There is a long tradition on blaming mothers for creating criminal children. We hear about neglect, abuse, and ignorance—and, of course, bearing children out of wedlock. However, childrearing since the 20th century has improved markedly in the Western world and continues to occupy an important place in the minds of most parents.

But another sort of childrearing is under the microscope today: the traditional childrearing practices in the Muslim World, which psychologists are exploring. Of immediate interest is a new book written by one of Osama bin Laden’s sons and his mother, Omar and Najwa Bin Laden: Growing Up Bin Laden. Osama Bin Laden marries as often as he pleases and spawns children—so far 20.

Bin Laden’s own father, a simple mason who created a construction empire worth billions, seems to have at least provided comfort and educations for his 50 children, from which Osama benefited. However, the internal dynamics of such family life produces lonely, disaffected children and bitter wives. Such families are invariably a pyramid of tyranny with the father the dictator at the apex, followed by eldest son, then other sons, and last daughters, and below them, disposable wives and concubines. Power is not shared.

Omar bin Laden describes life with this extraordinarily wealthy father as a nightmare of deprivation and fanatical religiosity. Osama, during his university experience in Saudi Arabia, had been seduced by the most militant, extreme version of Islam, which has guided his life ever since. He used his wealth to make war against the “infidels” in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and the West (9/11 was financed and organized by him). However, he refused to use his wealth for the benefit of his family. They grew up in Arabia, Sudan, and Afghanistan in the most miserable of conditions, “without laughter or toys, were routinely beaten, and lost their pets to painful death from poison gas experiments by their father’s fighters.” We have all seen the animal experiments carried out in the training camps. Now we know where the animals came from.

As the young boys came of age, Osama told them to volunteer for suicide missions. “Omar then knew that his father hated his enemies more than he loved his sons.” Israeli President Golda Meir once noted the same thing: “There will be peace between the Palestinians and Israelis when they love their children more than they hate us.” It has not happened yet.

Consider also the young Nigerian who almost blew up a passenger plane over Detroit on Christmas Day. He too comes from a wealthy family in which he was the 16th, and youngest. His wealthy banker father, with two wives and all of those children, provided them with educations, but it seems there was not enough love or direction for this young man. That the boy was willing to commit murder/suicide says much about his nature and childhood and the militant religion that seduced him into its death cult.

Lest these observations seem to be just specific to two families, I would refer you to the Journal of Psychohistory, Volume 29, No. 4 Spring 2002, with three articles that explored the reasons behind suicide bombing. Analyzing child-rearing practices throughout history is something that is not much approached by traditional historians. Superfreakonomics also notes that pregnant women fasting during Ramadan damage their fetuses in ways that have dire consequences later. In addition, the preference for cousin marriages and underage brides in the Muslim world creates genetic nightmares as well.

Whatever problems we have with our own child rearing practices, most of us are diligent (including our Middle East immigrants) about wanting to do the best for them. Having one or two children is very different than having 16, 20, or 50, with traditions that distance an autocratic father and with mothers competing and desperate to survive. Rampant child and wife abuse adds an element of danger—barely suppressed rage in a child---that can be channeled into a militant death cult.

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Laina Farhat-Holzman is a writer, lecturer, and historian. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.

January 30, 2010

I was in at my college graduation at UCLA when the Iranian Revolution was heating up. The Shah of Iran was the guest speaker, and his talk offered a rosy view of Iran’s future. As he spoke, a plane flew overhead with a banner: “Death to the Shah.” I was shocked—and really amazed at what seemed to me both rude and ungrateful. Most of the Iranian students studying here were the beneficiaries of either government scholarships or family money courtesy of Iran’s rapid development.

A few years later, I was in Iran as a cross-cultural specialist on a US-Iran project, and felt the tension of a rising tide of revolt. Both in Iran and in the US and Europe, the noisiest revolutionaries were academics—both professors and students. It had become chic to take this position; the Shah must go, and after that would be a democratic, modern state. To my horror, young university coeds marched wearing headscarves—the thinking being that this was a finger in the eye of the modernizing Shah. These young women thought it was temporary and that it made a defiant statement. They were wrong.

