Cowardice, honour, and sinking ships
An exploration of the theme of honour.
From Reuters:
Survivors of the Red Sea ferry disaster said on Saturday the Egyptian captain had fled his burning ship by lifeboat and abandoned them to their fate, as hopes faded of finding some 800 missing people.
Egyptian survivor Shahata Ali said the passengers had told the captain about the fire but he told them not to worry.
"We were wearing lifejackets but they told us there was nothing wrong, told us to take them off and they took away the lifejackets. Then the boat started to sink and the captain took a boat and left," he added, speaking to Reuters Television.
"The captain was the first to leave and we were surprised to see the boat sinking," added Khaled Hassan, another survivor.
An isolated example of Arab cowardice?
It isn't isolated. We've seen the Arabs lose war after war to Israel, their men abandoned by their officers fleeing the wars they started but could not finish. We've seen the greatest army in the Arab world humiliated by a Western coalition in 1991, thousands of common soldiers dead and captured, while their leaders survived to rule for another decade. We hear of Arab honour killings, where Arab culture has been organized in such a way that when a shamed man must regain his honour, he is not expected to fight another man prepared to defend himself, but to kill an unarmed woman, usually a young one.
But is it really cowardice? Just as in my last example, they are raised to believe that honour is something that can be won or lost by humiliating or punishing someone else. Likewise, when an Arab man loses a struggle, he is dishonoured. Best to avoid dishonour by avoiding the conflict with someone who will beat you.
There is no such thing as a good loser. Just a loser. So cheat. So run away. So lie and say you weren't there. But whatever you do, don't stand and fight and think you can lose and be respected for trying.
You can't beat the sea, so why bother trying?
Fighting the good fight is a Western concept, rooted in chivalry, which in turn extols Christian virtues.
The climax of the Christian story of salvation has the hero humiliated, beaten, and nailed to a tree, naked and bleeding, and left to die. He does die, abandoned by those who would create the new religion.
Islam's story is one of conquest and victory. Humility? Nah. That's for losers.
Are these threads of the same nasty tapestry? A ship sinks, but the Arab captain has already made his getaway so he can live to tell the story his way. A newspaper prints a cartoon, and Arabs start burning empty embassies and act like it was a military victory on the order of D-Day. From Pakistan Today:
Only a Muslim living in an Islamist controlled society can understand the impact and meaning of such a humiliation. A culture that thrives on fairy tales, myths and legends of bravery and honor, where it is a holy and noble profession to twist history to transform a coward into a larger than life hero.
The Arab either "whitens" the face (saves face), or "blackens" the face (loses face). "Face is the outward appearance of honor, the 'front' of honor which a man will strive to preserve even if, in actuality, he has committed a dishonorable act" (ibid., p. 101). In the Arab world "honor" and "face" are so closely related that the words are almost interchangeable. This "face," or "honor," is such an integral part of the Arab mind that a person is considered perfectly justified in resorting to deceit and falseness in order to "whiten," or save, their own, someone else's or the entire Arab world's face.
Intolerance and hatred are the sociology of the cowards. They dread open societies and dissension. They can only survive by maintaining a tension-filled environment in their communities. Democracy, on the other hand, is a way of life of the braves. Brave peoples believe in competition based on merit and openness. They do not want to perpetuate their power and authority at the cost of others.
So how do we ever talk to these people? How can we come to an understanding?
We value honesty as the root of all honour. They value honour at the expense of honesty.
As quoted above, the honourbound coward's survival depends on maintaining tension. It's easy to show how brave you are when newspapers are your enemy. A newspaper can't fight back. You can go around with placards demanding death for this person or that, and the authorities will tolerate it, in the name of freedom of speech and in an attempt to give consideration to your hurt feelings.
See how brave I am? I called for death to the infidel, and the infidel authorities dared not touch me. Another glorious victory in the name of Islam! What? The infidel was a mere newspaper and a handful of cartoonists? Not the way I remember it.
How much harder would it be if you accepted the rights of others to speak their minds? What if you are shamed by having no response beyond "death to the infidel"? Who could live with honour under those conditions? Imagine being compeled to tolerate cartoonists!
Honour is a lot harder to earn when you tolerate others. And when all you value is honour over truth or fairness, then there doesn't seem to be much point in tolerating others. Once the infidel is vanquished, history will speak glowingly of your bravery in the face of newspapers overwhelming odds.
Makes me wonder just how many of those battles Muhammad actually won, and how many he ran from, maybe to win on the second or third try? Or perhaps won by someone else entirely? Or much later? Then some careful editing and voila the great warrior is born.
Update: In Turkey, A 60-year-old priest is shot in the back by a boy yelling "God is Great!" A religion of cowards. Prove me wrong. Point me at the story where the killer of the priest is offered up to the authorities by his family and friends to face punishment for his crime. It won't happen. He's a brave boy, doing what brave Muslim terrorists do. They kill the innocent -- the old, the infirm, women, children -- striking out from the shadows when their victims aren't looking.
