Taharrush has come to the West
I’d never heard the term till now, but I was aware of the phenomenon of “taharrush”. Anyone who read the story of what happened to Lara Logan in Egypt back in 2011 should have been well aware of the same phenomenon.
Now, however, we learn (as we did not then; at least, I don’t recall it) that it has a name in Arabic: taharrush gamea.
Definition:
The name of the practice translates to ‘collective harassment’ and is carried out by large groups of men who sexually assault lone women, either by groping, or in some instances, raping them.
The men first surround their victim in circles. Some then sexually assault her, while others not directly involved watch or divert outsiders’ attention to what is occurring.
Sometimes the terrified victim – in a state of shock and unable to respond – is also robbed during the ordeal.
And the attack usually goes unpunished because the large number of perpetrators and chaos of the attack means authorities are unable to identify those involved.
There remains debate about what defines ‘taharrush’ – some still insist it is a reference to flirting – though scholars argue its definition changed after the attacks seen in Egypt from 2011 onwards.
German authorities have stated this was the phenomenon seen in Cologne city centre on New Year, when hundreds of women reported they were sexually assaulted.
The practice is only carried out in public and almost always at demonstrations or large public gatherings where the attackers find safety in numbers and disorder.
The attack on Logan was reported as though it was an isolated incident, perhaps an anomaly. It was not:
Angie Abdelmonem, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, recently published a study into the instances of ‘taharrush’ seen during the Egyptian Revolution.
She said the ‘violent nature of sexual harassment and assault in Tahrir Square captured global attention’, but many locally initially believed the state was hiring thugs to harass women and stem public protest.
‘This [perception] shifted on February 11, the day Mubarak stepped down, with the mob assault and rape of CBS correspondent, Lara Logan,’ she wrote.
‘Between 2011 and 2013, sexual harassment became common at protests in Tahrir Square, exemplified by a number of highly publicized violent attacks that demonstrate how women’s bodies became objectified and dehumanized during the uprising.’
One seeming constant in this phenomenon is not only the practice itself, but the coverup by the press. When it was “only” occurring in foreign countries, that was easier to do. Now that it has come to Europe—along with the “refugees”—it has burst the bonds of the previous silence.
This is an interesting phenomenon for so many reasons, not the least of which is how it feeds into so-called “xenopobia.” But what if too many of the strangers who come to your shores really do have different—and dangerous and in fact reprehensible—customs? Is it not reasonable to be fearful, and how can that be called a phobia? If you can’t figure out who among the newcomers is going to do this sort of thing and who isn’t, what is the remedy? Bar the door? Or spend an inordinate amount of time and money finding the offenders and jailing them, after the fact? Is that even possible? Or do you sacrifice your women and your way of life and your safety, for the sake of hospitality?
I hate to put it in such stark terms, but that’s the very, very unfortunate reality of the choices the West faces.
[NOTE: I’ve already linked to one post I wrote about the attack on Logan, but here’s another, this one focusing on the reaction of the press. In my memory, I had thought that the press wrote about Logan’s attack because she was one of theirs and the attack shocked them. However, I had forgotten that I wrote this:
Why did CBS first try to suppress the story of the assault on Logan, only coming out with it after it realized it couldn’t be kept quiet because other media outlets were aware of it? The network says the motivation for the initial secrecy was to protect Logan’s privacy. But could it be that they were also trying to shape Western perceptions of the Egyptian street, and to keep them as positive as possible?
So there was an attempt at a press coverup there, too, by CBS.]
Another reason why Islam is incompatible with the West.
Neo:
Thanks for addressing this. I too remembered that the attack on Logan was at first suppressed, then finally got out. And it must have been an absolutely horrible experience for her.
I just today finished and sent to the local newspaper an op-ed about problems here and in Europe with uncontrolled immigration. This is an issue we absolutely need to face — here and in Europe. We are being invaded and we’re trying to make light of the invasion, finding a moral equivalence in European immigration into America in the last century and quoting Emma Lazarus’ poe. Not so. Need to get a handle on this.
“And the attack usually goes unpunished because the women have been legally disarmed.”
Fixed it for ya’…
Poem. But you figured that out, no doubt.
The Left has always wanted to put women in their place.
Islam is the same. They are allies due to mutual interests, but also eventually competitors over the same resources.
Reports that Iran has seized two US Navy boats and says it will “release” the crew. Wonder how the President will address this in SOTU in 4 hours?
F
Sure glad we are on track to lift all sanctions on Iran and give them back $100b.
Persians pimping Val around.
Why would Neo hate ‘to put it in such stark terms’?
Hate to state the clear, the obvious, the irrefutable?
That Islam and those who act in the name of Islam are bad, rotten and often evil?
Angela couldn’t see this coming and she still says “We”, not “She” about her own vile decision and its immediate consequences, like taharrush in Cologne. The German state is removing citizens from their apartments in order to house “Syrians.”
Stark terms are needed. Thus, The Donald. With Cruz close behind.
Frog:
I am surprised that you don’t know why I would hate to put it in those terms.
