Monday, April 30, 2018
OP-ED - Sex and Shame: What Incels and Jihadists Have in Common
By Simon Cottee
As an instrument for delivering publicity, terrorism clearly works. Or at least it did last week, when the hitherto obscure term “incel” went viral after Alek Minassian drove a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in downtown Toronto. Mr. Minassian, just before carrying out his attack, wrote a post on Facebook in which he proclaimed the arrival of an “incel rebellion.” Standing for “involuntarily celibate,” the term is used as a badge of honor among a fringe online subculture of misogynists who say they hate women for depriving them of sex. So now we know.
Were it not for that post, speculation about Mr. Minassian’s attack would have focused on its connection to the Islamic State. It certainly looked like an Islamic State attack: The terrorist group has been aggressively inciting its followers to kill Western civilians with motor vehicles, and since then there have been many such attacks. Mr. Minassian cannot have been oblivious to these horrific rampages and the tremendous publicity that they attracted. This was an Islamic State-inspired attack minus the Islamic State ideology.
Mr. Minassian is obviously a deeply troubled individual. And mass murder is driven by a variety of psychological factors. But much of Mr. Minassian’s trouble seems to have been fueled or exacerbated by the frustration and shame that accompanied his lack of sexual contact with women. This would have made him feel unfulfilled and indignant, and also weak and unmanly. The sense of shame from not being able to perform a culturally approved sex role may be a key to understanding his murderous rage. It may also be another thread connecting him to other violent actors whose ideology is different from his own, yet whose actions are similar. It is not difficult to spot parallels with the world of jihadism, where women and sex are similarly fixated on to an extraordinary degree
Among those who identify with the “incel” movement, there is a pathological fixation on sex and women, and there is a self-pitying perception that everyone else, except the community of “incels,” is having sex. Women are craved, but they are also reviled for what the incels believe is their selective promiscuity: They seem to be having sex with everyone but them. This is internalized as a grave personal insult. The function of the “incel” movement is to transform that personal grievance into an ideology that casts women as despicable sexual objects. The core emotion that animates “incels” is sexual shame. It’s not just that these men are sexually frustrated; it’s that they are ashamed of their sexual failure. At the same time, they are resentful of the sexual success of others, which amplifies their own sense of inadequacy. This explains why they gravitate toward an online subculture that strives to rationalize their shame and redirect the blame for their failure onto women. Like incels, jihadists similarly crave sex, but the circumstances surrounding its consummation are closely regulated by their religious norms, which prohibit sex outside of marriage and same-sex couplings. Among jihadists, even masturbation is frowned upon, although Osama bin Laden famously issued a masturbation fatwa, permitting it in times of urgent need. This repressive attitude toward sex and sexuality has led some commentators to suggest a connection between sexual frustration and the murderous rage of jihadist suicide bombers. The evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, for example, suggested that far from being motivated by thoughts of injustice, the Sept. 11 hijackers were driven by thoughts of sex. Referring to the “martyr’s reward of 72 virgin brides,” he asserted that “testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.” Developing this theme further, the late Christopher Hitchens wrote that the jihadists’ “problem is not so much that they desire virgins as that they are virgins.” Or as the sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer once put it: “Can’t get married, can’t have sex, so they blow things up.” It’s easy to dismiss these observations as reductive caricatures in their portrayal of Muslims as sexually repressed. And, of course, jihadist violence is about far more than just sexual frustration. But there is too much anecdotal evidence about the sexual torment of jihadists and their ideologues to reject the connection outright. For example, Sayyid Qutb, the grandfather of jihadist ideology, was disgusted by Americans’ sexual license during the 1950s, yet he was clearly viscerally excited by its spectacle. Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, instructed in his will that his body be prepared for burial by “good Muslims” and that no woman was to go near it, presumably because he found them dirty and spiritually contaminating. This aversion to women didn’t stop him from visiting a strip club just before the attack, but it did prevent him from shaking women’s hands. One extremist reportedly told the terrorism scholar Jessica Stern that he was “vaginally defeated.” According to Professor Juergensmeyer, “Nothing is more intimate than sexuality, and no greater humiliation can be experienced than failure over what one perceives to be one’s sexual role.” Furthermore, he argues, such failures “can lead to public violence,” which is performed to cancel out feelings of shame and reassert the claim to manhood. It’s possible that Mr. Minassian’s ramming attack in Toronto was just such a performance, and that what he most wanted was to make himself visible to all those women who had, in his mind, made him feel worthless and invisible. However confused and hallucinatory, it was a claim to his virility as a man, as well as an indictment on a sexually promiscuous world from which he had been excluded. That’s a claim that many jihadists would no doubt understand, if not indeed sympathize with.
