13/11: Inbred and Abused: Two Politically Incorrect Questions
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Here are two politically incorrect questions that I think will need to be answered before we can consider the possibility of assimilation by Arab Muslims, or their near neighbors. These questions also raise possibilites in the psychology of Islamic terrorists.
1. Are Arab Muslims and others influenced by them willing to give up first-cousing marriage?
Patrilateral parallel cousin marriage is evidently ancient in the Near East, from whence it spread during the Arab conquests to adjacent peoples through the vehicles of clientship, intermarriage, and religious conversion. *
In other words, the ancient tradition, and common current practice, is to marry a first or second cousin on the father's side. This practice both reflects and helps to produce inward-focused families with intense family loyalty that trumps other loyalties such as to one's nation, or to the common good. It helps lead to nepotism.
In regard to Islamic terrorists, we must ask if ages and ages of inbreeding have produced higher-than-necessary numbers of unstable individuals. It is no accident that researchers of genetic diseases regard Saudi Arabia as a great place to study their topic.
2. Are Arab Muslims and others influenced by them willing to give up sexual relationships between men and boys?
They talked about Islam, especially about the sequestering of women. They said it forced the native men into prisonlike expedients. On night patrols, they said, they would bump into Afghans hooking up with animals. And they joked about “Man-Love Thursday,” when they’d spot Afghan men and boys together, grabbing a quick sin before the redemptive Sabbath.
The above quote is from an embedded reporter with an American unit in Afghanistan. Similar observations have been made by many other allied units of various nationalities. It reminds one of the reaction Europeans had to the Turks and their similar practice. Anecdotal evidence also points to the practice in Arab culture.
In regard to Islamic terrorists, we must ask if being abused as a boy helps to produce angry men ready to lash out at "the enemy."
*The Structure of Parallel Cousin Marriage
Robert F. Murphy and Leonard Kasdan
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1959), pp. 17-29 (article consists of 13 pages)
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association The Structure of Parallel Cousin Marriage, by Robert F. Murphy and Leonard Kasdan © 1959 American Anthropological Association. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization that serves and is supported by the scholarly community. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Accessibility
©2000-2008 JSTOR All Rights Reserved. JSTOR® and the JSTOR logo are registered trademarks.
1. Are Arab Muslims and others influenced by them willing to give up first-cousing marriage?
Patrilateral parallel cousin marriage is evidently ancient in the Near East, from whence it spread during the Arab conquests to adjacent peoples through the vehicles of clientship, intermarriage, and religious conversion. *
In other words, the ancient tradition, and common current practice, is to marry a first or second cousin on the father's side. This practice both reflects and helps to produce inward-focused families with intense family loyalty that trumps other loyalties such as to one's nation, or to the common good. It helps lead to nepotism.
In regard to Islamic terrorists, we must ask if ages and ages of inbreeding have produced higher-than-necessary numbers of unstable individuals. It is no accident that researchers of genetic diseases regard Saudi Arabia as a great place to study their topic.
2. Are Arab Muslims and others influenced by them willing to give up sexual relationships between men and boys?
They talked about Islam, especially about the sequestering of women. They said it forced the native men into prisonlike expedients. On night patrols, they said, they would bump into Afghans hooking up with animals. And they joked about “Man-Love Thursday,” when they’d spot Afghan men and boys together, grabbing a quick sin before the redemptive Sabbath.
The above quote is from an embedded reporter with an American unit in Afghanistan. Similar observations have been made by many other allied units of various nationalities. It reminds one of the reaction Europeans had to the Turks and their similar practice. Anecdotal evidence also points to the practice in Arab culture.
In regard to Islamic terrorists, we must ask if being abused as a boy helps to produce angry men ready to lash out at "the enemy."
*The Structure of Parallel Cousin Marriage
Robert F. Murphy and Leonard Kasdan
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1959), pp. 17-29 (article consists of 13 pages)
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association The Structure of Parallel Cousin Marriage, by Robert F. Murphy and Leonard Kasdan © 1959 American Anthropological Association. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization that serves and is supported by the scholarly community. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Accessibility
©2000-2008 JSTOR All Rights Reserved. JSTOR® and the JSTOR logo are registered trademarks.
Martian Mariner wrote:
1) Your questions are phrased as "giving X up", and you mention the possibility of assimilation, so I'm guessing that you're talking about Arab Muslims who live in the West. If that's the case, then your use of examples from the Middle East does not follow. A better case could be made if you looked at examples of Arab Muslims here in the West. If rates of cousin-cousin marriage or sexual abuse remain high even among emigrants, THEN you might have cause to ask your questions. The Arab Muslims living in the West should not be made to answer for the actions of their former countrymen.
(I have a hunch that those willing/able to migrate to the West, especially the US, are less likely to be involved in either "inbreeding" or abuse than those unwilling/unable to migrate.)
2) Your second-order conclusions/questions are particularly weak. A strong case could be made that cousin-cousin marriages do increase tribalism and nepotism. I'm not sure that a case could be made that an entire race is more likely to produce "unstable" individuals because of this cultural practice. On the second point, you would have to see if actual terrorists were abused as boys in order to make the connection from a generalized (and anecdotal) cultural practice to an individual pathology.
3) Looking at the pattern of your posts, you make your best arguments on a theological and historical level. (No surprise, since you're a historian and theologian...) I'd say leave the genetic determinism and social psychology arguments to someone else.