CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, August 21, 2006

The Hareem: Is it the cause of Islamic fascism?

Why are we being attacked by Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 14 and 40? For many Americans, that is a puzzling question -- almost on a par with wondering why our security screeners are forbidden to focus on the most likely suspects. Deodorants don’t kill, terrorists do.

Some say the minds of Middle Eastern males are poisoned against us by what they learn in schools based on the Wahhabi Sect of Saudi Arabia and/or by the Madrassa Schools found throughout the Muslim world that teach the need to kill Christians, Jews and other “infidels.” While true, such hostility may have an earlier, sexual origin.

In 1990, Sandra Mackey, in her excellent: Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom, details some of the causes for the insecurity of Middle Eastern males with regard to western females. This insecurity may be one element that drives the Islamic fascists of today.

The Arab household, be it a walled house or a collection of tents, is segregated into two parts. In one part, the adult males live, eat and socialize. The other part is the hareem, a virtual prison where a bride enters and is never permitted to leave except for the one day each year when she is allowed to visit another hareem. Within the hareem, there is a second prison – a cultural prison -- for the female children of the household.

Ironically, it is the Muslim mothers who imprint their male children with the idea that males must rule and that their sisters and, yes, even their mothers, rank somewhere below whale droppings. Christians, especially within traditions venerating the Virgin Mary, are at a loss to understand such aggressive male disregard of women.

According to Sandra Mackey, the young males in the hareem are allowed to nurse their mothers as long as they want, sometimes to age three or longer. By contrast, the females are weaned as soon as possible. To amuse the young males, their mothers play with their genitals, thus fostering the idea that the role of women is to provide sexual entertainment for men.

Every activity inside the hareem is focused on pleasing the young males while, at the same time, teaching them that their female siblings are merely breeding stock for the production of more males. Moreover, the production of too many females is disgraceful and even grounds for divorce.

So, what does this have to do with why we are under all-out attack by the Islamic fascists? Apparently, we have done the unforgivable. Granted we still have some male-chauvinist pigs; however, the broad sweep of the history of Western Civilization has demonstrated a slow, but steady, march toward an unparalleled standard of living that is the product, in large measure, of harnessing the talents and contributions of both men and women.

Therefore, the consuming fear of the Muslim male is that the march of western progress will cause him to lose his supreme position at the apex of his societal and religious pyramid – a position he may, at some level, understand has not been earned by merit, but is merely an accident of birth.

Meanwhile, our need for crude oil, combined with the environmentalists’ refusal to permit fuller develop of our own fossil-fuel resources, make our continued presence in the Middle East a vital national interest – a vital interest that commands the technical skills and talents of our men and women into the heartlands of Islam. Couple fear of educated, western women with the teachings of the radical Islamic clerics to kill the infidels, and we begin to understand what motivates the Islamic fascists.

Now, imagine a world with no need for Middle Eastern oil. While our higher domestic production costs will not allow for oil at pre-1973 prices, we wouldn’t be paying for ships, for troops and losing American lives to secure our access to Middle Eastern oil. Meanwhile, the Islamic fascists could stack arms and not worry that their women are huddled in the hareem reading Ms. Magazine.

William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist, a featured commentator for USA Today and self-described “recovering lawyer and philosopher,” is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States.

©2006. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com