The Redhunter

Book Summary

The Daughter of a Shahid

Darwish was born in 1948 into a solidly middle-class Egyptian family. Her father, Colonel Mustafa Hafez, was an intelligence officer in the army. Shortly after the coup that deposed King Farouk in 1948, President Nasser assigned him to Gaza with orders to organize the Palestinians into a fighting force and "drive the Jews into the sea."

It was clear to Darwish at an early age that the Arabs wanted the Palestinians to live in poverty and squalor in their camps, the better to motivate them to fight "the Zionists." The last thing they wanted was for the Palestinians to establish their own state in Gaza or elsewhere. Indeed, Palestinians were denounced by other Arabs if their zeal to destroy the hated Zionist enemy was not seen to be ardent enough.

In 1956 the Israelis killed her father, who had been organizing raids into their country. He was immediately proclaimed a shahid and the highest honors were bestowed upon his family. As of the writing of her book in 2006 there was still a high school named after her father in Gaza.

Her mother moved the family to Cairo shortly after her father's death. Realizing the value of a good education, she sent the children to St Clare's College, a British Catholic school run by English nuns. Despite the name, it was K-12. Also despite the Catholic nature of the school, half the students were Muslim, no doubt because the education offered by the school was superior to the public schools. Darwish recalls that unlike the public schools, hatred of the Jews was never taught at St. Clare's.

The Primacy of Jihad

One of the primary themes of the book is the pervasiveness of the call to jihad and the exhortation to destroy Israel. It was part of every subject in school. It was everywhere in the media. The idea that there could be any sort of peace with Israel was unthinkable. Jews were not simply the enemy, they were subhuman, "pigs and apes," if not worse. Every day the students at her school were required to write anti-Jewish poetry and stories, and express their desire to become a shahid, or martyr.

Darwish makes clear that the term "jihad" means violent holy war, something that is crystal clear to all Muslims. Further, it is a call to fight all infidels, not just Israelis, the objective of which is to extend the realm of Islamic control over the entire world. It is only in the West that the lies start, and we are told that it means something like "peaceful internal struggle" or some such nonsense.

A Woman's Plight

Another theme in the book is how badly women are treated in Islamic countries. Like in all Islamic countries, Egyptian societies are organized around the clan, and as such there is no social structure or support services at all available apart from it.

Poligamy was practiced in Egypt, and it was extremely harmful to social cohesion, to say nothing of it's effects on men and women. Married women never trusted non-married women, and when a woman got married she usually cut off all contact with any friends were were not married.

There are several types of polygamous marriages, from overt to the secret, or urfi marriage. Another type is the mutaa, or "pleasure marrage," which is literally a legalized one-night stand. As you might imagine, all of these are destructive to society and harmful to the people involved. There is simply no trust in marriage when such things are permissable.

Of course, there were a million restrictions that are unthinkable in Western countries. No dating, no partying, no social mixing between men or women was permitted at all. Women could not go out of the house without a male escort. Of course sex outside of marriage was unthinkable. Marriages were all arranged, and the concept of romantic love unheard of.

A woman's reputation was everything, and in typical Islamic hypocritical fashion, did not apply to men. Women could not so much as smile at a man (or girls to boys, it started very early) or they would be accused of being "loose." On the other hand, it was quite acceptable for men to grope women on a crowded bus. Men could be promiscuous, for women it was forbidden.

The Effects on Men

The repression of women and double standards described above are also harmful to men. Poligamy reduces the number of women available for marriage. Complete repression of sexuality and sensuality in society franky drives young men into the hands of extremists. Reality is replaced with the promise of 72 virgins if one dies in jihad. Given their lot in life, it seems a good deal, and one they're promised every Friday at the mosque.

It it considered good and normal for superiors to abuse their employees through rude and brutal treatment. Young men are by definition low on the hierarchy, and are the recipients of much ill-treatment. It is part of human nature that many will react by coming home from their jobs and take out their frustrations by beating their wife (if they are lucky enough to have one) and children.

A Young Woman

Through the adroit use of several maneuvers within her family, Darwish managed to avoid the fate that befell many of her friends, the arranged marriage. As such she left home single and went into the job market.

Her first job was working as an editor, translator, and censor for the Middle East News Agency. As censor she was by definition able to see information that the public in Egypt never saw. As part of her duties she also traveled to several foreign countries. That, coupled with her knowledge of English led her to realize that there was a lot more to the world than what she had been told all her life, to say the least.

