Not religious enough to limit their sex, but too religious to use a condom

Some people are not religious enough to limit their sexual activities, including those forms strictly prohibited by their religion, but too religious to accept contraception!

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What Connects Feminists and Islamists

In recent years, feminists and Islamists have found each other as political partners. Their unprecedented cooperation became most visible in the “Women’s March” against Donald Trump. One of the co-chairs of the organisation “Women’s March” is a headscarf-wearing Muslim of Palestinian descent, Linda Sarsour, who has been praised by Bernie Sanders for her role in the anti-Trump protests (1), and “recognized as a ‘champion of change’ by the Obama White House” (2). Sarsour has made headlines because of her Islamist views and actions such as propagating “jihad”, the ‘holy war against non-Muslims’ (3), championing Shariah, the Islamic law (2), her meeting with the black racist and Islamist Louis Farrakhan together with two other leading organisers of Women’s March, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez (4;2), and her barbaric remarks against the anti-Islamist feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali “insisting she is ‘not a real woman’ and confessing that she wishes she could take away Ms. Ali’s vagina – this about a woman who suffered genital mutilation as a girl in Somalia” (2).

Another example which made headlines, though fewer, was the case of Oldoz Javidi, an Iranian born Swedish actress. She was one of the “Feminist Initiative” party’s parliamentary candidates in the 2018 Swedish general elections. In summer 2018, Javidi participated in a ship sail to Gaza Strip which attempted to break Israel’s blockade (5). The Gaza Strip is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist group which aims to eliminate all Jews. Article 7 of the Hamas Charter says: “The time [Judgment Day] will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them and until the Jew hides behind the rocks and trees, and [then] the rocks and trees will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding [behind me], come and kill him”. 

Aboard the ship, “while sailing with other pro-Palestinian activists in the direction of Gaza”, Javidi made an interview in which she suggested Israeli Jews should be deported to the United States in order to achieve a “solution” to the ‘Jewish problem’ (5). 

The cooperation between feminists and Islamists seems strange, considering feminism’s dedication to women’s rights and sexual freedoms which contrast Islamic ideologies. However, feminists and Islamists share some ideological features that make a partnership between them possible: Both movements are anti-capitalist and share the idea that capitalism degrades women to sex objects. Both are anti-American, opposing US domestic and foreign policies in general, and in respect to women’s issues both see the American media industry as harmful to women, though from different perspectives.  

And surprisingly, both advocate gender segregation, though at different levels. Apart from those feminist extremists in the 1960s and 1970s who saw any contact to males as evil, and were even not willing to have any contact with their own male children, most Western feminists advocate some forms of gender segregation, because they believe that men undermine women’s self-confidence and hinder their development and progress. Thus, there are many feminists who think gender segregation in schools would help girls to achieve better. Most feminist organisations do not accept men as members, activists, or even supporters. Most feminists ridicule men who consider themselves feminists, and argue that a man can never be part of the feminist movement. Most ‘public’ events organised by feminist organisations such as seminars, speeches and parties, prohibit males’ entry, and many of the feminist (book-) shops do not allow males to enter their premises.

Though the reasons underlying Islamists’ and feminists’ anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and gender segregation may differ, in their battle they share the same enemies and follow the stupid axiom that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. 

References:

(1) https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/linda-sarsour-womens-march-attacked-online_us_58865134e4b0e3a7356adbb2, accessed 06/01/2019

(2) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opinion/womens-march-progressives-hate.html, accessed 06/01/2019 

(3) http://time.com/4848454/linda-sarsour-jihad-comments-donald-trump, accessed 06/01/2019

(4) https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/26/linda-sarsour-womens-march-leader-downplays-louis-/, accessed 18/01/2019

(5) https://www.timesofisrael.com/swedish-parliamentary-candidate-suggests-deporting-all-jews-from-israel, accessed 06/01/2019

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A socialist who could have become a Nazi

I have always wondered how the Nazis could gain the support of the masses in Germany, especially when bearing in mind that in 1918-1919 a leftist Revolution had taken place in Germany, and that socialists were in government before the rise of national socialism. The left had a strong base in Germany. Historically, many leftist thinkers and leaders were German such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Liebknecht, August Bebel, Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin. But what happened to the leftist movements and their supporters after 1933 in Germany? Why did the German left not resist Hitler as they should? Could it be that they were not as hostile to national socialism as they should be? This could be a possibility which would explain the silence of the German left towards national socialism in those years. 

