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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Wife for sale Today I bought a great book in a remainder shop. It is a year by year history of London, strong on strange and intriguing events, not heavy with the theorising. Lovely.
It is a blogger’s delight. I have already culled three postings from it – two for here and a ‘how very odd’ posting here.
Here is another fascinatingly odd factoid, entry number six for the year 1729:
WIFE-SELLING IN THE CITY
It was reported that ‘Last Wednesday one Everet, of Fleet Lane sold his wife to one Griffin of Long Lane for 3 shilling bowl of punch; who, we hear, have since complained of having a bad bargain.’
A salutary reminder that ‘Christian’ men could be fairly primitive to Christian women, not so long ago. Many Muslims still are, of course. But if we Christians can mend our ways, they surely can too.
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I’m surprised you don’t recall this story about a man who tried to auction his girlfriend on Ebay. 🙂
Brian, don’t agree with you. Venality is driven by a different set of emotional gears from religion. Buying and selling wives was never a part of Christianity.
This left me wondering whether this guy’s wife actually left him for another man and “actually I sold her, so there” was Mr. Everet’s cover story.
Sigh! Moral relativism once again invoked to defend Islam. Didn’t expet to find it on this blog of all places.
Europe is doomed.
Jane
All I said was that since we have made some progress in this area, they can too. Can, not have, or will. I am not defending past repression of women in the West, or current repression by Muslims, anywhere.
Are all comparisons between the West and other parts of the world, no matter how illuminating, going to be denounced as “moral relativism”, if they fail to rage against the non-West, but merely suggest, reasonably politely, that they may one day catch up with us?
I am sure that some Muslims would be angered by my piece for asserting, as it does, the current moral superiority of the West over much of Islam.
I got the Annals of London a couple years ago as a gift. It’s the ultimate bathroom reading. Lots of short, interesting vignettes. I had to use a London A-Z guide as the bookmark. A little (lot) heavy on the history of the theatre, though.
Brian: You have to live with Islam to know that it is completely unreformable. For one thing, It does not have the same ethical base as Christianity and other belief systems. This is a major stumbling block to reform.
There is no sense of right and wrong in Islam. Islam divides the world of ethics, not into right and wrong, but into “haram” and “halal”. (‘Permitted” and “forbidden”.)
If wife abuse is “halal” (“permitted”), that’s the end of the matter. If slavery is “halal” (“permitted” — which it is) that is the end of the matter. Muslim countries only abolished slavery under extreme pressure from Western colonial powers. Some still practice it.
Once that pressure disappears — I have no doubt that slaverly will eventually be reintroduced in many Muslim countries, including eventually the incipient Muslim countries of France, The Netherlands and Denmark, etc.
(Regarding the specifics of this article: Technically it is not permitted to sell your wife in Islam — only your concubine/slave woman. It is however permitted to beat your wife as well as your slave woman.)
But I give you credit for at least bringing the subject up.
Susan – The Netherlands has put a cap on all new muslim immigration for four years or longer if that’s what it takes. They will no longer teach children in their “home” language. No more young lads taking a year off school to go and learn the customs of their “home” country. No more bringing brides in. No more state-funded “cultural centres” for mad mullahs to rant in.
Pim Fortuyn’s message got through. I suspect that when the four years is up, there will be some reason to extend it.
Verity: I know all that. But there is nothing that the Netherlands can do about the high birth rate of the Muslim immigrants already there, nor is there anything they can do about the prediliction for Leftward poltiicians to pander to Islam for political gain. Holland is today ruled by a right of center coalition; all could change in an instant if a leftward coalition takes power. Check out the new PM of Spain and his “reconciliatory” gestures toward North Africa and Palestine.
Susan – Yes. You have a point. The Muslims will breed their brains out as the women stay in the house for that purpose.
This is another reason for their wailing about the hijab-on-school-property ban in France. All little girls want to do is to blend in and be like other girls their age and the girls they see on TV. It’s the fathers and the brothers who tell these little girls how special they are by wearing this outfit.
In areas in France where they don’t routinely wear veils, they blend in with the rest of the girls and they get jobs. Where their fathers and brothers force them to look different with all this “religious” gimcrackery, those girls, once grown into women, never get out of the house. They breed. You are correct, the Netherlands left it far too long. As have all European states, and Britain.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I am certain there will be one. The indigenes of Europe and Britain are still aware – despite the socio-communist airbrushing out in the schools – of what their history is, and there will come a point where they will discover a solution. I don’t know what it will be, but I think the level of tolerance has been reached. I just don’t believe that the entire vast landmass of Europe and a successful and creative country like Britain can be prodded into lock-step marching into an illusionary future that is, in fact, their doom.
I could be wrong.
Verity, take a look . This appeared in the NY Times today — I imagine that Euromedia is not quite this succinct on the subject. I reproduce it in full because you have to register for NYT content fromoverseas. Within 10-15 years, Europe is going to look like Lebanon, and the Channel isn’t going to save Britain from being in the thick of it:
Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam
2004-04-26
By PATRICK E. TYLER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
The New York Times
The call to jihad is rising in the streets of Europe, and is being answered, counterterrorism officials say.
