And Not Once Did the New York Times Mention the Word Islam!
March 5, 2010 | Filed Under Afghanistan, Children, Christianity, Feminism, Foreign Countries, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Morals/Sex, Palestinians, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
Nicholas Kristof rightly celebrates a new book highlighting the evils of the forced marriages of pre-teen girls to older men. Kristof is also right to reveal the sordid truths about the practice of marrying off pre-teen girls and the abuse they invariably seem to suffer in the arrangement. But one word was conspicuously missing from Kristof’s NYT article, that was the word Islam.
Amazingly, Kristof spent over 800 words telling the world of this monstrous practice, even saying, “Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.” But in all those words, in all that castigation of such “societies” Kristof somehow forgot to mention that these practices are endemic in Islamic cultures. Not one time did the word Islam or Muslim show up among these 800 some words.
The book, “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced,” tells the tale of a 10-year-old Yemeni girl that was in her Islamic homeland forced into a marriage with an abusive deliveryman in his 30s. Once in third grade, this poor child was yanked from school — a married woman, they told her, should not go to school — and forced into to bed of this stranger who as much as purchased her like meat from her parents.
That isn’t all. Nujood also helped write the book about her experiences that Kristof reviewed, a book that has helped other young Muslim girls out of the predicament they face, a book that also sheds light on this barbaric practice from which so many young children suffer.
Unfortunately, Nujood is poorly served by Nicholas Kristof and The New York Times. Her case is presented as if it is some strange anomaly untethered to any time or culture, unconnected to any particular society, or religion. The reader is left with only a partial story and is forced to read between the lines to answer the key questions of how, why, and where this happens.
Kristof does leave clues. He tells us that Nujood is from Yemen, he mentions that another young girl that has made news for a similar plight is from Saudi Arabia, and also quotes Nujood as being excited to see her book translated into Arabic, “her own native language.” He also says that her book may help in the fight against terrorism.
But what culture produces this terrorism, what culture has endemic abuse and suppression of its women, what culture routinely marries off children to old men? Reading between the lines evokes the mysteriously absent word “Islam” which answers to those questions.
If Nicholas Kristof had the courage to speak clearly instead of hiding behind rhetorical tricks, the reader would have come away with a more direct understanding of the evils that young Nujood faced. Kristof could have used his piece also to help westerners better understand the culture that has cast itself as the west’s enemy. Kristof could have served to better explain why western society is superior to these debased, oppressive Muslim practices. But he didn’t. He left it all unsaid. Islam is the elephant in the room that too many in the west don’t have the backbone to face head on.
And more’s the shame for it because this weak-willed inability to stand up for our own culture in the face of such barbarities will only give power to the barbarians at our gates.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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