Chechen immigrants living in Germany form an insular group. Their Islamic faith, plus the stern and violent traditions imported from the Caucasus, form a mixture that can be dangerous and deadly — especially to Chechen women.
Many thanks to JLH for translating this report from Der Tagesspiegel:
Chechen “moral guardians” in Berlin
“Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned!”
When nude photos of a Berlin Chechen woman reach the internet, her family intends to kill her. The 19-year-old escapes. But her flight is just beginning.
by Dmitri Vachedin (with the assistance of Hannes Heine)
July 17,2017On an evening in late November last year, the furious uncle telephones, calls his 19-year-old niece “a whore,” demands to speak with the parents, and makes suggestions of how to proceed now that these photos are in circulation. These suggestions are such that they are entered the following day on a form in the Berlin police district. Under “crime” is handwritten “Threat in the name of honor.”
As the niece tells it, she was supposed to be killed. Her mother was to get her out of Berlin to Chechnya, where the family came from. There, she was to die at the hands of her uncle, who had also gone there from Germany.
She says: “If I don’t change my name and appearance, they will find me.” She is now living temporarily in another German city, distant enough from Berlin that she will not coincidentally encounter her family. Anyone who wishes to meet with her must do it under the condition of not giving up her name, and much more. Data and details have been altered for her protection. But she does want to talk. Her story has been told in the Russian-language, online portal, Meduza. The young woman, whose name here is Madina, has escaped, but she is not safe.
When Madina left her parental home, her “case” ceased to be a family affair and became one for the Chechen community. Now, says Madina, it is the duty of any Chechen man to find her and punish her. It is a kind of code of behavior, she says, and there are men in Berlin who are prepared to act on this obligation.
Chechens living in Germany agree in reporting about a Berlin hit group, comprising up to 100 men, who are said to be armed and led by people with battle experience.
There is a video going around the Chechen community by way of WhatsApp that is attributed to this group. A quote from the video: “Here in Europe, a number of Chechen women — and men who look like women — do unspeakable things.” When there is the opportunity, “we will discipline them.” The group runs through the streets, speaks to Chechen women; in the best cases there is just a reprimand. “You look like a slut.” Madina says she has had that experience. Lipstick is enough. Unspeakable. Discipline. What for?
On that November evening, when her uncle phoned, called her a whore and demanded that her parents be brought to the telephone, Madina says, she went pale immediately. She sensed what was going to happen. That evening, her cell phone had been stolen. There were photos stored on it — pictures of her in a club with a bottle of beer in her hand. In a bar with a cigarette. Pictures of her nude. They turned up quickly in WhatsApp chat groups that Chechens use to communicate with one other.
The uncle pronounces Madina’s death sentence and her parents agree. He instructs the mother to fly to Moscow with her daughter the next day, and then on to Chechnya. They would meet him there.
A known, but rare, procedure, say Chechen experts. Although the drastic solution is rare, the tendency to and occasions for violence are familiar. Problems — even those that are really nothing — are taken care of inside the family. Supposed codes of honor play a large role. People are shaped by war, terrorism and religion. Older Chechens are often moderate Muslims; younger ones are finding radical Islam attractive. Many of them have archaic concepts of morality. There are reports of prisons in which gays are tortured. Because of that, a homosexual man from Chechnya was, for the first time, given the rarely granted “humanitarian asylum” in Germany.
The Mother Guards the Daughter, Locks Her Papers Up
Chechen society follows three laws, says Ekkehard Maaß, chair of the German-Caucasian Association. The first — and least important — is the Russian constitution. The second is Sharia. And then there is Adat, which is deeply rooted in Chechen mentality — the traditional norms. Several of them collide with German law.
Whether it is translators in state agencies for refugee affairs, social workers, prisoners, police or state’s attorneys — they all report that Chechens in Berlin are especially noticeable. Chechens often set the tone in the city’s Salafist mosques. Chechens were also active in the Fussilet mosque in Moabit.[1] That is where the Tunisian asylum seeker, Anis Amri, stayed, shortly before the massacre in Breitscheid Square. That is where Chechens attacked Christian asylum seekers in shelters in December, and Amri killed 12 people. In Marienfelde, in 2014, almost 100 Chechens hunted down 30 Syrians. In May, it was presumably Chechens who shot up a biker bar in Wedding.[1]. The word from prisons is that Chechens are pressuring other prisoners. “The Chechens have strict hierarchies,” says a Berlin ex-prisoner of Arab descent. “And they keep coming at you with God.”
