Reflections From a Murky Pond

Freedom, especially women’s freedom from the vile and utter degradation, exploitation, and enslavement of Islam, is always a beautiful thing. Sometime though, that freedom and individuals’ bids to achieve it are more beautiful than others.

A particularly poignant case in point is the Turkish-German daytime television star, Sila Sahin’s extraordinarily beautiful bid for freedom from the constraints of Muslim “society.”

She has given her all to achieve a freedom.

Sila Sahin, who plays Ayla Özgül in the German soap opera, Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times) posed for the German edition of Playboy in a bid for freedom from the constraints of Muslim “Society” and the Shari’a-based oppression of her family.

And it was truly a bid for freedom and a protest against the repression and misogyny endemic to the Muslim World.

Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.

“I did it because I wanted to be free at last. These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood,” she said.

Her family has, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.

“My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,” she said on the website devoted to her television soap.

She has, however, managed to talk to her actor father, who expressed concern over the pressure she will inevitably face from the Muslim community.

Frankly, I’m unsure of Sahin’s father’s motivation for his apparent moderation. It could be – and I hope it is so – that he truly is evolved enough to support his daughter’s choice of freedom, or it could be that disowning her would lose him access to her income, something that he would control under Shari’a until Sila’s marriage.

He’s absolutely right about one thing though; Sila Sahin needs to be worried about the response of the Muslim “community.” They have a long and brutal history of violent reprisals against women who behave in any manner other than utter subservience. Those women who aren’t murdered often wish that they had been.

I’d like to think that, living in the Civilized World, Sila Sahin would be safe from the more savage forms of Muslim reprisal. That’s hardly a foregone conclusion though, as women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali can attest. Hence, the twenty-five year old actress has placed herself at risk.

Sila Sahin’s choosing to pose for Playboy was certainly a brave and extremely beautiful bid for freedom. We must all just hope that she doesn’t pay too high of a price for it.

Related Reading:

People in civilized, nominally secure nations, most especially Americans, fear, loath and despise the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and it’s officers and agents who provide the visible semblance of airport security.

They really don’t like, and oft times rant about, what they perceive as odious and  needlessly invasive screenings at the hands and machines of the Transportation Security Officials (TSOs).

Ah, but that’s here on Earth. On Gor things would be quite different. The TSOs of Gor would brook no defiance from a mere passenger.

I watched as the woman cringed and attempted to draw back from Thargyur, the TSA official. “What gives you the right to inspect me?” she demanded.

“You will be inspected,” said the TSA officer.

“But I do not want to be inspected! I just want to board my plane and leave!” protested the woman.

“You will be inspected,” said the TSA officer.

“Please do not inspect me! I beg you, don’t strip me and place me in that scanning machine and fondle my breasts!”

“You will be inspected,” said the TSA officer.

Verily, the TSA officer moved forward and proceeded to inspect the woman.

“Stop inspecting me!” cried the woman. “I do not want to be inspected!” The TSA officer continued to inspect the woman. “Help! Police! Bystander! Congress! Somebody… stop this man!” she moaned. The TSA officer continued to inspect the woman. She was passenger. She would be inspected whenever the TSA officer desired to inspect her. In other permissive societies such as Earth’s, perhaps the TSA officer and passenger might be prevented from filling their true places in nature; but in Gor, the passenger had no rights. She was passenger. She would be inspected at will.

The woman cried muchly as the TSA officer finished inspecting her. Too, she had been inspected; but this did not matter. She was passenger.

“You have been inspected,” said the TSA officer.

“Yes,” sobbed the woman. “I have been inspected.”

“I have inspected you very well,” said the TSA officer.

“Yes.” sobbed the woman. “I have been inspected very well; I am a passenger and deserve to be well-inspected by the TSA.” And yet, despite her sobbing, the passenger felt more passenger-like than she ever had on Earth. Only here, on Gor, could she truly feel like a passenger, at the capable hands of a Gorean TSA officer who would inspect her whenever he wished.

The next passenger, having seen this, did not protest when the TSA official inspected her. She was passenger. Such was the way of things.

When the TSA official had finished muchly inspecting her, she said to the first passenger, “I have been well inspected.”

“I, too, have been well inspected,” said the first passenger.

“I will be inspected whenever the TSA pleases,” said the second passenger.

“I, too, will be inspected whenever the TSA pleases,” said the first passenger.

“I may now board my plane,” said the second passenger.

“I, too, may now board my plane,” said the first passenger.

“Tal,” said the second passenger.

“Tal, too,” said the first passenger.

I smiled as I watched the passengers depart. I did not figure the first passenger would object to being inspected again; for this was Gor, and over her life, the passenger would likely be touched and inspected by many TSA agents. Such is the place of passengers.

Yes, on the fantasy world detailed in 29 volumes (soon to be 30) by John Norman aka Dr. John Lange, things would be quite different for the passengers indeed. They would be inspected, swiftly learn to accept it, soon learn to like it, and eventually come to yearn for their inspections and to love their TSOs.

It is well known that the Gorean TSO, though often strict, is seldom cruel. The passenger knows, if she pleases him, her trip will be an easy one. She will almost never encounter sadism or wanton cruelty, for the psychological environment that tends to breed these diseases is largely absent from Gor. This does not mean that she will not expect to be beaten if she disobeys, or fails to please her TSO.

I wish you well!

Related Reading:

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged there was a hidden refuge in a valley of Colorado where the people of ability had retreated to after relinquishing participation in American society. It was aptly nicknamed “Galt’s Gulch” by its inhabitants, though it was more properly named “Mulligan’s Valley” since it was the property of Michael “Midas” Mulligan, a banker and one of the first strikers to heed John Galt’s call.

The basic premise is that the United States has degenerated into an authoritarian, quasi-Marxist state, strangling business, innovation, and personal liberty in favor of an non merit-based egalitarian result. John Galt responds by convincing the productive and innovative people – the “Men of the Mind” – to withdraw from society and take their skills and visions with them, “stopping the motor of the world” by withdrawing the “minds” that drive society’s growth and productivity.

John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains — and he withdrew his fire — until the day when men withdraw their vultures.

– Francisco d’Anconia
Atlas Shrugged, Part II, Chapter V

One thing that strikes me as odd – and more than a little frustrating – is that both Rand’s supporters and detractors view this as a Dystopian future, as if it wasn’t, in pragmatic effect, already well underway.

Ayn Rand’s Future Is Now

In the real world Galt’s Gulch aka Mulligan’s Valley isn’t some concealed refuge in Colorado; it’s the global marketplace and the Third World labor pool. Business leaders are finding Galt’s Gulch in many places outside of America’s borders and jurisdiction.

• Decline of Manufacturing
  America no longer produces much domestically. Over the last 60 years there’s been slightly over of 66% drop in employment within factories inside the US and a commensurate rise in off-shoring manufacturing to places such as Mexico and China.
• Decline of Innovation
  Scientific and technological advances are also, more and more, coming from overseas. Companies are now paying scientists in China, India, Singapore, and other foreign lands to perform R & D instead of using more expensive domestic scientists and research facilities.

The motor is already stopping. Corporations, faced with the inability to compete globally with less restrictive regimes and with lower order economies while using domestic labor and facilities, are already “striking” and moving more and more of their operations outside of America.

Related Reading: