May 8, 2008
Malaysia: First (Living) Woman Allowed To Leave Islam
Malaysia attempts to present itself as a "liberal" Muslim state. Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution states that a citizen can follow any religion of their choosing, contains a clause which shows that Malaysia has no concept of religious freedom but adds: "The law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam." Article 3 states that Islam is the official religion of the state, but Article 3 (1) of the constitution states that 'other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation'.
Additionally, there is a racist element in Malaysia's constitution. All ethnic Malays are said to be Muslim. At the age of 12, each person in Malaysia is issued with an identity card - called MyKad - upon which the person's religion and race are listed. And all Malays are automatically said to be Muslims.
The problems are made worse by the racism of Malaysia's ruling party - UMNO. This party has ruled in a coalition since Malaysia became independent in 1957. After race riots in 1969, the party has actively promoted a racist policy of "ketuanan Melayu" which gives job preferences and privileges to Malays and Muslims above other racial/religious groups.
In the history of modern Malaysia, the only person who was allowed to leave Islam was an 89-year old widow called Nyonya Tahir. She had married a Chinese Buddhist man in 1936 when she was aged 20. She became a Buddhist. Her choice to become a Buddhist was made long before the Malaysian constitution was written. Nyonya had tried repeatedly to have the National Registration Department (NRD) change her status to "Buddhist".
The NRD never makes any decisions of this nature, as an amendment tot he constitution was brought in by the ruling UMNO party in 1988. There are two systems of justice in Malaysia - the civil courts, and the sharia (Syariah) courts. Article 121 (a) was introduced in 1988 which stated that any issue which fell under the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts could not be dealt with by the civil courts. As for a Muslim all issues of "religious status" are dealt with by the Islamic courts, all appeals to civil courts on issues of apostasy are rejected.
Nyonya Tahir made history when on January 24, 2006 she was allowed to be granted the status of being a Buddhist. This status had been denied her ever since Malaysia became independent in 1957.
Unfortunately, this privilege was not fully appreciated by Nyonya Tahir, as she had died on January 19 of that year. Her body had been refused a burial until Seremban State Syariah Court had decided on the issue.
The custom of body-snatching by Muslim courts has shocked the Western world since December 2005, when the corpse of a Hindu former mountaineering hero was refused burial. The Islamic courts had been told that Maniam Moorthy had become a Muslim convert, a fact his wife Kaliammal had denied. Moorthy had been in a coma when the allegations were made, and could not confirm or deny the claims. Kaliammal tok the case to the HIgh Court. The judge said that because of Article 121 (a) he could not intervene. On December 28, 2005, Lance-Corporal Moorthy's body was taken away by representatives of the Islamic courts and buried as a Muslim in a Muslim ceremony.
Since that time there have ben several cases where the bodies of Buddhists, Christians and Hindus have been denied burial until representatives of Islamic courts have battled to take possession of the cadaver. Such actions, shocking to outsiders, naturally cause upset and offense to grieving relatives. Muslim women are not allowed to marry out of their faith. As a result, families have been forcibly ripped apart when Islamic courts have decided that a Hindu woman is officially a "Muslim".
One 57-year old Malay woman, Kamariah Ali, had publicly rejected Islam in 1998 and in 2005. An Islamic court sentenced her on March 3, 2008 to two year's jail for the "crime" of leaving Islam. She has been jailed for being a non-Muslim before. She was a member of the heretical "Sky Kingdom Sect" which welcomed Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus to its compound. She was jailed twice before for not being a "proper" Muslim. In this decade she was jailed for insulting Islam, and in 1992 she was jailed for apostasy.
Another Malay woman who has fought for the right to leave Islam is Lina Joy. She became a Christian in 1981. The NRD refused to recognize either of her change of name from Azlina Jailani to a Christian one (Lina Joy) or to accept her conversion out of Islam. Eventually the NRD allowed her to have her Christian name on her MyKad, but refused to list her as a Christian.
Lina Joy took her case to the Federal Court - the highest court in the nation - in 2006. The result was delayed and delayed. Eventually, in May 2007 the judges at the Federal Court ruled by two to one that she had no right to leave Islam. Outside the court, Muslims cheered the result. Lina is not allowed to marry her Christian boyfriend while she is officially a "Muslim". She and her lawyer have received death threats from Muslims.