Investigators report that Chechens from Berlin, and also Brussels and Copenhagen, have been encountered regularly on the German-Polish border. Men are traveling not only from the Caucasus to Germany, but also out again, only to return in a few weeks. “We don’t know why,” says a Berlin policeman. It could be smuggling of all kinds. “They are not afraid of German officials — they are used to controlling everything.”
The uncle hangs up and books the flights. Madina’s mother guards her daughter, seeks out her papers, locks them away. There is silence for the rest of the night. Close to 6:00 AM, the uncle calls — he has the tickets to Grozny.
At 6:31, the mother has left the room to wake the father. Madina takes her mother’s cell phone and calls the police. She says she is a Muslim girl whose parents have just found out she has a boyfriend — it’s not true, but it seems to her a better explanation in the short term — and that they want to kill her. In six minutes the police are at the door.
Her Hair is Cut, She is Sent to a Gynecologist
Madina says that her mother began to embrace her, when the police entered the apartment. In her pajamas and without her papers, Madina is taken to a house for abused women.
After a week, she speaks with her parents by telephone. They say that they are sorry to have so frightened their daughter. They regret their threats and the harsh language. Madina leaves the home for abused women and goes back to her parents’ house.
Bad mistake! The minute she is in the house, her mother beats her silly and cuts off her hair. Then a trip to the (woman) gynecologist. When the doctor confirms that Marina is a virgin, her mother relaxes. Madina need no longer be punished with death.
Instead, she gets a head scarf and house arrest. Now she must await her fate, which, she suspects, will be marriage to an older Chechen. A week later, she manages to escape. She calls the police. They come and take her on the pretext of investigating the theft of her cell phone. Then comes her escape from Berlin. Madina is neither a feminist nor an anti-Islamic activist. More than anything, she wants to lead a life that is taken for granted by young, German adults. She likes partying, she wears colored contact lenses and a striking hair style, has a gay best friend and just recently got some tattoos. But she spends most of her time in her room in her fear.
Not only she should be afraid. A man in a balaclava can be seen In the video circulating on WhatsApp channels used by the Chechen community. He aims his pistol at the camera and a masculine voice speaks. “As-salam-alaikam, Muslim brothers and sisters, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it.” The unspeakable things.
The Threat Posed by the Group is Known to the Police
The voice says: “Those who have lost our national identity, who flirt with men from other ethnic groups and marry them, Chechen women who have taken the wrong path, and those who call themselves Chechen men — we will fix that.” Approximately 80 agree and “are prepared to join.” They are the ones who have sworn on the Koran: “We are going onto the streets. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Don’t say you didn’t know.”
The message ends with the words: “May Allah grant us peace and set our feet on the path of righteousness.” In recent weeks, the group has beaten at least two young women.
The group’s video message is known to the police. Meanwhile the security police have become involved on account of “disturbance of the public peace through threat of violence” — against persons unknown. No further details are offered because of ongoing investigations.
Fatima knows the details. She just escaped herself. Fatima is not her real name. It is possible to speak to her, so long as not too many details of what she reports become public. The meeting takes place in a café in Berlin’s inner city.
An attractive young women with elaborate make-up and a knee-length skirt is sitting at the table. She looks like someone who both wants to be noticed and not to be noticed. “When I was 14, my future husband ‘stole’ me,” she says. Fatima lived at that time in a small Chechen town and a 20-year-old man and his friends kidnapped her. The man wanted to marry her.
As soon as a woman spends a night outside the family home, she loses “her honor,” says Fatima. The only solution for her and her family is to marry the kidnapper.
Dozens of Chechen Men Gather in Front of Her House
The couple had a child and emigrated to Germany. Her husband had had problems with someone in the Chechen government, she says. In Germany, he “turned into an animal.” He beat his wife regularly, and was banned from the refugee domicile. Fatima and her child were given a subsidized apartment in a Berlin suburb. She took a German course. But she stayed in the Chechen community in Berlin — in a parallel society, where almost everyone knows everyone and no secret seems to remain undiscovered. No matter how banal.
For example: In November, Fatima was filmed not far from her house by an acquaintance. She had been walking and talking with a man who was not a Chechen.
