Age of consent - The West Vs Arab/Muslim countries. (Patreon)

***This is an old post, but I've highlighted it in light of a recent argument between members. Debate and critique is fine, but please be respectful and refrain from unduly spiteful attacks. It's unproductive, and not what we do here. All cultures have a dark side, let's keep that in mind. Selective outrage is a symptom of hypocrisy. Pot, kettle, black, and all that. We're never going to agree on everything, but we all have to live on this earth together, so I like to focus on our common ground and how we can try to get along, rather than being antagonistic towards specific races/religions etc***

Tommy Robinson- and other such people who are obsessed with bashing Muslims -often accuse Islam of being a religion of paedophilia, citing the age of one of the prophet Muhammad's wives as an example. Firstly, there is a big difference between how Islam is commonly practised today and how it was practiced in the ancient world, as is the case with most other religions. Secondly there is debate among modern Islamic scholars about her age, with some claiming she was actually a teenager at the time of marriage, rather than 9 years old as is widely believed. Thirdly, whatever her actual age was, what we do know is that marrying children was commonplace in the ancient world. It wasn't 'mainly a Muslim thing' as many an Islamophobe would have you believe, it was also commonplace in Europe, Africa, the America's- everywhere. The same is the case today; in many third world countries child marriage is still occurring, right the way across the religious spectrum. But Tommy Robinson (etc) like to exclusively focus on when it occurs among Muslims, thus leading to the false perception that 'it's mainly a Muslim thing'.

In 1275 the first legal age of consent was established in England (12 years old). Prior to that there was no age of consent at all. In 1396 King Richard II of England- who was 29 years old at the time -married his second wife, who was just 6 years old. This was some 600 years after the time of the prophet Muhammad. Marrying children was commonplace- and widely deemed acceptable -throughout the ancient world, at all levels of society. Most of us- irrespective of race or religion -will almost certainly have ancestors who today would be classed as paedophiles.

Up until the late 1800's the age of consent in the USA was as low as 7 in some states. In the USA today, it is still legal for children as young as 12 to get married in certain states. And it still happens, mainly in poor, rural areas. Elvis Presley famously started dating Priscilla when she was just 14. In Spain the age of consent was 12 until 1996 when it was raised to 13, then raised to 16 in 2013. The age of consent in the Vatican was also 12 until 2013 when they finally raised it to 18. In Russia, the age of consent was as low as 14 as recently as 2003, and to this very day in Angola- an overwhelmingly Christian country -the age of consent is still just 12. I know several Angolans, and it is common knowledge that the country is awash with child sex tourists (mainly white European men), as so many third world nations are (Thailand, Kenya, etc etc). I personally used to work with an Indian Hindu, in his 20's at the time, who's mother was just 12 years old when she gave birth to him (she was married). This type of thing is quite common in the third world, irrespective of religion. This is partly due to the fact that poorer families want to collect dowry money and are therefore willing to marry their daughters off at an early age. So this isn't paedo's jumping out of the bushes snatching kids, this is parents- with the approval of the community -willingly marrying their young daughters off. That doesn't make it 'right' of course, but this behaviour is viewed as 'normal' in some third world countries/communities. Chances are, most western people would view it was 'normal' as well had they been raised in such a community. Most people just follow the crowd. As I've said before, the third world is almost like a time machine, where you can see what Europe was like several centuries ago.

By contrast, many of the Muslim 'Gulf Nations' in the middle east are very rich, and thus the age of consent is in line with modern day Europe, and even higher in some cases. In Qatar & the UAE it's 16 for girls and 18 for boys. In Bahrain the age of consent is 21, so under their law, men in the UK who sleep with 16-20 year old girls would be classed as paedophiles. Arranged marriages and teenage marriages still occur- as they do in many other cultures/religions- but they are becoming increasingly rare among the younger generation of Arabs. Many families are affluent, and thus no longer feel so compelled to marry their daughters off early. Many young Arab women go to university, become businesses owners, etc.

Generally speaking, poorer, more 'traditional' countries/regions have a lower age of consent and higher instances of child marriage, irrespective of religion. However, a distinction must be made between 'age of marriage' and 'age of consent', because these are not always the same thing. 'Child marriage' in some instances refers to when two children of the same or similar age are married to each other (this is still quite common in some rich countries, including the USA). Other times the term is used to describe an adult groom marrying a child bride, and in such instances the groom is sometimes not permitted to consummate the marriage or live with the bride until she has reached the legal age of consent.