I wrote earlier this year:
"Today there has been a positive result for Siti. The news is carried by Associated Press, TVNZ, Japan Today, Bernama, International Herald Tribune, BBC and AKI:A similar case involved an ethnic Chinese woman from Nibong Tebal, Penang state, who was originally called Tan Ean Huang. She had married an Iranian man called Ferdoun Ashanian in 1999. Before she married him, she converted to Islam in July 1998, and her MyKad was changed by the NRD to acknowledge her conversion. She became known as Siti Fatimah. Only a few months after the marriage Ashanian deserted her, and his whereabouts are now unknown. In May 2006, she applied to Penang's Islamic Affairs Council to declare that she is not a Muslim. Siti Fatimah wanted her MyKad religious status to be officially changed to Buddhist.
She claimed that her conversion to Islam was only a means to get married, and after the failure of her marriage she had gone back to her Buddhist beliefs. She maintained reverence for Buddhist deities such as Kuan Yin and others. On August 11, 2007, Judge Othman Ibrahim Othman ruled at Penang's Syariah High Court that a decision would not be made until December 3. He ruled in the meantime that she should undergo Islamic counseling. As in other such cases, a decision has still not been made."
In Penang state, in northwest Malaysia on Thursday, a Shariah High Court' decided that the 39-year old cake-seller could leave Islam. The court ruled that when Siti married her husband, the official Islamic authorities and her husband had both failed to give her proper guidance on Islam.
The judge, Othman Ibrahim, ruled that "The court is disappointed because MAIPP (Penang Islamic Religious Council) did not act quickly to save the faith of a Muslim and provide a procedure to control and supervise a Muslim convert so that she did not abandon Islam. Without reasonable methods, perhaps more will come to court to renounce Islam."
Othman also criticized the Penang Islamic Religious Council (MAIPP) for failing to attend the court until the proceedings were nearly over, despite MAIPP being issued with a summons and statement of claim.
Judge Othman ordered MAIPP to cancel the certificate that claimed Siti had converted into Islam.
Lawyer Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz of the MAIPP said: "So you can't blame her for her ignorance of the teachings and wanting to convert out."
Siti was pleased, and said: " I want to go to the (Buddhist) temple to pray and give thanks."
Siti had filed her appeal on July 10, 2006, naming MAIP as a defendant. She asserted that she had only converted on July 25, 1998 only to be able to marry her Iranian husband. He had absconded four months after the marriage. Siti claims she still eats pork.
Her lawyer said it was a landmark decision. Some minority groups have said that this was a victory for minority rights, but until Muslims are allowed to leave Islam, just as any other person can leave their religion to convert into Islam, there has been only a lucky result for Siti.
It is of no consolation to Kamariah Ali who is in jail, to Lina Joy, or to Hindu women such as Revathi Massosai who was placed in an Islamic "rehabilitation center", wher she claims she was mentally tortured. It is no consolation for the family of Hindu rubber tapper Marimuthu. His wife, by whom he had six children, was said to be a Muslim. He was told that unless he converted to Islam, he would be prosecuted for "khalwat" - being in close proximity to a person to whom one is neither a relative or marriage partner. His wife has been forced to leave her family.
Until these injustices are addressed, and the racist parts of the constitution (Article 160, section 2) that define all Malays as Muslims, and the amendment of 121 (A) is struck off, there is nothing here to celebrate. The news is good for Siti, but it is a fluke, rather than a basic right. I am reminded of the saying "one swallow does not a summer make".
Siti may not even be out of the woods yet - MAIPP has the right to contest the decision from the state's Syariah High Court. Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz, representing MAIPP, said that his group would be lodging its appeal within 14 days at the Penang Syariah Appeals Court.
Siti had also tried to have the NRD change the religious status on her MyKad identity card from "Muslim" to Buddhist". Judge Othman Ibrahim had refused, stating that his court did have jurisdiction over this matter.
Malaysia's largest trading partner is America. Perhaps the American government should be pressing for Malaysia to allow freedom of religion for all people in Malaysia. As a member of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the Malaysian government has moved further towards Islamism.
In 2007, during the nation's 50th anniversary celebrations of independence (Merdeka), Malaysia's chief justice Ahmad Fairuz suggested that common law should be abolished and replaced with Sharia law.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:47 PM | Comments (0)
Islam: Civilization Clash in Shakespeare's Time - Part Two
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
The Clash of Civilizations In the Time of Shakespeare: Part Two
Part One appeared last week.
All the Ottoman Sultans were descendants of Osman I (1258 - 1326). Around 1300, this ruler united certain of the disparate Turkish tribes (Seljuks) who had originally settled in Anatolia from the 11th century. Osman emerged as a ruthless leader, uniting some of these tribes with force where necessary and establishing a center of power at Bursa near Constantinople.
