To Rape an Unveiled Woman

"The direct connection between the rapes and Islam is irrefutable, as Muslims are significantly overrepresented among convicted rapists and rape suspects."

There is, as far as I have been able to find out, no direct link between rape and Islam. The overrepresentation in "hard crime" is not statistically significant (12 % or less), when accounted for social, economic and demographic factors. There is the phenomena of Muslims engaging in criminal activity particular to modernized societies, by American sociologist Francis Fukuyama called "The Great Disruption", but hardly a "A Muslim rape epidemic in sweeping over Europe..."

There are several examples of "white Anglo Saxon protestants" engaging in rape and even gang rape, but they for some reason do not receive the same type of systematical media coverage.

Claus, thanks for your response to this, as I was curious to hear one. What is your source for the statistic you quoted, and what does "accounted for social, economic and demographic factors" mean? Also, the most disturbing part of this article to me was the psychology referenced for how these perpetrators and their families justify these crimes. How would you respond to that? The reason I ask is that I agree that these types of crimes are being committed by other ethnic groups, but perhaps muslims are receiving attention in this case because of accounts like the police chief mentioned above where he relates the families responses. This psychology is particularly horrifying as it is related here. Can you shed any light on it from a different perspective?

Allow me to misquote you for a moment. "The direct connection between the rapes and men is irrefutable, as men are significantly overrepresented among convicted rapists and rape suspects."

How do you like them apples? And, to state the obvious, just to be sure that nobody think I'm joking, it is true. Men are rapists. Very few women are. That fact is, in my book at least, alot more interesting than dragging up racist and/or cultural slur. Typical of all racists you take one example and try to make a point from that. That is not a good way to deal with things. Not good at all. In fact it is very bad, if you want people to beleive you.

Swedish studies show two differnent things to be true about rape:
1. The most common perpetrator is known to the woman in question. It is not done in a public place.
2. Newspapers and media being the sensationalists they have to be to sell (out) only reports about spectacular cases. Not, I repeat NOT, about common cases. Among these cases are group rapes and people raped by what you probly would call Muslims.

Thing is, the west is as phallocratic, thanatian and misogynist as the east. Men are men. Rape is just a question of poweer, nothing more, nothing less. The distribution of power is the same if you live in Israel, Palestine or in Sweden. (By the way, I am a man, but I know a thing or two about these patterns)

Thing is, the west is as phallocratic, thanatian and misogynist as the east. Men are men. Rape is just a question of poweer, nothing more, nothing less.

I have to say that I disagree, celle. I think the correlation to be made here is between religion and rape, or more broadly, between religion and deviant sexual practices.

While I have no statistics to support this claim, my observation is that most religions enforce unusual sexual restrictions on their followers, and Islam is no different. These restrictions are the cause of great sexual repression, which in turn leads to deviant sexual acts.

Look no further than the Catholic Church for proof of this phenomenon. Many young men, at the time they are at their sexual peak, enter the seminary and take a vow of lifelong celibacy. This, undoubtedly, leads to rampant deviance years later in the form of widespread child molestation.

So if there's any correlation to be made here, it's not between Islam and rape, but between rape and all religions that continue to expect their followers to follow archaic sexual codes.

@ Andy Hunter:

Let me see if I can break it down for you in simple terms. My analysis is based mostly on Danish and to some extend Scandinavian facts and figures, but these are also widely used in the right wing blogs and independent media outlets that promote these views. The official numbers from the official Danish Institute of Statistics say that there is a 49 % overrepresentation of immigrants and second generation immigrants in hard crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery and violence.

The leading Danish researcher on the area, dr. jur. Britta Kyvsgaard, Chief of Research with the Danish Ministry of Justice has modified the numbers, taking into account the factors of social, economic and demographic factors. She find that there is no rising in the level of youth crime in general and only a 12 % overrepresentation of young people of other ethnic background than Danes, while she also proves that immigrants and descendants of immigrants are charged 50 % more often for hard crimes without any following conviction. This could be due to a police strategy of "stressing" the young ethnic groups, inadequate methods of police investigation or even, as an official report has confirmed, because of racial bias and bigotry in the police force. The police, however, is torn between some of the high ranking officials with a prior carrier in police intelligence (PET) overstating the threat of rising ethnic gangs, and street level police officers with a "hands on" approach to "ghetto" communities saying it is a "social problem".

