Click on the screenshot to go to the article, if you must. It’s from Curve, a lesbian magazine, but the same sentiments have been expressed by non-gay people.
Even if the attack aimed at killing as many girls as possible, isn’t it conceivable that such a plan would come from Islam’s misogyny and dislike of Ariana Grande as a symbol of Western decadence? I’m not saying that’s the case, since we know nothing about why this concert was targeted, but to jump to the conclusion above, completely ignoring religion, bespeaks a profound and delusional ideology.
h/t: Melissa Chen
If they are so intimately and surely familiar with the motives of the attacker(s) then it suggests they are in some way associated with them and should be investigated as an accomplice in the attack. That, or they are making shit up to fit their agenda.
Exactly! Talk about losing all credibility for your cause.
It was obviously a Liverpool-inspired plot to kill as many Mancunians as possible.
(I could go on but in current circumstances it would be a degree of bad taste that I don’t feel like venturing into).
Point is that my theory is no more ludicrous than Ms Brownworth’s. I’m strongly against demonising all Muslims, 99% of whom are not terrorists, but her assertion is so obviously unsupported and improbable that it does Islam no favours at all.
cr
Some white regressive wackos are saying it was a plot by Theresa May to boost support for the Tories ahead of the election!
Not impossible, such things have been known in the devious history of politics over the centuries, but I’d rate the probability of that as almost vanishingly small.
Put it this way: even raising it (in the absence of a host of other evidence) puts one in the tinfoil-hat category.
cr
It isn’t likely a plot of the above kind, but one should be careful that the Tories (or anyone else) don’t exploit it …
Ah now, where the existence of such a plot is highly improbable, exploiting it after the event by some political factions or other is highly likely.
cr
If the attack was motivated by misogyny, isn’t the main source of the latter religion? Can somebody name some major religions which do not ascribe second-class status to women?
The Amazons in Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman was not as liberated as we think. The creator of the character was a bit of a creep.
The not so feminist history of wonder woman
https://www.thenation.com/article/not-so-feminist-history-wonder-woman/
Thank goodness it was only that.
I can rest easy in the knowledge that it wasn’t religiously motivated
The Police etc can now stop their investigation now we know the motive was so trivial.
One thought though, What sort of nasty, slimy disgusting, piece of offal would do such a thing and where did it get the idea from?
Its just so insulting to the families of the victims. This is like the Independent complaining nothing to see here because 85% of suicide bombers are men, neglecting to say that 99.6% are Muslim, or the people who claim that because there are more traffic deaths its not a problem or the Dean of Westminster saying he can’t fathom what might have motivated the attack. Or the Muslim Chaplain of the University of Manchester attracting the attention of the BBC to air grievance that this is affecting British Muslims.
You can sort of see the tortured logic if you accept their premise: That all evil in the world is perpetuated by the secular Satan known as Patriarchy.
Since Patriarchy knows nothing but the destruction and humiliation of women, everything that does so falls under that umbrella. Islam is just the means by which Patriarchy has asserted itself in this case.
Fundamentalist Christians probably follow the same logic, just using the actual Satan in the stead of Patriarchy.
So ironic
According to the online page this Brownworth person has in the past been publicly accused of lying is this possible?
This begs the question: Why would ‘evil’ heterosexual men (patriarchal or not) want to kill off women???
Reminds me of the 90s when feminists were claiming that male (hetero, of course) doctors were obsessed with disfiguring women via mastectomies.
Not actual women affected by real things and feminists who are NOT third wave feminists. Only the fruitloops at the end of the rainbow
Misandry Island: this is what a feminist utopia would look like.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/misandry-island-this-is-what-a-feminist-utopia-would-look-like-20150126-12yk8a.html
So is this article an example of “femsplaining”?
Should be.
Cook’s bones, that article takes a long time to get to the point. THe author, hoewever, seems to be a victim of the same insularity of opinion she projects on others. We tend to remember only those attacks in the West, or in those places we hold dear? The author is clearly forgetting that there have been terrorist attacks by women, although in those out of the way places we don’t think much about.
As usual, though, when identifying a root cause, the author doesn’t go deep enough. Men do it (mostly)? Sure. But why? Maleness? Like most over-arching explanations this one doesn’t explain the details. Why now? Why Muslim men? Why have the other major attacks not targeted women directly? I think the answers come down more to Muslim extremism than “men” in general.
