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Achilles’ Heels, or Am I Being a Heel?
[Updated upon considering some comments. Deletions noted by strike-through; italics annotate additions.]
The conservative media space, social and otherwise, is abuzz with another woman of the left speaking truth we wish to hear to the power of Big Media. Lara Logan is a woman of immense physical courage and moral courage. She has spoken hard truths to real power. She is a real, old-fashioned reporter. Kudos to Lara Logan are warranted. And. Lara Logan is human, like all of us, and we may choose to overlook parts of her humanity that complicate our preferred narrative.
At the height of the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood drove the Egyptian military’s geriatric President Hosni Mubarak from office with massive street protests, as a prelude to parliamentary election victory for the original Islamist movement. Lara Logan led an unarmed reporting team into a large Egyptian public square to capture the people’s story. The crowd of men turned into a mob, gang-raped, and nearly tore her limb-from-limb with their bare hands.
Anyone who paid attention to the news over the past decade probably vaguely recalled this story. If you were not a hardcore leftist or Obama supporter, you likely shook your head at a woman walking uncovered, and at night, into a massive crowd of Muslim men in the Middle East. Listening to the three-hour-long Mike Drop podcast is inspiring and excruciating. It is also expletive-laced, which is why I am not embedding the podcast video.
I did learn, from the long-form interview, of her many years spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. She was very wise to the dangers of war zones. Here is a piece Logan did on Afghanistan in 2008, after spending a month in a small combat outpost. “Reflections from Afghanistan,” is her most recent report, in 2018. No illusions, real reporting with calculated risks.
I listened to the entire podcast and then watched the “60 Minutes” episode where she talked about the sexual attack by the mob. This is worth your watching or re-watching. It, too, is not comfortable viewing.
The two accounts, by the same person of the same event, are separated by seven-plus years. Listen closely, and you will find Lara Logan’s story changed an important detail.
The “60 Minutes” piece did not assign clear blame for the attack on any faction. The narrator said we may never know if the regime directed the attack or if it was just a criminal mob. Left out was the possibility that the mob did not see themselves as criminal. Yet, the report then disclosed the terrible truth that Egyptian women regularly face sexual violence. Indeed Lara Logan says: “I had no idea it was so endemic…” This was an experienced war correspondent, with many years in the region, but she and her US-based team had “no idea” of this particular threat.
Now, years later, Lara Logan either has evidence not introduced or needs to protect herself her psyche by asserting the attackers were agents of the fallen regime. No mention now of the fact that what happened to her was acceptable in the new Muslim Brotherhood regime, which the crowd was celebrating. To be an objective reporter now would mean reporting on her hopeful beliefs putting her into the position she was somehow unaware ordinary Egyptian women feared.
Or, perhaps we are seeing another instance of how our memories change over time. As another author wrote in “Renovating Memories“:
Scientists now tell us that every time we pull a memory out of long-term storage, we then re-write it, and in this rewriting, it may get changed. This may play into some instances of what has come to be known as the Mandela Effect.
It is entirely possible that Logan’s memory now is that the military regime’s internal security service was culpable. This may well be objectively true. It is also, sadly, still true that women are at great danger of sexual violence in Egypt, and other countries in the region, outside of the protection of male relatives, when those male relatives see an attack on their women as a deadly insult to their honor.
Indeed, you will hear that dynamic play out in Logan’s description of the mob’s attack. Her first moment of safety came when the mob surged with her against a group of Egyptian women, covered from head to toe. One of these women wrapped her arms around Lara Logan. A handful of men, who were standing around their women, became her temporary protectors, until the military beat their way through the mob with riot batons and extracted her and her crew.
We have all remarked, or nodded in agreement, on the dangerous naivety of white Western travelers biking or trekking through very bad places. Remember “Young, Blonde, Scandinavian Women Camp in Morocco, With Predictable Results?” What about “In a World with No Evil, You Can Do No Wrong?” We are all quite clear on the lethal self-delusion in these cases.
In the midst of our celebration, it is worth remembering we are all imperfect vessels, with tragic flaws, Achilles heels, blind spots. Lara Logan has spoken truth, or what we want to hear, about major media, so we are avoiding raising the apparent continuing blind spot. Yet, the assignment of definitive blame to the military internal security service is an attack on the legitimacy of the current Egyptian president, who has done more for real reform of Islam, to the eventual benefit of women and religious minorities, than any other majority-Muslim nation’s leader since, perhaps Ataturk.
And. It is entirely plausible that the same security forces that now keep a real reformer alive in the presidency of Egypt also directed the instigation of the attack that conservatives saw as revealing the real nature of the Arab Spring. Now, how you sort through all those cross-cutting pressures in this fallen world? Or is asking these issues terribly impolite, am I being a heel?
