Chesler Facebook Chronicles
Mar 18, 2014
I have been busily posting at Facebook and growing quite a following. The discussions are often interesting, sometimes even riveting. I fear that FB has become something of a discipline, a habit, a practice. I see that many people post "selfies" or beautiful photos of Nature and share what they ate for breakfast, what glamorous restaurant they are in at the very moment, birth and death announcements, calls for action. Me--not so much. But for what it's worth, here is some of what has been on my mind. Today, a letter of mine has appeared in the New York Times.
3/17/14
My home town newspaper had a front page story about an impoverished Afghan couple who had fallen in love. The would-be bride's parents threatened to honor (horror) kill her because her beloved belongs to another tribe; also, they want her to marry her cousin. And so: Our Juliet is living in a shelter for women and Romeo is roaming the streets in despair. And today my letter responding to this article is in the New York Times.
3/15/14
Daughter Killing in Texas
James Larry Cosby apparently murdered his own daughter in cold blood together with her "soul mate" in Houston, or Galveston, Texas. Cosby had a long prison history as a felon, was a registered sex offender, and had recently served two years in jail. Cosby was released five months ago. The police found pools of blood in Cosby's home and his fingerprints on evidence at the crime scene. He has been arrested.
Why did he do it?
Britney's mother, Loranda McDonald, said that Cosby may have "murdered the young woman because he did not like the idea of her being gay." A family spokesman, Mr. X, claimed that he found "writings condemning homosexuality as a sin on Cosby's Koran." Crystal Jackson's father, the Reverend Ivan Jackson said that "he did not agree with his daughter's sexual orientation but loved her as much as his other children."
Is this an important difference between Christianity and Islam? More specifically, between infidel monotheism and radical or prison Islam? Is this an example of prison Islam or an example of how angry and violent men choose to use Islam to justify murder?
His daughter, Britney Cosby, and her partner Crystal Jackson were both 24 years old and had been living together for two years. Britney was the mother of a five year old. Cosby bludgeoned Britney to death (this was up close and ugly) and he shot Crystal.
What is going on in Texas, USA?
Yasir Said honor killed his two daughters in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. Their mother, Tissy, who has not been charged or arrested, aided and abetted him. Said routinely abused his daughters, both sexually and physically, just as if they were living in Egypt. He demanded that they marry Egyptian men of his choosing. They refused. He was supported in his views by brothers and by his son who also lived in Texas.
Cosby's vicious act was not this kind of an honor killing. No family conspiracy was involved. He had not raised his daughter as a Muslim. If, it is true, that he converted to Islam in prison, then perhaps that conversion allowed him to justify his pre-existing rage towards: His ex-wife? His daughter? Women in general? Lesbians in particular? Please note that homosexuals are being publicly executed in the Islamic nation of Iran. (Irony of ironies: pederasty, prison-style, as well as adult homosexuality, is pandemic in the Muslim world where it is also prohibited).
Everyone involved is an African-American. And yet, the same President who immediately weighed in on Dr. Henry Louis (Skip) Gates's arrest, and on Trayvon Martin's killing, remains silent on this one case as well as on other cases which involve African-American women. If he cannot "see" himself in the victim, does this mean that he can't relate?
3/14/14
Anti-Semitism: Moment Magazine Cover Story
And so, twelve years after I started writing my now out-of-print book, "The New Anti-Semitism: The Coming Crisis and What To Do About It"; eleven years after I published it in 2003, I am counted as one of the experts on the subject. My words are joined by those of Irwin Cotler, Hasia Diner, Michel Gurfinkiel, David Mamet, Cynthia Ozick, Alvin Rosenfeld, Charles Small, who are grappling with the question of "Anti-Semitism. Where Does It Come From and Why Does it Persist? What are its New Forms? Will It Ever Go Away?"
Our answers vary. Jews have always been "outsiders and enemies;" Judaism has been viewed as an "antiquated" or as a "corrupting" religion. Anti-Semitism is a way of "externalizing evil," explaining "economic patterns," provides a "convenient scapegoat," is "misdiagnosed in America," is "complex and contentious," is a "politically correct disease, "an example of "Holocaust inversion," of "state-sanctioned hatred," is due to "Radical political Islam," and remains "an omnipresent threat."
I recommend this issue of Moment Magazine and commend the editors for publishing this as a cover story. Until quite recently, the subject itself--and those who were alarmed by its revival in both the Islamic and Western worlds--shared questionable, even pariah status.
Today, in my view, anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism. This is what I wrote in 2002-2003. This prejudice is shared by politically correct "good" people, bully right-wing fascists, world organizations, Palestinian terrorists, by Islamists, and by too many in the Islamic world.
In Persia/Iran, the Purim story repeats itself over and over again only we do not always have our savior Esther to rescue us. Even in her noble tale, even after the Kin decides not to exterminate the Jews, he still begins to tax them again...and this is how it's been for all infidels in Muslim countries.