In this former industrial town north of London, a small group of young Britons whose parents emigrated from Pakistan after World War II have turned against their families’ new home. They say they would like to see Prime Minister Tony Blair dead or deposed and an Islamic flag hanging outside No. 10 Downing Street.
They swear allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his goal of toppling Western democracies to establish an Islamic superstate under Shariah law, like Afghanistan under the Taliban. They call the Sept. 11 hijackers the “Magnificent 19” and regard the Madrid train bombings as a clever way to drive a wedge into Europe.
On Thursday evening, at a tennis center community hall in Slough, west of London, their leader, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad, spoke of his adherence to Osama bin Laden. If Europe fails to heed Mr. bin Laden’s offer of a truce – provided that all foreign troops are withdrawn from Iraq in three months – Muslims will no longer be restrained from attacking the Western countries that play host to them, the sheik said.
“All Muslims of the West will be obliged,” he said, to “become his sword” in a new battle. Europeans take heed, he added, saying, “It is foolish to fight people who want death – that is what they are looking for.”
On working-class streets of old industrial towns like Crawley, Luton, Birmingham and Manchester, and in the Arab enclaves of Germany, France, Switzerland and other parts of Europe, intelligence officials say a fervor for militancy is intensifying and becoming more open.
In Hamburg, Dr. Mustafa Yoldas, the director of the Council of Islamic Communities, saw a correlation to the discord in Iraq. “This is a very dangerous situation at the moment,” Dr. Yoldas said. “My impression is that Muslims have become more and more angry against the United States.”
Hundreds of young Muslim men are answering the call of militant groups affiliated or aligned with Al Qaeda, intelligence and counterterrorism officials in the region say.
Even more worrying, said a senior counterterrorism official, is that the level of “chatter” – communications among people suspected of terrorism and their supporters – has markedly increased since Mr. bin Laden’s warning to Europe this month. The spike in chatter has given rise to acute worries that planning for another strike in Europe is advanced.
“Iraq dramatically strengthened their recruitment efforts,” one counterterrorism official said. He added that some mosques now display photos of American soldiers fighting in Iraq alongside bloody scenes of bombed out Iraqi neighborhoods. Detecting actual recruitments is almost impossible, he said, because it is typically done face to face.
And recruitment is paired with a compelling new strategy to bring the fight to Europe.
Members of Al Qaeda have “proven themselves to be extremely opportunistic, and they have decided to try to split the Western alliance,” the official continued. “They are focusing their energies on attacking the big countries” – the United States, Britain and Spain – so as to “scare” the smaller states.
Some Muslim recruits are going to Iraq, counterterrorism officials in Europe say, but more are remaining home, possibly joining cells that could help with terror logistics or begin operations like the one that came to notice when the British police seized 1,200 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a key bomb ingredient, in late March, and arrested nine Pakistani-Britons, five of whom have been charged with trying to build a terrorist bomb.
Stoking that anger are some of the same fiery Islamic clerics who preached violence and martyrdom before the Sept. 11 attacks. On Friday, Abu Hamza, the cleric accused of tutoring Richard Reid before he tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoe, urged a crowd of 200 outside his former Finsbury Park mosque to embrace death and the “culture of martyrdom.”
I just read this article by David Warren on the incompatibility of Islam and democracy. Excerpt:
“[T]he very existence of Muslim communities under non-Muslim rule, in the West today, is in defiance of Sharia. Traditionally, the only reason a Muslim could have for even visiting the Dar al-Harb (the abode of war, beyond the frontiers of Islam), was to negotiate the return of hostages.
It is after staring at such hard truths, and many like them, for a long time, that one concludes Islam and democracy are incompatible. Moreover, where democracy has been successfully introduced into an Islamic culture — the one clear example is Ataturk’s creation of modern Turkey — it could be done only by directly attacking and suppressing all public expressions of Islamic authority. In other words, Turkey could only be democratized by being simultaneously de-Islamicized.
One may argue that Islam is better than democracy. But one cannot argue that they are marriageable. . . .
Nota bene: I’m not saying democracy can’t come to Islamic countries. Rather, that it can only come at a terrible cost.”
David Carr’s right. I recall reading that wife-selling was nearly always a way to ratify a done-deal. Even if there was “open” bidding, it was usually rigged in advance.
Michael: The reason that Islam is incompatible with democracy is because it is a competing political system, like Communism and Fascism.
Treating Islam as if it were simply another personal religious faith is where the West ocntinually fails. It is not.
What do you suggest as a remedy to the problem then? I don’t usually agree in the erradication of a religious belief, but if it is as inhibiting as you say, it interferes with the government’s ability to protect freedom, and in that case I think it must be treated the same way the law treats religious extremes such as torture and human sacrifice.
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