Chilling story in NYT this morning about the female suicide bomber. She was born in Belgium, raised Roman Catholic, got involved in drugs and men, started cavorting with Muslim men, and then got hooked up with a radical Muslim and converted to his thinking.
Lots of possibilities to consider: It's Belgium, which isn't as bad as the Netherlands, but awfully permissive in its morals. What was the whole theme of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed (a/k/a The Demons, The Devils)? That the liberal tradition is a trajectory that ratchets out of control, from open-minded and tolerant folk to raging and violent anarchists. The parents plant their bad seeds, even if they didn't intend to. The article doesn't say, but I'd wager $100 that this woman was raised in a lax Catholic home (indeed, the article alludes to this, when it mentions that her mother spoiled her as a child and was happy when the girl became Muslim because it helped her to stop using drugs).
Anyway, it's disturbing stuff. Here's an excerpt:
Her unlikely journey into militant Islam stunned Europe and for many people was an incomprehensible aberration, a lost soul led astray. But her story supports fears among many law enforcement officials and academics that converts to Europe's fastest-growing religion could bring with them a disturbing new aspect in the war on terror: Caucasian women committed to one of the world's deadliest causes.
European women who marry Muslim men are now the largest source of religious conversions in Europe, the experts say. While a vast majority of those conversions are pro forma gestures for moderately religious in-laws, a small but growing number are women who willingly adopt the conservative comportment of their fundamentalist husbands.
Picture of the woman:
