I've said for a long time, particularly after watching news clips showing rioting mobs in Muslim countries, "Those people just don't think right." A like comment yesterday on my blog from PT Dilloway, referring to the violence in Libya, said, "In what freaking universe does that make any freaking sense?"
This brought to mind an article I once read that pointed out that in the Muslim world marriage between cousins (known as "consanguinity"), and even brothers and sisters, is common. A little online research found many credible sources confirming this and offering these statistics:
Thirty-three percent of all marriages in Egypt are consanguine, as are 48 percent in Libya, 60 percent in Iraq, 70 percent in Pakistan, 67 percent in Saudi Arabia, 40 percent in Syria, 34 percent in Algeria, 63 percent in Sudan, 46 percent in Bahrain, 64 percent in Jordan, 42 percent in Lebanon, 54 percent in Qatar, 45 percent in Yemen, and 54 percent in the UAE.
This has been going on for 1,400 years in the Mideast, and is done in order to keep wealth (?) and power "within the family". This is why it's so hard for sovereign countries to command the loyalty of their citizens. People's loyalty goes to their "clan", not their arbitrarily cobbled together "country".
Not surprisingly, research has shown that children of consanguineous marriages have 10-16% lower IQ's. Can you imagine the consequences of this generation after generation after generation? Well, they might be able to keep all the camels in the family, but they also have a mighty polluted gene pool!
We (the West) keep trying to lead the Mideast towards our version of how things should be....democratic, governed by rule of law, peaceful, respectful to all, including women, etc. I'm wondering if their average citizen can even comprehend those concepts?
Thousands of years of tradition and ignorance and inbreeding are hard to overcome. IMO we're beating our heads against a brick (or in their case mud) wall.
S
EDIT: Oh, the insanity....now they're burning the KFC in Cairo! Is nothing sacred?