You ask me what it means to modify for social factors, economy and demography. Well, it is commonly known that violent crimes are reverse proportional to income level, just as white collar crime is logically connected to high income levels. Since immigration from North African, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Middle East, namely and for understandable reasons Iraq, are recent events, the average age of immigrants is lower than the average ethnic Dane. In other words, they are generally younger, poorer educated and more unemployed than the control group, a fact that it takes professional statisticians to break down. For instance, 25 percent of the immigrants from North African or Muslim areas are not Muslims, but Christians. Only a very small number of Muslims are "orthodox" in the sense that they have close ties to religious communities and follow the five pillars of Islam. So, it is completely unfair to link the crimes to Islam as such - we also need to modify for these factors, which is not done at the time speaking, as well as the level of discrimination in the societies in question, the effect of racism, media bias and political dehumanization.

Doing so I believe we will find the crime rates among people of North African and Arab or Persian descent just about the same as any other group. It is important to emphasize that most reports point to the fact that racism, responsive racism and reverse racism do seem to play an important part in the language and group formation of ethnic or multi ethnic gangs. A new Danish study finds that demoting views of women are more common among the Danish youth than immigrant/second generation youth, indicating what most sociologists believe, that "ethnic crimes" are often a symptom of attempted assimilation to Western behavior and values without the buffer of a network, social investments and a clear cultural identity.

The sensationalist, alarmist or populist claims of rising violence, especially from certain ethnic, cultural or religious groups, are regularly debunked. For instance, check out Angry Young Men, Veiled Young Women, a 2004 UK report. I have not read the entire report, but noticed this passage:

"The public fear resulting from promotion of the "superpredator" threat led to increased public support for punishing juvenile justice policies and encouraged alarmist news headlines such as "Superpredators Arrive" on the 22 January 1996 cover of Newsweek. These fears proved so exaggerated that the government was ultimately forced to backtrack. In February 2000, the US Department of Justice published a debunking report revealing that "levels of predatory crimes such as rape, robbery, and murder committed by juveniles have dropped significantly over the past several years, with robbery at its lowest level in a generation."

The only ones who still promote the idea of Islamic crime waves or rape as a part of a religious or cultural "expansionism" of Islam are notorious extreme right wing propagandists. The Taliban of Truthiness, as one columnist has recently called the ideologists disseminating "factual relativism".

I hope this answers your question.

exploitation of religion in order to do evil. it's used on all ends of the spectrum. Some exploit to justify rape, others to invade countries part of "Axis of Evil".

This whole planet has become 1 gigantic virus. No wonder Mother Nature is pushing Global Warming harder/faster on us. I don't know about your month of january, but ours in the midwest was mostly in the upper 50s. Yesterday, March 12th, it was 70 degrees F.

1. Try using define: in google. Phallocratic means loosely governed by the dick. And yes. And it is a fact - you state that yourself - that Islam got it from the bible. Ohh, you mean Islamists wrote the bible? Clever little buggers, aren't they? And just to make myself completely understood here: The west is founded on Christianity, even what you probly call the secular west or something. Still, phallocracy rules, O.K. To say it in another fashion: George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden are one and the same, at least when it comes to belief structure.
2. Biology??? To me gender is a social construct, and it has not so much to do with biology. But that is a matter of world view perhaps, more than anything else. About the mechanics, picture this: Ten angry women with one base ball bat each. How do you like them mechanics. Does that happen alot? No. Why? I don't know, but I know the opposite is true. I didn't think that it surprised anyone. I merely stated the obvious. I still do. Does it help? Do bears sleep in the winter? Is the pope a Catholic?
3. You keep saying that Muslims are over represented as convicted rapists. You say that. State it as if it were irrefutable, since you give no source to what makes you believe that it is the case. I suppose Claus will mention a study that supports his utterance. I will not do that since I'm not the one claiming something. You are. Prove it, please. I don't care about the retired police chief. He is just one single individual, and I bet he misinterprets things. I have a friend who was raped by an Alsatian, she now kills all dogs on first sight. That is NOT science. That is prejudice.

@scooter: Yes, I agree. The problem is that the article pointed to just one specific religion. That, In my world, is prejudice.