In Pakistan, the Press Remains in Chains While Pashtun Activists March On
By Mohammad Taqi
The army is unwilling to give any space to news reports or opinion pieces favourable to the Pashtuns and intends to continue ensuring a near-complete electronic media blackout of the movement.
The Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) – which came to the fore after the extrajudicial killing of a young Pashtun man at the hands of police officer Rao Anwar in Karachi earlier this year – continues to march on in Pakistan. It recently held an impressive rally in Peshawar – the Pashtun heartland – without the support of the traditional Pashtun nationalist outfit, the Awami National Party (ANP), which considers itself the political heir to ‘Frontier Gandhi’ – the late Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
The rally brought together a large number of the families of missing Pashtun men and boys, who they claim were forcibly disappeared by the Pakistan Army during and after its operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – where the country’s constitutional provisions do not apply – and in the so-called “settled” areas like the Swat Valley, which is part of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
The PTM’s key leader, Manzoor Pashteen, continues to capture the imagination of the Pashtuns with his unassuming demeanour, straightforward explanation of the movement’s main objectives, clear roadmap and resolve to persevere where others have faltered. His plain talk reiterates the movement’s key demands, including the release of those abducted by the army who are innocent and producing before the courts the ones who may have any charges against them.
Army’s response
The Peshawar rally, however, was not the last one. The PTM announced one in Lahore, which has rattled the Pakistani security establishment – a euphemism for the country’s army. The army has been leery of the PTM from the outset but the announcement to hold the rally in Lahore – where no key Pashtun leader has held one since the ANP’s late Wali Khan in the mid-1980s – threw it into a real tizzy.
The army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, took it upon himself to castigate the PTM as “engineered protests” and said that it would not be allowed to undo the so-called gains of military operations. In order to put his words into action, his minions began doing what the army has done for decades – threaten and abduct political workers, censor the press, stifle the electronic media and smear dissenters as foreign agents.
People chant slogans and hold signs as they condemn the death of Naqibullah Mehsud, whose family said he was killed by police in a so-called “encounter killing”, during a protest in Karachi, Pakistan. Credit: Reuters/Akhtar Soomro
Several leaders of the PTM and the leftist Awami Workers Party (AWP), who were involved in planning the Lahore protest, were taken into custody by the Punjab police. Protests erupted over social media after a video surfaced of them being taken into custody, which appeared more like an illegal detention than a formal arrest. The authorities eventually caved in to the backlash and released the leaders.
To the army’s ultimate chagrin, the PTM eventually held an unprecedented rally in Lahore, which was attended not just by the Pashtuns but also by the Punjabi civil and human rights activists and leftist political cadres. The PTM leaders announced that they would hold further rallies in Swat, which was once firmly under the heels of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), followed by one in Karachi.
What became clear before and after the Lahore rally was that the army is unwilling to give any space to news reports or opinion pieces favourable to the PTM and intends to continue ensuring a near-complete electronic media blackout of the movement and therefore of the FATA, which it continues to use as a sanctuary for its agenda against Afghanistan.
Mohammad Bilal holds a picture of his son Hazratullah as he takes part in a protest with members of the Pashtun community against what they say are enforced “disappearances” and routine oppression, in Islamabad, Pakistan. Credit: Reuters/Saad Sayeed
Columnist after columnist announced on Twitter that their weekly column was not published because of the topic – the PTM. Former Senator Afrasiab Khattak and Gul Bukhari, regular writers for The Nation, and Mosharraf Zaidi, Talat Hussain and Imtiaz Alam, who write for The News International, had their columns pulled.
In one instance, The News International took down a column by a Pashtun activist Khan Zaman Kakar from its website after it had been appeared in the print edition. I have had the first-hand experience of my own weekly column getting shut down by the Daily Times under duress from the army three years ago for similar reasons: criticising the army’s jihadist policy as well as its sham operations in the FATA and its highhandedness against the people there.