That did it. On the evening of that day, several dozen Chechen men gathered in front of her house who wanted to call her out. Fatima fled to a neighbor. The man who had been walking with her was tracked down and beaten to a pulp. He lost almost all his teeth. Fatima says: “.”I don’t know these men, and I don’t want to know them. I would like to be left in peace.”
Madina says: “If you don’t change your name and your face, they will hunt you down and kill you.” She is considering plastic surgery, and changing her name. For that, she would have to appear before a Chechen recording bureau. The danger of delivering herself to the authorities of the society she had fled would be great.
Chechens are considered an especially shuttered society. After the Chechnya wars waged against the separatist (constituent) republic by the Russian army after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the young people were radicalized. Many joined the Islamic State. The more than 1.5 million Chechens also live in the constituent republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan as well as neighboring country of Georgia, and even in Kazakhstan.
Violence Against Women Declared an Act of Patriotism
The society seems to be more liberal in their home territory than in Berlin exile. Madina says that at least it is easier for young woman in Chechnya than here. There, even mini-skirts could be worn. This is also affected by the competition between those remaining who are loyal to the regime, and the asylum seekers in Western Europe who despise President Ramsan Kadyrow and his followers. Both sides want to show the other that they are the better Chechens. It’s about protecting the old traditions which helped the small populace to survive the difficult battles with Russia. And so, violence and threats against women are declared to be acts of patriotism.
Things are slow to clear up in Berlin. The police say that thus far, “no facts have been entered in a complaint, that contribute to establishing a solid connection to so-called moral guardians in the Chechen communities.” Medina too, does not want to make an official complaint. She is afraid. For her mother.
Note:
1. District (or area) in Berlin.
(Expletive)!
And these (redacted pejorative) (German voters) will be voting for more of this–soon!
Perhaps I should re-think my ideas about letting Germans into the USA as refugees when the (redacted) country falls to Sharia. After all, these (pejorative ) ‘voters’ fail a critical intelligence test, don’t they?
(Expletive) them all!
They are just too (redacted) dumb to survive in the ‘modern’ world.
(REDACTED EXPLITIVE)!
What you bring up is a real and under-discussed problem. Refugees from a deteriorating society often mirror the very elements of that society that caused it to disintegrate. We have to be very careful, and very hard-hearted about allowing in refugees for “humanitarian” purpose. It is never a problem to allow in one or two high-profile refugees, who are too small in number to do harm.
But, once you begin allowing masses of people in, they form an identity group based on their culture, exert a high political profile, and possibly go a long way to recreating the society from which they fled.
It’s hard to imagine why Germany, or anyone else, would want to allow in a single Chechen refugee. Madina and Fatima evoke sympathy, but they have no philosophical differences with the oppressive and violent Chechnya culture. They are without philosophy and want to live their lives as they wish. I sympathize with them, but if I were German, I would be unwilling to take the risk of allowing them in.
Israel will begin having this exact problem if it starts to receive masses of Jewish immigrants from Muslim-inundated West European countries. These Jews are mostly liberal, extremely open-border, and why would anyone expect them to change simply because they had to flee the homeland trashed by immigrants? They will change the nationalist character of present-day Israel.
Exactly! The same way now San Antonio is a liberal snakepit.
Many young muslim women have seen the truth about what is being done to them in comparison with how western women are treated. They are not blind. Not that they would ever dare say it out loud, but they know western women are not sluts and whores, just ordinary beings trying to get on with their lives. Killing disobedient muslim women may have brought others into line for a thousand years but it isn’t working now because the women know it is nothing more than downright and bloody murder, used as a fearsome example of what will happen to them if they step out of line. They know it has nothing to do with honour.
What are the men going to do? Kill them all? The only way men can keep their superior position is to deny education to women, beat them and force them to live under sharia law. That is proving difficult in the west. Perhaps they should have stayed in their own countries.
Women. Always the weak link in male plans for domination of the world.
Oh – and the oldest profession in the world is not prostitution – it is the priesthood.
And how do you know these persecuted girls will not change into committed Islamists once they mature and have a family? There is no philosophical rejection of Islam or the violent and repressive Chechnya culture. They got caught up in the grindstones, and now want to save their lives.