For the rest of 1978, I recall arguing with academic colleagues, smart young men and women, who really believed that Iran would become a nice socialist republic after getting rid of the Shah. Few of them understood the nature of revolutions and how they really work. It is always the elite young who throw themselves enthusiastically into the work: marches, printing placards and disseminating propaganda, laying out the piles of rubber tires to burn, and talking to the world press. They also ally themselves with other groups that share their primary value: taking down the government. What they never consider is do they all want the same kind of new government?

We all know how that revolution turned out—just as all other revolutions turn out. A small, nasty group usurp power and then kill off the intellectuals. The Ayatollah Khomeini was much more determined and much more ruthless than his young foot-soldiers. Iran got an Islamic Republic, the young radicals were either killed or had to flee, and even the few who served in the first Islamic government saw the error of their ways and got out.

Today, it is obvious that these pious clerics like money. Iran is now 168th out of 180 nations in corruption and profiteering, along with Sudan, Chad, and Burma. Some heritage.

Now one of the early revolutionaries, Ebrahim Yazdi, has been arrested in Tehran. A one-time professor in Texas, as a student, he had helped organize the radical Iranian Student Association. He rushed to Iran to help the revolution. He was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in the interim government of one of those “moderates,” Bazargan, until November 4, 1979, when the US Embassy was overrun and diplomats held captive. Yazdi tried to convince the Ayatollah to put a stop to this—to no avail. Yazdi, Bazargan, and the rest of the interim government resigned on the spot.

Yazdi and Bazargan had also recommended amnesty for the Shah’s former government—but the Ayatollah had already smelled blood and was keen for vengeance. Yazdi, as founder of the Freedom Movement, has been brave enough to stay in Iran (his family is in Texas), served a prison term, and has been forbidden to leave the country. Now he has been arrested again—along with other leaders of the Freedom Movement.

Too bad that these one-time revolutionaries did not understand that they were trading the not good enough (the Shah’s regime) for the terrible. That is how all revolutions go—with the exception of the British Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution of 1776, in which the moderates won the day in each case.

Today’s Iranian revolutionaries seem wiser than their fathers’, and they are revolting against a much more vicious government. Maybe there is a lesson learned. No more shouts of “death to America,” at least.

664 words Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and writer. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com and www.globalthink.net.

January 23, 2010

Yemen? Where have we heard that one before? Let’s go back to its earliest appearance in World History and then on to today. Yemen lies at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula where at one time (500 BC-500 AD) it was a thriving kingdom with an export market in Myrhh, a most valuable shrub that was used for holy oils and as incense to fumigate temples and later Christian churches.

It was a successful kingdom until about 540 AD, when it was beset by two catastrophes: first as the nexus of the first Bubonic Plague that swept Europe, and then the collapse of a huge earthen dam, from which they never recovered their civilization. (See David Keys: Catastrophe, A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World.) They became—and remained—a backwater until today, perhaps second only to Somalia (its neighbor) and unfortunate Afghanistan in misery.

Under Islam and during its medieval period, Yemen was known for its spice trade, its beautiful weaving and fine gold jewelry, but endlessly contentious internal strife. They never recovered the glory of their earliest thousand years.

In the 19th century, the British captured and annexed the port of Aden, which was used as a coaling station for the British navy. At that point Yemen was divided into North and South, the north being fanatical Muslim and tribal, and still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and the south receiving influence from the British occupation (some modernization). Aden became very important to the British after the opening of the Suez Canal and its need to reach India quickly. Whatever modern education or infrastructure that Yemen has is due to the British.

The obvious disparity between the north and south led to open warfare in the 1960s and 1970s. South Yemen changed its name to the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (with Communist help). They allied themselves with the USSR, China, Cuba, and the Palestinians. The USSR provided arms and military training, which then prompted the US, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia to arm North Yemen. Once more, we made the mistake of thinking that the enemy of our enemy was our friend.

