“The honeymoon was a brief moment for love, away from the front lines of Syria’s war. In the capital of Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate,” Syrian fighter Abu Bilal Al Homsi was united with his Tunisian bride for the first time after months chatting online. They married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa’s restaurants, strolling along the Euphrates River and eating ice cream. It was all made possible by the marriage bonus he received from Daesh: $1,500 (Dh5,509) for him and his wife to get started on a new home, a family — and a honeymoon……………..”
How Salafi-romantic “they married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa“. How Wahhabi-chic, almost as good as the last week’s Paris second (or third) honeymoon of young Saudi Prince Whatishisface.
No doubt she made it across the Turkish border into Syria. That is Mr. Erdogan’s gift to the Wahhabi Jihadis and their Arab and European brides and their concubines. In effect he is the one who “gives the bride away”, no dowry required. It has been Erdogan’s gift to all those who seek to join the Jihad in Syria, probably including John McCain. At least this Salafi made her into an ‘honest’ woman, as they say. Others get sold on the slave market and are traded frequently. Either one: marital bliss or blissful concubinage with a North African or a European chick is no doubt one attraction of this new jihad for many starved and frustrated Wahhabi youth, especially those that don’t come out of the West.
Whatever happened to Hayat Boumedienne………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum 
[email protected]
During the election debates of 2012, Newt Gingrich (of Tiffany celebrity fame) mentioned something about Barack Obama having inherited an anti-colonial worldview. He made it sound as if Obama was against apple pie and motherhood and predatory banking and Jim Crow.
Suddenly, anti-colonialism became a dirty word in Republican circles. The main landmark movement of the 20th century that liberated hundreds of millions of colored people from European bondage became a dirty word. Even Democrats were too embarrassed or afraid to defend it, you’d think they were being asked to admit that they were liberals. So much for the anti-colonial heritage of Jefferson, Henry, Franklin, Washington and others.
They were anti-colonialists. Unless the Republicans are against anti-colonialism only by non-whites. Which they have proven to be in the past few years. Now this derision of anti-colonialism has been repeated among the Republicans in more recent months. Would they insert it in their platform in 2016? It is not far-fetched. They have done dumber things in the past, and yet they have continued to win elections. Which tells us something about the push and pull between popular will and political money. Guess who is winning.
P.S. for the next campaign: was slavery as bad as history books and films claim?
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]
“The self-proclaimed Islamic State, formerly known by the acronym ISIS, is actively recruiting Western women and girls. And in the process this “caliphate” that now occupies large swathes of Syria and Iraq is showing, once again, that it’s almost as shrewd with social media as it is ruthless on the battlefield. The tweets and blogs apparently are written by Western women married to jihadi warriors. They aim to persuade would-be “sisters” in Europe and the United States to travel to the Middle East to help this al-Qaeda spinoff build its extremist vision of an Islamic society ……………”
“Tunisia, the largely moderate North African country, has struggled to stymie the flow of hundreds of young men leaving to fight alongside rebels in Syria’s more than two-year-long, bloody civil war. Now, the interior minister says, the country must also slow a stream of young Tunisian women leaving for Syria on “sexual jihad.”……………….”
The story continues. The AP reported yesterday that ISIS fighters have taken hundreds of Yazidi women in Iraq as war booty, concubines (i.e. sex slaves). Other recent reports note that the Wahhabi terrorist group is working to lure young women and girls from the West to come to Syria and Iraq for the purpose of “sex jihad”. A sort of rehearsal for when the Wahhabi cutthroats go to Paradise, as they expect, and partake of the unlimited virgin huris. If they ever make it there.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]
“Each summer, wealthy male tourists from Gulf Arab states flock to Egypt to escape the oppressive heat of the Arabian Peninsula, taking residence at upscale hotels and rented flats in Cairo and Alexandria. Many come with their families and housekeeping staff, spending their days by the pool, shopping, and frequenting cafes and nightclubs. Others come for a more sinister purpose. In El Hawamdia, a poor agricultural town 20 kilometres south of Cairo, they are easy to spot. Arab men in crisp white thawbs troll the town’s pot-holed, garbage-strewn streets in their luxury cars and SUVs. As they arrive, Egyptian fixers in flip flops run alongside their vehicles, offering short-term flats and what to them is the town’s most sought-after commodity – underage girls……….. A summer-long misyar or “visitor” marriage runs from 20,000 Egyptian pounds (2,800 dollars) to 70,000 Egyptian pounds (10,000 dollars). The legally non-binding contract terminates when the man returns to his country. The “dowry” that Gulf Arab men are prepared to pay for sex with young girls is a powerful magnet for impoverished Egyptian families in a country where a quarter of the population subsists on less than two dollars a day…………..Some 75 percent of the respondents knew girls involved in the trade, and most believed the number of marriages was increasing. The 2009 survey indicated that 81 percent of the “spouses” were from Saudi Arabia, 10 percent from the United Arab Emirates……………”
Misyar, the part-time for-sex-only no-commitment marriage is quite common in Saudi Arabia, its birthplace, and has spread across the other Persian Gulf monarchies. It is almost like ‘going steady’ in the West if you get my drift. As I recall, Saudi-style part-time summer “misyar” for-sex-only marriage was made legal (halal, kosher) in Egypt by Al Azhar shaikhs only a year or two before Hosni Mubarak was deposed. I commented on it in a posting here at the time. It was apparently part of, the icing on the cultural shift that Egyptian society experienced under thirty years of the Mubarak regime and his opening of Egypt to Wahhabi cultural and religious influences of his Saudi allies.
