Late Night Laugh: The Stranger

“I was just a baby in my cradle when my parents set up an arranged marriage for me.”

Driven to suicide: Mother of three sets fire to herself in desperate bid escape an abusive marriage.

I was just a baby in my cradle when my parents set up an arranged marriage for me.

I remained with my parents until I was 15, when I had my wedding. The year was 1999 – and it was the beginning of my miserable life.

I should have set myself on fire then.

When I got married, I was a secondary school student. From the start, my husband treated me very badly, especially when I told him that I wanted to continue school. Although he had promised me to let me carry on my education after the wedding, as soon as we got married he broke his promise.

My husband is uneducated and can’t even read and write. He is a veteran Kurdish fighter and knows about nothing but guns.

When I told him that I was ready to go back to school, he beat me. I saw no other choice but to forget about my education. Yet that was not the end of my hardships.

He was very jealous; he never let me leave the house alone to go shopping, let alone go for a walk. So my life was confined to the house. We were also living with his parents, who weren’t the nicest people.

Shortly after I gave birth to our first baby, she became very sick. My husband was not at home, and none of his brothers and sisters wanted to come with me to a hospital. I decided to take the baby on my own, and when I returned, my husband and his mother both beat me. I was 18 years old then. That was the first time I tried to set myself on fire, but one of my husband’s sisters stopped me.

Nothing changed after that, and we continued with our miserable life. I never spent one day with him without drama. His mother was even worse than him, and she was always creating trouble.

Although I thought about leaving him several times, my family never supported me. They were always telling me that I was his wife and he could control me. In the eyes of both families, I was more an object than a human being.

My husband wanted a boy, but we had three girls. He blamed me for this. He would get angry and threaten to marry another girl.

It was in the fall of 2007 when I finally persuaded him to let me go to evening classes. I wanted to get out of the house and this school was a great place to study.

But soon things turned nasty. His mother didn’t like the idea of me going to school. She is illiterate and believes that education is against family values. For people like her, a woman is the property of her husband.

One afternoon in December 2007, as I returned home from school, I saw my husband in front of our house standing with a stick in his hand. When I got closer to the house, he attacked me in front of our neighbours and he pushed me into our house. I was crying, screaming and asking why he was beating me up, but he never answered and continued hitting me until he broke my right hand.

He never let me go to the hospital for treatment. Instead, one of our neighbours bandaged it up.

After that incident, I decided that it is better to die than to live such a life. What kind of life is it when you share your house with your parents-in-law, who don’t have the slightest bit of respect for you?

What kind of life is it when you aren’t given your rights as a human being? When you are not even allowed to leave your house?

One evening, I decided to escape from my husband’s tyranny. Having no family support and not knowing where to go, my only choice was to commit suicide.

In our house, we never lacked weapons. I thought about killing myself with my husband’s AK-47 rifle, but I was hesitant. I had heard a story about a girl in our area who had tried to commit suicide by shooting herself, but she survived and was handicapped for the rest of her life.

For three days, I thought about a way to end my life. Eventually, I decided that I must set myself on fire. It was an easier choice. And I remember when I was a kid one of our neighbours set herself on fire and she died.

One night, I put my three kids to bed and kissed them as much as I could. Throughout the entire eight years that we lived together, my husband never slept with me.

That night, I cried a lot. I went to the bathroom which was a few yards from my room. I took a gallon of kerosene with me. I sat in the bathroom and cried more. I thought about every single minute of my life, about how miserable it was.

With tears pouring from my eyes, I grabbed the gallon of kerosene with my left hand and poured it over myself, from the top of my head to my toes. When all of my clothes and body were soaked, I put the container aside, closed my eyes, flicked the lighter and placed it on my chest. All of a sudden, my body was on fire. I rushed out of the bathroom, screaming for help. In a minute, everything went black.

Five days later, I woke up in a hospital in Sulaimaniyah. It was terrible to open my eyes and know that I was alive. I was so disappointed that I had another chance to live.

My husband and his family had told the police that my case was an accident; that I caught fire from kerosene while I was making bread.

As soon as I could talk, I told the police investigators the truth. My husband was detained for a short time and then freed on bail.