It is a huge mistake to view women who are oppressed under Islam as natural allies. They are not. In Chechnya the men and the matriarchs will control young girls as they always do: through violence, brutality and an easy recourse to murder. It’s unfortunate, and one would like to help, but the best thing to do is keep the whole brood outside. Oh, and don’t be so quick to impose sanctions when Russia deals with Chechnya using the only effective language these people know.
You are right when you say: ” don’t be so quick to impose sanctions when Russia deals with Chechnya using the only effective language these people know”. I once spoke to a well educated expatriate Chechen woman. She began by saying that she hated Kadyrov. But later she said: “He knows his people and he rules them in the only way possible”. Chechen society is hyper-macho and most Chechens take any expression of kindness for a sign of weakness.
Curiously, the same woman complained of foreign Muslim preachers who bring some disgusting ways and customs into Chechnya, like, for example, cousin marriage. It used to be alien to Chechens, but widespread in Pakistan. Now it has found its way into Chechen society.
In any case, it was stupid of Europe to support Chechens against Russians. Russians, for all their faults, are culturally much closer to Europeans and far less violent.
Your statement is perfect . To support these women is to be naivete and ridiculous. They are NOT allies. They are 1/2 the problem.
What a horrific story. I will skip the expletives although they are in my mind. I simply hope and pray that these girls (and Mom) find peace and safety somewhere in Germany (or perhaps elsewhere in Europe).
My question is: why are these crazed and violent Chechen men running loose in Germany? Where are the police? IMO they should be deported back to Chechnia (sp) forthwith. Or send them to Merkel’s house. I’m sure she’d be glad to have them (sarc). After all, her favorite saying is “We can do this.” Okay, Angie, do it!
The older women are enablers. You can’t pick and choose members of the Chechnya community and expect the ones you like to act any different.
You had it half-right. Keep the Chechnya men out. The other half is keep the women out, and you will have the key to a less violent Germany.
It’s the same with female genital mutilation in Africa: It’s insisted on and perpetrated almost entirely by senior women.
That is what people forget. They look at the end product of a hyper patriarchal society which is the violent young man and assume that the problem lies with these men.
They forget that in such a society men do not raise the children, the women do.
These violent men are as much if not more the product of their mother’s upbringing as their father’s.
I cannot agree more. If we reduce Western civilisation to the right to wear mini-skirts and lipstick (for both men and women), is it really worth dying for? Or just fighting for? Why should anyone make any serious sacrifices in the name of silliness and frivolity?
I have lived in Germany for decades. No other country in the West is as hedonistic and “multikulti” as Germany. That is the main reason for the rise of mohammedan totalitarianism. Which values do we, in the formerly free West, have to offer our own youth and the people at large?
Nature abhors a vacuum.
The majority of Germans are spiritually weak – mohammedans are spiritually strong. Germans as a people are cowardly – muslims are willing to die for their archaic, violent beliefs.
What will be the logical consequence of that?
What do we have to offer besides fun and games?
We here at GoV are anti-islamisation.
Question is: pro-what are we?
And don’t give me this tired old [cliche] about freedom and democracy …
That’s an excellent question. What do ‘we’ stand for? What are our first principles? And from there what are the objectives we want to reach using those principles…that question would make an excellent post.
However, it’s also worth posing the old adage, “show me what makes you angry and I’ll tell you who you are”.
The followers of Mohamet are looking to take over because they do understand that many in the West are weak now. This is widely understand.
I will borrow from Dennis Prager to make a suggestion. Our young people have for a long time been taught plenty about their rights and priveliges. Many of them are hungry for responsibilities.
I will not blame Dennis Prager for my own additional suggestion, but it may go without saying that giving responsibility is necessarily also giving power. Many of the young people I see have a lot more sense than do a lot of the old power grasping ones who we can all see.
Healthy skepticism please. A dose or two per day may do wonders.
Each country has its own culture. The answer is, whatever culture you live in, embrace it and defend it from outsiders.
We don’t need a philosophy to oppose Islam. We need borders. The Muslim invaders co-opt power through violence, identity politics, fraud, infiltration of positions of power through money, and leveraging of political influence. You mean to tell me, a religious faith can counter that?
Once you allow in significant numbers of identity groups, you are inviting trouble. It’s not your faith versus theirs. It’s naked self-interest and culture affiliation.
