Saturday, January 09, 2010

"reacting to the moral uncertainties of the Western world"

More canaries in the coal mine. I must confess I didn't know that Boris Johnson's first wife ("the Zuleika Dobson of his year" according to Toby Young - another portrait of the marriage here) is now a convert to Islam.

Let Yazza (for it is she) reveal all :

She was the first wife of Boris Johnson — clearly not a woman to shirk challenges. But then I find out that she has married a much younger Lahori man and imagines her future as an ageing wife who will happily accept her lot within an orthodox Islamic set-up and welcome a younger wife to produce children. It is her choice and one wishes her well.

Several of my close Pakistani and Arab friends are happily married to European wives, with both sides compromising on lifestyles and values.

That is not what Mostyn-Owen has opted for. First she has married a much younger, fit man and maybe feels excessively grateful. Then she is going for complete surrender, an uncritical acceptance of the most regressive practices of some of my co-religionists. The reactions of her family are subtly xenophobic and must hurt. But her actions are as inexplicable to Muslims like myself too. My mother's generation fought for equality and monogamous marriages, a struggle that carries on. To see the daughters of Britannia carelessly surrendering these rights is almost unbearable.

It is happening elsewhere in Europe too. Since 9/11, vast numbers of educated, privileged middle-class white women have converted to Islam, often the most restricted forms with tediously long rulebooks. Surveys suggest they are the fastest growing group of converts in the West. Here they include women at investment banks, TV stations, universities and in the NHS.

Four years ago, when the trend first became clear, Dr Haifa Jawad, of Birmingham University, said: “The women were reacting to the moral uncertainties of the Western world. Many convert out of conviction and not because they are in love.”

Mostyn-Owen says her husband is “untainted by the jaded confusion of western urban life”. Such images of contamination and purity are often used to explain the decisions. Three such converts told me last year their nun-like apparel makes them feel less objectified and they feel “cleansed”.

I get a distinct "wishy-washy standards of contemporary Christianity" vibe here, although to be fair in Mrs BoJo's case it's probably "the wishy-washy standards of contemporary liberalism". The Mail story linked above quotes her mother thus : "Boris is a man who needed someone very obedient and silent, who would be willing to stay in the background and create a soothing home life, while giving him space to build a glittering career. My daughter wasn't that kind of person." Slightly strange that she's opted for that yet again, or am I stereotyping ?

Talking of Charles le Gai Eaton, there's an interesting snippet of biography here, pinched from his 'Islam and the Destiny of Man'.

UPDATE - the lady herself, quoted in Readers Digest :

"I've never regularly attended church, yet I have been to this mosque, my mosque, more times than I can remember. It's a place where I sometimes feel spiritually transported. As I busy myself on the carpet sorting colours and papers after what is always an exhausting class, I am soothed by the azan of evening prayers, the haunting and sometimes pained invocations to the Almighty. I feel my humility, and then realize this is my act of worship, my submission, my Islam. Forget the fact that only men take part in communal prayers, I am a token Christian discreetly trafficking through the men's space with my bags of materials, pretending I'm not really there. I am there, I am accepted, and this is all that matters."

UPDATE 2 - from the comments to Yazza's piece :

In places like Morocco - there is a whole sub industry in marrying mainly older western women - to gain papers and passport to Europe, America - even Japan.

I don't mean to offend - but Muslim men are usually married to first cousins or other family members - before a Muslim girl marries - she must undergo a virginity test at the doctors -

I have spent time in the Muslim world - hard to call everyone who sees this thing for what it is - a racist. But there I was told that women who cannot produce a virginity certificate - are laughed at, called whores, and can remain unwed for the rest of their lives. Many turn to prostitution.

If one of these same man marries a western woman - who is older and not a virgin - then he only sees her as a way to escape his country's conditions.

How the game works - is these guys are prepared to enter into long term relationships with you - in one case - a young girl having a relationship with a young Muslim man - was meant to return there and bring the foreign marriage papers - when she turned up without them - the relationship was called off - she probably had some sense talked into her by her parents - but she was there after referred to as the 'stupid' girl who did not bring the papers. And I was approached to take money to marry this guy and bring him back to Europe.