When reading older texts by leftist thinkers, one can discover many (shocking) similarities between the left and the Nazis. As an example, I will here review a famous work by Paul Lafargue who is praised by all the different strands of the European left, from socialists and Marxists to anarchists. According to the ‘Marxists Internet Archive’, “Paul Lafargue (1841-1911), Karl Marx’s son-in-law, was a leading member of the French socialist movement and played an important role in the development of the Spanish socialist movement”. He was “a close friend of Friedrich Engels in his later years” and, like Karl Marx, was “financially supported by Engels”. Lafargue “was one of the founders of the Marxist wing of the French Workers Party” and as the Marxists Internet Archive claims “an advocate of women’s rights”. 

“The Right To Be Lazy”, first published in 1880 in France, is Lafargue’s best known work. Though it is only about 50 pages long, it deals with many issues which are still up-to-date. In my article, I will focus only on four issues, namely, Lafargue’s approval of ‘racial hygiene’ and the killing of disabled and elderly people, his defence of slavery, his antisemitism, and his anti-women sentiments. 

‘Racial hygiene’

In “The Right To Be Lazy”, Lafargue is obsessed with the idea of a ‘healthy and beautiful race’. His views and terminology show enormous similarities with the Nazi eugenics and their racial hygiene project, though contrary to the Nazis Lafargue regards work as the root of all evil. For him, capitalism and labour lead to physical and intellectual deterioration: “In capitalist society work is the cause of all intellectual degeneracy, of all organic deformity” (Chapter 1). Lafargue argues that work in a capitalist society impairs “the harmonious development of the human organism, for as Dr. Beddoe says, ‘It is only when a race reaches its maximum of physical development, that it arrives at its highest point of energy and moral vigor.’ Such was also the opinion of the great naturalist Charles Darwin” (Preface). Further, he puts forward: “European explorers pause in wonder before the physical beauty and the proud bearing of the men of primitive races, not soiled by what Paeppig calls ‘the poisonous breath of civilization.’ Speaking of the aborigines of the oceanic Islands, Lord George Campbell writes: ‘There is not a people in the world which strikes one more favorably at first sight. Their smooth skin of a light copper tint, their hair golden and curly, their beautiful and happy faces, in a word, their whole person formed a new and splendid specimen of the ‘genus homo’; their physical appearance gave the impression of a race superior to ours.’ The civilized men of ancient Rome, witness Caesar and Tacitus, regarded with the same admiration the Germans of the communist tribes which invaded the Roman empire” (Chapter 1). 

In his ‘racial hygiene’ views, Lafargue, like the Nazis, goes so far as to advocate the killing of disabled and elderly people: “The Indians of the warlike tribes of Brazil kill their invalids and old people; they show their affection for them by putting an end to a life which is no longer enlivened by combats, feasts and dances. All primitive peoples have given these proofs of affection to their relatives: the Massagetae of the Caspian Sea (Herodotus), as well as the Wens of Germany and the Celts of Gaul. In the churches of Sweden even lately they preserved clubs called family clubs which served to deliver parents from the sorrows of old age” (Chapter 2). 

Slavery

To justify his despise of work, Lafargue indicates that in ancient Athens and Rome only the slaves worked, not the citizens. He defends ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle in this respect, and writes: “But our moralists of Christianity and capitalism will answer, ‘These thinkers and philosophers praised the institution of slavery.’ Perfectly true, but could it have been otherwise, granted the economic and political conditions of their epoch? War was the normal state of ancient societies. The free man was obliged to devote his time to discussing the affairs of state and watching over its defense. The trades were then too primitive and clumsy for those practicing them to exercise their birth-right of soldier and citizen; thus the philosophers and law-givers, if they wished to have warriors and citizens in their heroic republics, were obliged to tolerate slaves” (Appendix). It seems very odd that in a debate between a capitalist and a socialist, it is the socialist who defends slavery. 

Antisemitism

The first time, I read “The Right To Be Lazy” in its German translation by Eduard Bernstein. There, the word Jew is three times used, each time in a humiliating manner: the Jew as a ruthless, bloodsucking capitalist who brutally exploits children, women and male workers. In the English translation by Charles Kerr, the word Jew is replaced with “Rothschild”, which is not less antisemitic, but less overtly antisemitic. Though I do not speak French, with the help of GoogleTranslator I was able to compare the original French text with the German translation by Bernstein, and to conclude that the negative references to Jews were in both texts identical. 