I spent three months in the hospital. Life was really hard there. Every day, I would see young girls and women like me who came to the hospital with burns. I would see some of them die and some of them survive.

I really envied those who died. I thought they had escaped the miseries brought on by their oppressors. It is better to die once and for all than to die every day of your life.

My husband visited me several times while I was in the hospital. Every time, he tried to convince me to change my statement to the investigators. I refused.

When my health was strong enough to be discharged from the hospital, I chose to go to a women’s shelter in Sulaimaniyah rather than going back to my husband.

At the shelter, my life is better, and I see my daughters frequently. But I’m in a dilemma. While my husband says that he will be nice to me if I go back, I just can’t believe him. I think he only says that because he is worried that he might eventually be held responsible for my failed suicide attempt.

I don’t know what the future has in store for me, but I don’t want to go back to my husband. I know that I’m not alone. There are hundreds of women who have similar stories to mine, and it is just sad that no one is coming to their defence.

Darun Mohammed – a pseudonym used for security reasons – was interviewed by Amanj Khalil, an IWPR-trained journalist who has reported on the increase in self-immolation and suicide attempts by Kurdish women in Sulaimaniyah.

Houston, we have a problem.

Academic Hokey Pokey

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs points to the rather sophomoric rantings of a San Francisco ‘academic.’ He points to an article by one George Bisharat a professor of law at Hastings College of Law.

Bisharat takes issue with Israel as a ‘Jewish’ state. He does not seem to recall that most of the middle east claim to be Muslim states- and given the barbarous track record of those broken, failed and dysfunctional states, he is in no position to take umbrage at Israel.

Bisharat is not the first Arab academic with no clothes.

The LA Times published an Op-Ed piece, Why Does The Times Recognize Israel’s ‘Right To Exist’?, by Saree Makdisi. The piece is a toast to drivel,absurdity and deceit, masquerading as ‘informed thought.’ Mr Makdisi provides a textbook look at malignant narcissism and the consequences of that behavior (an accurate, if unflattering review by his peers can be found here).

In the Op-Ed piece, Makdisi begins his remarks with outright and characteristic deceit:

First, the formal diplomatic language of “recognition” is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to “recognize” a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).

It is not “meaningless” when a ‘non-state’ not only refuses to ‘recognize’ a state, but also insists on destroying that state, her inhabitants and publicly promises a new genocide (Mr Makdisi cannot make those pesky audio tapes, video tapes, newspapers, school curricula and ‘religious’ broadcasts go away).

In addition, Mr Makdisi also cannot make the opposite true- if the Palestinians are a non-state, they are not automatically entitled to any kind of special recognition or support by Israel or the international community any more than are the more deserving Kurds or a thousand and one other indigenous groups.

The Palestinians are a recent political construct and no more, who came into being after Egypt and Jordan washed their hands of them. Makdisi would predictably argue that Israel too, is a recent political construct, and to some extent, he would be correct. The reality of course is that the Palestinian political entity came to the show later on and as such, are a day late and a dollar short. Mr Makdisi is free to adopt an Orwellian dance of historical revisionisim and deny Jewish history and ties to the Holy land as do some of his colleagues, but it seems clear he wants to maintain the facade of intellectual credibility.

Makdisi continues:

Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to “recognize?” Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, “Israel” is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of “Israel”?

For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?

What mindless drivel! Makdisi is attempting, in his own words, ‘recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions.’

Israel’s borders were absolutely defined until the Arab world insisted that they would redefine them, permanently, in 1967.

In 1967, Egypt kicked out UN peace keepers from the Sinai Peninsula. They massed troops on Israel’s borders and threatened her destruction. Radio broadcasts at the time, monitored and recorded, exhorted Arab troops to an orgy of destruction, rivers of blood and rape- literally, saying these was Islamic destiny. Syria followed suit, massing borders on Israels northern flank. The Gulf of Aqaba was blockaded (an act of war in itself) and despite pleas from Israel to Jordan’s King Hussein, he too was to enter the fray.

In response, Israel called up it’s armed forces and reserves and on June 5, 1967, launched a preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It was over in 6 days. By then, Israel has crossed the Suez Canal and had taken Gaza (Dayan said, “Give me 12 hours and I can be in Cairo…”

Israel offered the land back, for peace, secure borders and mutual recognition. The Arab countries said no and ratified that ‘No’ in The Khartoum Declaration of 1968. There it was decided that violence would not cease until Israel and her inhabitants were destroyed.