What’s more likely:
I spent years to became a physicist because:
1. I wanted to learn how to dance ballet like Martha Graham
2. I wanted to be just like Donald
3. I wanted to discover something about the universe no else had before.
Hmm. Jihadists kill non-Muslims because they are an abomination to Allah. Jihadists have advertised this point repeatedly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
Sam Harris – What Do Jihadists Really Want?
And any issue of Dabiq:
http://clarionproject.org/factsheets-files/islamic-state-magazine-dabiq-fifteen-breaking-the-cross.pdf
Duelling ideologies, but not as photogenic as Deliverance.
Canadian liberal apologist – The Star, has a similar story
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/05/23/lets-delete-islamicislamist-labels-for-terrorists-paradkar.html
Thanks for posting this. I was just about to post it myself. How pathetic?
That’s disgusting.
From the Article “For Badat, the term “Islamic terrorist” is an oxymoron. “Islam does not allow any form of terrorism. Call it violent extremism.”
What about the Karajites – Salafi like literalists who appeared just after the death of the prophet and strove to copy him in everything they deemed was authentically done or approved by him. They formed terrorist republics attacking Muslims they deemed heretics. They were admired by many for going into marketplaces of those they deemed heretical and killing as many people as they could with swords and knives until themselves killed. They were Sunni. And then there were the medieval Shia (Nizari Ismailis) known as the Assassins who targeted and killed key enemy figures (including 2 Caliphs) over a period of 300 years. The methods of terrorism have a long history
I think this captures the doublethink well:
https://twitter.com/bmac0507/status/867080509926408192
Media: sometimes it covers all the bases simultaneously. Who know that the superposition principle extended beyond QM and EM waves.
Oy!
From the Salon article: “Because while the details are still coming in and there’s plenty that is unknown (note from BJ: that won’t stop Salon!), what is always clear and real if how feared and hated the young girls of this world are.” What?!? How are they “feared and hated”?
Further, “I also know the the Manchester attack **didn’t only affect girls** (from BJ: emphasis mine). But much like the 2015 Lafayette, Louisiana, ‘Trainwreck’ shooting that left two women dead, it’s impossible to ignore the targeted weay that this was an act of violence at an event with a heavily female audience.”
Gotta keep that narrative going! Even if men do make up 79% of violent crime victims. This is like when Hillary said that women are the primary victims of war because they lose their sons and husbands. Anything to keep the narrative alive.
Here is Clinton’s quote;
“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”
Care to dispute any of that?*
I think she didn’t go far enough; civilians are the primary victims in almost all wars, not only in terms of casualties but also in social and economic disruption, with women and children bearing the brunt.
*well, except the first phrase, which you already have.
The first phrase is what the rest of the paragraph is supposed to prove so I don’t see what you hope to demonstrate by conceding that it is false and then asking someone to prove the reasons for it being true are false.
Is Clinton pushing a narrative as BJ says implying, of course, that there is no substance to it? In Clinton’s complete quote, she enumerated some of the reasons why she thinks women are the primary victims of war. If stating your case is “pushing a narrative” then the phrase is utterly useless as a critique.
I believe she is correct. BJ thinks she is not. Given the entirety of her quote, I asked him to expand on his accusation. I added that she could have expand further on why women (and by extension, children) are the chief victims of war.
Do you see now? Are any of the things Clinton said about why she feels women are the primary victims of war incorrect? If so, why?
As I said in direct response, the entire quote makes it even worse. It’s the old feminist canard of “these are issues everyone has to deal with, but we’re going to act like only women have to deal with them.”
And again, what about having to go off from “the only home you’ve ever known” and shoot down other human beings, often getting blown to bits yourself and, if lucky enough not to die, having to live with the trauma of what you did and went through for the rest of your life?
Um, yeah, I would dispute the entire thing. The men who don’t go off to war to fight and die bloodily and horribly killing other human beings are forced to do the same exact thing Hillary says only the women have to do (“flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”) If the woman gets killed in the fleeing, who takes care of the cchild? The man.
Women are greater victims of wars when they happen than men? That’s absolutely absurd on its face.
Absurd on it’s face? You are flatly wrong. You seem to think that physical violence is the only victimization that occurs in warfare. Even so, in almost all wars the vast majority of casualties occur among non-combatants of which women and children make up the majority.