Other cases EU ladies in relationships with these men have sent them money - the guy then took the money, brought a house and married a cousin as his family wished.

- Rebecca, uk

17 comments:

staybryte said...

Free Deidre Rachid!

Anonymous said...

Repulsive.

Sgt Troy said...

Yazza serves a useful purpose. She is painfully aware of how unprepossessing her own people actually are and thus lets the cat out of the bag. No doubt deeply conflicted it makes her the strident harridan that she is, which serves as an anti-dote to commie/liberal poison.

As for these stupid cows who buy into alien religio-tribal primitiveness, well, it's not the first time

Back in the thirties they'd have drooling over Uncle Joe. What else can you expect from effete, parasitical, degenerate rubbish?

The honest part of the nation knows the score though.

It's essentially a question of whether leadership can emerge to fill the poltical vacuum

"Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety" Henry IV

We hope

Shlomo said...

Several of my close Pakistani and Arab friends are happily married to European wives, with both sides compromising on lifestyles and values.

There's one vitally important area where compromise is unacceptable: the children's religion. In my experience, the children are brought up as Muslims.

...vast numbers of educated, privileged middle-class white women have converted to Islam

I'd take issue with the qualifier 'vast' here. There is no emprirical evidence to support this. Just as when the figures for the number of mosques and Muslims are cited, what we aren't told by the alarmists and the propagandists on the other side is that many mosques stand virtually empty, mimicking the same buildings in the Middle East. For instance, Cairo is often (rightly) considered the epicentre of the Arab world, culturally and arguably relgiously too. Yet, for most of the year outside of the main religious holidays, mosques stand virtually empty; the call of the adhaan ignored by all but a small minority. The same is true in London, where mosques often cater exclusively to recent immigrants or the remnants of the older generation who've 'rediscovered' Islamic orthopraxy upon retirement from the jobs they came here to do.

but Muslim men are usually married to first cousins or other family members

This is inaccurate at best. Yes, cousin marriage is common and it seems to cross Islamic cultural and linguistic borders, but I wouldn't call it 'usual' or a 'habitual' practice. Instead, the trend is to move in the other direction. With the proliferation of Muslim matrimonial websites and Marriage agencies in the Middle East, elsewhere in Muslim-majority countries and in 'ex-pat' communities in Europe, Muslims are rejecting the practices of their forefathers in unprecedented numbers.

I have spent time in the Muslim world

Oh dear, the fictitious construct the Muslim world seems only to be peddled by Caliphate-re-establishment seeking Muslims and the Western ciphers who ape them. The term is neither helpful nor accurate.

Laban, you have unwittingly touched on the most important facet of Muslim emigration to the UK: as things stand, higher birth rates and serial marriage to people 'back home' aside, most of the current UK Muslim population is relgiously unassimilable. Non-Muslim men are prevented from marrying or having relationships with Muslim women, and because (though Muslim fantasists would deny it - 'there's no race in Islam...' etc.) extra linguistic/ethnic group marriage is virtually unheard of amongst Muslims (except for British converts), we have a de facto apartheid system in the UK; all the fastest growing ethnic groups (Somalis, Sylhetis, Mirpuris) marry co-religionists from their own countries or parents' countries/villages. This was the most glaring ommission from Christopher Caldwell's otherwise excellent book and has far-reaching repercussions for the future of our country. How can we become a truly plural society when many immigrants would rather die than allow their daughters to have relationships with the 'natives'?

Blognor Regis said...

Back in the thirties they'd have drooling over Uncle Joe.

Funny, reading Yazza's bit I was thinking, "time to re-evaluate Unity Mitford."

Laban said...

I think the lovely Allegra might have been a Mitford (Jessica or Unity, who knows ?) in the 30s - but the UK wasn't as much of a spiritual demolition site then as it is now.

It's her 'jaded confusion' remark that gets me. She's describing a real phenomenon - the West's spiritual vacuum since Christianity's decline. In that sense I'd disagree with the good Sgt about how unpreposessing Yazza's people are. They may not have some of the qualities we have (that's a different debate) but they have some of the qualities we have lost - qualities without which no people can live.

Laban said...

and when I say 'we' you must remember I'm only half a Brit - but I'm 'acculturated'.

Hugh Oxford said...

