Angry in the Great White North

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.