As part of the Camp David Accords signed in 1978, Egypt got the Sinai back, which it had lost to Israel in the 1967 war. As with many Egyptians, she was amazed at how the Israelis had developed the area economically in that short time. It completely changed their perceptions of the area, which they had assumed was only a wasteland. It was also one of several events which led Darwish to question what she had been told about Israel and Jewish people.

Coming to America

In November of 1978 Darwish moved to the United States. Egypt and the United States had gradually been establishing closer ties, and her boyfriend had moved to California to live with his brother and cousins.. Between that and the desire to get away from the totalitarian control of the Egyptian state and society, she went to California to join him.

Describing herself as a naturally outgoing and open person who questioned authority and existing social arrangements, the experience of America provided a sharp contrast with her life in Egypt. Americans would talk about almost anything with anyone, constrained by few of the inhibitions so typical of Arab and Muslim society. A women talking openly about anything in Egypt was seen by the man as an invitation to sex, in America it was just two people talking. In Egypt honesty in everyday life was seen as naive, in the West it is considered a virtue. Class and sex provide few if any barriers. As such, she found that her personality fit more with the West than the Middle East.

However, many Egyptians and Arabs she met in the United States felt quite alienated. Far from accepting American society, the rebelled by becoming more Islamist. Women who would never wear a veil or headscarf in their home countries put them on here. Men who never went to a mosque or grew a beard did so in America. While Darwish found living in America as a liberation from radical Islam, many of her fellow Muslims determined to bring a radical version of their faith here.

Islamism in the United States

The paradox of Middle Eastern Muslim societies is that although Islam is dominant, the vast majority of the people are quite ignorant of it's details. Illiteracy is high, so few have read the Koran,and fewer still understand it. As such, most people only know what the Imams have told them. Further, although everyone is a Muslim, it is often in name only, as many do not go to mosque or pray regularly. It is a situation similar to the West in the Middle Ages.

Darwish and her family were themselves not regular mosque goers. They decided to attend a service only when a friend from Egypt came to visit. To their surprise and horror the mosque turned out to be quite radical and the experience was quite bad. This opened her eyes to the pervasive influence of Islamist ideology in the United States. Upon doing some research, she found that many of these mosques were funded by Saudi Arabia.

To be sure, most Muslims in America blend in happily and want no part of radicalism. The problem is that they are intimidated into silence, and too many mosques are controlled by radicals. To avoid these influences, and avoid being denounced, many of them simply choose to worship at home, including Darwish and her family. Her experience at the mosque began a move by her away from Islam.

All of this builds a process whereby Islamists are trying to undermine the West and impose their values on us. As one prominent Muslim leader said, "Thanks to your democratic laws we will invade you, thanks to our religious laws we will dominate you."

There is much doubletalk from Islamist Muslims. An obvious case discussed above are the lies about the definition of jihad. More subtle is when they say they're against terrorism but go on to express sympathy for groups such as Fatah and Hamas, or refuse to denounce any Islamic terrorist group by name. Another tactic is to say one thing in English to Western audiences, and another in Arabic to Muslims.

Second Marriage And A New Life

For reasons not entirely clear, Darwish divorced her husband in 1987. Whatever the causes, she stresses that she maintains good relations with him and his family and taht her main goal was to be a good mother to her children. in 1991 she married again to a man who she describes as politically very liberal who was born and raised in Berkeley, California. He was not at all religious.

One day she saw a pastor on the TV and liked the message. The basis of his sermon was 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

She found this quite inspiring and different from what she had heard in Islam, it containing none of the "destroy the infidels' rhetoric she had heard as a child, and decided to visit a local church. She liked the message of tolerance. It is not entirely clear if she became a Christian per se, but describes it as a "cataclysmic" event and says that "I had turned from a culture of hatred to one of love."

A Visit To Egypt

Over the years Darwish had kept in contact with her family back in Egypt. In 1994 her brother fell ill and they took him to a hospital in Israel. He lived, and her mother regaled Darwish with tales of the Israeli hospital the contradicted everything she had heard about the way Israelis behaved. This incident started a process that led her to change her view of the Jewish state.

In 2001 Darwish and her family went to Egypt to see her relatives, arriving back in the United States on September 10. What she found shocked her. The nation had become far more Islamist than when she had lived their previously. Many more women now were veiled while in public. Men were more radical in their religious views. Anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment was at an all-time high.

Speaking with people, she found their attitude was that the problems in Egypt and other Muslim countries were entirely the fault of the West and Israel. Few if any were able to look inward and say that they bore some of the responsibility themselves. Paradoxically, though, many of these same people wanted to go live in the West for it's economic benefits and political freedoms.