When after protracted violence, North and South Yemen, with the help of the Arab League, were reunited and the modernized South was pulled back into feudalism, where it remains today.

The next time Yemen appeared in our media was when the USS Cole, refueling in the port of Aden, was attacked by a speedboat loaded with explosives and suicide bombers willing to die with them. They blasted a large hole in the ship and killed a number of our young sailors. The American Embassy in Yemen, being concerned about their “good relationship” with Yemen’s government, blocked an FBI investigation that could have brought somebody to justice—and maybe avert 9/11. Sometimes we forget who our enemy is.

Today, Yemen’s government is fighting two separatist groups, one in the south (modernizers, perhaps) and the other in the north (Shiites). They are also—they say—trying to snuff out the Al Qaeda factions, with American help. At the same time, they arrest, imprison, and then release (or break out of prison) the worst Islamists among them. It is difficult to see them as allies, somehow.

Yemen is now heading for more catastrophe. The most poisonous sort of Islamism is taking over and destabilizing the government; the population (because of their backwardness and misogyny) has the most out-of-control birthrate in the world; oil, their only source of money, is drying up; and so is water. (In ancient times, Yemen was green and watered—and---well before Global Warming, their climate and terrain changed.) That population will face starvation in a few more years, and the more miserable it gets, the more fanatically religious it gets too. I wouldn't depend on partnering with them for anything.

As the ancient Greeks said: those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Poor, unfortunate Yemen.

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Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and writer. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com and www.globalthink.net.

January 23, 2010

On November 1, All Saints Day, 1755, Lisbon, Portugal was struck by a 9 magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami and fires. The death toll in Lisbon was estimated between 10,000 and 100,000 people (a modern historian estimates 30-40,000 of a population of 200,000). At least 85% of Lisbon’s buildings, including all churches, libraries, and government buildings, were leveled. Great art treasures, maps, archives of the Portuguese explorations and colonial enterprises vanished forever.

Shockwaves from the earthquake were felt throughout Europe, as far as Finland, and North Africa, as well as Greenland and the Caribbean, and huge tsunamis as high as 66 feet swept coastlines everywhere. But this quake, more than any other, changed Europe and the world.

The Portuguese cleared the rubble within a year, without help. Significantly, this was the first catastrophe recognized by European scholars as not an “act of an angry God,” but as a natural event that could be studied and understood. It contributed to the rise and burgeoning of Western science, a movement that continues to this day.

Now, the 7-magnitude earthquake in Haiti illustrates the enormous changes in the world since the Portuguese quake. In 1750, there were no rescue teams from the outside. Survivors either rebuilt or disappeared. Portugal rebuilt, using new methods of earthquake-proofing buildings. However, it never recovered its pre-quake status as major world power and over the next few centuries, declined in wealth and progress. But thanks to modern democratic progress, Portugal is probably more universally happy today than ever before in its history.

With Haiti, despite the hordes of Western help, it is not a matter of rebuilding; it is starting from scratch. Haiti was a sad, dysfunctional country even before the earthquake, and has been so since their original slave rebellion created independent Haiti because:

• Origins. This French colony’s revolution 200 years ago was the work of a violent slave revolt that alarmed all countries that depended upon slavery. Napoleon even rescinded the abolition of slavery law passed by the French Revolution and re-enslaved in French colonies. The young United States could not recognize the Haitian revolution because of opposition from the southern states. Haiti was thus alone.

• Governance. Over its 200 years, Haiti has suffered 32 violent coups, creating perpetual chaos and anarchy. Leadership has been characterized by brutality, never by enlightenment.

• Culture. The perpetual miseries of this country, both inflicted by its leadership and natural disasters, has left a population that can do little more than bear it. With religious beliefs (Catholic and Voodoo) that all things are God’s will or the malevolence of spirits, there is little evidence of self-help.

Perhaps this horrific latest disaster in Haiti will be the one that can turn things around for them. There are a few things that can be done now, but other issues will take decades to unfold.