Makdisi seems oblivious to the reality of realpolitick. Virtually every nation in the world came into existence by way of conflict of one kind or another. Further, Makdisi makes no mention of Palestinian and Arab world textbooks that make no recognition of Israel at all. Nor does he deal with the reality that the Palestinian curricula and media have made the physical destruction of Israel- and Jews- a reality. Makdisi also does not address the perverted religious component of that reality.

Makdisi’s concern for the Palestinians is touching. That said, his concern for the equal number of Jews booted out of Arab nations at the time is non existent. He seems to conveniently forget that UN Resolution 194 was intended to address the rights of all refugees in the region.

Saree Makdisi and UC Berkeley’s Sandy Tolan (we wrote about Tolan here) share a similar ideological platform. They differ in a few significant ways, however.

Tolan is self serving- that is, Sandy Tolan has found a niche to exploit and does so with great solemnity and with an all knowing, didactic approach (”let me explain what is really happening”). That is ideal for the NPR pablum that allows Tolan a showcase for his shallowness. That he needs to break with reality is a necessary trompe L’oeil, much like that of the Three Card Monte huckster that needs to deceive to make a living. He knows he’s deceiving everyone watching, but hey, it’s a living and besides, he means well.

Saree Makdisi is another story. His kind of deceit is much more significant, because his deceit is predicated on defending and then promulgating an agenda of hate.

Makdisi wants you to believe he ’speaks our language’ and shares ‘our cultural values,’ his ideas are meritorious and his interpretation of events in the Middle East are correct. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

He says say the Palestinians are ‘just like us,’ only misunderstood, because of the Israel, AIPAC, and the conspiracy theory du jour. They have kids, go to work, come home and have dinner, and they want the exact same thing we do. Sounds reasonable, right. The Palestinians are just like the Israelis, right? They are the same, right?

Well, there are a few differences Saree Makdisi neglects to mention. He would have you believe that just because Palestinians agree that hamburgers, fried chicken and pizza are terrific, we are all the same

The same Palestinians who come home and have dinner and worry about report cards are also teaching their children to hate and sometimes, even to kill some people of different races or religions. They believe in the racist and bigoted rhetoric of their society and swell with pride as their children march to the latest Hamas marching ditty, ‘Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the Gas!‘ and they listen attentively as Palestinian media reinforce racism, bigotry and hate as ‘honorable’ expressions of Palestinian ‘dignity.’

That is like saying the Ku Klux Klan is a fine and upstanding organization because they have bake sales and sponsor Little League baseball teams. Truth be told, there is very little, if any, difference between what is taught in Palestinian schools and what is KKK ideology.

Makdisi and his ilk blur the the lines in the Middle East out of contempt for democracy and freedom and to further a racist agenda.

His claim to be motivated by ‘justice’ or ‘peace’ is laughable. In supporting causes whose fundamental underpinnings are hate, intolerance and for the denial of participation by those who are different from themselves, he is exposed for who and what he is and who and what he believes in.

Saree Makdisi is no more concerned about ‘justice’ or ‘peace’ than is the Ku Klux Klan- and he knows it.

From a political standpoint, Israel has every right to demand recognition and renunciation of violence from the Palestinians. For decades, the ‘occupation’ of the West Bank and Gaza, brought on by the Arab world and their subsequent refusal to negotiate for peace, has been the most benign occupation in history.

That said, Israel does not need recognition from the Palestinians or even the Arab world. They are among the most backward, corrupt and dysfunctional regimes in history. Israel stands to gain absolutely nothing from diplomatic ties with the Arab world.

Outside the Arab world, Israel has relations with almost every single nation on earth. Even nations that do not have formal relations maintain a not so discreet ‘open door policy.’ Israel and the rest of the civilized world maintain world class exchanges of scientific, educational, technological and cultural programs.

According to the UN Human Development Report, the Arab world is at the bottom of the education barrel. If Saree Makdisi really cared about the welfare of the Palestinians or the Arab world, he would be demanding that the Palestinians and Arab world forge ties with a nation that could offer them so much- and would, despite their mistreatment. That alone speaks volumes about the differences between western democracies and democratic values and the dysfunctional Arab world.