I agree with Shlomo - that's a load of crap. Only 1/10 converts to Islam are women, usually through marriage.

The bigger picture, outside of a dying Europe, is a deeply insecure Islam terrified of the gospel of Christ, because, as is happening all over the Muslim world, people are converting to Christianity, even where they are persecuted.

The world is changing too quickly to be certain of any outcomes. I'm not saying that Europe is not in trouble, but we do not know that at some point Europe will not turn back to God.

This morning I was speaking after Mass to a lady whose son is training for the priesthood in Rome. The priesthood is very much thriving apparently. France especially is seeing many new vocations.

I'm not saying that the post-Christian secular void in Britian will not be filled, for some people at least, by an Islam that appears to be confident, but that the bigger picture is not so clear.

Unknown said...

Hmm. My prejudice says that while men may make civilisations, women - if allowed - will instinctively seek to destroy them. The emasculated, cowardly, pretentiously secularised West, will no longer defend its own and just watches as the civilisation so laboriously created over so many centuries and that made the modern world decays, is eaten away and - yes - is betrayed. How desperately desperately sad.

Sgt Troy said...

"They may not have some of the qualities we have (that's a different debate) but they have some of the qualities we have lost - qualities without which no people can live."

The extraordinary prevalence of domestic violence in Pakistan for instance argues otherwise. I could run through the litany, but we all know it - deny it or not as the case may be. Please don't succumb to this guff, laban. We are talking a harsh and primitive code. There is nothing of freedom in it("freedom is free, of all the forces that be" - Roy Harper, Tom Tiddler's Ground)

Submission should stink in the nostrils of all Freeborn Englishmen

"Section 39. No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

Section 40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice."

We haven't lost our qualities, they have been clouded, obscured, hidden by a despicable crew - malignants, dupes and idiots. The malignants are beyond forgiveness, CIF is a pretty handy database of treason. Malignants are not Freeborn Englishmen and Britons anymore, their rights are forfeit.

But all we need to do is to go back to our history, literature and traditions to find ouourselves again. Of course some of them could be fairly rough and ready if you go back to Cecil, Walsingham, Phellips, Poley, Toplliff. But there is no nice way out of this. Necessity as Cromwell told us, "hath no law". We either have the will to survive or we don't. Certainly we are not being supplanted by something better. We are waiting on events, as Cromwell would have seen it the working out of Providence. The liblabcon regime will collapse under the weight of its greed, stupidity and total lack of legitimacy. The chance to save the country will come

Hugh Oxford said...

http://www.aina.org/news/20090925191939.htm

"If they give Muslim-born Christians the right to change, I can assure you, that all of Egypt will convert to Christianity." He went on to relate in the Coptic News interview that during the hearings of his lawsuit, Muslim lawyers warned the presiding judge, Hamdi Yassin, that if he allows a change in Maher's case, this would "open the gates of Hell on them," meaning a torrent of Muslims converting to Christianity.

The number of Muslim-born converts to Christianity in Egypt, who are keeping their faith secret, has reached several million. Due to the State Security's persecution, torture and rape, they have established outside Egypt an organization called "Freed by Christ" as well as "Way TV" to speak on their behalf to the West, and expose their sufferings at the hands of State Security. It is headed by the Christian convert Dr. Mohamad Rahouna, ex-dean of the Faculty of Arabic Studies, Minya University, who fled to the United States.

"We, the Christian converts are treated worst than animals. I was able to travel freely before filing the lawsuit," El-Gowhary said "I filed the case for the sake of other converts, who have become tremendous in number, all living underground, among whom there are young girls who will never be able to get married unless a change happens. Personally, I would not benefit out of the lawsuit, but I wanted to get some development in this problem."

Mark said...

Blognor Regis & Laban hit the bullseye with the Mitford comparison. Allegra seems to be very much the twenty first century version of a batty, distaff side,and upper class form of cultural repudiation that is so reminiscent of the Mitfords, escepially the leftie Jessica.

And do I detect a note of envy in Yazza when she writes thus ?

-'she has married a much younger, fit man and maybe feels excessively grateful.'

If it isn't envy, maybe in her confused and distracted mind she's mixed up Allegra with Iris Robinson.

Anonymous said...