I call it like I see it. And that’s the way I see it. But I don’t have to like such a terrible reality. It’s pretty much that simple.
And no, it absolutely does not follow that Donald Trump should be president. Plenty of other candidates (Cruz, for example) would do what is needed.
“scholars argue its definition changed after the attacks seen in Egypt from 2011 onwards.”
2011? Hardly. Pretty cloistered scholars. This has been going on for years – long before 2011- in Europe. As just one situation I’ve been in, a large group of muslim “yuths” jump onto a train at the last minute, packing a car of the RER train at Les Halles in Paris so tightly that you can’t even move one centimeter let alone get off. They wait for one of the longer stretches between stops, molest women, and get out at the next stop. I could relate other stories from non-European countries also, going back to the 90s, but you get the picture.
The Wikipedia article on “Taharrush gamea” has the following header:
“This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia’s deletion policy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taharrush_gamea
Now why would they be considering it for deletion?
On a related note, the practice is known as “eve teasing” in India and nearby cultures.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali reported being shocked that Western men in Europe didn’t “eve tease” and that women could walk the streets of Amsterdam unmolested. AT the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_teasing
I feel so empowered to know the Arabic for gang rape in a public place.
As our president catechized us in his Cairo speech, we have been enriched by so many boons presented to us by the Arab world it seems the least we can do is refer to them properly.
I am informed that if I marry my goat, even for one night, I may not eat it and if I want to marry the daughter of my slave whom I have already married I must first sell the mother.
I am sure these rules would be much clearer in Arabic. For example, If I want to boff the daughter of my (previously boffed) female slave can I just cut to the chase by eating the mother?
Why am I not surprised this is so common in Arab culture that it has a name?
This is social conditioning, ensuring that women are fearful of going out in public unescorted. Feminists may talk a good game with their Slut Walks and condemnations of “rape culture”, but I’d say that actions — Taharrush — are much more effective than campus marches and social media rants.
IIRC, the MSM has typically referred to what happened to Lara Logan as “sexual assault” while saving the word “rape” for such “victims” as Lena Dunham, Mattress Girl and UVA’s Jackie. There’s word for this, too — Taqiyya — or if you’d rather see it, submission, since the press isn’t Muslim, just Muslim-friendly, willingly covering for any acts that would elicit wrong-think from the rest of us.
One thing, neo, you know that Cologne was not the only city where that happened, don’t you?. In Germany, it happened in other cities like Hamburg or Stuttgart.
It happened in Helsinki (the capital of Finland) too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/finland/12088332/Unprecedented-sex-harassment-in-Helsinki-at-New-Year-Finnish-police-report.html
Last days, it has been known that same happened in the Stockholm Young Festival during the last two years. It was hidden, as usual.
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6342236
As a related story, in Oslo (capital of Norway), during 2010 each and every rapist in the city was non-westerner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiVVvJIM5UI
By the way, a friend of mine lives in Ké¶ln. Fortunately, she wasn’t near the Cathedral in new year’s eve, but everybody is talking about the subject in the city (The cover-up is happening in the media, not in the streets). She told me that the worse is losing the feeling of safety she had until now in that city.
NOTE Cologne and Ké¶ln are the same city, english and german name. Mixing languages, you end up making a mess.
Yann:
Yes, I’ve written about other incidents, too.
I might not have said this three or four years ago, but now…
This is why women should always carry a gun.
It doesn’t do any good for the disarmed Eloi over in Europe, but if this craze comes to the western hemisphere…
KRB
Have any of you heard this? Lara Logan has been hospitalized REPEATEDLY since that attack, for continuing internal injury problems stemming from the brutal, FORTY-MINUTE assault. Here is one report after a hospitalization in March of 2015:
http://pagesix.com/2015/03/24/lara-logan-hospitalized-for-issues-stemming-from-sexual-assualt/
Remember she was originally hospitalized for DAYS after the attack? That wasn’t just, er, poking with the odd finger.
A friend of mine and her companion, wearing palazzo pants and long sleeves, were followed by a moslem wolfpack in a Cairo bazaar, and cornered against a wall and the males tried to penetrate them with their fingers, tearing Marianne’s pants crotch. Luckily the two were able to fight free — they fled into a store, but the male clerks just laughed at them. They did manage to get back to their tour group.
Hideous. But hey. “That ain’t Islam, bruv,” as the leftie weenie on the London Underground announced (and he’s now hiding from retaliation by the ISIS boys, fittingly enough).
Here’s part of the NY Post article:
[March 2015]
If I remember correctly, something similar was depicted over half a century ago in the 1960 Sophia Loren film Two Women.
Ira:
I thought of that scene. That was not in a crowd; the women were originally alone. It was a gang rape.
Great movie; terrifying scene.
This must be why people called me paranoid or crazy years ago, when I was talking about enemies of humanity that required termination.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/4149/
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/anders-brevik-domestic-terrorist-or-freedom-fighter/
It was the only way to ignore the attempt to imagine current events. Assuming people ever had the capability to imagine it.