Instead, Makdisi and his ilk are only to happy to see the Palestinians rot. He’s quite the Arab champion. He displays the characteristics of a malignant narcissist:

“The malignant narcissist is presented as pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty and sadism.”

He may like burgers and pizza, but he is nothing like us at all.

We wrote,

Nowadays, much is being made of the stress and indignities that have been heaped on the Palestinians by the Israeli ‘occupation.’ That stress and those indignities, we are asked to believe, is the reason the Palestinian behavior.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. When the Jews emerged from the ovens of the Holocaust, they too, were under stress. Unlike the Israelis, the Nazis took no great pains to avoid civilian causalities (that or the Israelis have proved to be remarkably inept as killers).

Those wretched and ragged Jews did not choose to behave like the Palestinians. Rather than glorify and amplify dysfunction, they built a democratic state, with world class institutions and infrastructure. Rather than glorify hatred and bigotry, they built a functioning state. That truth has not been lost on the Arabs in the region or in Israel herself. Time and time again, those Arabs make clear they would rather live under Israeli control than under the Palestinian Authority. When the Israelis pulled out of southern Lebanon, the Alawites (the privileged clan that claims the Assads of Syria), made clear they too, wanted to remain under Israeli jurisdiction.

Can anyone imagine, any circumstances under which Israelis would indoctrinate their children to believe that killing was a religious obligation? Can anyone imagine Israelis instructing their children to act as human shields for gunmen? Can anyone imagine Israelis publishing textbooks instructing children to hate and slaughter? Can anyone imagine Israelis devoting media programming to extol the virtues of death and murder?

Notwithstanding the overuse and misuse of the concept of ’self esteem,’ there is such a thing as healthy self esteem and destructive self esteem.

To be clear, self esteem is determined by identity. We look in the mirror of our innermost selves and ask, ‘Who am I?‘ We can answer by saying, ‘I am who my parents say I am.’ We can also answer, ‘I am who my peers say I am because of they perceive me.’

In fact, our identity is determined by the choices we make.

Healthy self esteem comes about as the result of great efforts in the expression of our humanity and acts of selflessness. Healthy people feel good about themselves because of the efforts and inclusiveness they extend toward others. Our efforts to do good are the direct result of choices we make. Self esteem is reinforced with every act of selflessness.

Our heroes and the people we look up to, all have that in common, too.

Unhealthy self esteem is nurtured by hate, bigotry and destruction. The evil men of this world all have that in common. Unhealthy self esteem needs deceit, hatred and bigotry to sustain itself. Those are clear and deliberate choices.

In the Arab-Israeli conflict, notwithstanding all the billions of words expended in the misguided effort to be ‘even handed’ (as if evil and barbarism had equal standing with civilized behavior and standards), the actions speak louder than words. It is clear that the Palestinians find self esteem in destruction. They find their worth in killing, hatred and bigotry. That is not subject to interpretation or debate. Their own words make that clear. In Palestinian society, the worth of political movements is often determined by how many Israelis that group has killed.

No amount of tenure can make Saree Makdisi’s deceit go away and no amount of tenure can make his choices be unrecognizable. We have noted many times that

When nations that are that are led by or are under the influence of tyrants or dictators, attempt to justify those actions, we can rightly assume that justification is false. Tyrants and dictators do not make moral choices, because moral choices can only lead to the demise of the tyranny.

Anyone that comes to the defense of tyrannical regimes and their leaders, have themselves made a conscious choice to defend and stand by what is immoral. They themselves consciously adopt an immoral posture.

Dance, Saree Makdisi, dance.

For more on academic duplicity, see this.

Portions of this post have been previously published.

Hamas Ceasefire? What Ceasefire?

The battle is just beginning!

From MEMRI

…“You Should Not Find It Difficult To Bear the Suffering for [Another] 16 Years, Especially Since This Period [of Waiting for the Mahdi to Appear] Will Be Followed By Great Jubilation and Incredible Victories”

“Sheikh ‘Issa Badwan vouched for the veracity of this story, [which was conveyed to him] by a well-known, prominent, and trustworthy figure. The event [described in it] occurred four years ago, and the Palestinian Mahdi, who is currently among us (that is, for whose arrival we are no longer waiting), is four years old.