The answer is, we are pro-ourselves, and willing to openly exclude others who are different because we appreciate ourselves and are willing to say so.
excellent post
Right, although it can be a bit misleading and confusing to just define oneself by what makes one angry or by who one’s enemy is.
Hating a bad guy doesn’t make you a good guy. There’s more to that.
That’s why anti-islamisation as a sole concept is kinda goofy and prone to become aimless and attract an audience of ranters.
I think you are right. Anti islam is not enough. Our own culture needs work.
Indeed, Alec. And that work will not come from academe, the media or the political parties.
I think that this space here, the internet, holds the possibility for change and organisation.
Right now I follow with a lot of interest the path of Dr. Jordan Peterson of UofT. I have been watching his lectures on youtube for 2 years now and he has built up a huge audience ever since his spat with his college admins over mandatory gender pronoun use last fall.
His youtube channel is really worth checking out. There is a wealth of cultural treasures there and he is planning his own accredited online college.
Here’s a tv interview with him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-77NpxbE7k&feature=youtu.be
This might just be the death knell for our SJW colleges in the US.
Dr Jordan B Peterson is one of my heroes. I love his reasoning. Even if Canada’s leaders look dopey right now they have a whole host of wonderful dissenters.
Agree with your assessment of Jordan Peterson. By viewing Christianity as a theological construct, he clarifies what in fact Christianity stands for and why exactly it is correct. This is something I feel that was missing for me, so I am glad he does these videos. This used to be the job of the humanities professors in colleges, but they now have the false agenda of degrading western civilization rather that promoting it. The main problem is that a lot of Christians today are in favor of being compassionate toward everything, including that which is evil. When you do that, you are now sowing evil in the world instead of promoting the good.
Christianity gives all power to physically address evil to the government (as it should because you certainly don’t want individuals going around doing this on their own). When the government is evil in itself, and will not address itself to attacking that which is bad, then that society will fail. This is where the US and a lot of European governments now stand. Their lack of judgmental compassion is the issue.
You cannot help anyone if they first do not see the error of their ways. Jesus is not compassionate to everything. He is most compassionate to the repentant. The repentant see their faults and errors and ask for forgiveness and he gives it. Viewed from the perspective of Dr. Peterson, there is incredible “truth” in this.
” anti-islamisation as a sole concept is kinda goofy ”
But being in favor of defending your own culture and people is kinda smart. What’s the point of being anti-Islam or pro-religion if you allow Muslims (or anamist sub-Saharan Africans) to flood your society and receive government benefits?
By the way, being insular is also a problem. Evolution-wise, if you remove selection pressures, an isolated population deteriorates. In other words, institute a welfare state, government or private, provide food and medical attention for everyone, support all babies people wish to have, the intelligence of your society will go down, and genetic disabilities will go up. Even with no immigration.
Overall I agree with you here, but I more frequently criticize our loonier leaders [marxists, post modernists etc] than I do the followers of mohamet. The mohamatans are what they have always been, but many of our leaders are not, and they are inviting trouble in.
On the issue of intelligence, Dr Peterson had a great commentary on that. Relevance of IQ’s in the labour market[ you tube title]. He tells it more efficiently than I will but a few bits:
He told varieties of jobs available at different IQ levels from 140 down. There were plenty of opportunities down to 85 or 90. Below 87, no jobs are available (in the U.S. or Canada one supposes). None. None at all.
Speaking now for myself, I dont think we have any need to import millions of people who can seldom work, integrate, assimilate and do not even want to do any of these. You have yourself remarked on this in the past.
I am told that the post modernists(many of our universities) are quite adamant that all people are the same. Clearly they have read little of the books in any good university library. These are the people I speak ill of when I am irascible about our current loudest culture.
Apologies for the unusually long comment.
Actually, long, informed, on-track comments are what makes the blog so interesting to read.
Let me add one thing. A low-IQ population is less likely to make informed, intelligent voting decisions, even if employed. As Patrick Moynihan once stated, Democracies deteriorate once people find they can vote themselves money from the public treasury.
So apart from the economic and welfare issues, which are considerable, bringing in low-IQ migrants will deteriorate representative government. It’s like a slippery slope. Bad government will be even less resistant to immigration pressure.
But then there’s Sweden. Swedes — the original natives, the descendents of the Vikings, not “Swedes” — have one of the highest IQs in the world, just behind the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews.
It just goes to show what I have often maintained: intelligence is overrated.