The heavily-fortified city of Constantinople was held by the Byzantines and in the 15th century the Ottomans became determined to conquer it. Murad II (1421 - 1451) tried unsuccessfully to invade the city in 1423. On May 29, 1453, the city finally fell to the Ottomans, who were led by Mehmet II (1432 - 1481). The conquest of Constantinople has been described as the event that ended the Medieval period.
The Genoese had a trading colony in Constantinople when the city was under Byzantine rule. In 1348, they built a tower which still stands. It is called the Galata tower, after this Genoese colony. In the 15h century it became the home of a detachment of Janissaries. In the 16th century the tower was used to hold prisoners of war. These would be sent to the naval arsenal at Kasimpasa, where they would become galley slaves.
Janissaries
The "new army" (yeni ceri) of Janissaries reflected Ottoman hostility to Christianity. Orhan I, the son of Osman I, who ruled from c. 1324 - 1360, founded the group around 1330. From its inception the main recruits were Christians - either adults who had been forced to convert to Islam, or children of Christians who were abducted as "tributes". After an edict of 1362 by Sultan Murad I (ruled 1360 - 1381), special privileges were offered to this new army, and Turks began to join. The Janissaries became the main standing army of the Ottomans, but Christians continued to be forcibly inducted to its ranks.
In the 15th century, hostage taking became a weapon of control. In 1442 Vlad II the ruler of Wallachia (which includes modern Romania) sent two of his sons, Vlad and Radu as hostages to Sultan Murad II. Vlad was 13 at the time, the elder of the two captives. The boys remained at Adrianople (Edirne). Though Radu chose to stay with his captors, Vlad was freed in 1448. He became Vlad III, ruler of Wallachia. He battled against the Turks, but used against them a method of punishment he had learned from the Ottomans. He was known as Vlad Tepes - Vlad the Impaler. As well as enacting mass-impalements, he was reputed to have once eaten bread soaked in a victim's blood. The legends of Vlad Tepes and his father gave rise to the Dracula myth.
Another young hostage of the Ottoman Turks was George Kastrioti (aka Skanderbeg, Albania's national hero). He and his three brothers had been sent as hostages to Turkey by their father, who was following the orders of Sultan Bayezid I (also called Yildirim, or "lightning"). Skanderbeg converted to Islam, and distinguished himself in the Ottoman army. In 1443, he rebelled against the Ottomans and - as a Christian - he led some three hundred Albanians to fight with the Hungarians against the Turks. For 25 years he fought against the Turks, preventing them from conquering his homeland.
The Janissaries were a well-trained and effective military force. They were generally feared by members of the Turkish citizenry. They would carry long staves. Fynes Moryson was an English traveler who was in Constantinople in 1597. He encountered contempt for being a non-Muslim.
Moryson wrote that once, while walking in the city, "a wild-headed Turke took my hat from my head (being of the fashion of Europe not used there) and having turned it, and long beheld it, he said (to use his rude words) Lend me this vessell to ease my belly therein; and so girning flung it on the dyrtie ground, which I with patience took up".
Moryson on several occasions was robbed by Janissaries, who took his provisions from him. He published his account, called "An Itinerary" in 1617. He noted that long after his return to England, he was still traumatized by the experience.
Thomas Dallam, the organ-maker described in Part One, visited Constantinople at the end of the 16th century. Along the way, he and some others from his ship happened to be stranded for a night in a village on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora. A janissary had been assigned to act as a bodyguard. They stayed in a "darke uncomfortable house". They slept on bare floorboards, while the janissary slept over a trapdoor.
In the night, one of the fifteen men went to the balcony to relieve himself. At dusk, the men had spoken of the snakes of the region. One of the man's garters was hanging loose and the wind blew it against his leg. He yelled that a snake was on him, and the others woke thinking they were being ambushed. The janissary who had been charged to protect them showed none of the courage normally associated with his trade. Hearing the noise, he opened the trapdoor and slipped into the cellar beneath. When the chaos had subsided the janissary was unable to climb out of the cellar and had to be pulled out.
The foreign embassies in Pera, Constantinople, would usually have a small retinue of Janissaries to guard their interests. Between 1555 and 1562, the Flemish ambassador at the Ottoman Sublime Porte (government) was Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. This individual, who would introduce the tulip to Western Europe wrote of Janissaries: "The Turkish state has 12,000 of these troops when the corps is at its full strength. They are scattered through every part of the empire, either to garrison the forts against the enemy, or to protect the Christians and Jews from the violence of the mob. There is no district with any considerable amount of population, no borough or city, which has not a detachment of Janissaries to protect the Christians, Jews, and other helpless people from outrage and wrong."