“The anti-Christ will kill him when he is between 18 and 20 years old, as is stated in the hadith quoted by Sheikh ‘Issa Badwan. This means that either 14 (until 2022) or 16 (until 2024) years are left until he will face the anti-Christ.

“Accordingly, insofar as the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Muslims have suffered greatly during the 60 years since the Palestinian Nakba, or during the 532 years from the time of the liberation of Granada from the Arab occupiers… you should not find it difficult to bear the suffering for [another] 16 years, especially since this period will be followed by great jubilation and incredible victories marking the conquest of Rome, Italy and Constantinople.

“Sheikh ‘Issa, there are several points that require clarification. Firstly, how will Constantinople be conquered? You said that the appearance of the long-awaited Mahdi (and as you have declared, he did indeed appear four years ago) will be preceded by ‘the conquest of Rome, Italy, and Constantinople.’ The city of Constantinople was conquered in 1453 CE by the [Muslim] Ottoman Empire, whereupon its name was changed to Istanbul, and its greatest church (Aya Sophia) became a mosque. How will Constantinople be actually conquered, if for 555 years it has [already] been under the [Muslim] Turkish rule?”

“[But] Which of the Two Conceptions of the Imam [Mahdi] Is More Valid [Sunni or Shi'ite]?”

“Secondly, do Muslims have more than one awaited Mahdi? This [question] raises a fundamental and fateful problem with regard to the expectations of the two nations, Arab and Islamic. Specifically, which of the two conceptions of the Imam [Mahdi] is more valid? The (Twelver) Shi’ite approach purports that Imam Muhammad Al-Mahdi is the last [in the succession of] Imams. As the Imam ruler, he succeeded his father Imam Hasan Al-Askari.

“Imam Al-Mahdi was born on 15 Sha’ban in the year 255 of the Hijra in the city of Samara in northern Iraq. His mother was Al-Sayyeda Narjis, the wife of Imam Al-Askari. He had two occultations. The Minor Occultation, which lasted 69 years, began in the year 260 of the Hijra, i.e. when he was five, and continued until the year 329 of the Hijra. The second, the Major Occultation, began in the year 329 of the Hijra and continues to this day. The believers await his reappearance, and therefore to them, he is the awaited Mahdi.

“According to the Sunnis, however, the awaited Mahdi has not yet been born. When he is born, the government of justice will be established throughout the world to the same extent as oppression prevailed [prior to his coming].

“The Sunnis reject most of the Shi’ite sources related to the awaited Mahdi, relying exclusively on their own philosophy and sources – in spite of numerous divergences and controversies in the latter, which were mentioned by Sheikh ‘Othman Al-Khamis in his lecture titled ‘Who is He – the Awaited Mahdi?’

“[In this lecture, Sheikh Al-Khamis] relies on Imam Al-Shawkani’s view of numerous Sunni hadiths dealing with the awaited Mahdi, and quotes his statement: ‘Out of the hadiths dealing with the awaited Mahdi, which are similar in content [but] which were handed down via different chains of transmission, [6] [only] 50 are authentic, [7] good, [8] or weak but validated. [9] These [50 hadiths] share a similar content but were undoubtedly [handed down via] different chains of transmission.’

“Sheikh Al-Khamis also discussed the Shi’ite view of the awaited Mahdi, saying: ‘The story of the Mahdi in the Twelver Shi’ite tradition is odd; it is born of imagination and has, with time, become a legend that is so offensive to common sense that the majority of Shi’ite sects have rejected it, as have other [Muslims].’

“Every sect has espoused its own [concept of] the awaited Mahdi, and this causes confusion among 1.5 billion Muslims, who do not know which version to pin their hopes on – the awaited Mahdi who has been born but disappeared while still an infant, as the Shi’ites believe, or the Mahdi who has not yet been born, as the Sunnis believe…”

“It Is Highly Possible That the Awaited Palestinian Mahdi… Lives Within a Few Meters of the [Captured] Israeli Soldier Gilead Shalit”

“Sheikh ‘Issa Badwan’s announcement, which you have read, seen, and heard on the Hamas mouthpiece Al-Aqsa TV, of the 2004 birth of the awaited Mahdi is the common denominator in these two views, the Shi’ite and the Sunni. This is the Mahdi who, according to respected and learned Sheikh ‘Issa Badwan, has been born and is now under the tutelage of the mujahideen comrades in the city of Gaza. I am sure that he is being looked after, watched over, and kept under supervision around the clock by means of a video-camera – no less [assiduously] than the [captive] Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit, who is also imprisoned in Gaza.

