Awesome autobiography and cultural analysis
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Now They Call Me Infidel is a gripping narrative of the author's journey from the upper echelons of Egyptian society to a staunch defender of the West. Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, the book is part autobiography and part analysis of a severely dysfunctional culture. Unlike Ayaan, Darwish is not against the Muslim religion per se, focusing mainly on the destructive aspects of polygamy. This primitive practice harms women, men, the family and ultimately the whole culture.
She further examines the nature of modern Arab society showing how the ruling classes exploit religion in order to advance their oppressive agendas. Darwish confirms the existence of the pervasive Antisemitism that Hirsi Ali observed as a child in places like Saudi-Arabia. For examples of the Anti-Jewish hatred in the mainstream Arab press, please consult Peace: The Arabian Caricature of Anti-Semitic Imagery by Arieh Stav.
On a 2001 visit to Egypt, she noticed the illiteracy, anger and unemployment amongst ordinary people. They blame all of these problems on Israel, obviously brainwashed by the Egyptian media. There is a lack of self-criticism in Arab culture - a taboo against criticizing the family, religion or their leaders. But there's no denying that the constant drumbeat of propaganda against Israel and the USA emanates from, and has totally corrupted the educated segments of Egyptian society.
Observing how many Muslim immigrants do not appreciate Western values, the author warms against radicalism on campus and in mosques funded by petrodollars. Long ago she became aware of the two-faced behavior of Islamist radicals in the West: they speak soothing words to the clueless Western mass media whilst spewing forth hatred in their sermons and the Arab media. To Darwish, the terrorists are pirates who are intent on robbing Western democracies of their soul. She dismisses the misleading portrayal of Jihad as a "personal spiritual struggle," stating bluntly that it has always meant a religious holy war against non-Muslims.
There are many beautiful moments in the book, like her account of experiencing Christian worship for the first time, and her moving description of a visit to Israel and how it altered her perception of that brave little country. And this is the most important message of the book; for Nonie, the most valuable reward of moving to the USA was religious freedom and learning to love: "I had turned from a culture of hatred to one of love." May she be blessed.
Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabriel
The Caged Virgin by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Force Of Reason by Oriana Fallaci
Light In The Shadow Of Jihad by Ravi Zacharias
Londonistan by Melanie Phillips
Menace in Europe by Claire Berlinski
Unholy Alliance by David Horowitz
While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer
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A Celtic view
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This is a book for the empathic, rational and experiential thinker who sees life as it really is and not, as the ill-informed 'extremism to extremism' editorial review conveys (amazon.com) - thinks it is. A simple grasp of facts can do the business of rectifying the tiresome distortions endemic of the political mentality behind the above mentioned 'review.' Suffice to note the now routine absurd moral equivalence made by today's left between murderous terrorism on the one hand and - on this occasion - a modestly dressed, self-effacing lady armed only with pen and paper on the other. The 'reviewer' might have had at least the decency to credit Nonie Darwish's integrity if not her empirically formed experience.
I'm not an American but a Scot, and like many other Scots plus Americans, Canadians, English, Welsh, Irish, French, Spanish, Japanese, South Africans, Australians,Egyptians,Indians,Iraquis,Israelis, Zimbabwians, Koreans, and Itallians etc etc etc, I'm concerned about the radical Islamic threat to the world. It's intentions are as plain as the midnight sun to anybody mercilessly ravaged by common sense. Before moving to the safety of the West - the irksome and threatening pathology of the left notwithstanding - Nonie Darwish had scaled a wall thirty years high. On her way up she was obliged to negotiate the sheer faces of government and religious imputed hatred towards a rightfully restored Israel, a default hostility also extended to the West. Her innate instincts were her footholds secured by a steely resolve to resist and reject this bitter cup with its poisonous dregs that not only claimed reason, but also the life of Nonie's beloved father - and thousands of her people too. It is a tragedy that her empiricism should be brought into question by an intellectually unhinged post-modernist pathology. But then again, what's new behind this Chardonnay soaked deconstructionist psyche? It is this reasonless school of thought's morally liberalising foreign policy that the present extremism abhors and seeks to destroy. Had Nonie been a denim clad, cropped haired, gun totting Che type of extremist bent on imposing an alien ideology on society, that would have been fine, but she is not: she towers above such vulgarity. As with that other pen equipped 'extremist', Solzhenitsyn and his gaol experience under socialist oppression, Nonie is a virtuous individual with her feet firmly anchored to the ground of social and political reality. In response to the atrocity of 9/11 she took the decision to go public. For our good, she removed her finger from the hole in the wall that she had scaled in order to give us a glimpse of what the West faces if it continued(s) in its slumbers. Forget the sentimentally driven, experientially detached drivel of Chomsky et all - his ilk and their gullible sycophants despise the hand that feeds and protects them - Nonie's thematically focussed warning should be standard fayre for any decent college and public bookshelf. Its salient points should be par for everyday text, radio and television dissemination. Without her voice and also that of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others sounding the same warning bell, we are simply mushrooms shoved under the bed fed only by the bias dung of media outlets like CNN, the BBC, and their elitist lackeys. Nonie Darwish's account comes from the heart as well as mind. It is well structured, balanced, thematically progressive yet sporadically interspersed with rays of sunshine that ensure her recollections do not descend into self-indulgence darkness as is the danger with biographical genre.
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