Misyar in itself, like the Mut’a among some Shi’as, is not necessarily harmful or criminal. If it is done between consenting adults, except that it is not in this Egyptian case. This report here deals with a more criminal version of Misyar, basically pedophile trafficking in poor underage Egyptian girls. Selling and buying them as sex salves.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
Neck of the woods
Speaking of this Wahhabi Spring and the resurgence of al-Qaeda (my last post): it takes a lot of money, hundreds of millions to finance these extensive operations. From recruitment and training of the terrorists, then transporting them into target countries (Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc), then finding shelter and food and weapons for them, then paying informants, then bribing locals to keep quiet. Then finding and paying for new wives for them in target countries. They can catch and rape local women by justifying it as legal booty of war, war slaves. They can always get one of their clerics, shaikhs, to justify the forced intercourse as legal use of war concubines, or jawari (the men are allowed to have sexual intercourse with their slaves, it is halal and kosher even if not cool).
So where do these hundreds of millions, billions over a few years, come from to finance these groups? Al-Qaeda terrorists don’t go around selling Lottery tickets, it ain’t considered kosher nor halal, and they presumably are not into the drug trade, not outside Afghanistan. Somebody with deep[ pockets can afford to finance them. Now who can that be?
Cherchez de l’argent, stupid.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
Neck of the woods
“And the storybook comes to a close.
Gone are the ribbons and bows.
Things to remember, places to go,
Pretty maids all in a row………..” The Eagles
“The Kenyan government has barred its citizens from becoming domestic workers in the Middle East, notably the Gulf region, after an increasing number of reports of violence and abuse have been reported. Women from the country have returned to Kenya with horror stories of sexual violence at the hands of the employers, mainly in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates……. Until the new rules are ready, Kenyan citizens are barred from seeking work in the Middle East as domestic workers. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia sent a team to Kenya to discuss the issue. The Saudi government insisted their laws protect foreign workers. Maids from across the globe often complain of horrible treatment in the Gulf, singling out Saudi Arabia as the main culprit of violations, including rape and sexual abuse……….”
As I posted here at an earlier date: Indonesia stopped sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia because some of them have been beheaded over there and there are many others on death row waiting for their heads to be chopped off. There have also been cases of foreign housemaids being tortured and killed by their employees. Apparently the Saudis can’t do without foreign housemaids, even though local unemployment is in the double digits (and over 30% for young adults). Their national motto seems to be borrowed from an old American campaign slogan: “Two cars and two maids in every house“. They also can’t do without beheading people.
I have also posted on this issue this past year:
Here,
as well as Here, and Here, and other dates.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
BFF
A Tunisian Islamist party has called for a new law allowing polygamy and/or allowing the system of concubines, just like the old days. Islam allows up to four wives, (although there is a condition of equal treatment). Islam also allowed men to have intercourse with their female slaves in addition to their wives (no, the reverse was not allowed).
The leader of the Infitah (Openness, Open-minded) Party has asked for a law allowing a man to enjoy his concubines as well as his wife. He did stipulate that only a man who has one wife can be allowed to own concubines. Tunisia’s previous secular regime had banned polygamy since the days of first president Habib Bourguiba at independence from France.
I also recall that Mustafa Abdul Jalil, head of Libya’s National Transitory Council (NTC), said a few months ago, as soon as they controlled Tripoli, that they will cancel a Qaddafi law that restricted polygamy and required permission of the first wife. The good news for Tunisians, for most of them, is that other political parties are rejecting these demands.