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Comments
How Liberal of them, eh? Maybe the Arab leaders can have a judicial inquiry to absolve them of all responsibility?
Posted by: George at February 5, 2006 08:30 AM
Uh-oh.
Fatwah against Angry in 5...4...3...
(And if anyone is interested, David Pryce-Jones' "The Closed Circle" is an excellent work on the Arab mind- the honour/shame dichotomy; power-challenging; money-favouring; misogyny- it's all there).
Posted by: Reg at February 5, 2006 09:07 AM
Steyn responds with his usual clarity and wit:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn05.html
Posted by: BANYA at February 5, 2006 09:32 AM
sorry here is a better link for the above Steyn article
Posted by: Banya at February 5, 2006 09:34 AM
Angry,
Interesting thoughts...as long as they are burning down empty embassies I could care less...it is other actions that are of more concern.
Re the subject of honor etc. two things
1) Read John Keegan for analysis of arab warfare and western warfare. Arab warfare is largely based on winning through deception, appearing bigger than you are or sabotage or guerilla warfare. Western warefare is about the relentless application of overwhelming force
2) Read Nicholson's Seize the Fire, its all about Trafalgar, for a great dissertation of modern honour in warfare and how it is inextricably linked to society. Most telling point is that for the Spainish at Trafalgar honour was the good fight regardless of outcome, you could have an honourable death....whereas British honour, and prizes, were tied solely to Victory. Your death was honourable only if you won. Your victory was honorable only if you won, winning a half win, although prudent, was dishonourable.
The spainish view of life was very much tied up in their religon, christian....so I would be careful about tying honour to Christianity vs Islam as opposed to a religously dominated view versus an individualistic and material point of view. Religon instructed the British in their rise of empire post battle, in terms of mercy etc, but pre and during battle it was all about the prize and total victory over your opponent.
Concepts of honour are important, it will explain actions, not excuse them.
These events are being used. Another excellent article to read is attached
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/05/nflag505.xml
It is a clash of cultures. This is back to can you ever be Danish if you arent a Dane, giving the 1,000 year history that means danish speaking, protestant religon and a certain attitude. Being Danish is hard as opposed to being American, which is a political ideal, democracy, individualism etc untied to language or ethnicity.
Canada needs to ensure that its own history is taught as a political ideal of resposnisble government, democracy etc not as an ethnic ideal, the danger of the two nations theory. It must be absolute that when you come to a North american country your past troubles are past and transmitting the poltical diseases from other lands will not be tolerated.
Be careful how far you take this one Angry, i.e. dont turn people and cultures into caracitures, but it is a definitely interesting area to explore. I look forward to others observations.
Posted by: Stephen at February 5, 2006 10:00 AM
But the British were honest about when they won and when they lost. They were after victory, but real victory. Losing then lying about it is no victory and unacceptable.
Posted by: Steve Janke at February 5, 2006 10:07 AM
Yes I agree....in fact there were victories but they weren't total enough, tactical victories, that the captains were criticized for and their prizes witheld.
But yes, "moral victories" didnt count, although I Dunkirk was that....no voctory just prevention of total defeat.
Posted by: Stephen at February 5, 2006 11:07 AM
Maybe it's an Anglospheric thing? I'm sure that most of us who are native English speakers could pretty much agree on just what "duty" and "honor" actually mean.
Posted by: Hungry Valley at February 5, 2006 11:42 AM
So an Arab is walking along the beach and stubs his toe on an object. Picking it up, he discoveres it is a lamp. As he rubs it clean, a genie appears, thanks the Arab for freeing him from the lamp, and grants him one wish. "Anything you desire, wealth, wine, fame, women" says the genie.
The Arab thinks for a moment and says "My neighbor has a goat that is better tnan mine, make it die."
And this, folks, is the type of mentality we're dealing with...
Posted by: Bruce at February 5, 2006 11:55 AM
Problem is that Honor and Honesty are becoming more and more rare as Western Values as well. Did anyone notice the Liberals still winning over 100 seats?
They retained this many seats by basically appealing to their core values. These values appeared to be, lie about your opponent, steal money when in power and lie about your own record.
I guess Paul at least waited until the boat had sank before abandoning it. Perhaps with the Libyan flag on most of his fleet and the multi-cultural banner of the liberals Paul was on his way to adopting Islamist values? Explains the arm waving and shrillness of the end of campaign.
Is PEI the headquarters of the new caliphate in Canada? There is no god but progressive liberalism and the Toronto Star is it's prophet.
Posted by: Gregor at February 5, 2006 01:22 PM
Islam has a broad and deep streak of fatalism in it. If the boat sinks it is the Will of Allah, the captain is as much a bystander as the passengers. Running away is prudent, not cowardly.
