I recently found myself in a Thrift Shop. You know, the kind that has all manner of knick knacks from the 90s and 2000s.

I loved Antique Stores all my life…they are veritable Time Machines, where I can travel backwards to WWII or the 1950s or even the 19th Century!

Because of this, I’ve always thought Thrift Shops are kinda tacky. Who wants the kind of junk from my childhood that I grew up with?

But this time in this Thrift Shop, I felt very differently. 

I wasn’t in there very long when the realization hit me like  a brick through a plate glass window. 

I realized Thrift Shops are starting to become Antique Stores…

Because as the years march on, the world and its artifacts that I grew up in are slowly disappearing. 

And the Thrift Shop is their final refuge. 

A GOODNESS OVERWHELMING

I think I liked this Thrift Shop because it reminded me of my Mom. 

A lot of the decor is the kind of stuff I remember having in our Yakima, WA home in the early 2000s. 

A lot of the DVDs are ones I remember us renting from the Blockbuster down the street after our Friday Night ritual of bottomless fries at Red Robin. 

And the books…ah, the books!

I found myself feasting on tales of the Royals…of Diana and William and Harrys. The Fairy Tale Marriage of Stoic William and Sexy Kate in his Zulu War Grenadier Guards Uniform and her elegant White Form Fitting Gown. 

I found myself reading Bible Studies like The Prayer of Jabez and dime-a-dozen books by John Ortberg. 

There was the Lewis and Clark history book by Stephen E. Ambrose, and across from them were the childrens’ books on turn-of-the-century Civic Patriotism. 

It was a kind of thing you don’t see anymore…the kind enrobed in the flag, where Heroes of all Colors and Creeds stand side-by-side, where optimism and a can-do spirit abound. A naivety, yes…but a goodness overwhelming it. 

And then I saw something else…

WOULDN’T BE THE LAST TIME 

On the shelf sat a heavily-used paperback cover of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. 

I knew the book well…though I had never read it. 

You see, eight years ago during my 2016 Spring Semester at the University of Mary Washington, my beloved Professor Guy Roberts had included the book in his reading list. 

I was familiar enough with Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s story…she was a Somalian who had been a victim of Female Gender Mutilation (FGM), once been a die-hard Muslim Brotherhood girl, and then turned on them after years of experiencing their insanity in support of the West. 

I had known many people like this from working with refugees. I had also read a similar tale that had been quite formative to me entitled Now They Call Me Infidel by Nonie Darwish. 

At that time, I had just finished my own Middle East book, All Men Follow the Strongman: The Forgotten History of the Iraq War. Many themes from the above stories were cited in the book. 

In short, I was awash in such tales, and they were depressing me. 

Another story to remind me how bad the bad guys are, with no hope of beating them? 

Consequently, I quickly gave the Ayaan Hirsi Ali book the once over, enough for the class requirements, and didn’t give it much further thought. 

Instead, I invested my energy into The Sands of Iwo Jima per Professor Guy Roberts’ request.

But that wouldn’t be the last time I’d hear of old Ayaan Hirsi Ali. 

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI  

Fast forward nearly a decade later. 

My Mom has died. 

Our Fighting Men and Women have been run out of Afghanistan. 

Iran owns all of the Middle East, from Lebanon in the West to Iraq in the East. 

Anti-War Peaceniks have overnight turned into Patton Warhawks ready to take on Vladimir Putin and his Big Russian Bear.

DoD analysts predict a cakewalk to protect Taiwan and put China in its place. 

People are shooting at Public Figures like it’s 1968. 

The ending line of Bridge on the River Kwai comes to mind: 

“Madness! All Madness!” 

In this environment, Ayaan Hirsi Ali needed a second viewing. 

A FULL-ON HEARING 

The return of my interest in Ayaan Hirsi Ali specifically had begun a year earlier. 

After watching Alec Guiness’ Tunes of Glory on Youtube, my research down the internet rabbit hole around December of 2023 had turned up that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become a Christian after decades of leading the New Atheists. 

This intrigued me greatly.

I am a strong Christian, and I strongly believe that one of the major reasons we have lost the Global War on Terror is because our overwhelmingly Secular Western Society doesn’t have any kind of concept of the Divine like our Jihadi foes have. 

And after two decades, Ayaan Hirsi Ali came around to the same idea! 

So when I saw her book this week on that Thrift Store shelf, I knew it was time to give her a full-on hearing.

And the tale she would tell would surprise even me. 

“HE WHO FASTS FOR ONE HUNDRED DAYS” 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up as a Somalian refugee in East Africa. 

The country was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Politico-Religious Wing of Al Qaeda, and was awash in money from Saddam Hussein to spread its probing tentacles over all the people of East Africa.[1] 

The milieu she grew up in was tough, to say the least. 

“A Muslim woman must not feel wild, or free, or any of the other emotions and longings,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote of her Islamist teenage upbringing. 

“A Muslim girl does not make her own decisions or seek control. She is trained to be docile…you disappear until there is almost no you left inside of you.”[2]  

Enter in this milieu Boqol Sawm…“He Who Fasts for One Hundred Days”. 

THE MAD MULLAH COME TO LIFE 

Boqol Sawm was a Muslim Brotherhood Ma’alim, a die-hard propagandist dedicated to the brainwashing of the people in his cause of Islamist World Conquest. 

“Boqol Sawm was a fanatic,” Ali recalled. “Even by a zealot’s standards.”[3] 

Savage, shrill, and sadistic, Boqol Sawm was the veritable Mad Mullah come to life. 