The subjugated states were obliged to pay jizya tax to the Ottoman government at this time, and alsoto submit quotas of male children, aged 12 to 13, who would become Janissaries. Among some of those sent to Turkey to be trained in warfare, a select few were chosen for the diplomatic service. These individuals, called Ajem Oghlan ("rough lad") would be sent to Constantinople to work in the service of the Sublime Porte.
The Ajem-Oghlan would be chosen for "bodily perfection, muscular strength, and intellectual ability, so far as it could be judged without long testing." Busbecq noted: "The Turks rejoice greatly when they find an exceptional man, as though they had acquired a precious object, and they spare no labor or effort in cultivating him."
From the mid fifteenth century onwards, there were several Janissary revolts. Finally, when these infantry troops were seen as a potential threat to Ottoman rulership, the Janissaries were officially disbanded in 1826.
Galley Slaves And Piracy
During the Renaissance, the main vessels of war in the Mediterranean were galleys. The Venetians and Genoese employed such oared vessels, and the Ottomans used similar vessels. These had sails, but a single tier of oarsmen maneuvered the boats in close combat.
The oarsmen on Christian and Ottoman boats were usually captives, forced to act as slaves. Few individuals who became such slaves would ever be free to write of their experiences.
One such individual was Edward Webb. He published an account of his adventures in 1590 in a book entitled "Ed: Webbe His Travailes: The rare and most wonderfull things which Edw. Webbe, an Englishman borne, hath seene and passed in his troublesome travailes.... Herein is set foorth his extreme slaverie sustained many yeres togither, in the Gallies and wars of the great Turk against the Landes of Persia.....".
Webb was a skilled gunner. His father Richard Webb, he states, was Master Gunner of England in 1554, the year of Edward's birth. Edward Webb was released with a ransom in May 1589 from captivity. His release in Constantinople is a matter of historical record. Webb reported that he had been serving on a ship as a gunner when it was captured. He and his companions were forced to act as a slave oarsman in Turkish galleys, stripped naked and abused.
He wrote that he spent six "yeares in this miserable state, wonderfully beaten and misused every day." He told his captors that he had "good skill in Gunners art" and was released from the galleys. He was still in bondage, and had to serve as a gunner, a conscript in the Turkish army. Webb claimed he had served in campaigns in Syria and Palestine, as well as Russia, Goa in India and even in the land of "Prester John".
This latter detail has led some to doubt the authenticity of parts of his report. Webb included myths of Prester John into his account of his travels. He describes cannibals, headless men and four-headed beasts in Prester John's kingdom. Worse, he recounts that he stroked unicorns in parks in this kingdom, an artistic license that (unless he speaks of rhinos) damages his credibility. Some of his details of Prester John's kingdom became reworked into Shakespeare's Othello (1.3, 128-45).
John Fox was another gunner who became a galley slave. He successfully mounted a rebellion and escape. His tale is told in Richard Hakluyt's vast anthology of travelers' tales, "Voyages...". Fox had set out from Portsmouth, England in 1563. His ship, the Three Half Moons, held 38 men and munitions. It was bound for Spain to trade, but was attacked by "Turks" near Gibraltar and soon overrun.
"the Christians must needs to the galleys, to serve in new offices; and they were no sooner in them, but their garments were pulled over their ears, and torn from their backs, and they set to the oars.".
In winter, many Ottoman galleys were put to shore at Alexandria in Egypt for repairs and "trimming". Near this spot their slave oarsmen were kept in a prison. In 1577, Fox and two other Englishmen were housed among 238 Christian captives, who came from fifteen nations. Fox killed a prison guard and led a revolt that saw the captives escape. They boarded the only galley that had been "trimmed" and fled. Though they were fired upon with cannon, none of the other galleys had masts or sails, and there were no slaves ready to row. Fox and crew escaped to Gallipoli.
From the latter half of the 15th century and into the first part of the 16th, the Ottomans had encouraged piracy. There were four Barbarossa brothers but two became notorious. Aruj (c. 1474 - 1518) was given a position in the Ottoman navy and was given several galleys to command. He began to attack the Italian coast, and also became engaged in conflicts with the Knights of St John.