• Ecology. The French began the destruction by clearing the forests of Haiti for sugar plantations. Since then, the Haitians themselves have prevented every effort at reforestation by using every stick of wood to make cooking charcoal. The UN has solar ovens, inexpensive and useful, that could be a replacement industry for the charcoal makers. This could help restore the forests.

• Population Reduction. Haiti’s horrific birthrate is the elephant that no one wants to discuss. Although life expectancy is short and miserable for most people, fertility continues unabated. Three evils could be removed by an intelligent reduction in birthrate: the destruction of the environment, the hideous child slavery because of too many mouths to feed, and the underlying violence of a society with too many people and not enough bread.

• All attempts at providing small industries, schools, and reforestation will founder without the population reduction. We can see that Haitians living outside of Haiti thrive and are intelligent and talented. Haiti can be a much better place than it is---if its culture changes.

665 words Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and writer. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com and www.globalthink.net.

January 16, 2010

When President Obama used the word “evil” in his Nobel Acceptance speech, there were those resolute liberals who shuddered at hearing what seems to be a religious word coming out of the mouth of their president. Resolute conservatives were surprised—and reluctantly pleased that he did so. Whereas President George W. Bush had no trouble using that word, they had not expected Barak Obama to use it.

I confess to being resolutely secular; however, this does not make the observations of our ancient religions unacceptable to me. I will gladly take wisdom wherever I can find it—as can David Brooks, the New York Times columnist who noted Obama’s “Christian realism” in his Nobel speech. This realism can be summed up that evil not only has its own life in our world, but is in constant play with good within us individually. Unless we are totally oblivious that we each do good—and bad—things to others, that we yield to temptation and then regret it, that we hurt others deliberately or unconsciously, we do not know ourselves at all.

The very concept of free will implies that human beings may choose their actions—and those choices are not always benevolent. Because human beings do make these choices, we as a society must protect ourselves from the bad ones. A thug who chooses to mug, steal, rape, or murder must be stopped by someone stronger—our police. A criminal who chooses violence or wrong or who is incapable of understanding his action must go before a judge and jury. Those police, that judge and jury, must be aware of the evil in us all and must not exceed their duty. We must try not to be self-satisfied that we are all good and the perpetrator pure evil. Yet we must not deny that evil exists.

As long as human beings struggle personally with doing good or bad, we cannot expect war to disappear. It should be obvious to any realist that reason has its limits (President Obama so noted) and that there are those who can justify the most horrific deeds to themselves—until someone stops them. While British Prime Minister Chamberlain thought that Britain could “negotiate” with the Nazis, thus averting war, Prime Minister Churchill knew that this was not so. The Nazis knew this was not so too. For them, negotiating was just stalling for time.

Although religion at its best persuades its believers to struggle with the demons within us all (selfishness, rage, violence, hatred, lust), it can also be harnessed to self-righteously do unthinkable evil to those who do not agree. When religion is in this phase, it morphs from moral guide to poisonous ideology.

Islam is going through such a struggle today. Like all other prophetic religions, it deals with each person’s selfishness, rage, violence, hatred, and lust—and urges instead kindness, charity, patience, love, and decency. However, it is also going through a phase in the hands of some very persuasive believers in which violence, revenge, hatred, and such new pseudo-religious rituals as suicide/murder and honor killing are justified. They can find plenty of support in their religious texts when interpreted their way. They believe that blood must be shed to purify the world and bring all humanity under Islamic rule. They are not unlike those partisans of the Catholic/Protestant religious wars who believed that torture and execution saved souls from eternal damnation.

On one day alone, December 15, Islamic ideologues carried out attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. In Kabul, a car bomber attacked a former Vice President’s house, killing 8 and grievously injuring 40. In Iraq, two of Iraq’s largest cities were hit by bomb-loaded cars, killing 9. A week before, they hit Baghdad and Mosul, killing 127 and wounding more than 500. In Pakistan, a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in a market killing 33 and wounding 60, mostly women and children.

Who are the victims of this evil? Mostly Muslims themselves. This is a crisis for Islam indeed, and Muslims need to take it on.

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Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and writer. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com and www.globalthink.net.