Why I Think Muslims Hate America
Isabel P. Ball
July 13, 2005
I find it very disconcerting and worrisome when I captured Bill O’Reilly, a seasoned and celebrated commentator at Fox TV, express his consternation and seeming resignation at the end of his program. They had just finished a very heated discussion about Muslim terrorism.
Also, on the heel of another report of a downed U.S. chopper, killing 16 servicemen, and the rescuing of a Navy Seal, another Fox broadcaster on the July 4th program parroted Bill’s composure on the same issue of Muslim terrorism. Groping for an elusive answer, he posed to his guest a forthright question: “Why do Muslims hate America?”
The question, a profound one, would take books and books of historic explanation in order to surface an answer or answers. On this subject, I will attempt to offer an insight drawn from my experiences while in Pakistan. The nature of my stay allowed me unhindered interactions with the Pakistanis, at large.
Timeline was in mid- to late 80s. America was embroiled in a covert fight against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the period when the Pakistan President and dictator Mohammad Zia Ul Haq, a U.S. ally, was assassinated, after his C-130 blew up in the air shortly after take off, from a bomb implanted in some crates of gift mangoes.
Peripatetic as a guest in the country, I was subjected to the same treatment, as any other native Pakistani woman from the boorish demeanor of many Muslim men. A case and point: Two young men in a car had inched me out of the road; only my dexterity in the wheel had saved me and my local female friend passengers from a certain fatal accident. Another time, in the crowd while shopping, prurient male pranksters had touched me at some delicate parts of my body, like on the buttocks, breast, or on the arms. With stealth, they had melded into the crowd. Then, again, two young men on a speeding motorcycle had hit me on my chest, (not sure whether it was a snatcher or lascivious in nature), one night, while walking on the street with a female Pakistani friend. It had left me in excruciating pain.
In the markets, they gathered around me with heightened curiosity and fascination, but always with malice in mind. Such as, a head honcho brazenly came a few inches to me; then, he blew air into my buttoned-up blouse. Ballooning, he then peered inside. It roused the boisterous group. To retaliate, which I had resorted to often, but only when reason and diplomacy had failed, the men would display uncouth behavior. They have no remorse to strike back. I received hard slaps on my face, with a jaw-dislocating force. Still, in some instances, I had also engaged in literal pummel fights with some brutish youths. Male atrocity, that time, was noticeably committed by the younger set. But though some adult males were pacific, they were lecherous, nonetheless.
A cultural impertinence of favoring the males in the Muslim culture begins forth in birth. A couple would pray hard to have a male child more than a girl. The underlying force here is the caste system. A girl, upon birth, carries a stigma of being a negative in the family’s balance sheet, in the sense, that she would be giving out a sizable sum (dowry) at the time of her marriage to her husband.
Although, the Quoran mandates respect and protection for the women, it is mostly lip service. Women continue to be deprived of the many basic rights that their counterparts in the Western world are born with constitutionally. For instance, a Muslim woman has no right to inheritance from her husband under any circumstances. She is a slave at home, and mostly regarded only that of a baby machine. Under a typical Muslim setting, a man can marry four women, but only when he can afford to support them. But this rule suffers from lack of implementation. Inversely, a woman committing adultery means a certain death sentence to her. Muslim women are also being deprived of education and personal economic development. In the villages illiteracy among women is higher than it is among men. According to YesPakistan.com, this situation remains true: “Involving adult women in any kind of learning program is an uphill battle. Even the girls education is the least priority, let aside adult female literacy. There are many reasons for that. Beside the cultural restrictions, the common thinking is that adult women do not need to read or write since their primary function is to take care of the household chores.” (July 5, 2005)
In most cases, women are held in Purdah Rule. This is more pronounced in their dress with the style cut from one basic design and wrapping them up to the eyes. At home, many women remain in seclusion and are kept away prudishly by their husbands or by a family away from the lecherous eyes of other men.
As described above, theoretically, the bone of contention, dividing America and the Muslim world, centers on the issue of Muslim men’s zealotry to their religion, their impermeable mindset, and the bulwark of defenses they use -- in particular, suicide bombers to triumph their cause. All are meant to protect only their status quo as the bastion of supreme machismo. Muslim men, having been culturally bequeathed with most privileges than the women, and their atrocities committed against their women, have created a very lopsided status between the two species in the Muslim world. Long-regarded as a lighted fuse, the long-standing paradigmatic schism in idealism and belief on the treatment of women, between the oppressive Muslims and America’s contravening stance to it, has now exploded. The battle for principle has turned into a fierce and vicious emotional conflagration that engulfs the two worlds into a searing war. At present, it more than anything is sucking up America’s economy and resolve.