Published in Journalism
@jackhendrix, nobody here has suggested that all Muslims, or even a majority of them, are rapists, etc. And while some percentage of them truly believe what the Koran says, the ones we encounter are also aware that they live in countries where Western law prevails, not Sharia. Therefore, they are not free to follow all the dictates of the religion.
But the real point of this post is that, unless you yourself have read the Koran, then you are debating from a position of weakness. You don’t have to read the whole thing to gain a solid understanding. Read Surah 1 to 5, 9 and 10. Feel free to read the rest, but in terms of Muslim beliefs and practices, they’re pretty much established there.
I can’t tell you the number of times that somebody has endeavored to tell me what the Christian Bible says, when it turns out that the person has never actually read the Bible.
“I know some very nice Muslims.” Hey, I do too. They live in the United States of America. In many ways they are indistinguishable from Christian, Jewish, and non-religious Americans. However, I have also traveled fairly extensively in the Middle East. In the countries I traveled in Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan there are many very nice Muslim men, urbane, civilized, considerate to women, etc. However, they are not in the majority by a long shot, but they are most likely to be the ones that you, as a westerner, will meet. It saddens me that they would be painted with the same brush as their less civilized co-religionists, but that is life.
I don’t know enough about Lara Logan to judge what she knew or didn’t know about the rape culture of Egypt. It is very likely that the people who she had contact with in the area were largely the type you and I might rub elbows with in a restaurant or bar in Cairo. She was a journalist, after all. Journalists, like other privileged professions are always shocked, as was Daniel Pearl, when the people he is attempting to interview turn out to be less polite and sensitive than he was used to. Lara was probably very lucky to come away from her experience in better shape than Daniel Pearl did. Being naive can sometimes be a fatal flaw.
In terms of her current stance on the media, I am impressed. Few have been willing to stand up against the patent dishonesty of the MSM. This could well be a career decision. No matter how thick her skin might be, the stream of invective she is facing from her former colleagues cannot be pleasant, and no one can completely immunize herself from the kind of barrage she is facing from allegedly civilized men. She has a lot guts, and she deserves to be honored for doing what she is doing. I really don’t believe that what happened in the streets of Cairo and how she reported it in any way diminishes her credibility in what she is saying now.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills! The literal text was muslims do what Muslims do – rape kill maim – etc. Perhaps it is redacted now.
Again, I am not attacking the speaker and did not infer a mental state. You and AZ Pat are. You are probably right the commentor did not mean all Muslims rape and kill. But that is not what the text said.
And again, have your debate about Islam and it’s adherents. I’m not here to defend all one billion of them, though something like 3.5 million live here and most presumably are fine citizens and I’m happy to call many my friends.
Oh, and the book was better but I’m a PK Dick partisan.
Yeah. Hyperbole is not what the text says. Sarcasm is not what the text says. Metaphor and allegory are not what the text says. Jokes are usually not what the text says.
We’ve known this since high school, if not earlier. I don’t mean in English class. I mean in ordinary talking.
“Who was at the football game last night?” “Everybody!” Well, no, obviously not everybody in the world. It’s hyperbole, understood to mean a heavy attendance.
You took my last piece of pizza. “I’m gonna kill you!” Well, no, obviously not. It’s an expression indicating displeasure, and often, using the expression that would be most serious if taken literally actually is an indication that you’re not particularly annoyed.
Of course it’s complicated. But I doubt that you insist on literalism everywhere. It would certainly eliminate just about all humor.
Yeesh.
Who commits rapes and murders? Muslims!
Funny joke.
Maybe this is a line drawing problem. Tell me where you see it?
You continue to take things out of context. I am going to disengage. It does not appear that you want to have a meaningful discourse.
In fact, I am pretty convinced that you know that I’ve exposed your unreasonable reaction, and are now in full defensive mode. I hope you can pull out of it.
@jackhendrix, it appears to me that you are reacting strongly to something that was not said or even implied. My comment above was the result of my interpretation of your words.
Please, first, read the Koran, as I mentioned above. Another excellent book would be: Bernard Lewis, The Middle East – A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, 1995, Scribner, NYNY
I don’t think you can truly understand Christianity based on reading the Bible. I’ll go further. For most of the history of Christianity believers were discouraged from reading the bible. It was written in Latin and Greek and scholars were supposed to interpret it for you.
It is currently written in English and I have read it, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. I don’t understand either one of them, so leave it to iWe and the other Jews to interpret the Hebrew Bible and the Christians on Ricochet to explain their versions of the New Testament.
Clearly Jack Hendrix is not alone in his assessment. Hence comment #8’s ‘CoC Violation’ notice.
So: no Jack, you have not taken crazy pills.