How can we become a truly plural society when many immigrants would rather die than allow their daughters to have relationships with the 'natives' - sayeth Shlomo.

Do we want a truly plural society? Funny, I dont recall that referendum, perhaps I was abroad or in a coma?

OK so no referendum then. But instead various parties must have competed with their vision of mass immigration, which would bring about the "truly plural society".

You can just picture it - Labour Manifesto: "We will bring 100,000 Muslims to the UK this year"

Tory Manifesto: "Don't listen to Labour's lies, they can't deliver, we wil will bring 150,000 Muslims to the UK this year"

And so on...

Funny isnt it that we are told of the manifest benefits of the multicultural society, sorry, truly plural society, yet when one tries to imagine how it would be sold if the elites had ever tried to do it democratically it just sounds like a farce. No-one would vote for it. No-one in any white country has ever been given the choice on such matters. The day immigration ever gets into mainstream party manifesto promises the competition will centre on cutting numbers, not raising them. Belivers in a "truly plural society" are selling a crock here, this belief implies that given a choice anybody would vote for a truly plural society - whatever the hell that is anyway.

This demand for a truly plural society makes me want bang my head against a wall, or Shlomo's anyway.

Its nonsensical, I know because I've lost count of the times I've asked multicultists to explain how its supposed to work.

Shlomo implies that in a true plural society everbody gets to breed with everybody else. Well, if they did then after some number of generations there would no identifiable groups. We would be back to the dreaded homogenous society, the "problem" that a plural society is the "cure" for.

So, what then? Is that mission accomplished or do we then keep importing more pluralness?

In fact the plurality Shlomo desires is guaranteed by the separateness of groups like Muslims. No separteness, no diversity duh!

If Shlomo wants a "truly plural society" he would be better off looking at India with its wonderfully diverse society - part and parcel of the caste system.

Mark said...

'Its nonsensical, I know because I've lost count of the times I've asked multicultists to explain how its supposed to work.'

The problem for multicultists isn't that 'plural/diverse' societies haven't existed and 'worked' in the past. What they forget is that they have 'worked' by accepting socio-ethnic stratification, and not by striving to eliminate it (think the Habsburg and Ottoman empires).

If you believe that a 'multicultural society' can exist simultaneously with a belief in 'equal outcomes' for all the ethnic groups that comprise it (and with all the grievance mongering that item 2 on that wish list entails), then you are truly living in la-la land.

Indeed, 'multicultural societies' and 'democracy' aren't really compatible at all. Modern India (the counter-example often quoted by multicultists) only limps on as a functioning democracy by accepting limits on freedom of speech and expression that would be seen as draconian in western democracies.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mark, somebody understands!

Sgt Troy said...

"Indeed, 'multicultural societies' and 'democracy' aren't really compatible at all."

This is certainly the case - it must in fact lead to anarchy and then dictatorship, then to more anarchy and to more dictatorship. There is a paradox here in that a kind of dictatorship will certainly be required to sort this dreadful mess out; which is why I always go back to the English Revolution and the Cromwellian period.

Numbers annihilate though in alien colonisation, and the gravest danger is that we will become a lost people like the Gododdin

"Men went to Catraeth"(with disasterous results)

"long biers bore away blood-stained men

It was a wretched fate, an inexorable destiny that was ordained.......

Though we drank clear mead by lighted candles

Though its taste was good, its bitterness lasted long"

That is the sound of final, irremediable defeat

That's from last night's Radio 3 prog, on iplayer - very good

Consider also the fate of Beowulf's Geats, who were defeated, destroyed, subsumed

"A Geat woman too sang out in grief
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
of her worst fears, a wild litany of nightmare and lament; her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles, slavery and abasement"

We are bound by rusty chains - "racism", "fascism". Those who bind us are the delusional left, they've telescoped history into 25 years , German history at that, and made a universe of nightmares out of it. They will seal our fate if they are allowed. We, who whose country; "never really existed" - according to the parrot mantra

1049 Remittance man said...

I knew Allegra when she was Mrs BoJo No. 1 and submissive she was not, which is one of the reasons they broke up. Highly strung indeed, but strikingly beautiful, clever and curious about the world around her, so I don't know what to make of this, except to wish her well for the future, difficult though it is for me to understand her decision.