Pakistan’s largest private television news channel, Geo, has also faced the wrath of the army, which not only banned the channel in cantonment areas but also the delivery of the group’s newspapersJang and The News there.
Past censorship
The chronicler of curbs on the media in Pakistan, Zamir Niazi, wrote in his book The Press In Chains that the first political thought to be censored in Pakistan was actually that of the country’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah. It was Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 address to the constituent assembly, a speech described as the greatest of his life by his biographer Hector Bolitho, that ended up on the censor’s chopping block. This was the landmark speech in which Jinnah laid down his vision for a by and large secular Pakistan as he perceived it. Niazi cites Hamid Jalal that “this speech of the Quaid-e-Azam became the target of what may be called the first of the press advices issued by Pakistan’s permanent establishment … however it was still a shadowy establishment”. Most of the then media toed the establishment’s line and suppressed the speech, except the daily Dawn that carried it.
Niazi has also recorded an incident where parts of Jinnah’s sister and confidant Fatima Jinnah’s speech were muted by Radio Pakistan. Fatima was to address the nation at her brother’s death anniversary on September 11, 1951, when Radio Pakistan’s director Z.A. Bukhari asked her to delete two sentences that were critical of the then government. Fatima refused and was allowed to go on air only to find later that her talk “had faded out at two points, which later were found to coincide with the sentences to which Bokhari had objected”. People protested the censor and Fatima refused to deliver the commemorative address till years later.
A file image of Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. Credit: Reuters
In Pakistan, the army formally anointed itself as the arbiter of the so-called national interest with Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s coup d’etat and relegated the civil bureaucracy to play the second fiddle to it in the permanent establishment. To complete its chokehold on the national interest narrative, the Ayub Khan regime brazenly muzzled the press and forcibly took over the independent Progressive Papers Limited of Mian Iftikharuddin, which included the dailies Pakistan Times, Imroze and the periodical Lail-o-Nahar. In a hard-hitting piece, which remains a must-read even today, the Pakistan Times‘ editor Mazhar Ali Khan later wrote in Feroz Ahmed’s Pakistan Forum:
Military’s control over the narrative in Pakistan
In Pakistan, it seems, the more things change the more they remain the same. From the television outlets muting the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s recent speech to the army chief directly giving press advice to a group of journalists and the army hounding the dissenting voices in the print and electronic media, the military is unwilling to let go of its control over the narrative. There are thousands of social media accounts that parrot the army’s line while the army itself has abducted social media activists and tortured bloggers.
In their landmark article titled ‘21st-century censorship’, the authors Philip Bennett and Moises Naim had produced a matrix of the censorship types and methods deployed by the present-day regimes, that ranges from direct violence against journalists to sly use of internet proxy warriors that troll legitimate political dissenters and rights campaigners. For each of the listed tools to control or mould opinion and stifle dissent, there’s an available example in the Pakistan Army’s war against the freedom of expression.
From torturing and killing journalists like Saleem Shahzad to forcing electronic and print media into self-censorship, the Pakistan Army has consistently deployed a panoply of coercive measures, in addition to the carrots it dangles in front of media persons. As Bennett and Naim have pointed out, many states and state agencies “went from spectators in the digital revolution to sophisticated early adopters of advanced technologies that allowed them to monitor content, activists and journalists, and direct the flow of information.”
Pakistan Army’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), is one such entity that fits the bill. The near-complete blackout of the PTM’s massive rally in Swat on April 29 in the electronic and print media again shows that the ISPR is getting away with serving as the de facto censor and media control authority in Pakistan.
What the army under General Bajwa is doing to dissenters is a reminder of Ayub Khan’s regime. The army’s treatment of the PTM and its peaceful demand for constitutional rights and legal redressal of grievances should send alarm bells ringing. George Bernard Shaw had said that the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. And to me, the first sign of regression is its return. Pakistan has effectively regressed to martial law. What we had known since the ostensible return of democracy in Pakistan in 2008 was that the army has the complete control over the foreign and national security policies and most domestic affairs as well.