“An advocate of women’s rights”?!

Lafargue infantilises women by indirectly comparing their physical and intellectual condition to that of children and equating women’s work outside the home with child labour. His ideal woman is a housewife who gives birth to healthy and beautiful children, children who are racially superior to us: “The unhappy women carrying and nursing their babes have been obliged to go into the mines and factories to bend their backs and exhaust their nerves. With their own hands they have broken the life and the vigor of their children. Shame on the proletarians! Where are those neighborly housewives told of in our fables and in our old tales, bold and frank of speech, lovers of Bacchus? Where are those buxom girls, always on the move, always cooking, always singing, always spreading life, engendering life’s joy, giving painless birth to healthy and vigorous children? … Today we have factory girls and women, pale drooping flowers, with impoverished blood, with disordered stomachs, with languid limbs” (Chapter 2). 

When describing the “capitalist France”, Lafargue uses a language even more misogynistic: “Capitalist France, an enormous female, hairy-faced and bald-headed, fat, flabby, puffy and pale, with sunken eyes, sleepy and yawning, is stretching herself out on a velvet couch” (Chapter 4). The leftists would claim that socialist thinkers, like others, were products of their times and that beliefs and prejudices such as Lafargue’s were shared by all the people living in those times. But this is not true. Look, for example, at the high status of women, regardless of their social rank, in the works of the French playwright Molière (1622-1673) or the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). The images of the ideal woman promoted by the bourgeoisie have been much more emancipating than those by the left. In attacking the bourgeois woman, Lafargue’s stance comes close to the contemporary Islamists’: “The women of fashion live a life of martyrdom, in trying on and showing off the fairy-like toilets which the seamstresses die in making. They shift like shuttles from morning until night from one gown into another. For hours together they give up their hollow heads to the artists in hair, who at any cost insist on assuaging their passion for the construction of false chignons. Bound in their corsets, pinched in their boots, decollette to make a coal-miner blush, they whirl around the whole night through at their charity balls in order to pick up a few cents for poor people – sanctified souls!” (Chapter 3)

In practice, the policies of the communist regimes with regard to women and motherhood showed more similarity to the Nazi regime’s than to the policies of the capitalist democracies. “Hitler promoted the importance of a stable, traditional family. Men were to be in charge and protect their family. Women were to serve and nurture their family… The Nazis expected women to stay at home, look after the family and produce children in order to secure the future of the Aryan race” (BBC). In the Soviet Union, mothers bearing and raising 10 or more children were awarded the honorary title "Mother Heroine". The award "was established in 1944 and continued to exist until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991" (Wikipedia). 

Conclusion

Despite all the inhumane positions expressed in “The Right To Be Lazy”, the work is still highly praised by the left. Leftist websites, for example, describe the text in positive terms only, without any criticism. This shows that the left is still extremely dogmatic and not willing to critically examine its past. 

References:
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxb8msg/revision/1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Heroine

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“Cancer screenings unnecessary and harmful”?!

In “The dark side of early diagnosis” (published in September 2018 issue of Prospect Magazine), Michael Blastland suggests that “early diagnosis” of cancer and its following medical treatment are only a waste of NHS resources and the cause for “unnecessary suffering”. He asserts that statistics on this matter mislead us by using tricks “that make(…) early diagnosis appear a good thing”. For him, only those with cancer symptoms need “a proper examination and diagnosis”, not “people who are symptom-free”, because in the latter case a misdiagnosis would lead to “unnecessary anxiety, treatment—and harm”. Also people who have cancer but are “symptom-free”, do not need a screening and treatment, because in many cases their cancer “will never develop and never hurt them”, as Blastland puts forward. 

To support his point, Blastland presents a diagram with data on “the outcomes for women who are and are not screened for breast cancer”, and notes that these results “are now reported in the latest NHS breast screening leaflet”. The diagram illustrates two groups of women aged between 50 and 70. In each group there are 200 women. The 200 women in the first group attend screening. 15 of them develop breast cancer, 185 will never have breast cancer. Of those 15 who develop breast cancer and have been screened, 3 die from breast cancer, 12 are treated and survive. In the second group, there are likewise 200 women, but they do not attend screening. Exactly as in the first group, 15 of them develop breast cancer, 185 will never have breast cancer. But of the 15 who develop breast cancer and are not screened, 4 die from breast cancer, 8 are treated and survive, and 3 are “unaffected”. 