His cruelty was of a Spiritual variety that poisoned the soul, leaving the body a walking corpse. 

But it wasn’t the Men he targeted as converts to his zombie-esque horde. 

It was the Women. 

A VERITABLE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME 

“Boqol Sawm acquired a large following,” Ali recalled. “Most of them were women, and among them was my mother.”[4] 

Boqol Sawm taught that in the Spiritual Slavery that the Muslim Brotherhood had to offer the Women of East Africa, there was incredible Power…

The Power to make Slaves of their own Men! 

Sure, he taught that Men could beat their wives, rape them against their will, and force their Women to bow down in “TOTAL OBEDIENCE”.[5]

But he taught that the Women could take a perverse pride in such things. 

“Women were emotionally stronger than men,” Ali recalled being told. “They can endure more, so they are tested more…This is just, because of the overwhelming sexual power of women.”[6] 

It was a veritable Stockholm Syndrome in the making…making those being abused to love their abuse. 

THE POWER OF SLAVES 

But the reality was, the majority of Men were not really interested in all of this. 

“At first, the Somali fathers and husbands were amused and teased their wives,” Ali remembered,  “Predicting that after a week, the silly, bored women would find some other pastime.”[7] 

But they didn’t. 

They began to call their Men Infidels for not being sufficiently true to the fundamentalist faith that Boqol Sawm preached.

And while Boqol Sawm taught that “Women were worth half a man”, the Women began to say that the Men who refused Boqol Sawm’s teachings were worth less than that![8]  

Worth even less than the Beings he taught could be beaten, raped, and enslaved…worse for not buying into the  beating, raping, and enslaving! 

“When the men shouted about disobedience,” Ali recalled, “the women replied that…Allah and the Prophet decreed that wives should only obey husbands who themselves obeyed Allah.”[9] 

THE TRUE MASTERS 

Men began divorcing their Wives en masse, and families were split apart. 

Boqol Sawm was ran out of town…but his video and audio cassettes remained to propagate such madness.

And in his place more and more Muslim Brotherhood Ma’alims would arrive, and the region would be plunged into a descent of Darkness for all involved. .

The Women would be enslaved, and would take their perverse pride in the perceived holiness of their slavery, granting them a strange sort of Tyranny. 

And The Men could enslave all they liked…as long as they submitted to the madness taught by Muslim Brotherhood Maalims. 

For everyone under them, Men and Women alike, were all Slaves…brainwashed into believing they were the True Masters.  

In the end, the only winners would be the Mad Mullahs like Boqol Sawm.  

DIFFERENT BOTTLE, SAME POISON 

Upon reading this tale, a great and terrible wave of sadness and clarity alike came over me. 

I’ve seen these dynamics before…not only with the Middle Eastern Refugees that I’ve worked with, but also in some dark corners of the Covenantal Protestant Homeschool Community. 

The Women are beat down, but learn to love it, and wield this Power over their Men, who abuse them because our own Mad Mullah’s told them to. 

Nobody knows where the abuser ends and the abusee begins. 

All are degenerated by such horrific interactions.

And what’s worse, I fear it’s coming back. 

With the rise of Postmodern Philosophy and its attendant system of destruction, this crazy Mad Mullah way seems to be enticing the hearts and minds of many people again. 

It bills itself as a system of security in a world of unbridled chaos, but it Slavery and Tyranny to all involved. 

Whether Muslim Brotherhood, Convenental Protestant Homeschoolers, or heck, even New Age…the bottle may change, but the poison stays the same.

THE TIME MACHINE

I guess the Time Machine of Thrift Stores can work both ways.

They can take you back into the Past…and forward into the Future.

Is this Future that you want?

Only you can decide…before it’s too late. 

Sincerely,

Richard Barrett

09-28-2024

Written at 7:54 PM, somewhere in the USA…

POSTSCRIPT: GAME RECOGNIZES GAME

This tale is near and dear to me because a Coptic Christian friend of mine watched his best friend get murdered by the Muslim Brotherhood during the October 2011 Maspero Massacre in Alexandria, Egypt. 

For a long time, I made it my job to tell his tale, to motivate the people of America to get behind our War Effort against the Politico-Religious Wing of Al Qaed and all of its State Sponsors.

I even wrote his tale for posterity in 2018, “In Bright Tucson Skies”, publishing for the first time last year.  

What is interesting to note is that in telling his tale, I got a lot of push-back from key leaders in the Covenantal Protestant Homeschool hierarchy. 

What I understand now, a decade after these events, is that the more in line these leaders were with Muslim Brotherhood-type gender dynamics, the more likely they were to oppose my calls to action against the Jihadist Foe. 

Game recognizes Game, or so they say…

Sincerely,

Richard Barrett

09-28-2024

Written at 8:10 PM, somewhere in the USA…

Sources Cited 

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[1] For more information on the connection between Saddam Hussein and the Muslim Brotherhood, see my book, All Men Follow the Strongman: The Forgotten History of the Iraq War, as well as Kenneth R. Timmerman’s Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, and Laurie Mylroie’s Bush vs. The Beltway: The Inside Battle over the War in Iraq. Note that the latter two books were also Thrift Store finds…

[2] Ali, Ayan Hirsi. Infidel. New York, NY: Free Press, 2007. Pg. 94. 

[3] Ibid. Pg. 103. 

[4] Ibid. Pg. 103.

[5] Ibid. Pg. 104.

[6] Ibid. Pg. 104.

[7] Ibid. Pg. 105.

[8] Ibid. Pg. 105. 

[9] Ibid. Pg. 105.