“Since, as most Palestinians are surely aware, the city of Gaza’s territory is only 45 square kilometers, it is highly possible that the awaited Palestinian Mahdi, who has already been born, lives within a few meters of the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit. It is also highly possible that there is great wisdom in this, perceived by no one except respected comrades such as Sheikh ‘Issa Badwan and the anchormen of Al-Aqsa satellite TV, who speak in the name of Hamas.”

Read it all.

The Slave Trade And Arab Self Esteem

The following is from the excellent GalliaWatch. The blog is a terrific resource.

In May 2001 the French Parliament passed a law that came to be called Taubira’s Law after its sponsor, Christiane Taubira, the socialist deputy from Guiana. I posted an English translation of the law in May 2006. The first part of the law qualifies both slavery and the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades as crimes against humanity, but does not mention the Arab-Muslim slave trade. Madame Taubira is quoted as having said in 2006 that the Negro slave trade practiced by Arab-Muslims must not be brought up too often so that “young Arabs do not bear on their shoulders all the weight of the heritage of Arab misdeeds.”

Now a book published in France by Gallimard, entitled Le Génocide Voilé (“Veiled Genocide”), exposes the cover-up of the Arab-Muslim slave trade, denounces the attempt to place all of the blame for slavery on the backs of Western countries, and goes so far as to qualify the atrocities committed by Arabs to Africans as “genocide.”

The author is Tidiane N’Diaye (photo), a Senegalese Muslim, anthropologist, economist, and researcher at INSEE (National Institute of Economic Studies). The following interview with the author is posted at Evene.

Le Génocide Voilé is an inquiry into the Arab-Muslim slave trade. Why should we be interested in this subject today?

Because the misery, the poverty, the long demographic stagnation and the current developmental delays of the black continent, are not merely the consequences of the transatlantic slave trade, as many imagine. The transatlantic drain is well known and has been debated for decades. Studies and syntheses on this slave trade are legion. And yet, even though one cannot speak of degrees of horror or a monopoly on cruelty, it is possible to declare that the Negro slave trade and the wars provoked by the Arab-Muslims were, for black Africa through the centuries, much more devastating than the transatlantic trade. Likewise the Islamization of many Negro-African peoples and all that it engendered, such as jihad, were no less the source of innumerable implosions. But to this day, only the genocide of black peoples by the Arab-Muslim nations has not been clearly acknowledged by those who research the responsible parties. Even though this crime is historically, juridically and morally forbidden.

When did it begin and in what region(s)?

In the 7th century A.D., the Arabs, having conquered Egypt, proceeded to enslave numerous peoples of Nubia, Somalia, Mozambique, and elsewhere, during the first Islamic expansion. The Nubians had been harshly dealt with in the fierce attacks by Arab forces. They defended themselves courageously, but faced with superior numbers and the determination of the soldiers of the jihad and the repeated assaults by Arab jihadists, the Nubians preferred to negotiate peace, concluding in 652 the treaty known as Bakht. This treaty committed the vanquished African monarch to turn over annually a supply of 360 captives to become slaves in the Arab-Muslim world. Thus it was that a large-scale Negro slave trade was for the first time invented by Arab-Muslims. I use the term Arab-Muslim because after the Bakht, this trade became trans-Saharan and Eastern, implicating more and more peoples and regions and extending far beyond the Arab world. The traders who took part were also Berbers from the Maghreb, Turks of the Ottoman Empire and Iranians, hence Persians. Many African captives were sold by the Arabs as far away as India, since the king of Bengal possessed about 8000 slaves in the 15th century. The majority of men deported at the start of this trade came from the population of Darfur. It all began there, and apparently it has never ceased.

What were the specific forms and motivations of this slave trade compared with the transatlantic trade?