Do I like or approve of these things going on? Absolutely not. But I believe in autonomy. It's not for us to dictate cultural practices to foreign nations. Especially when you consider the fact that intervention usually leads to far more death, pain, and suffering than it prevents. E.g:- the 'Kony 2012' debacle, where a western 'charity' tried to drum up support for military intervention in Uganda to take down a local warlord who was using child soldiers. Most people seemed totally oblivious to the fact that any such action would result in American troops having to kill child soldiers! The Americans in particular are usually so ham-fisted, they almost certainly would have killed more children than they saved. And even if they had killed Kony, he would have quickly been replaced by another warlord who'd be doing the exact same thing anyway.

Muslim/Arab culture - myth vs reality.

Unlike most here, I have actually lived in the middle east- the home of Islam- amongst the Arabs/Muslims, so my perception of them does not come from skewed statistics or biased and sensationalist newspaper headlines, but from actual first hand experience. This is how I know for a fact that the perception most Brits have of the religion is highly distorted. As with all cultures Muslim/Arab culture has it's pro's and con's- which I will dedicate a future podcast to- but I usually choose to highlight the pro's because most westerners have an extremely biased and negative perception, and thus some balance is needed. The overwhelming anti-Islamic bias in the west is extremely dangerous, and it's exactly the type of situation which can lead to genocide and other atrocities.

One of the first things I noticed in the countries I lived in, is there is far less street crime than there is in the UK, especially in the predominantly Arab areas. The only loutish or unruly behaviour I ever saw in the several years I lived there was from foreigners (mainly western). The Arabs, for the most part, were very warm, friendly and helpful. Arabs are very inquisitive and it's very common for complete strangers to greet you as if they know you and strike up conversations, especially in residential areas.

Their communities are very tight knit, and families travel everywhere together. As such, malls, restaurants, and other public places are geared far more towards families than they are in the west. The traditional family unit is respected, promoted, and supported to a degree that I have never seen in any western country. An example of this would be their public housing policy. Council homes are only granted to married couples, and are supplied on extremely cheap, fixed rate, interest free mortgages (in line with sharia law) which run for around 20 years, after which the house is yours. As such, people are less transient- a large proportion of people tend to stay in one house, for life- and thus tight nit communities are maintained. And these 'council houses' look more like mansions in many cases- some with swimming pools etc.

A large proportion of men- especially in Bahrain/Qatar- have civil service jobs of some description, and these are usually jobs for life. Petrol is unbelievably cheap in Qatar & Bahrain, as are utilities, but significantly more expensive in the UAE, especially Dubai. There is no income tax at all (in line with sharia law) but there are increasing purchase and service taxes (unfortunately), which is obviously not Islamic. And on the subject of Sharia law, no Muslim government on earth fully implements sharia, not even Saudi Arabia. They cherry pick certain Sharia laws, and the extent to which they're enforced varies greatly from country to country. There are, in fact, several things in sharia law which I actually like- such as the absence of income tax and usury. I'm sure there are other sharia laws I wouldn't like, but as I said, none of the countries I visited were under strict sharia.

Women were not required to wear hijab in any of the countries I visited, but both sexes were required to dress conservatively, outside of male only or female only gatherings/functions. Women could drive, go to school, work and do pretty much everything men could do. There were some different rules for Muslims vs non Muslims though. Alcohol was legal, and widely available, but most places will only serve non Muslims (although there were exceptions). There are also numerous 'western friendly' night clubs, beach clubs, water parks, hotels, and large gated communities etc where skimpy attire (Bikini's etc) is permitted.

One interesting I observed is that there is a general disdain for Saudi's and Egyptians, whom many other Arabs view as rude, pompous, and untrustworthy. There was also some tension between locals and refugees from Syria, but nothing serious. The number of immigrants is extremely high. In the UAE around 80% of the population are immigrants, with only 20% being native locals. There is, unfortunately, fairly widespread exploitation and mistreatment of cheap labour from India/Pakistan, committed by a sizeable minority of Arabs. But this is no different to what many western companies and corporations do, except the Arabs do it at home, whereas the west employ their cheap labour overseas- in India, the far east, etc- away from prying eyes. It is important to emphasis that it is a minority of Indian workers etc who are exploited, but definitely a sizeable minority. I heard and saw enough to know that it was far more commonplace that it should be.

~Hatman.