America being stalwart of human equality is facing the most damning challenge as a nation. As it embarks unstintingly in the democratization of Iraq and Afghanistan, America sees the Muslim situation as a nightmare, and what its citizens wish to shrug off every night. Hopefully, the Muslims feel the same way.
Also, on the heel of another report of a downed U.S. chopper, killing 16 servicemen, and the rescuing of a Navy Seal, another Fox broadcaster on the July 4th program parroted Bill’s composure on the same issue of Muslim terrorism. Groping for an elusive answer, he posed to his guest a forthright question: “Why do Muslims hate America?”
The question, a profound one, would take books and books of historic explanation in order to surface an answer or answers. On this subject, I will attempt to offer an insight drawn from my experiences while in Pakistan. The nature of my stay allowed me unhindered interactions with the Pakistanis, at large.
Timeline was in mid- to late 80s. America was embroiled in a covert fight against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the period when the Pakistan President and dictator Mohammad Zia Ul Haq, a U.S. ally, was assassinated, after his C-130 blew up in the air shortly after take off, from a bomb implanted in some crates of gift mangoes.
Peripatetic as a guest in the country, I was subjected to the same treatment, as any other native Pakistani woman from the boorish demeanor of many Muslim men. A case and point: Two young men in a car had inched me out of the road; only my dexterity in the wheel had saved me and my local female friend passengers from a certain fatal accident. Another time, in the crowd while shopping, prurient male pranksters had touched me at some delicate parts of my body, like on the buttocks, breast, or on the arms. With stealth, they had melded into the crowd. Then, again, two young men on a speeding motorcycle had hit me on my chest, (not sure whether it was a snatcher or lascivious in nature), one night, while walking on the street with a female Pakistani friend. It had left me in excruciating pain.
In the markets, they gathered around me with heightened curiosity and fascination, but always with malice in mind. Such as, a head honcho brazenly came a few inches to me; then, he blew air into my buttoned-up blouse. Ballooning, he then peered inside. It roused the boisterous group. To retaliate, which I had resorted to often, but only when reason and diplomacy had failed, the men would display uncouth behavior. They have no remorse to strike back. I received hard slaps on my face, with a jaw-dislocating force. Still, in some instances, I had also engaged in literal pummel fights with some brutish youths. Male atrocity, that time, was noticeably committed by the younger set. But though some adult males were pacific, they were lecherous, nonetheless.
A cultural impertinence of favoring the males in the Muslim culture begins forth in birth. A couple would pray hard to have a male child more than a girl. The underlying force here is the caste system. A girl, upon birth, carries a stigma of being a negative in the family’s balance sheet, in the sense, that she would be giving out a sizable sum (dowry) at the time of her marriage to her husband.
Although, the Quoran mandates respect and protection for the women, it is mostly lip service. Women continue to be deprived of the many basic rights that their counterparts in the Western world are born with constitutionally. For instance, a Muslim woman has no right to inheritance from her husband under any circumstances. She is a slave at home, and mostly regarded only that of a baby machine. Under a typical Muslim setting, a man can marry four women, but only when he can afford to support them. But this rule suffers from lack of implementation. Inversely, a woman committing adultery means a certain death sentence to her. Muslim women are also being deprived of education and personal economic development. In the villages illiteracy among women is higher than it is among men. According to YesPakistan.com, this situation remains true: “Involving adult women in any kind of learning program is an uphill battle. Even the girls education is the least priority, let aside adult female literacy. There are many reasons for that. Beside the cultural restrictions, the common thinking is that adult women do not need to read or write since their primary function is to take care of the household chores.” (July 5, 2005)
In most cases, women are held in Purdah Rule. This is more pronounced in their dress with the style cut from one basic design and wrapping them up to the eyes. At home, many women remain in seclusion and are kept away prudishly by their husbands or by a family away from the lecherous eyes of other men.
As described above, theoretically, the bone of contention, dividing America and the Muslim world, centers on the issue of Muslim men’s zealotry to their religion, their impermeable mindset, and the bulwark of defenses they use -- in particular, suicide bombers to triumph their cause. All are meant to protect only their status quo as the bastion of supreme machismo. Muslim men, having been culturally bequeathed with most privileges than the women, and their atrocities committed against their women, have created a very lopsided status between the two species in the Muslim world. Long-regarded as a lighted fuse, the long-standing paradigmatic schism in idealism and belief on the treatment of women, between the oppressive Muslims and America’s contravening stance to it, has now exploded. The battle for principle has turned into a fierce and vicious emotional conflagration that engulfs the two worlds into a searing war. At present, it more than anything is sucking up America’s economy and resolve.
America being stalwart of human equality is facing the most damning challenge as a nation. As it embarks unstintingly in the democratization of Iraq and Afghanistan, America sees the Muslim situation as a nightmare, and what its citizens wish to shrug off every night. Hopefully, the Muslims feel the same way.
Print
Email
