just an estimated 5000 Christians in the entire nation.
Besides, if this were always the case, the Germany would still have been Fascist up until last year–yet this clealy was not the case.
The fact is that Islam does not allow for freedom and democracy, and few Afghans ever wanted these things. Afghans have admitted that this is against the “culture” (i.e. religion) there.
There are a few in Afghanistan who wanted these things–but very few.
Walter Sieruk says
The Taliban had been and still are and always will be viciously cruelly, brutally ,maliciously anti-female.
The Taliban have this malice-filled mindset of misogyny because of their religion which is Islam.
Rotten Eye says
Afghanistan should be depopulated. Women should take it upon themselves to do this.
It is the only way women will be freed of the evils of Islam – why bring girls into a world of suffering?
gravenimage says
For one thing, Rotten Eye, most women in Afghanistan are themselves Muslim, and take their creed seriously. But for those who don’t, in a land where forced and child marriage is the norm and men have the right under Islam of marital rape, the idea that they can pull a “Lysistrata” is implausible at best.
Barbara says
I believe it was in the early 80’s or late 70’s there was a movie about a woman who married and Egyptian and move with her husband. He turned into a cruel husband and father. She managed to get out but it was dangerous trip, even with help from the locals.
Sally Fields played the woman. Wish I could remember the name.
James Lincoln says
Barbara,
I believe the film was called “Not Without My Daughter” (1991).
I think that her husband in the movie was Iranian.
gravenimage says
Spot on, Barbara and James. I have not seen the film–it is supposed to be very good–but I have read the book of the same name by Betty Mahmoody. Harrowing, but much reccommended.
Kepha says
Glad that Phyllis Chesler is sadder but wiser on Islam and women.
But, if the women of Afghanistan truly feel oppressed by the Taliban, I’m sure that a bunch of them–used as they are to childbearing, hauiling water, chopping wood, carrying burdens, etc.–could easily overpower a whip-wielding Talib on the street, seize his gun, and shoot him in the 外卵, or grab his knife and cut off his beard still attached to the skin.
If Western feminists and homosexuals are truly concerned about what’s happened to their Afghan “sisters”, they can raise their own money, train in the use of weapons, form their own monstrous regiments of women (and queers), then go and occupy the passes of the Hindu Kush, hold hostage the reproductive organ of every Afghan man they find with a beard longer than two inches until Afghan women have the right to say “Teluktuqti” 3x to their men, and keep the house. Or, the homosexuals, on occupying a haven in Afghanistan, can subject every Taleb they capture to Western bacha bazi.
As for me, I’m not willing to sink any more money into miserable, civilization-resistant, bigoted Afghanistan. If it wishes to remain an earthly portal to Hell, I believe they’ve made their point that such is what they wish to be.
gravenimage says
Kepha, you have said before that any women who object to the horrors of Islam are “monstrous”. (And yes–I am familiar with the original reference to John Knox. By the way, Elizabeth I was overall a fine monarch–much more so than her father. And while we have had appalling fools like Merkel and Ardern in the modern day, we have also had leaders Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher. I wish we had leaders–male *or* female–like them today).
gravenimage says
Phyllis Chesler Discusses Women under the Taliban, Past and Present
………..
Good for Phyllis Chesler for telling the truth.