Rima Fakih and the Fragility of Islam

[Spengler]

Rima Fakih and the Fragility of Islam on the Spengler Blog


by David P. Goldman


 

“A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women,” I wrote in a 2006 “Spengler” essay about Iranian prostitution. “The French sold their women to the German occupiers in 1940, and the Germans and Japanese sold their women to the Americans after World War II. The women of the former Soviet Union are still selling themselves in huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of female Ukrainian "tourists" entered Germany after the then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer loosened visa standards in 1999.”

It is a cultural marker of inestimable importance that the one Arab whose name every American knows is Rima Fakih, the new Miss America, pictures of whom wearing a bra stuffed with dollar bills stare out from computer screens at half the men in the United States. Miss Fakih, to be sure, hardly represents Muslim women; she is the child of a secularized family of Lebanese immigrants, with Christian as well as Muslim antecedants. But that is not how her victory in the Miss America pageant was received in the Arab world, where the press celebrated the Arab-American celebration over this landmark.

However un-Islamic it was for Miss Fakih to appear on a bikini, let alone to pole-dance for a 2007 contest at a Detroit radio station, the Arab press seems more worried about the possibility that she may lose her title over the earlier incident. A few hours after the victory of Rima beauty contest, published pictures of her on internet sites during the dance competition is dramatically on the stage and around the promoters. The London-based Arab-language electronic newspaper Elaph defended the contestant's behavior this morning, observing, “Rima was not obliged to take off her clothes during the competition, she won numerous prizes including jewelry, cards, financial, and sexual games for adults.” I should explain that this rendering is provided by Google Translate and may vary slightly from the intent of the original.

A Google search of the Arabic press, however, finds not a single report of an Islamic authority denouncing Miss Fakih for public indecency, although Elaph mentions in passing that conservative Arabs in America were not pleased with the spectacle. One way or another, Miss Fakih has become an Arab role model, a person of note who has succeeded by Western standards. And therein lies a lesson.

The strictures of traditional society are a flimsy defense against modernity. The moment that members of traditional society cease to live under a regime of compulsion, they tend to adopt the habits of the ambient culture. The most dramatic expression of this trend is the collapse of Muslim birth rates, especially among Muslims who have emigrated to the West. As Martin Walker wrote in the Woodrow Wilson Center Quarterly in 1999, “the birthrates of Muslim women in Europe—and around the world—have been falling significantly for some time. Data on birthrates among different religious groups in Europe are scarce, but they point in a clear direction. Between 1990 and 2005, for example, the fertility rate in the Netherlands for Moroccan-born women fell from 4.9 to 2.9, and for ­Turkish-­born women from 3.2 to 1.9. In 1970, ­Turkish-­born women in Germany had on average two children more than ­German-­born women. By 1996, the difference had fallen to one child, and it has now dropped to half that number.”

There is a straight-line correlation between literacy and birth rates in the Muslim world, as I documented here, which suggests that the moment that Muslims enter modernity, for example, through reading, the habits of traditional society die quickly. Islam is fragile, and that helps explain why radical Islam is so aggressive.

[Richard Greene]

David:

Thanks for this insightful little essay.

Your friend Daniel Pipes chimes in:

Pipes Blog asks "Is There Affirmative Action in Beauty Contests?">

News that Rima Fakih, 24, of Dearborn, Michigan, won the Miss USA beauty pageant today prompts me to recall some prior instances of Muslim women winning beauty contests in Western countries.

They are all attractive, but this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.

My suspicion is borne out by the selection of Anisah Rasheed as Miss A&T at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. From the news report about her success:

Excited and jittery, Anisah Rasheed of Roanoke pondered a fashion dilemma that few beauty queens have faced before: Matching her coronation gown with her hijab. … Rasheed, 20, was crowned Miss A&T for 2005-06 on Thursday night in a sparkling fishtail gown—with a tiara glittering over her golden hijab—during homecoming ceremonies at North Carolina A&T State University.

[PaulR]

Although Mr. Goldman is addressing the response of the Arab-press, I nonetheless would not read too much into this Miss USA. The choosing of the "Arab-American" Rima Fakih appears to me to be simply an organized spectacle by Donald Trump, the pagaents "owner." He no doubt had a part in her choosing, as well has her stripper-pole photos appearing the very next day. I am also willing to bet $100 that the timely question on Arizona Immigration Law, from the Hispanic judge, to the Carrie Prejean look-alike from Oklahoma was no coincidence either.

For Trump, good publicity is nice, but bad publicity is even better.

[charleston]

a little off topic...in case anyone wants to understand the real depth of our problem

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7129649.ece

An Al Qaeda operative arrested in a high profile terror swoop won the right to stay in Britain today because he would be in danger if he returned to his native Pakistan.

Abid Naseer, the alleged ringleader of an alleged plot to bomb Manchester, won an appeal against deportation alongside fellow Pakistani national Ahmad Faraz Khan despite a court accepting that both are a threat to the country.

