Muslim male panic -- III: the Arab shame/honor ethos.

This is an insightful article at FrontPageMag.com about the real reason for suicide bombings. David Gutmann thinks it is not an Islamic problem but one founded in the Arab shame/honor ethos:

It is in this way [suicide bombings] that the modern Arab world resembles the Japan of World War II. In both cases it is not religions but psychic wounds, the wounds inflicted by defeat and evident inferiority, that inspire suicide bombers.

. . . Besides sharpening their sense of inferiority relative to the West, modernization threatens to bring about the liberation of women (as in Afghanistan and Iraq). I say "threatens," because the self-esteem of Arab males is in large part predicated on the inferior position of their women. The Arab nations have for the most part lost their slaves and dhimmis, the subject peoples onto whose persons the stigmata of shame could be downloaded. But anyone who has spent time among them knows that Arab males have not lost their psychological need for social and sexual inferiors. . . . Trailing a humbled woman behind them, Arab men can walk the walk of the true macho man.

Hence the relative lack of material achievement by Arabs: the Arab world has stunted the female half of its brain pool, while the men acquire instant self-esteem not by real accomplishment, but by the mere fact of being men, rather than women. No wonder, then, that the Arab nations feel irrationally threatened by the very existence of Israel. Like America, the Jews have brought the reality of the liberated woman into the very heart of the Middle East, into dar al-Islam itself. Big Satan and Little Satan: the champions of Muslim women.

We're not entirely persuaded that bombings are not related to Islam. After all, the phenomenon of suicide bombing is not limited to the Arab world.

Also, the astounding lack of economic productivity in the Islamic world (neatly summarized in the article) can have no other cause than the stifling of free inquiry because, apparently, of something inherent in Islam.

As we are fond of pointing out, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa that the earth is flat, and the madrassas financed so vigorously by the Saudis are known for their emphasis on uncritical, rote memorization of purely religious texts, not the skill of critical inquiry.

Somehow we predict that the problem will be said by the faithful not to be with the pure Islam or the words of the Prophet but with the imperfect application of Islam by fallible people.

"Saving Arabs From Themselves." By David Gutmann, FrontPageMagazine.com, 8/12/05 (emphasis added) <-- Dr. Sanity.