The sudden popularity of the Palestinian suicide bomber really
is very puzzling. Apparently it is socially-approved behavior in
many neighborhoods. That ought to appeal to the more extreme wings
of the world population control movement. But that suicide bombing
has roused so little heated controversy strikes me as odd. Saddam
Hussein offers the family of suicide bombers $25,000. What would
the world think if he offered the families money to have their
children sent into slavery? I suppose there would be outrage if
Arabs were paying families to enslave their children. There seems
to be little outrage when Arabs pay families to send their children
to death. Is this because the children are killing Israelis?
Frankly, I am crossing Islam off my list of tourist
destinations. In Egypt, an extraordinary contest has been inspired
by published pictures of those four Palestinian women who broke
with Islam's strictures against female participation in public life
to become suicide bombers. The contest, loosely translated as "Name
the Prettiest Suicide Bomber," has apparently been won by Miss Wafa
Indriss (deceased), who is described by a columnist in the Egyptian
newspaper Al-Wafid as having had "dreamy eyes and a
mysterious smile on her lips." Then unfortunately, he proceeded to
compare Miss Indriss to the Mona Lisa, which will not endear him to
local Mullahs, the subject of the Mona Lisa being a Neapolitan
noblewoman who was completely unfamiliar with the Prophet's
writings and had a well-known taste for Chianti Classico and short
skirts. She lived a long and full life.
Oh, that above paragraph -- do you think the contest really took
place? Surely it is possible. The beauty observations of the
columnist from Al-Wafid certainly suggest that it is
possible for his fellows to select favorites in the "Prettiest
Suicide Bomber" pageant. And there are other cultures where the
killing of children was admired. There were the Mayans and the
Aztecs who would dispatch children heavenwards for the pleasure of
one god or another. Doubtless the parents of the babes were seen as
first-rate citizens.
Yet I wonder if the Aztec or Mayan parents felt they had been
used? Did they feel sad at the loss of their babes? The Palestinian
parents' sadness is, we are told, assuaged by the fact that their
children in this last act on earth are killing people, often
unarmed people. Maybe the ancient Aztecs and Mayans would feel
better if their chiefs convinced them that their babes' deaths in
some magical way caused death to their enemies. Possibly the chiefs
might take a few of the babes and catapult them against the advance
of an oncoming enemy army.
We have no evidence that the Aztecs and Mayans ever even
contemplated using human sacrifice to kill others. Possibly their
religious scruples would not allow it. And we call the Aztecs and
Mayans primitive. There are regions in the Middle East where they
might be considered advanced.
topics:
Islam, Israel