Mr Justice Mitting, in a written ruling, said: “For the reasons stated, we are satisfied that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the UK and that... it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.”

He added that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in London was allowing the appeal because “the issue of safety on return” made it impossible to deport Mr Naseer to Pakistan.

there is no word adequate to describe this degree of stupid

[parousia]

Was it a rabbi who once said: "America has been great for Jews but not so good for Judaism": and was it a priest who said: "America has been great for Catholics but not so good for Catholicism": and will it be an imam who says that "America has been great for Muslims but not so good for Islam ?" The ultimate winner in the short term, I humbly suggest, will be......... Wal-Mart.

[JimD'Troy]

As much as I'd like to celebrate this small victory, I really can't believe that Muslim parents reading about Ms. Fakih are terribly overjoyed at the prospect of their daughters becoming pole-dancers and strutting around in bikini's and lingerie. It wouldn't surprise me if more Muslim parents 'double down' and made it even harder for their children to assimilate into larger American society by pressuring them to adhere even more strictly to their rituals and faith. If Muslims in America are presented with a choice of whether to assimilate into larger American socety as decadent secularists or remain segregated as pious Muslims, then my guess is they'll choose the latter option more often than not. Frankly, as Spengler noted a couple of years ago, a few more Magdi Allam's might be more provocative to Islam than a score of Ms. Fakih's. Then again a replication of both scenarios would be preferable here in America and Europe.

As titillating as Rima Falih's story might be I wouldn't read much into it. It's already been played out in the UK a number of times most notably with Hammasa Kohistani and most scandalously with the daughter of hate-preacher Omar Bakri.

HATE preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed vowed Brits will “pay’’ for outing his pole dancer daughter.

The Muslim tyrant said the revelation Yasmin Fostok, 27, cavorts topless in London clubs was “an attack against Islam”.

The cleric, who is holed up in a Beirut bolthole after being booted out of Britain, vowed to take revenge.

Last night Bakri raged: “Because she is a member of my family, people make up things about her.

“This false story is an attack against Islam. You are going to pay a heavy price.’’ Bakri, 50, was livid after it was revealed Yasmin had turned her back on his strict religious beliefs.

The tattooed party girl pole dances in clubs in London’s West End and tours the country with raunchy troupe Ibiza Untouched.

And according to a lover she is “very adventurous” in bed. Yasmin was brought up a strict Muslim and used to wear a veil and traditional robes in her teens.

After her arranged marriage to a Turk failed she grew disillusioned with her dad’s beliefs. She now lives as a single mum of three in Catford, south east London.

[kurt9]

Assuming this Goldman essay means what it claims to mean, shouldn't we not see it as good news? I think the death of illiberal worldviews (Lockean definition) is something to be celebrated.

[madafonos]

On a related note;

Islam's Nowhere Men
~ Fouad Ajami, WSJ, 10 May 10

Hat-tip to Tom Barnett, who adds;

That is a microcosm of the Arab world in general: globalization has embraced it--thinly, and it is both amazed and repulsed by the possibility/inevitability of deeper integration. [...] We will be killing the un-redeemables and the irrationals until they stop being born. Globalization, in the form of that massive (as in, now close to 60% of the world's population) global middle class, will simply keep paying somebody to make them go away. Might be us, for as long as we want it to be, but it will definitely be somebody with a gun.

madafonos

[charleston]

On a related note;

Islam's Nowhere Men
~ Fouad Ajami, WSJ, 10 May 10

Hat-tip to Tom Barnett, who adds;

That is a microcosm of the Arab world in general: globalization has embraced it--thinly, and it is both amazed and repulsed by the possibility/inevitability of deeper integration. [...] We will be killing the un-redeemables and the irrationals until they stop being born. Globalization, in the form of that massive (as in, now close to 60% of the world's population) global middle class, will simply keep paying somebody to make them go away. Might be us, for as long as we want it to be, but it will definitely be somebody with a gun.

madafonos

excellent article , thanks for posting

[hoosiernorm]

You need to edit the piece. She is "Miss USA" and not "Miss America".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_America

[Colonel Sun]

Some see England and some see France
Some see takiyah in Rima's underpants

____

The obsessive Abrahamic dialectic of good girl vs bad girl, saint vs slut, is always bemusing.

[CognitiveDistoibance]

Some see England and some see France
Some see takiyah in Rima's underpants
____

The obsessive Abrahamic dialectic of good girl vs bad girl, saint vs slut, is always bemusing.

Obsessive dialectic = binary choice?

Tamar
Rahab
Bathsheba
Woman at the well
Woman taken in adultery
Woman annointing Jesus' feet

Granted there are other more binary examples. But there are some pretty binary men in the Bible as well.

[Richard Greene]

Some see England and some see France
Some see takiyah in Rima's underpants

____

The obsessive Abrahamic dialectic of good girl vs bad girl, saint vs slut, is always bemusing.

CS:

One of the biggest canards foisted on the West is that Islam is an "Abrahamic" religion. Islam is not any such thing, at least in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word.

But having said that, your little riff is quite funny.