What informed the British Empire was the notion of personal responsibility. If the ship sinks YOU are at fault, and St. Peter will hold you to account even if you manage to escape on Earth. This includes the idea of doing good deeds even when nobody is watching. God watches.
We could use a shot of that here in Canada right about now. That's why I don't shrink from voting for devout Christians, they are much less likely to misbehave where you can't see them.
Posted by: The Phantom at February 5, 2006 02:27 PM
The Muslim values that Steve is referring to in this post points to just a few of the basic differences. The world-view of Mulims is not just different from ours on smaller points of culture but is, in fact, anti-thetical to western civilisation.
I live in a community where Iranians comprise about 20 - 25 percent of the population. For many years I did business with Iranians (but did not socialise; they discouraged that) and found them to be smart, hard-working, and, for the most part, very congenial.
At the local gym, where I work out, nearly half of the members were Iranians. That is, until 9/11. On that day, I was at the gym when the news came over CNN. Most of us were stunned. Not the Iranians, however.They, to a man, cried out in joy. They were high-fiving each other and there was much back slapping. Usually, at the gym, they spoke only English but, in their excitment, they spoke only Iranian.
The non-Iranian members were in shock, not only at the news of 9/11 but at the reaction of the Iranians. Nobody said anything; we just left and went home. The next day, the owner of the gym put up an American flag, a huge one, 6' x 12' or so, and hung it from the ceiling.
When the Iranians arrived, it was their turn to be outraged. Who hung this flag, they demanded to know? And they were puzzled. This is Canada, didn't we hate Americans, too?
Well, not in this gym and not on this day.
The non-Iranian gym members (and this is a hard-core gym filled full of tough bastards) were livid and almost all at once turned on the Iranians. There was no violence but people were screaming at each other, nose to nose. Red faces and bulging veins were the order of the day. The manager went on the public address system, read everbody the riot-act and kicked everybody out.
After I had a few hours to reflect on what had happened my anger subsided and a profound disappointment set in. I realised that people I thought I knew and done business with for years were, in fact, alien to me as far at the level of our deepest convictions.
As the years went by I read every book I could find on their culture, trying to understand how they came to believe what they do and how we came to be so different. I must confess, I still don't really understand. However, I have come to some conclusions. I regard the social forces behind their world-view as the forces of chaos and irrationality. I believe their world-view to be completely totalitarian in its objectives and their culture encouages them to act without mercy to non-believers or infidels. I believe that I have considerable grounds to think of their world-view as being extremely dangerous to me and mine. And I am worried.
Some years ago, I watched a Michael Palin travelogue where he was travelling by boat through some part of Muslim Africa. There was a young female missionary on board and he was interviewing her. He asked her if she had made any converts? She said that she was not trying to make converts and was only trying to make people's lives a little easier. Palin persisted. "Surely you would be happy to have some people convert to Christianity," he said? She replied that this would make her happy but she had no specific interest in converting people. Palin continued in this vein, having a little sport with her, don't you know? He finally got her to admit that, perhaps, three people may have converted. What Palin didn't realise was that an Arab looking gentlemen was eavesdropping on their conversation and he had a very angry look on his face. The next morning Palin got up and noticed that the young lady was nowhere to be found. Palin said to the camera that the young lady must have tired of his questions, so much so that she left the boat. And he chuckled.
I thought to myself, you bloody fool, Palin. How could she have left the boat? It didn't pull into any port. I knew, or at least, thought I knew, that proselytizing in some Mulim countries is punishable by death and, further I thought I knew that ordinary Muslims are commanded to carry out that punishment.
It is possible, because of old age and time, that I do not recall these events correctly. That aside, this memory of a left- wing fool and Muslim mercilessness stands as a reminder of who and what we are dealing with.
As for the 9/11 event at the gym, the Iranians never came back and for the rest it is barely remembered. They're all good Canadians, you know. But not for me, I remember.
Posted by: michael hammer at February 5, 2006 04:37 PM
Michael Hammer,
thankyou for sharing that chilling story. It was 9/11 that ended my leftism and I began to see and I too am worried.
Posted by: ex-liberal at February 5, 2006 05:24 PM
The ship sinking story reminded me of something I saw on Discovery about a Greek ship sinking a decade or two ago. I think it's a regional thing, not an Arab thing. Every quote in show from the victims was about the same as the above article. The captain was quoted as saying "When I say abandon ship I mean everybody" and so he was on the first lifeboat away from there.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, it was a British or Australian (I'm going by the accent) band member who took charge of the ship and got people into lifeboats, organized people on the ship and oversaw evacuations to Coast Guard helicopters (what would people in that part of the world do without the Coast Guard?).
Posted by: Jay at February 5, 2006 06:31 PM
Whoa! You've got balls Steve. Good on ya. You've been making me nervous lately but you have yet to cross "that line". Cheers all! Super Bowl Sunday : )
Posted by: Cameron at February 5, 2006 09:58 PM
 
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