There was one study made in Sweden about where "foreign" criminals originally came from. The result was a surprise to many right wingers. The majority came from Denmark, Norway and Finland, our neighbours. NOT from Arabia or some other totally fictional state. (Sorry Claus, but I suspect the same is true about Swedes in Denmark ;)

Question: we are still left with the description of Muslim attitudes towards women in general and rape in particular that are given in the linked article. Even if the statistics really are not as extreme as the article would portray, these basic attitudes, if true, are worthy of discussion, examination and condemnation. Or are the descriptions false.

Yaakov, I think it is important to remind you that Muslims, like every group of people that exists on Earth, are not a homogenous group. To put it in terms that you might understand, if someone like Baruch Goldstein kills a bunch of Muslims based on his radical Jewish ideology, that doesn't mean all Jews are violent lunatics. I must admit that we are hearing and seeing more and more Islamic radicalism these days, but even the great crimes that have occured in the name of Islam, and there are many, do not mean that there is something wrong with Islam specifically. Islam, like every other religion, is subject to a lot of interpretations. It is an unfortunate fact that many Muslims have come to the conclusion that Islam allows them complete control over women (see Saudi Arabia) but I would argue that many, many more Muslims do not believe in this kind of violent idiocy (see the female Prime Ministers of Pakistan, Indoensia, Turkey, and Bangladesh).

I'm uncomfortable with this Yaakov.

Denouncing Islamic fundamentalists for explicit terrorist acts is one thing, but this is not as clear cut. The article comes across as bordering on racist. Encouraging views of that sort is something which I will not hesitate to criticise in others but would not want to fall into the trap of indulging in myself.

There may be something in that psychological analysis. Certainly the article was interesting and worth seeding, but gives the impression it was written by someone with an agenda and needs to be viewed with caution.

I'd keep a watching brief and see if any corroborating evidence starts to accumulate. As things stand I don't think the case has been made.

@ Andy Hunter:

Oh, I see that I owe you one more reply:

You write: "Also, the most disturbing part of this article to me was the psychology referenced for how these perpetrators and their families justify these crimes. How would you respond to that? The reason I ask is that I agree that these types of crimes are being committed by other ethnic groups, but perhaps muslims are receiving attention in this case because of accounts like the police chief mentioned above where he relates the families responses. This psychology is particularly horrifying as it is related here. Can you shed any light on it from a different perspective?"

It is a very common geocentric defense mechanism among all people, but most noticable among the most marginalized immigrant families. If, for instance, a Western family experiences that their son has been assaulted by ethnic youths, they will hardly ever suspect that their "good boy" has been provocative or in the company of boys displaying a threatening or racist attitude. If they learn that he did, their response is likely to be: That is not an excuse for violence. This, I might add, is of course a reasonable view in the light of our common moral system based on proportional action, "an eye for an eye" as the taxation meter of justice. But it also indicates an inability to see a close relative as a part of a system of oppression, even if you may acknowledge that there is such a system of oppression.

With immigrant families, the etnocentric view becomes radicalized out of a fundamental sense of alienation. They feel threatened by society, especially since populist politicians, pundits and press keep hammering on the same button in order to raise emotional responses from voters/consumers. In this constant "state of emergency" they will defend their children at any costs, no matter what they are guilty of, in a behaviorist sense because their offspring is their only hope. A lot of first generation immigrants never really fit into society; the do not acquire the language, the insight into the national culture and the intuitive mastery of the institutions necessary for succesful survival/reproduction.

"He was astonished that, in most cases, the parents not only would back up their rapist children, but also would not even understand why they would be arrested. There is an instant shift in the notion of good and evil as a major component of culture. The only evil those parents would see, genuinely, is the temptation that the male children had to face. Since in most cases the victims were not Muslims, the parents' answer and rejection was even more genuine: how could their boys be guilty of anything, when normally answering to a provocation by occidental women, known for their unacceptable behavior?"

Two general rules, one abou the Arab mindset and one about Islam may be relevant. The first one, "I against my brother, my brother and I against my cousins, my cousins, my brother and I against the world", adresses the etnocentric and sometimes antagonistic mind set of Arabs. The other is also a concentric rule, observed by secular researchers of religion. It states that "the grip of Islam is reverse proportional to the geographic distance to the religious epicenter", whether this is thought to be Mecca or, perhaps, Tehran.