Now where did I put that link to the sexual assault lecture… it couldn’t have gotten lost with the US Army’s power point slides.
“Taharrush gamea”, i.e. large groups of Muslim men who sexually assault lone women has a larger, strategic purpose.
“This is social conditioning, ensuring that women are fearful of going out in public unescorted.” Lizzy
Lizzy correctly identifies this as social conditioning but IMO, women then becoming fearful of going out in public unescorted is a necessary condition to achievement of taharrush’s strategic purpose. Which is prefatory conditioning of both non-Muslim women and men for incremental acceptance of dhimmitude.
In highly pacifistic societies like Sweden and Norway, Taharrush is followed by established Muslim rape gangs. Islam has a variety (Rotherdam) of tried and true methods for establishing ever deeper levels of dhimmitude in a targeted society.
To support GB’s point, here are some videos outlining the concrete facts behind the true nature/history of Islam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ilFbbk9jw4
Good thing I have a blog archive of this stuff, otherwise my bookmarks would be 50 miles long.
I would suggest that men and women alike, pay no attention whatsoever to the propaganda/psychological warfare routine/mind control techniques of the Leftist child raping propagandists on this point, or any other point.
Treat them as an internet trojan/virus/back door root kit. Don’t even let them through the door of the firewall. Close off all avenues.
Don’t agree with it. Don’t disagree with. The moment you disagree or agree with it, you’re thinking about it in the language it was written to target, and it’s already past the first barrier. That is the power of the Left.
Patterico–Patterico’s Ponfifications–had a piece wondering where the German men were. Shouldn’t they have been defending the women? One possibility listed is that German society has finally succeeded in raising an entire generation of men without chests. Apparently nobody thought beyond that.
Another suggestion is that everybody knows that defending yourself against a Muslim will get you jailed, while a Muslim who assaults is free to go on his way.
What KRB said. If a mob of attackers won’t listen to reason, they’ll listen to that.
What Western governments do not seem to understand is that it is their obligation — arguably, their first and most important obligation — to keep their citizens safe. A government that cannot do so has no reason for existing, and is ripe for overthrow. In the meantime, if the governments will not punish these outrageous acts, vigilantes will. (I believe we’re already starting to see that in Europe.)
If this ever comes to America’s shores, I can imagine groups of female concealed-carriers, perhaps wearing tight T-shirts with an Arabic phrase meaning “Taharrush Eaters”, patrolling at public events. As Geoffrey Britain says, this may well have the purpose of teaching people what public behavior is considered acceptable… but such teaching can go in the other direction too. (The attackers of Pamela Geller learned that the hard way.)
Shouldn’t they have been defending the women?
Did anybody check Koln’s jails to see what the mix of Muslim dark boys were to native white Saxon faces?
Because if their police are like our police, they’ll just arrest everybody in sight, who is fighting, no holds barred. Including the ones who may be defending themselves.
They shouldn’t be able to hold them past 24 hours, but that might explain why their jails were too full and why the Muslims outside had freer reign.
Daniel in Brookline,
“Western governments do not seem to understand is that it is their obligation – arguably, their first and most important obligation – to keep their citizens safe.”
Leftist government’s foremost obligation is the indoctrination and control of their citizens. Citizen safety is only of concern if it forwards the narrative.
“I can imagine groups of female concealed-carriers, perhaps wearing tight T-shirts with an Arabic phrase meaning “Taharrush Eaters”, patrolling at public events.”
Any such attempt, in fact, other than running away, any attempt at defense will result in, at the least a failure to prosecute the perp and at worst, prosecution of the victim. After all, former AG Holder has already informed us that we all “have a duty to retreat”.
Logan’s injuries are most consistent with brutal anal rape.
Gang rape is used as a policy tool by dictators in the Third World — A LOT.
It’s standard practice against every female sentenced to death in Iran.
Saddam had a platoon at the ready — making sure that the larger public knew what awaited those who riled him.
Richard Aubrey Says:
The latter possibility gets much speculation on a web site I’m active on.
But to the first question, many of the women were either alone or else among female friends.
If there were men, given a tightly packed and numerous crowd of men, a BF can be isolated and physically intimidated.
By one report in the German media, out of over 600 complaints, sexual assault may have only been around 40% of them.
In other words, molestation may have been the aim of the “game,” but general mayhem and brutality constituted most of it – aimed not just at females.
After a great many posts on over 200 hundred pages on a BB on the Hijrah – the Muslim invasion – one German “Parzival” in Bavaria is already planning to either leave or join the resistance.
Only two months ago, he thought Germany would muddle through.
People on the website, mostly Americans, but Brits and others as well – are alarmed and worried.
Back to the Chesterton question of “chests,” as Daniel Johnson writes at Mosaic about “Does Europe Have a Future?” – it is a “race against time:” Can Muslims be assimilated by Europe before Europe is Islamized?
http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2016/01/does-europe-have-a-future/
Can Muslims be assimilated by Europe before Europe is Islamized?
A question that doesn’t even need an answer.