In the Arab world – the Wahhabi system (Saudi Arabia) for example – did not favor economic and social development through the hard work of its inhabitants. It condemned them to an endless need for servile labor furnished by the Negro trade. Moreover, for an Arab of those times, a man is never poor so long as his neighbor possesses something. The Holy War came in handy, if you wanted to become rich. Since every believer had the obligation to lead a jihad, they said, it was imperative to subject and enslave the non-converted. They took the Koran abusively as a pretext to stage raids on their infidel neighbors, stripping them of all they possessed. And so it was that with a clear conscience and using methods that were convenient as well as blessed, most of these converted Arab tribes ended up not living from their own resources. Thus the permanence of the plague of the Negro slave trade and of Arab-Muslim slavery in Africa was due to the traditions of these peoples dating from a time when they could not, out of debauchery and laziness, do without servile men to infuse strength and new blood into them. For example, in the middle of the 19th century, one third of the population of Oman was African or of African origin. In Arab societies, Africans played a central role. They had no specific function but they took part in a great many common activities.

You speak of massive castration…

Before the terrible castrations there were first sudden raids and massacres. For example, in the Holy War led by that Sudanese Arab chieftain, a mystic, enlightened, who considered himself a Mahdi (descendant of the Prophet), the whole of Sudan from the ocean to Egypt, taking in all the plateaux of Africa – from the Nile to the Zambezi – was subject to manhunts and the sale of captives. This space was twice the size of Europe, and certain explorers estimated its population to be around 100 million in the the 19th century. To have an idea of the evil, you must realize that these same observers stated that to hunt down and carry off 500,000 individuals, it was necessary to kill almost two million others (who resisted or tried to flee). So if births had ceased at the time, then, in less than a half-century, the interior of Africa would be nothing but a desolate wasteland today.

You also speak of genocide. Do you think there was a desire to annihilate the African Negro populations?

I do indeed find the word “genocide” suitable for this unprecedented enterprise. It must be stated that the disdain of the Arabs towards Africans was also a catalyst. The famous Arab historian of the 14th century, Ibn-Khaldum, wrote: “The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, because of an inferior degree of humanity, their place being closer to the level of animals.” The question then was: how to see to it that these “animals” did not reproduce in Arab-Muslim lands. For from the outset of the slave trade, the traders wanted to prevent them from becoming rooted. Since there was nothing metaphysical about it, castration appeared to be a practical solution. And so, in this effort to abase human beings, if the Arabs sent most black women to harems, they mutilated the men, using rudimentary procedures that caused a terrifying mortality. The figures on this slave trade are quite simply harrowing. (…)

In the second part of the interview, of which I will quote one excerpt only, he discusses critically the work of Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, who also exposed the Arab-Muslim slave trade. He comments on the current situation in Darfur and reveals the truth about Zulu hero Chaka Zulu. His most interesting remarks deal with what he sees as the Stockholm syndrome African-style:

Very numerous are those who would like to see the Arab-Muslim slave trade forever veiled in oblivion, often in the name of a certain religious, or even ideological solidarity. It is in fact a virtual pact signed and sealed between the descendants of the victims and those of the executioners, that leads to this denial. Because in this sort of “Stockholm syndrome African-style,” all of these fine people agree to place everything on the shoulders of the West. The selective silence surrounding the Arab-Muslim crimes against black peoples and this effort to minimize it, so as to better point the projectors solely at the transatlantic trade, is a cement being used to bring about a fusion of Arabs and Negro-African peoples – who have long been ” fellow victims” of Western colonialism. That Arab-Muslim writers and other intellectuals attempt to make even the simplest memory of this infamy disappear, as if it had never existed, is easily understood.

On the other hand, what is harder to grasp is the attitude of many researchers, and even of African Americans who are converting more and more to Islam. This attitude is not always healthy and is strongly influenced by a sort of self-censorship. As if evoking the slave trading past of Arab-Muslims is in some way tantamount to minimizing the transatlantic trade. (…)

French readers can read more about the book and some excerpts at Alain Jean-Mairet and FDesouche.

Update: June 14, 2008 – An error has been corrected. Originally I wrote “In the 7th century B.C…” That has been corrected to “A.D.” Thanks to the reader who spotted it.