The “unaffected”, as Blastland states, “are women who have cancer that will never develop and never hurt them. Often, it’s carcinoma in situ—the ‘in situ’ meaning that it stays put in the ducts where it begins and never affects the rest of the body. If they are not screened, they never know, never worry, never have treatment—and they’ll be fine. But if these women are screened then, since we don’t know if it’s carcinoma in situ, or a cancer that could kill, they’re likely to be treated—including with mastectomy surgery. In some cases, then—and there’s no knowing which—early diagnosis will be harmful.” Blastland argues that whereas the difference in deaths between the two groups is only one in 200, in the first group (screened) all 15 women are “affected”, but in the second group (not screened) 3 are “unaffected”. He concludes that, thus, the harms of screening are greater than its benefits. 

There are two problems with Blastland’s interpretation of the data. Firstly, the difference in deaths is not one in 200, but one in 15, because only 15 of the 200 women in each group develop breast cancer. Secondly, Blastland considers a too small number of women, which leads to his underestimation of saved lives through early diagnosis. If we take a much larger number of people into account, we will get a very different picture than that described by Blastland. By multiplying the number of women in each group by e.g. 10.000, we would take four million women aged between 50 and 70 into consideration, instead of only 400. Of those 150.000 women who develop breast cancer and are screened, only 30.000 would die, whereas of those 150.000 who develop cancer and are not screened, 40.000 would die. This makes a difference of 10.000 lives among 150.000 women with breast cancer. The larger the number of people taken into consideration, the clearer the facts about the potential of early diagnosis to save lives. 

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The absurdity of sex change surgeries

The LGBT movement, the feminist movement and the academia in Western societies encourage people who do not feel comfortable with their biological sex to undergo sex change surgeries. There is widely silence on the catastrophic impacts of ‘sex change’ on the mind and body. 

Sex change surgeries promise to free the individual from mental problems caused by the feeling to be born in the wrong body. Feminist thinkers such as Judith Butler insist that gender is all about acting, and that there is no such real thing as gender. Anyone who can perform well enough the role of a female will be regarded as a woman, anyone performing well enough the role of a male will be regarded as a man, according to their absurd theories. In reality, however, a person who has changed his/her biological sex is seen as a transsexual, regardless of how good a performer he/she is. Even among the LGBT activists these people are not regarded as “real” men or women. This means that sex change surgeries cannot fulfil one’s desire to change their biological sex. I have never come across a study on the negative impacts of ‘sex change’, but I assume that in the long term most transsexual people continue suffering mentally after having been confronted with the reality of social gender borders. 

More devastating are the physical impacts of a sex change surgery. Clearly, sex change surgeries are a case of extensive bodily mutilation including genital mutilation. We know hardly anything about the long-term impacts of such mutilations which are combined with extreme hormone therapies. However, it is obvious that people whose genitals are removed and replaced by artificial ones, are not able anymore to enjoy sex properly. But this may be a less important issue compared to other physical problems which arise during and after the process of ‘sex change’. 

Like in many other cases, here too, we see the double standards of those who propagate “sex reassignment surgeries”. Most of the advocates of sex change surgeries are against female genital mutilation (FGM) practised by some African communities, though in comparison the latter is much less harmful than the former. And most of them criticise skin bleaching applied by a considerable number of people with darker skins around the world. When a black person feels uncomfortable with his race and wants to change it by bleaching himself, then the LGBTQ… supporters who are mostly anti-racist too, point out the health hazards of bleaching. They try to prevent people with darker skins from bleaching by arguing reasonably and by attacking the social causes of such feelings, namely, the ‘white dominance’ and the (historical) humiliation of non-white people by the white. Most of the advocates of sex change surgeries oppose beauty surgeries too, and try to attack its social causes, namely the beauty standards imposed by the ‘(white) male dominance’. But in the case of sex change surgeries none of them talks about the devastating impacts of such operations, and they forget to mention the social causes for hating your body. Suddenly, they come to believe that a medical intervention can solve a social problem.
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