The comment is pretty crazy in its assumptions and (imho) arrogant in its conclusions – which is what “telling a woman that she doesn’t understand her own experience of assault, here let me tell her what it really means from my arm chair” boils down to. I think it made (and still makes) Ricochet look like the home of a bunch of ignorant conspiracy nuts. Hence the CoC violation?
That’s fair enough, but in fact Muslims are expected to not only read the Koran but they are encouraged to memorize it.
I appreciate the first person assessment. It certainly accords with her body of work.
Fully concur.
Read it, found it persuasive. In fact it’s not the only Lewis I’ve read. I find his general thesis about the political fusion in the genesis of Islam compelling. I’ve read other books on the rise of Islam. That’s not the issue.
But I’m done. As in Gaslight, I guess I am crazy. Though I would be up for expulsion or censure and would having trouble being admitted to the bar if I made the statement I’m reacting to in an professional/academic setting.
@jackhendrix:
-I’m retired military.
-I have extensive travel experience through the Middle East. I define “travel” as “lived there for a while.” So, never stationed there (except for year-long tours in Iraq), but did temporary duty (TDY) there for periods that I’d have to rotate back to CONUS to “reset the clock.” You can’t stay TDY for more than 180 days, so every now and again you rotate home for a week-ish conjugal visit with your beloved, then rotate back with your clock “reset.” Pure chicanery, but that’s on DoD not me.
-I’m a qualified (not current) Army linguist in both Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian dialect.
Arab Muslims rape and murder. And maim. It is embedded in the culture.
They are also a butt-pirate culture. The rape is not just man on woman. Man rape in many military and police organizations is used as a form of discipline. A guy I worked closely with in one of the Emirates referred to it as disciplining troops “the desert way.”
I’m glad you know good, honorable muslims. I’m glad they have earned your respect. I have no words for how awful Arab muslim culture is in the Middle East.
Oustanding post – and thank you Clifford for the links and additional information that I did not know.
Now, @bossmongo – you know I’m your number one fan, but I have to ask: do you think what you were doing in the ME affected your view of their culture? iow, whether the people and situations your job brought you into contact with may have skewed your view?
I’ve never lived in the ME, my experience is limited to visiting relatives in Dubai (where they inhabit an Indian social bubble – though they’ve happily inhabited it for > 30 years) which I enjoyed. I don’t pretend I saw Dubai’s dark side, but most tourists to the US don’t see its dark side either. India’s darker side (all its sides, actually) is more inevitably public, but foreigners who visit India for police training and foreigners who visit India to stay at an ashram are going to come away with different impressions and insights – and they may all be valid?
@zafar: This comment is on point, little brother. My perceptions maybe are skewed. And let me add that you’re input and commentary here on Ricochet are a primary contributor to why I’ve scoped my comments down to “Arab muslims in the Middle East.”
But, while the jobs I was doing might’ve skewed my view, I was usually working with the (purported) best–security forces and politicians–and the worst. There was a yin-yang balance in their depravity.
Lara Logan reminds me or another veteran journalist Sharyl Attkisson (Full Measure). They both refuse to stop doing real journalism and so they were fired by CBS. And Sharyl will never anchor CNN again either because she is a journalist. I like them both.
Thank you! And equivalent recalibrating re the US military from my side, fwiw.
The ME must be very different from India. Our Armed Forces are pretty solid, but our politicians are usually the absolute worst of society. Truly awful human beings.
I really appreciate your view which I consider to be an expert opinion. As I said earlier, I no longer have the spirit to debate what is or is not a comment that reduces the human experiences of one billion people to three or four adjectives.
Let us be honest here, my comment was moderated not because I violated the CoC, but because Jack Hendrix wanted it to happen. What I said about islam is the truth. I was talking about a fake religion and it’s teachings. I don’t believe being black or Hispanic is a religion. Some Jews practice Judaism, some don’t, but Jews come in all skin colors, from many different countries. Jews love their G-d, love their neighbors and obey the 10 commandants, for the most part. Islam proclaims, death to America, death to Jews, and death to gays, death to anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
William Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536 for translating the Bible into English. The church controlled the pious peasants, most of whom were barely literate and certainly knew no Latin or Greek, through the priests who interpreted the Bible as they saw fit. Interestingly, the King James Bible of today is 90% Tyndale.
I have found the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures to be very readable. I was raised on the King James, and I still love the poetry of it, but sometimes I just want to fully grasp what I am reading, and for that The NWT is really excellent.
I am more partial to the New American Standard, switched after having read the NIV for a long long time. The most hilarious is The Message.
I find this to be true in my experience as well.
Just begs for some elaboration…please.
Much of the Middle East/”Muslim World” today is also illiterate, and they rely on often-very-radical imams to tell them what the koran says. Not surprisingly, they are told very radical things. But the imams aren’t making anything up, those things are in the koran.