I think the religious aspect, to the denial of the parents is relevant, but hardly an aspect of Islam. Rather, I think, it is a trait to all Puritan religions and sects, as well as a classic "tribal community" response to what is perceived as inevitabel consequences to slack sexual morals.

Personally, I have in one occasion scolded two 12-13 year old girls who were dressed up with tank top, bare bellies and tights at around midnight in a bad neighbourhood, telling them to get their butts home, and that would be right now. Amazingly, they did, after a short discussion where I explained some of the risks they took. I think I am entitled and even obligated to do so, even though some would call me a Muslim defender or a boring old fart.

That said, rape is a disgusting crime, and rapists must be punished by the law, and the culture of rape blown apart through integration and education.

I would argue that this type of phenomenon is more common in fundamentalists of every religion. I recall seeing a study somewhere showing that students at conservative Christian schools (in the US) are more likely to get STDs, have unprotected sex, or get pregnant (Just the girls, obviously). An anecdote supporting this, to some extent is the movie Saved.

The subtext to much of the above is based on ethical relativism. All religions are bad. All races are exactly the same. Any study of ethnic groups is racist. Liberalism limits science and free speech to what is politically correct because it holds that even if you could prove that one group was inclined to a particular type of behavior, to acknowledge it would be destructive. Given this, the suppression of free speech and science is a morally correct. But then, I suppose that's relative.

@ Yakoov:

"Question: we are still left with the description of Muslim attitudes towards women in general and rape in particular that are given in the linked article. Even if the statistics really are not as extreme as the article would portray, these basic attitudes, if true, are worthy of discussion, examination and condemnation. Or are the descriptions false."

The descriptions are not false. Muslim women often have a high social standard and are esteemed, in comparison to other non-Western cultures, as long as they profess to be Muslims and exercise a lifestyle according to this confession. On the other hand, Islam is in most interpretations very condemning of what is perceived as "sexual deviants", such as homosexuals, promiscuous women and perverts.

Muslims are more prone to denounce this type of inclination or behavior with fury, influenced by the common view that it is a sign of decadence. It is at the core of the discussion of the democratic future of the Middle East, Islamic leaders unlikely to withdraw on their stance on conservative/reactionary sexual moral.

The same goes, I believe, for other Puritan religions, such as Christianity and Judaism. These views, however, are also found in secular groups, namely groups and movements celebrating machismo, such as skinhead, hooligan and Neonazi.

In a behaviorist sense it is the residue of the tribal community in which reproduction was crucial to the survival of the group, and none-reproductive sex was seen as a threat. Liberalism and even hedonism may be viewed as a response to the fact that reproduction now is one of the major threats to mankind.

In the discussion about moral values and moral decadence I think it is important to shift the balance from sexual morality to political morality, the vital thing to uncover how modern society avoid to slip and fall into irrelevance or oblivion.

According to Gibbon, I think, the Roman Empire was betrayed by the buying and selling of political power (correct me if I am wrong, long time since I studied the subject).

Leo of Mars writes:

The subtext to much of the above is based on ethical relativism. All religions are bad. All races are exactly the same. Any study of ethnic groups is racist. Liberalism limits science and free speech to what is politically correct because it holds that even if you could prove that one group was inclined to a particular type of behavior, to acknowledge it would be destructive. Given this, the suppression of free speech and science is a morally correct. But then, I suppose that's relative.

Leo, yes there is a lot in what you say but sometimes it is just better to be politically correct, much as I hate political correctness.

Just one more reason why Islam must be viewed as a dangerous and flawed theological belief (and political idea). Practitioners of this cult have no respect for humanity or for God's creation. They contradict their so-called respect for Allah. Moderate Muslims look the other way, failing to condemn or demand responsibility from their radical brethren. The fundamentalists justify their violence against non-Muslims and non-conforming Muslims alike on the basis of a perceived disrespect for Allah. In truth, humanity is God's precious creation and the sanctity of life needs to be respected as such.

As they say in New York, "a fish stinks from its head!" When a religion tolerates such hateful and absurd behaviour it speaks of that religion's founder. This is the fruit borne from the Prophet. How can men of even base intelligence buy into such a flawed vision of the world. It is nothing more than an ancient form of totalitarianism like Nazism and Fascism--Power of the elite (in this case religious elite) and subjugation of the masses.

"The women speaketh not in congregation" The Bible. How can such a religion etc, etc, etc for ever, Amen.