The tectonic social and economic upheavals that invariably accompany warfare primarily effect people who are not fighting, most of them women and children. In most civil societies it is women who must deal with the day-to-day disruptions of war, often violent and life-threatening, simply because that is the role society puts on women – they are the ones who look after children, procure and make food, take care of the sick or injured. Fulfilling that role in time of war, along with all the deprivations and risk makes them victims of that war
Since women are the primary care-givers to children (don’t even bother to dispute that) anything that affects children affects women disproportionally more than men. Ergo – when children are victimized in war women are too, disproportionally to men.
Add in to that the ever present special-sauce of sexual violence that accompanies the brave fighting men.
Clinton’s claim is not new. For decades, if not centuries, it’s been the consensus of those who study war – non-combatants are the primary victims and women bear the largest load.
“You seem to think that physical violence is the only victimization that occurs in warfare.”
I said in my post, “The men who don’t go off to war to fight and die bloodily and horribly killing other human beings are forced to do the same exact thing Hillary says only the women have to do (“flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”) If the woman gets killed in the fleeing, who takes care of the cchild? The man.”
You said, “In most civil societies it is women who must deal with the day-to-day disruptions of war, often violent and life-threatening, simply because that is the role society puts on women – they are the ones who look after children, procure and make food, take care of the sick or injured. Fulfilling that role in time of war, along with all the deprivations and risk makes them victims of that war”
Did I say they weren’t victims of war? No, I said Hillary’s argument that they are the *primary* victims of war is BS. Whil they’re left with all of these responsibilities, who is getting their gets blown out, stepping on landmines, marching through mountains in freezing or soaring temperatures, often at the point of starvation, and shooting their fellow human beings? Men. Because that’s the role society puts on them.
In Iraq last year ISIS bombed a games complex frequented by young males – mostly adolescents and killed 500. I find their targetting of young people having innocent fun – not reading scripture or performing miserable indoctrinated religious obligations – particularly revolting.
Douglas Murray – Islamists are very clear about what they want – we just aren’t listening
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/islamists-are-very-clear-about-what-they-want-we-just-arent-listening/
Yes they’d even deny this.
https://www.youtube.com/
[delete this bit which is to stop embed]
watch?v=LfrOZj6EBRI
Chanel 4 Manchester Bombing Interview 24 May 2017
with Muslim Libyan community members in Manchester – they blame Western policy and have no sympathy for those killed. One is wearing a “Love” logo composed of Assault Rifles, Grenade and Flickknives. As some other Muslim said on another BBC show – Saudi funded Mosques should be closed down and a hard look taken at the direction multiculturalism has taken
Interestingly, Trump used the phrase ‘ Islamic terrorists’ in Saudi Arabia, in the presence of the top leaders.
Somehow I doubt Obama, or half of Europe’s leaders would do the same.
Maybe a new trend may start.
Trump didn’t breathe a word about human rights, or women’s rights, or the madrassas into which the Saudi royals pump their petrol-dollars to fund the spread of the hateful Wahhabist ideology that fuels ISIS and al-Qaeda.
So what if he spoke the shibboleth “Islamic terrorist” (which his people later explained was written as “Islamist terrorist,” but misspoken by Trump because he was “tired”)?
Nor has any other President breathed a word about that. I still give props to Trump for bringing the issue up. We can’t beat him down every single (very rare) time he does something good just because we hate him, or our criticism of the real stuff starts to look disingenuous.
Trump spoke no hard truths to his hosts, the Saudis. To the contrary, he sucked up to them by railing against their bitter rival, Iran.
Iran is a bad actor that exports terrorism (primarily to the Levant, by funding groups like Hezbollah). But Iran hasn’t exported Shia terrorism to the West. The terrorism that plagues the West is the Sunni variety, of the Wahhabist/Salafist school, much of it bred in Saudi-funded madrassas.
Had Trump spoken out about that — or spoken out about Saudi Arabia’s abysmal record on human rights — I’d gladly give him his props, as well as credit him with “putting America first.” He didn’t, so I won’t.
But, again, this isn’t germane to the point I made. The point I made is this: which President *has* done what you want them to do to the Saudis? They’re strategic allies, for better and worse. Putting America First is conducting diplomacy responsibly, maintaining the friendships that need to be maintained for strategic reasons, and that’s not listing your complaints about your host country to their leader’s faces.
