Posted By Phyllis Chesler On February 21, 2011 @ 11:47 am
On February 11th CBS foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, was publicly gang-raped and beaten for 20-30 minutes by Egyptian men in Tahrir Square who, all the while, cursed her as a “Jew.” CBS only revealed this four days later. Writing at the London Guardian, blogger Amanda Marcotte chose not to focus on this act of jihadic barbarism because she did not want anyone to draw negative conclusions about Islam, Muslims, Egyptians, or about the so-called Egyptian pro-democracy “revolution.” Instead, like many other commentators, Marcotte bemoaned the fact that “rightwingers” might now draw some politically incorrect conclusions. Marcotte writes:
“In this case, rightwingers who have an interest in stoking fear and loathing of Muslims worldwide pounced at the opportunity to smear all Egyptians with this crime.”
She dismisses the possibility that any “rightwingers” might have a genuine concern for the victim and condemns them all for using Logan’s public gang-rape and beating for “political score-keeping.” After all, every good multicultural relativist knows that all cultures, all countries, all religions are equal and therefore are pretty much the same—except for Western cultures which are somehow worse.
Thus, while Marcotte admits that Egypt is well known for its sexual harassment of women, she insists that women in the West, especially in the United States also endure street sexual harassment. Marcotte cites one study that shows that “up to 100% of women in the United States are sexually harassed” on the streets and claims that at similarly “jubilant” times, such as fraternity parties on the American college campus, women are also ”sexually assaulted.”
I doubt that fraternity gang-rapists curse their victims as “Jews.” But forgive me: I am about to accuse Islam and Egypt of having an anti-Jewish bias. I also doubt that boozed up American fraternity gang-rapists claim that they are overthrowing a dictator and taking power for the people.
In any event, according to Marcotte, “rightwingers” are also delighted to focus on the vulnerability of female journalists because “rightwingers” want to keep women pregnant and barefoot and out of the job market, certainly far away from war zones.
Well, at least they don’t want them to wear burqas. Again, forgive me: I am suggesting that burqas are not a sign of freedom but that burqas and face veils do, increasingly, characterize Islamic gender apartheid in a jihadic era; and that they were all over Tahrir Square.
Ultimately, Marcotte believes that the real assault on Logan is a “rightwing” “assault on all women who have ambitions, or who are willing to be out in public while looking attractive. This response to Logan’s attack should make it clear that the US and Egypt differ on the issue of sexual violence perhaps only in degree but not in kind.”
On the same day, February 17, 2011, The Huffington Post published their politically correct article on the Logan Matter. Asra Nomani, the co-director of the (Daniel) Pearl Project at Georgetown University, accomplishes Marcotte’s goal more deftly.
Nomani, whose work I have quoted several times, reminds us that serious “sexual harassment” of women, including female journalists, goes on in (Hindu) India and (Muslim) Pakistan; and of course, women are being raped as a “weapon of war” in (non-Muslim) Congo. The words in parentheses are all mine.
Nomani runs a program which trains students to become foreign correspondents. Correctly, she asks whether “uncontrolled environments” like Tahrir Square are safe for journalists and whether what happened to Logan will cause media bigwigs to “man up” and stop sending female journalists into the line of fire. She cautions against this—and then excoriates the so-called “victim blaming” involved in how the Logan Affair is being covered in the media.
Disgustingly, predictably, certain commentators focused on Logan’s previous work as a model, her striking good looks, the fact that she was a naked-faced blond infidel, and that she had, perhaps unwisely, decided to return to Cairo despite the fact that the Egyptian police had intimidated and interrogated her the previous week. And then there were Nir Rosen’s infamously callous remarks on Twitter. Well, Rosen is a passionate anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian and was probably pissed at Logan—not at her attackers—because now the Beautiful People might stop to consider that perhaps (some) Muslims, (hard-line) Islam, (some) Egyptians, and the Muslim Brotherhood might be potentially dangerous, not touchy-feely friendly entities.
By the way, the otherwise estimable Nomani does not once use the word “Islam,” “radical Islam,” “jihad,” or the “Muslim Brotherhood” in her entire piece at The Huffington Post. In writing about her beheaded friend and colleague, Daniel Pearl, she only refers to those who lured, tortured, and murdered him as “militants.” Nomani’s opening paragraph declares that Logan was “saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.” Her piece leads off with the actions of the good Egyptians. That kind, brave group of women has been puzzling me for days now. Did women actually take the men on? I doubt it. The best scenario I can come up with is this: A group of Egyptian women—but not a group of Egyptian men—went and got the police.