Look for Salafi and other Islamist and tribal types from North Africa to the Gulf to start demanding a return of concubines. A certain segment of the population on the Gulf loves polygamy, and they have been pushing incentives to encourage men to take more wives. And not just the Salafis. For the potentates, polygamy is considered de rigueur; almost as de rigueur as the jet black dyed goatee beard. I firmly believe that nobody can become king of Saudi Arabia without having a jet black dyed goatee and at least two wives, preferably more. If they had a constitution, insistence on a goatee would be the first article if that constitution. Insistence on polygamy would be the second article of the constitution.
(No, there will be no concubines, at least not yet. Even the Salafis are too worried to actually demand it, no matter how much they would love to).
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
Rattlesnake Ridge
BFF
“The recruitment of housemaids from African countries is proceeding at a very slow pace as Saudi families still prefer workers from south Asian countries, according to the chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (JCCI) recruitment committee. “Ethiopia is the most popular African country for Saudi families to import housemaids from, but the large number of requests and routine procedures in Ethiopia often delay the recruitment process,” Yahya Hassan Al-Maqbool told Arab News on Monday. Al-Maqbool said the decision of Indonesia to stop sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia was still in effect. He said Saudis show very little interest in recruiting maids from Kenya, especially in the western provinces, but said there was a small demand for them in the eastern and central parts of the country. Al-Maqbool played down warnings issued by the Kenyan government to their women citizens not to go work in Saudi Arabia and said the media usually blow up even the smallest of issues. He said compared to other countries, the number of Kenyan housemaids in the Kingdom is very small. A number of websites on Sunday published clips of a Kenyan documentary film on the working conditions of housemaids in Saudi Arabia. Warnings in Kenya against sending housemaids to the Kingdom increased following the recent murder of a Kenyan housemaid in Jeddah…….……..”
Indonesia stopped sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia because some of them have been beheaded over there and there are many others on death row waiting for their heads to be chopped off. There have also been cases of foreign housemaids being tortured and killed by their employees. Apparently the Saudis can’t do without foreign housemaids, even though local unemployment is in the double digits (and over 30% for young adults). The government is heavily involved in “regulating” the work conditions and the wages, in the sense of negotiating with exporting countries for lower wages and a continuation of inhumane work conditions. Their national motto seems to be borrowed from an old American campaign slogan: “Two cars and two maids in every house“.
I predict that if all foreign countries refuse to send housemaids to Saudi Arabia to be abused, then the country will truly revolt. Only then will the Arab Spring reach the heartland of Nejd. So, the fate of the Saudi regime is in the hands of Indonesia, India, Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
Rattlesnake Ridge
BFF
“And the storybook comes to a close.
Gone are the ribbons and bows.
Things to remember, places to go,
Pretty maids all in a row………..” The Eagles
Media report that twenty three Asian (Indonesian) women are awaiting the executioner’s sword on death row in Saudi Arabia. Several others, imported housemaids, already had their head chopped off. Remember Sakineh Ashtiani of Iran and all the fuss made by the Saudi-owned Arab “intellectuals” and Western media, especially the extremely righteous French media (and rightly so)? Everybody was indignant, so was I, and rightly so, until her gruesome death sentence was changed by the regime in Tehran.
Where are they now? Everybody is so silent about the plight of these numerous women, imported housemaids trapped into horrible situations in a grim society, waiting to have their heads chopped off in the Kingdom without Magic. Yet the kingdom cannot live without these millions of housemaids, and fierce bargaining goes on with the Asian government officials about their wages, work conditions, etc. They are even advertised in the newspapers for sale or “transfer” from one “owner” to another, just as they used to do in Old Virginia when a new shipment of slaves arrived from West Africa. Even Bernard Henri Levy, who was at the forefront of the Ashtiani campaign (and the Libyan campaign), is silent. Amnesty International comments but says they have “no presence” in Saudi Arabia. Of course not, Amnesty and human rights have no presence.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
Rattlesnake Ridge
BFF
“An Indonesian woman was beheaded by the sword on Saturday after being convicted of murdering a Saudi woman, the interior ministry said. The woman named Roiaiti Beth Sabotti Sarona, according to a transliteration from Arabic, was found guilty of killing Saudi Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid by striking her repeatedly on the head with a meat chopper and stabbing her in the neck, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. The ministry did not elaborate on the motives of the crime, nor it did disclose the relation between the two women. But Indonesian officials say that around 70 percent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic staff…….”
It is not as painful as stoning, at least it is a faster death. It is quicker, unless the swordsman misses and does not decapitate the first time. Then there will have to be a second time.
Equality under the law: a few months ago a Saudi housewife was convicted of torturing and killing her Asian housemaid. The housewife paid about $10,000 blood money to some Sri Lankan relative and was free.
Cheers
mhg
[email protected]
Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..