Do not underestimate the Hezbollah. The only act of Islamist terror in my country (so far) was done by them. The terrorists were imported from Canada and Australia.
The Saudis fund not only madrassas but squillions of mosques with imported Salafist preachers. No doubt it helps their legitimacy. They also lead the odious Organisation of Islamic Conference and the bullying of the UN, though Pakistan often functions as their attack dog in these organisations. I don’t know about the Saudi thing. Im sure its significantly about oil and the business ties of key Western elites but I also think fear of numerous terror groups forming and of Russia playing more of a role in the region with more divide and rule and more instability plus great power tension added. Most of the saudi population is if anything more conservative than the royals – and if the dynasty goes there would be an uptick of anarchy, terrorism and violence – but its hard to imagine the emergence of a salafist regime stable enough to pump out as it were funding for ever more of these toxic mosques and schools around the world.
If what happened in Syria is anything to go by in terms of clandestine backing of awful groups for divide and rule purposes – a saudi collapse would mean more refugees – another humanitarian disaster and more Isis groups but maybe this just has to play out before everyone sees they can no longer blame infidel powers. But the other thing is the public don’t know how useful or not is the Saudis intelligence on its domestic terror groups, and its suppression of them if they suspect such groups want to topple their regime for being (inevitably in the modern world) supported by the weapons of some technologically advanced infidel power. There are lots of other ME states that have supported terror when it suits them – for example Qatar supported the Muslim Brotherhood and is thought to support the Al Nusra brigades in Syria. Some of the gulf states hosted clandestine meetings with Bin Laden after he was declared a terrorist. Its the uncertainty of knowing whether abandoning the Saudi regime to their fate would make things worse or somewhat better – especially when they are custodians of the most holy Muslim sites. Its not considered acceptable to say that Islam makes the majority of the people so conservative they gravitate either to corrupt dictatorships or savage internecine fighting. Obama funded the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt in the Arab spring because he thought they represented the people – that was a disaster and the returning dictatorship’s ruling structure is more fissiparous and more corrupt plus more unpredictable.
Wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your primers on the Middle East–I learn so much from them.
Thanks also for the new-to-me term fissiparous. 🙂
😮 thanks Im all embarrassed!
Every time there is a terrorist outrage, we are told by our politicians that it has ‘nothing to do with Islam’. That being so, can we be assured that in the event of any of the individuals arrested in connection with the Manchester bombing being sent to prison, they will not be given halal meat or access to the Koran?
I just left this on the linked page:
**********
One must always, when reading a column such as this, wonder if the author had anything to do with the stupid click-bait that is the title and sub-title. Perhaps that was beyond her control; however, until we have evidence to the contrary, we need to hold her responsible for the heading as well as the article.
So let’s look at that title, shall we? The first thought that occurs is: “false dichotomy.” Indeed, what is Islam except the very institutionalization of violence by men against women? (And, to follow the author’s lead, against gays as well.) Look at all of the instances of violence cited by the author. How many of them had non-Islamic perpetrators? How many non-Islamic cultures have a tradition of “honor killings”? How many prosecute rape victims? How many have current traditions of female genital mutilation? (And if you want to contest that last point, PLEASE find better data than the nonsense spewed by Reza Aslan.)
Just this week, two gay men were caned 87 lashes in the province of Aceh, in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. And guess what sets Aceh apart from the rest of Indonesia?
That Islam stands so far apart in this kind of savagery is rather an impressive achievement, considering that there has been no lack of trying by Judaism and Christianity, Islam’s two partners on the Abrahamic Diagnostic Spectrum™ of violent delusions.
Manchester not “about Islam”? Are you daft? OF COURSE it was about Islam. And the fact that it was ALSO about male violence against women is not an argument AGAINST that thesis; it’s proof OF it.
According to Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies: 450 of 452 suicide attacks in 2015 were by Muslim extremists. This seems more a “toxic islam” problem than a “toxic masculinity” problem.
And of course one of the motivations of suicide attacks, which are more lethal than other such terrorism, is the religious view that you’ll go to Paradise if you die as a “martyr.”
And also, since in Islamic theocracies’ truly patriarchal societies where men are forced to be the bread-winners or feel worthless, when unemployment is a problem (as it is in many of these places), the male population is ripe for recruitment. It finally gives them a sense of purpose where they had none before, and promises them paradise once they complete their mission.
