Arab Muslims suffer mentally and economically

By Alan Caruba


"For years there has been a rising tide of Islamic radicalism, starting in the Middle East, providing a hospitable environment in which terrorism grew naturally," wrote former Ambassador John Bolton, in a May edition of The Washington Times.

The eruption of the Islamic State (ISIS) has demonstrated how swiftly it has been able to recruit thousands of jihadists to its ranks. The millions it is earning from selling oil on the black market enables it to provide salaries to those recruits. And weapons.

"This radical wave has been spreading throughout northern Africa, into Asia, and now around the world," warned Bolton.

There is a reason why there is such a supply of recruits to the self-proclaimed caliphate that controls a large swath of northern Syria and Iraq. Jim Clifton, CEO of the Gallup polling organization, says. "The Middle East has collapsed into a state of chaos, conflict, and suffering that was unimaginable and unforeseen just four years ago."

Clifton took note of the incident that triggered the "Arab Spring" in which dictators were deposed in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. "Food vendor Mohammed Bouazis set himself on fire. Bouazizi didn't hell 'Death to America' or 'U.S. out of Iraq' or 'Allahu Akbar.' He cried out, 'I just want to work!'"

No Customers

Clifton said, "Here's an explanation you don't hear very often that is likely the root cause of the entire meltdown in the Middle East: no customers."

He noted that "When a society fails to create jobs, as in countries throughout the Middle East, young men get up each morning with zero hope for a great life, zero hope to get married (you usually can't marry in Middle Eastern society without a real job), zero dream of a family, zero dignity, and zero self-respect."

"What millions of young Middle Eastern males wake up to every morning is unimaginable humiliation, indignation, desperation, and a form of dangerous boredom." Clifton noted that "There are over 100 million young people aged 18 to 29 in the Middle East/North Africa area – meaning there are probably 50 million young males."

That is more than enough to recruit a huge army of holy warriors who find meaning in their lives by joining ISIS and other groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria. We are witnessing a war between Sunnis and Shiites, and Clifton warned that "Western leaders prefer to operate through delusional wishful-thinking policies."

I received an account by an unidentified Lockheed employee who cited research by a Danish psychologist, Nikolai Sennels as published in 2010. The Lockheed employee had been in Saudi Arabia on three assignments and noted that Saudi pilot trainees often had "dim memories and had to be constantly reminded of things that were told to them the day before." They also had very limited night vision, "even on the brightest of moonlit nights."

The larger problem as noted by Sennels was attributed to 1,400 years of inbreeding, the Muslim practice of marrying first cousins; it has been in effect for fifty generations and is based on the teachings of Muhammad, their revered prophet, and the prohibition on marrying outside of the Muslim faith.

Sennels noted that "The consequences for offspring of consanguineous marriages are unpleasantly clear: Death, low intelligence or even mental retardation, handicaps and diseases often leading to a slow and painful death."

"Other consequences are: Limited social skills and understanding, limited ability to manage education and work procedures and painful treatment procedures. The negative cognitive consequences also influence the executive functions. The impairment of concentration and emotional control most often leads to anti-social behavior."

"The economic costs and consequences for society of inbreeding," said Sennels, "are of course secondary to the reality of human suffering."

Sennels concluded that "A lower IQ, together with a religion that denounces critical thinking, surely makes it harder for many Muslims to have success in our high-tech knowledge societies." In the case of the United States, He noted "One study based on 300,000 Americans shows that the majority of Muslims in the USA have a lower income, are less education, and have worse jobs than the population as a whole."

There are many ramifications of the inbreeding that Judeo-Christian faiths prohibited from their inception. It explains in many ways why it is wrong to believe that Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere "think" in the same fashion as those in the West.

It permits them to believe that beheading westerners is a way to impose their will by videotaping this ancient, barbaric practice. It encourages the belief that all non-Muslims are worthy of death.

The flow of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa into Europe has created a massive problem for its native population. In Great Britain measures are being taken to crack down on those who go abroad to become jihadists and return.

According to Wikipedia: "The Muslim population of the U.S. increased dramatically in the 20th century, with much of the growth driven by a comparatively high birth rate and immigrant communities of mainly Arab and South Asian descent. About 72% of American Muslims are immigrants or "second generation." In 2005, more people from Islamic countries became legal permanent United States residents – nearly 96,000 – than in any year in the previous two decades. In 2009, more than 115,000 Muslims became legal residents of the United States." The other element of the American Muslim population is African-Americans who have been converting to Islam.

Westerners are perplexed by the rise of fanatical Islam, but the answer comes down to a lack of entrepreneurism in Middle Eastern and other Muslim nations, combined with the problems resulting from generations of inbreeding.

It still means war at some point and for some time to come.

© Alan Caruba