By February 20, 2011, the New York Times took it a step further; they always do. Kim Barker writes that being publicly and repeatedly gang-raped and cursed as a “Jew” was not Logan’s “fault. It was the mob’s fault. This attack also had nothing to do with Islam. Sexual violence has always been a tool of war. Female reporters sometimes are just convenient.”
No, rape was “not always a tool of war.” It was once a spoil of war and only towards the late twentieth century did it become a systematic weapon of war. Think Bosnia. Think Rwanda. Think Congo. Above all, think Darfur. I have called this “gender cleansing.”
Barker also points out that male journalists have been beaten and sodomized too. Finally, she argues, correctly, that female journalists can do something that male journalists cannot do: interview “abused women” in Afghanistan, India, and Congo; report on what life is like, not just what war is like, for women.
On the same day, also in the New York Times, another journalist, Sabrina Tavernise, tells us that she was never raped in (Muslim) Lebanon, (Muslim) Gaza, (Muslim) Pakistan, (Muslim) Turkey, and (Christian and Muslim) Russia. She had some tricky moments in (Muslim) Iraq but guess what? Tavernise insists that: “In my experience, Muslim countries were not the worst places for sexual harassment. My closest calls came in Georgia with soldiers from Russia.” Gori presented the greatest danger for her.
Is it possible that Tavernise has absolutely no idea that Arab Muslims invaded Gori, Georgia in 645AD and were firmly established there by 735AD? True, the Muslim population of Gori is now about 10% of all people. But, is Tavernise also unaware that the Russian government has been supplying Tehran with weapons and has both been attacking their own “homegrown” Muslim Chechen terrorists and, at the same time, using them in the Middle East against both America and Israel through their proxy, Hezbollah? I have no idea who exactly menaced Tavernise but she might have considered adding a little political and religious context to her piece.
On February 20, 2011, journalist Angella Johnson of at the Daily Mail revealed that she, too, had been groped, leered at, fondled, man-handled as she covered Tahrir Square. Johnson is not white, nor is she a blonde. But she is a naked-faced foreign journalist, not a doormat, and obviously an infidel as well. Provocation enough. A message is being sent: Leave Muslim territory. If you don’t, we will rape your women, sodomize your men, beat you, and murder you to boot.
In America, women do get raped and gang-raped. I delivered the first keynote speech on the subject of rape at the first-ever feminist conference on rape in 1971 in New York City. I have been studying and lecturing on this subject for 40 years. Intimate partner rape is far more common than stranger rape. Rapists “practice” on their own women first—then strike out at women who belong to other races, religions, classes. There is black-on-black rape, white-on-white rape, black on white rape, and white on black rape. The rapists are all men.
No, not all men are rapists nor are all Muslims terrorists; however, all rapists are men, and most terrorists today are Muslims. We must draw some conclusions here.
In America, rape victims are not chosen because they are “infidels,” nor are they forcibly converted to their rapists’ religion. That only happens in Muslim countries. When one says this, one is immediately accused of “racism” and of inflaming “Islamophobic” sentiment.
I suggest that Marcotte, Nomani, Barker, and Tavernise all read what Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in the Wall Street Journal on February 18, 2011 about the Muslim Brotherhood. She begins with the credo of the Muslim Brotherhood. “Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our way; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” She concludes that “the most remarkable thing of all is the way the Brotherhood’s motto seduces Western liberals.”
While my heart is with the powerless, unorganized secular human rights activists in Tahrir Square and with their counterparts, especially in Iran, my fear is that the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. will simply capitalize on the chaos and gladly use the vote to get elected.
Remember: Hitler was freely elected by the German people as was Hamas in Gaza.
UPDATE: According to today’s Daily Mail, (February 21, 2011), Logan was also whipped and beaten with flag poles and repeatedly bitten in “sensitive” places on her body. She required five days in an American hospital. Of course, the psychological trauma is more serious than the physical injuries. It always is in cases of simple rape. Public gang-rape by hundreds of men who are beating and whipping you as they curse you both as a “Jew” and as an “Israeli”–and when you believe that you are about to die, goes far beyond the usual complex psychological trauma.
—
Don’t miss any of Dr. Chesler’s articles. Subscribe to The Phyllis Chesler Organization mailing list.
No comments:
Post a Comment