I suppose that IQ is just another item in the toolkit, as available for good use as foolish, and one must try govern one’s use of all of them wisely. Here is when the culture fits in. If one knows no more of religion and philosophy than the ten commandments and the golden rule, it will be a good toolkit.
“… defending your own culture […] is kinda smart”
Yeah, when you have one.
I know that our culture needs some fixing, but I would like to warn against what I believe to be a possible distractor argument. There are ones who say we cannot deal with others until we ourselves are perfect and without flaw. Not to say that that is what you mean, but I would worry about that. Nor do I think it is best to wait until we have our theology down perfectly. Sometimes we plumb run out of time for perfect theology and philosophy.
Sometimes the best hymn is “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” Or if you prefer, THE MARCHA VADER REDETSKY.
So I will get blatantly political, support Donald Trump. For now, he is the best we have.
I notice that I have expressed several self contradicting views here. We do not have time or leisure to get the perfect philosophy or religion with which to govern our use of our tool kit but yet we better have some.
Yes. Both are true. We are imperfectly equipped. As were the English on St Crispins day. As was Jonah
when he did not want to go to Ninevah.
We are never perfectly equipped for the chores we do not want to do. We have lots of problems.
I would say that I think we do not want to make PERFECT the enemy of the GOOD. The borders and the debt are great places to start.
If Donald Trump is the best we have, we have fallen really low.
@ Alec
Ok then, just for clarification:
Mass immigration has to be stopped and reversed. Period.
But if we are really so concerned about the loss of our “culture” it appears to be urgent and important to define what that culture is or could be. I don’t care much for living in a culture defined by hedonism and moral relativism.
To simply say “christian” or worse “judeo-christian” is just not enough.
Look for instance at how involved the “Catholic Charities” are here in the US in refugee resettlement. The other congregations aren’t much better as a general rule. Somebody once said, “Jesus was the only christian.” I tend to agree. And generally speaking, jewish organizations all over the world push mass immigration too.
Unfortunately the notions of “freedom and democracy” have degraded into oligarchy, systemic snooping, oppressive laws, overbearing taxes, perpetual war and nation building. Not to forget the willful dumbing down of the population by the media and academe for the past 50 years.
Is that who we are? Is that what we defend?
I think we can and must work on both problems at the same time!
If we use our history as a simple example of our culture I would opine that we will see much to repeat and much to never repeat. In this case I am treating our culture as a collective body of our knowledge. This will require real knowledge of what happened, good judgement, and honest skepticism.
This will oblige an intelligent person to think whether he wants to or not, rather like reading in the Bible.
I do not believe our culture has been lost, it may only have been outshouted or deemed inconvenient, or dismissed as irrelevant by those who would rather focus upon themselves and signal their virtue. Declaring one’s virtue is not at all the same as trying to discover what one’s virtue is.
Maybe our culture is also part of our tool kit, for those who know it. It is a work in progress by individuals.
In my own comments in this “..violent guardians..” article I have borrowed from Dennis Prager, Jordan Peterson and Voltaire( perfect as enemy of the good). Most of us do this often whether we know it or not.
Good wishes. I am due for my old guy afternoon nap.
Ok, nap is done. I had feared that I was beginning to remind myself of Polonious.
I believe that your ‘for clarification’ is correct.
And your suggestion that voices on the internet are a more likely way ahead than the universities is surely correct. Not so good for networking but…
I believe most of the people on GoV, including jlh above.
I will borrow. I am always borrowing from our culture. Cast down your buckets where you are. B. T. Washington. This is where we are.
As a lifetime member of academe, I watched as, first, the social sciences were infiltrated by “progressive” thinkers, then many of my colleagues in humanities were captured by the same rhetorical bloviations. After a while, I felt surrounded by people with wonderful MAs and (mostly) Phds, who were sometimes unable to master the English language, and made up for it with volume. A surfeit of education and a lack of what we used to call horse sense. I was involved in a few instructive skirmishes in faculty meetings where I felt little like an out-of-place Churchill fighting for things no one else cared about.
So in answer to both dhans and the Baron, I would say that the problem is one of low intelligence brought on by by intellectual brain-washing. And the problem does indeed lie in the transformation of the humanities. In one unforgettable instance, a graduating major came to me, forthe sole purpose of thanking our department for the chance to express himself freely–which was lacking in his other clases.