Aruj gained control of Algiers in August 1516. He killed the Algerian ruler, Selim ben Tumi, either by strangulation with the ruler's turban, or suffocating him in his own steam bath. Aruj was killed by Spanish fighters in 1518, but in 1529, Algiers fell to the Ottomans.
Aruj's role was taken up by his younger brother Khair ad-Din. Algeria became a center for piracy. Last year, Family Security Matters dealt with the subject of the Barbary Corsairs, and their forcible abductions of both sailors and civilians.
In 1571, the Battle of Lepanto was a victory for combined Christian forces against the Ottomans. This was the last major battle involving galleys. The acts of piracy by the Ottomans would continue, and even increased after this. The galleys needed a large crew. A fleet of 200 ships required 20,000 oarsmen. Though galleys began to be phased out, Christian slaves would be used in construction work and other enterprises. The Barbary Corsairs, whose actions were never condemned by their Ottoman overlords, continue to hijack ships, raid village ports and traffic humans until 1815.
In Algeria, four English individuals who had "turned Turk" assisted their masters to build boats that were better suited to sail beyond the confines of the Mediterranean. These men, known as Ward, Bishop, Sakell and Jennings became notorious as traitors. In August 1609 these traitor-pirates' activities were discussed in the court of King James I.
The most feared of these pirates was Captain John Ward, born in Feversham in Kent. As a Muslim he was called Yusuf Reis. He came to piracy late. He was already a convicted pirate when in 1603, aged 50, he was forced into the navy. He deserted, hijacked ships and ended up on the North African (Barbary) coast. He made Tunis the center of his piracy. There Ward had allegedly vowed to "become a foe to all Christians, bee a persecutor of their wealt".
The Dey of Tunis was pleased with Ward's attacks, and gave him a plot of land and an abandoned castle. Ward had started piracy for profit, hoping to become wealthy from seized treasure, but gained greater wealth from kidnapping and trafficking human slaves. Andrew Barker, one of Ward's English captives said Ward's home was "a very stately house, farre more fit for a prince than a pirate." Barker said he had nor seen "any peere in England that beares up his post in more dignitie, nor hath attendants more obsequious."
When Scottish traveler William Lithgow met Ward in Tunis in 1615, he wrote that the pirate lived in a palace and had a retinue that included 15 Englishman. Lithgow related that Ward's home was "a fair palace beautified with rich marble and alabaster stones. With whom I found domestics, some fifteen circumcised English renegades, whose lives and countenances were both alike. Old Ward their master was placable and diverse times in my ten days staying there I dined and supped with him."
"Ward the Pirate" became the subject of a ballad written around 1690.
Slave Raids
In 1551, Suleiman the "Magnificent" ordered Dragut Reis to attack Malta. Malta was under the guardianship of the Knights of St John. The attack upon Malta failed, so Dragut reis turned his attention to the neighboring island of Gozo. A total of 5,000 citizens of Gozo, including women, were taken into slavery.
It is easy to blame the Ottomans for their slave-raids - especially when they were officially trading with the kinsmen of those they kidnapped. Between 1609 and 1616, a total of 466 English vessels were captured and their crews made into slaves. Many were worked to death. These slaves were, if lucky, ransomed. Kidnapped Christians were kept prisoner in Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. In 1640, 3,000 English slaves who were held in Algiers petitioned their government for help. Through the 17th century it was traditional for English churches to hold services for the purposes of fundraising for the ransom of the hostages.
The Christians in the 16th century had also copied the activities of the Ottoman slave-dealers. In Bodrum (formerly Halicarnassus) in southwest Turkey, the Knights of St John (Knights Hospitaller) had a castle. These knights fought against the Turks at Lepanto and earlier at Malta. They had imprisoned Aruj Barbarossa at this castle.
In 1993 excavations at Bodrum castle found the skeletons of 13 galley slaves, still in fetters. These had been Muslims, probably war captives, who had served as galley slaves for the Christians. Their bodies had been unceremoniously thrown in a garbage heap.
The Genoese who captured Muslim prisoners also made them work as slaves on their galleys. According to Michelangelo Dolcino, the Muslim galley slaves would be chained to their benches night and day.
The times were harsh and savage. In June 1565 in a battle at fort St Elmo on the island between Jean de la Valette and Ottoman forces, both sides were uncompromising. The Turkish general Mustapha ordered the wounded Knights of St John to have their hearts torn out. Valette ordered that all Turkish prisoners should be decapitated, and that no more live prisoners should be taken.