3/13/14
NCIS--Afghanistan Is Following Me
A friend told me that NCIS had a program about rescuing Afghan girls and women from being honor killed in Kabul. NCIS! My go-to program for dramatic escape. I watched it 24 hours after it aired. I love this program but their scenario was highly unlikely e.g. a group of women in a shelter in Kabul are all rescued by NCIS and brought to the United States; one Islamist killer was hired by the families of six or seven different girls who were similarly, previously, rescued.
Today, as every day, there are two articles in home town paper about Afghanistan—and I live in NYC.
And yesterday afternoon, I lectured to the warmest and smartest group of senior citizens and their friends at the Atria on West 86th Street. Did America cause the Taliban to arise? (No, not really). Should America stay in Afghanistan? (Probably not but once we depart the country will be bombed back to the 7th century by Islamists and Al-Qaeda will lay new anti-American plans in Afghan caves). Must we leave? (Yes—but doing so is also risky). What are we really doing there anyway? (We went to punish the nation that sheltered Bin Laden and to find him when all the while he was safely hiding in Abbotobad, protected by the Pakistani military and secret service—Pakistan, our nuclear ally). Did things ever improve for Afghan women (yes)? Have they gotten worse? (also yes). How did my parents deal with my departure for the Wild, Wild East? (They knew I would be back and never told a soul that I was gone). Can we help Muslim women and people or not? (Yes, here, in the West). Afterwards, some women clasped my hand and blessed me with their kindness and compliments.
[Part of the Atria on West 86th Street group--wonderful people!]
3/12/14
My Life So Far
Despite a lingering flu and a pinched nerve I spoke in Greenwich, Connecticut on February 25th; happily delivered acceptance speeches at two award ceremonies: The National Jewish Book Award on 3/5 and the Museum of Motherhood Award on 3/6. I welcomed a wonderful five person film crew into my home on 3/7 for a video interview and will soon appear at the glossy website of New York Natives. (Clearly, I am one). Yesterday, on 3/11, I welcomed the very sparkling and vivacious FOX TV interviewer, Andrea Tantaros, into my home and did we ever talk up a storm about feminism.
Younger women, schooled by the common culture and by postmodern versions of narcissistic, sexually obsessed, and anti-American feminism, do not really know who their feminist heroes are. Feminism had and still has many honorable figures who are talking the talk and walking the walk--feminists who are not anti-motherhood or anti-men; who have long been alarmed by the early eroticization of girls and women; who pioneered the exposes of pornography, prostitution, and trafficking; who fought against rape, sexual harassment, incest, and domestic violence; and who demanded female equality in blue collar jobs, the professions, business and religion. True feminism is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party or of what Women's Studies programs have become.
Andrea asked me what has disappointed me most. Among my answers: The loss of independent thinking. Everyone is supposed to sign on to one party platform, one ideology, and if we veer even slightly from it, we risk being demonized as traitors. Andrea, like myself, agree with items on both Column A and Column B—and have many more columns of our own.
Today—off to speak about An American Bride in Kabul at a senior citizen's home: Atria on the buzzing upper west side of Manhattan. Yes, I am regularly taking Extra Strength Tylenol.
[With my dear friend Kate Millett at the National Jewish Book Awards ceremony on March 5, 2014]
3/11/14
Syrian Sharia Dress Code
What was once a liberal city has been transformed into a Taliban stronghold in which women are being savagely lashed by "morality patrols" for violating the dress code. Women are banned from talking "too loudly" in the streets or walking outside "without a male chaperone." They cannot leave home after dark. Music and smoking are banned in public—and oh yes, Christians are being taxed and churches burned and desecrated. Afghan Taliban rules constitute the new normal.
How can anyone in North America or in the West embrace a Sharia dress code as a religious or privacy right once we understand the cruelty and totalitarian barbarism that such dress codes represent?
3/10/14
Love in Afghanistan=Honor Killing
An operatic tratgedy. A Hazara boy loves a Tajik girl, a Tajik girl loves a Hazara boy and her family has threatened to kill her. My Afghan husband insisted that honor killings do not exist in Afghanistan.
3/9/14
Afghan Women Endangered
Change has been only superficial and once there are no Western boots on the ground life will become Hell for everyone. I am not saying that America should stay or should continue to fund humanitarian projects. We must understand that the resistance to our best efforts is profound, tribal, misogynist, Islamist. The war lords, drug dealers, mujahideen, Islamist terrorist groups will devastate the country. As I ask in An American Bride in Kabul, how much blood and treasure are we willing to spend to hold back the baleful sky?
3/8/14
International Women's Day
My new piece, just up at FOX. Please, if you have any comments, please post them at FOX as well as here at Facebook. Thank you.