An apparent decade of democracy has actually been ten years of undeclared martial law with a democratic fig leaf. What the PTM and its leader Manzoor Pashteen have done is to force that martial law to bare its ugly, iron teeth. Pakistani politicians and rights activists can join Pashteen’s entourage or wait for their turn when the army comes for them.
https://thewire.in/south-asia/pakistan-pashtun-protests-media-blackout-army
#Pakistan - #ShiaHazaraGenocide - Panic among citizens as Quetta killing spree continues unabated
Successive incidents of targeted killings have spread a wave of terror among citizens of Quetta, who on Monday staged protests at different places against a dozen deaths over the past week.
At least six people have been killed and three wounded in different incidents of targeted killings in the provincial capital over the last three days.
On April 27, brother of prayer leader at a local mosque was shot dead on Toghi Road.
A day later, two other people were killed on Jamaluddin Afghani Road. The deceased belonged to Hazara community.
Last night, unknown assailants opened indiscriminate fire on shops on Jan Mohammad Road. Consequently, three people were killed.
Last week, a suicide attack also claimed lives of six policemen on Quetta's Airport Road.
Police say that they have been investigating the incidents.
Relatives of the victims, representatives of political parties and general public held demonstrations against continuing killings outside the Quetta Press Club and the Balochistan Assembly building on Monday.
Chief Minister Balochistan Abdul Quddus Bizenjo and Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti also visited the demonstration outside the provincial assembly building in Quetta on Monday.
The home minister termed the recent wave of targetted killings a conspiracy to spread chaos.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/193457-panic-among-citizens-as-quetta-killing-spree-continues-unabated
Lawyer on hunger strike over killing of Shiites in Pakistan
A lawyer in Pakistan has gone on hunger strike to bring attention to the killing of Shiites in the city of Quetta.
Jalila Haider said Monday that she will continue the strike she began the day before until the army chief visits the city and details concrete steps to bring the killers to justice and protect the religious minority.
Haider says Gen. Qamar Bajwa should come and console the thousands of widows and orphaned children left by the killing of Shiites in Pakistan over the past two decades. Sunni extremists view Shiites as apostates and have carried out scores of attacks since 2001.
In recent months, at least 30 Shiites have been gunned down in Quetta. Police have yet to arrest any suspects.
Pakistan Honors Cuba's Fidel Castro With Highest Civilian Honor
"Fidel opened the heart of Cuba to the world, and for this his country is loved by millions of people," the Pakistani ambassador to Cuba said.
Pakistan's government has honored Cuba's late revolutionary leader and former President Fidel Castro posthumously with the nation's highest civilian honor, the Nishan-e-Pakistan.
During a ceremony at the National Hotel in Havana, Cuba, Pakistani Ambassador Kamran Shafi expressed Pakistan's gratitude towards the Cuban revolutionary leader and for the support given to his nation.
"Fidel opened the heart of Cuba to the world, and for this his country is loved by millions of people," Shafi said, adding that Castro was an "icon of resistance against imperialism and neocolonialism."
The ambassador thanked Cuba for having sent 2,500 doctors following a devastating earthquake that struck Pakistan in 2005. He said that for nine months, the group of Cuban medics attended over 1,700,000 patients in the most isolated and severely affected regions of the country.
The earthquake, with a magnitude 7.6, is considered one of the deadliest in South Asia's modern history. Over 100,000 people are estimated to have died, and millions were left injured or homeless.
"Fidel will always be remembered for his generous and selfless help to the people," Shafi said.
The Nishan-e-Pakistan civilian honor has been previously awarded to former and current heads of state, including former Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito in 1961; South African President Nelson Mandela in 1992, and current President of China Xi Jinping in 2015.
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Pakistan-Honors-Cubas-Fidel-Castro-With-Highest-Civilian-Honor-20180428-0013.html
#Pakistan - Bilawal Bhutto Felicitates Newly-elected Body Of Karachi Union Of Journalists (KUJ)
Bilawal Bhutto assured them PPP's full support for protecting freedom of press and freedom of expression, said a press release issued by the party secretariat. In a congratulation message to the newly-elected President Hassan Abbas and General Secretary Aajiz Jamali, the PPP Chairman said PPP has always struggled together with journalist fraternity against the draconian laws enacted by dictatorial regimes.
"It was PPP government which abolished such laws aimed at gagging the press," he added. Bilawal Bhutto hoped that newly-elected KUJ body will serve the journalist community and asked them to convey his felicitations to the other office-bearers.
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/bilawal-bhutto-zardari-felicitates-newly-ele-331687.html
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