The Ottoman Caliphs did nothing to condemn slavery, and grew wealthy through hijackings, kidnap and slavery. In today's climate of moral relativism, people are quick to condemn Western culture and history, yet hypocritically excuse the atrocities of others.
Thomas Dallam noticed that on the Greek island of Chios and others which were under Ottoman rule, how poverty-stricken the inhabitants were, due to their having to pay massive taxes to their overlords. This taxing of non-Muslims is all part of Islamic law. Called jizya, it is described in the Hadith of Bukhari (Book 19, number 4294) thus: "If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them."
Many Muslims who currently complain that the West is "Islamophobic" should seriously re-examine their own history. In 1159, all the Christians in Tunis were given a simple option - "convert or die". They were not offered the opportunity of paying a special jizya tax to keep their faith.
From the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, the jizya tax was enforced in Christian communities under Ottoman rule. Samuel Purchas, who continued to publish the papers in Richard Haklut's possession after the latter's death, published an interesting document.
The document is authored by Edward Brerewood (c.1565-1613) who was the head of Astronomy at Gresham College from 1596 until his death. He states: "But, in all the Turkes Dominion that hee hath in Europe, inclosed after a peninsular figure, betweene Danubius and the Sea, and containing in circuit about 2300 miles (for Moldavia, Walachia, and Transilvania, I reckon not for the parts of his Dominion) namely, from above Buda, on Danubius side, and from Ragusa on the Sea Eastward, to the utmost bounds of Europe, as also in the Iles of the Aegean Sea, Christians are mingled with Mahometans...."
"And in his Dominion of the Turks in Europe, such is notwithstanding the mixture of Mahumetans with Christians, so that the Christians make two third parts at least of the inhabitants: for the Turke, so that the Christians pay him his yeerely tribute (which is one fourth part of their increase, and a Saltanie for every poll) and speake nothing against the Religion and Sect of Mahumet, permitteth them the liberty of their religion."
The Ottoman Caliphate had its faults, as did the earlier civilizations of the West. However, Western culture has not clung to the barbarisms and oppressions of its past. The Islamists who today tell us that the world would be a better place under a Caliphate should really examine that past critically. Do they really want to bring back slavery and to force non-Muslims to convert or be killed unless they pay a tax? As philosopher George Santanya stated: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Adrian Morgan
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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:43 AM | Comments (0)
May 4, 2008
On Genocide, Free Thought and the Healing Profession
The recent events surrounding this latest battle between the anti-jihad blogs stemming from a piece on genocide posted in Gates of Vienna has reminded me again of what I dislike about the psychoanalytic profession. It is not the usual charges that it is not really science, nothing can be agreed upon in the community and that it just a bunch of sophisticated sounding hooey. My objection is that the most important traits to being a good healer such as wisdom, judgment, discernment, compassion and integrity just can't be measured with a string of letters after the name. These traits can't really be taught in a lecture and they aren't necessarily acquired over time. I think there's a very high risk of doing more damage than healing for those who have the credentials, the proof of a high level of training, the aura of intelligence, the respect, but are lacking in any one of the more difficult to measure traits.
My first instruction on the capacity of medical professionals for destruction was when I read about Dr. Joseph Mengele. The most terrifying thing about the Mengele story is that this was a man who was born into a family of wealth and privilege. And yet this soft, comfortable life did not prevent him from being cruel to others. By all accounts, he was a highly intelligent man. He was very well educated. He was a professional healer. And yet none of these things inoculated him against becoming evil. If anyone had the freedom to exercise his options and the ability to recognize what those options were, it should have been Mengele. If anyone should have internalized a sense of compassion and responsibility and understood the important place of ethics in his field it should have been Mengele!
Mengele is the most notorious but he is hardly the only medical doctor directly or indirectly involved in the holocaust. For the several decades preceding the final solution the scientific community, including, and especially, psychiatrists, wrote extensively on eugenics. Most were in full support and there was very little attention to the ethical implications of eugenics. They saw the culling of the diseased and infirmed a way towards a better society. Doctors wrote papers on the best way to kill the infirmed and reduce the population of the inferior races like blacks and Jews. Their favorite sport was to write research papers proving that the Jews were genetically defective.
Did the doctors see what was coming down the pike? Did they realize that they were greasing the wheels of genocide? They at the very least had to know that they were causing damage to the reputation of an already beleaguered people.
Continue reading "On Genocide, Free Thought and the Healing Profession"
Posted by Isabel de Castilla at 5:08 PM | Comments (12)