In what may seem strange to Westerners, the veil has become the new identity symbol for Muslim women, both in the West and in traditionally Muslim lands. They are taught from a young age that they are nothing but sex symbols to men, who are not expected to control their desires when confronted by a woman. Thus, to preserve modesty, the entire onus is on her to hide herself from men.

Politically, the Muslim Brotherhood exerted more influence than ever before. While previously it had been marginalized, it was now gaining in popularity. Saudi money was also flowing into Egyptian mosques, ensuring that the most radical messages where the only ones heard.

The entire experience was a bad one for Darwish and she and her daughters were happy to leave. It solidified her decision to live in the United States, something her daughters were quite thankful for as well.

The Reaction to 9/11

To Darwish, it was obvious that yes, it was al Qaeda who had attacked us. But when she called her friends in Egypt she was shocked. To a person they were convinced that it was an Israeli plot and that there was no way Muslims would do such a thing.

The situation was little better when she called her Arab friends living in America. Although most of them acknowledged the reality of who was behind the attacks, none were willing to speak out. Some even repeated the lie that "3,000 Jews who worked in the World Trade Center did not show up for work that day."

Most Muslims are not terrorists and say that they oppose it. However, this "silent majority" will not take a stand, publicly or privately, against the agents of jihad. Everything they have been taught since childhood was jihad, jihad, jihad, with Islam victorious against the infidels. Worse, they are taught the culture of victimhood, that Muslims are constantly persecuted by the infidels.

As such, they will denounce terrorism out of one side of their mouth while providing a "but" with the other. They usually refuse to criticize any terrorist group except for al Qaeda by name. If Israel or any non-Muslim nation kills Muslims it is instantly condemned, while the worst by Muslims is ignored or excused.

Speaking Out

It was at this point that Darwish decided to speak out and write herself. Her first articles appeared in Republican Women's Club publications. One of the first was "The Daughter of a "Shahid" Speaks out for Change" She soon received invitations to speak. Because there were so few Muslims willing to issue more than a few rote statements condemning terrorism, Darwish soon found herself in demand.

In the past few years she has spent time speaking in numerous forums; colleges and universities, on television, and before private groups. She has written many articles and this book in an attempt to get her message out.

One of the things that shocked Darwish is how radical Muslims have become on American college campuses, even by Egyptian standards. Bearded men and veiled women are becoming the norm, all with a chip on their shoulder and attitude to boot. Muslim student groups refuse to label Hamas a terrorist group, and openly say that Israel should not exist. Yet at the same time they insist that Islam is a "religion of peace."

As mentioned earlier, one of the PR ploys of radical Islam, Islam in general, really, is to claim that the word "jihad" means "peaceful inner struggle" and all that business about holy war is a relic of the past. Nothing could be farther from the truth, she says. Everyone in the Middle East knows that "jihad" means "holy war against the infidels to spread the faith." It's only in the West that this new definition is heard.

Another misconception is that jihad is only supported by a few Muslims who operate at the fringes. The truth is that such philosophy is widely accepted, even if most Muslims do not actively participate. The problem, in other words, is larger than we have been led to believe.

My Take

Her take on Islamic society is confirmed in whole or in part by such scholars and writers as Walid Phares, Andy McCarthy, Steve Emerson, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Bernard Lewis, most of whose work has been used on this blog.

This said, I did not try to verify individual details about the book. And Darwish is clear that she is not a scholar, nor is this meant to be a scholarly book. It is one person's lifelong observations.

It's understandable that Darwish and others like her are portrayed as evil hatemongers by many Muslim groups. After all, they don't want their agenda's exposed. What's more perplexing is that so often the liberal-left often takes this line. Muslims have managed to get themselves portrayed as "victims," and so Islam escapes the scrutiny reserved for Christianity. It's ironic because almost all that liberals claim to stand for is antithetical to just about everything in Islam.

Saying that "only ten percent of Muslims are radicals" isn't really true, and more than that misses the point. Islam and Muslim societies are under the domination of the jihadists, and even many or most moderates hold opinions that are shocking to most Westerners. Most reform minded Muslims are afraid to speak out not only because they'll be attacked, perhaps violently, by other Muslims, but because they know that they will get little support from Westerners. The message of this book is that Islam as practiced today is antithetical to Western values, and if it is to change we need to support people like Nonie Darwish. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

The last chapter or two tend to read like a newspaper editorial, which is perhaps expected but most of her recommendations are by this point predictable. Perhaps though I only see it this way because I've read so much on this subject.

Otherwise, this is a reasonably good book and is recommended to everyone who wants to understand the realities of Egyptian society this past half century, as well as an insight into Muslims in the United States.