So do you not think that the culture in other societies such as the U.S. has a strong push to the male, the husband, to be the bread winner or feel worthless? It sure does. So then where are the bombers in this large population? Oh, that’s right, no Islam. Otherwise, in our inter-cities we would have thousands of potential bombers.
Are you honestly going to tell me that “push” is the same in Western scoeieties as in Islamic theocracies? (1) In Islamic theocracies, you have no choice; (2) In the west, we’re trying to do away with it, so it’s just a lingering and very small feeling for *some* men; (3) Women are allowed to work here, you know?; and (4) it’s no longer looked down upon in the more “enlightened” parts of the US (meaning half of it) if the woman if the primary bread winner.
Furthermore, even if everything I said wasn’t true, you’d still be missing two key ingredients you must mix in before making a perfect recruit: (1) raised from birth to think the West is the Devil and cause of all their problems, and (2) religious extremism.
Come on.
Some Muslims think the way to make Islam the dominant religion in the world is simply to outbreed non-muslims. Killing off non-muslim women and girls would certainly advance that tactic. OK, I really doubt that the bomber’s thought processes went that deep, but it is a possibility. And certainly more likely than that he just hated women, and the fact they were non-muslims [and engaged in activities which many Muslims think the Koran forbids] was irrelevant.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Pure psychological projection. Just because they’re simpletons they think others can’t have mixed motives or dual motives.
On BBC website on the topic of “What we know about the bomber” it says the sister Jomana, has said she believed her brother, Salman Ramadan Abedi, may have been reacting to US-led strikes in the Middle East.
“He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge.
“Whether he got that is between him and God,” she reportedly told the Wall Street Journal.
Is that like an eye for and eye ? Doesn’t that just make everyone blind ? Deuteronomy 32v35 & Romans 12v19 have the idea of vengeance is mine I will repay i.e leave it to the gods. I think I read that in many ancient tribal situations there was a constant cycle of revenge killings. At some point people need to realize that isn’t getting anywhere and agree to live at peace: declare a cease fire & truce.
If Salman thought it was wrong to murder muslims then wouldn’t that make it wrong to kill himself and how could he be sure that some of those he murdered didn’t hold islamic beliefs ? Also shouldn’t he oppose groups like Isis since they have murdered muslims. The muslims in areas of Iraq which were under IS control endured a hideous tyranny where they were tortured & worse for no good reason.
What about the fact that the various factions of Islam in Iraq and Syria etc have fought against each other?
The bombing was a pointless act because going by the results of previous such bombings it is ineffective. People have no choice but to keep getting on buses, planes & trains. The Bataclan atrocity didn’t stop people going to concerts or listening to pop music
If Salman was appalled by the bloodshed of innocent civilians in Syria & Iraq then why did he deliberately cause more of the same ? He might have reasonably campaigned by peaceful persuasion to have foreign powers stop using their armies in the region.
The father of Salman led prayers at a mosque in Manchester. Did he pray that his son would be delivered from evil or into evil ? If his prayers were for good then they weren’t answered and it they were for evil then everyone should oppose his religion & god.
except that Salman swallows Islamist propaganda. America does not drop bombs on children in Syria – Assad and the Russians do – the US doesnt fly in Syria because of the Russians there (I know the raid on the airstrip but that was deliberately token doing almost no damage, scrupulously avoiding Russian planes and a symbolic one off) America sends a handful of Special military personnel to assist the Kurds plus light weaponry to them and some of the Free Syrian Army it judges not jihadist. Its CIA agents stope heavy weaponry getting in from Turkey where they can in a bid to stop this getting into the hands of ISIS
This reminds me of McVeigh selecting a building with a day care because of the children who died in Waco.
““He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge.”
In 50 years, the regressives will be printing shirts of him like they do with Che Guevarra.
As Somer noted, the perpetrator didn’t even have his info right, so he bombed a bunch of children because he’s a fool.
Some reports also suggest that he had been planning an attack for over a year. If so, it can’t just have been in response to the US attack on Syria (which anyway was pretty carefully aimed at military targets, IIRC).
“…US attack on Syria (which anyway was pretty carefully aimed at military targets, IIRC).”
Indeed, it was.
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.