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[ by Charles Cameron — Reuters publishes scary stuff, should have checked their facts with WHO epidemiologists first ]
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Last time, it was the Jerusalem syndrome — this time it’s mass hysteria, not poison.

The Reuters article, Afghan girls’ school feared hit by poison gas by Folad Hamdard (upper frame, above) was posted on April 21, 2013, just one week ago.

Its key paragraphs in terms of etiology and blame are these:

As many as 74 schoolgirls in Afghanistan’s far north fell sick after smelling gas and were being examined for possible poisoning, local officials said on Sunday.

While instances of poisoning are sometimes later found to be false alarms, there have been numerous substantiated cases of mass poisonings of schoolgirls by elements of Afghanistan’s ultra-conservative society that are opposed to female education.

and:

Between May and June last year there were four poisoning attacks on a girls’ school in Takhar, prompting local officials to order principals to stay in school until late and staff to search the grounds for suspicious objects and to test the water for contaminants.

Takhar has been a hotbed of militancy and criminal activity since 2009, with groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan active.

One wonders: Does Reuters employ fact checkers?

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One wonders because…

An Editorial Note on the 2012 article Mass Psychogenic illness in Afghanistan (lower frame, above) in the WHO’s Weekly Epidemiological Monitor (Vol 5 # 22, 27 May) reads in part:

This is the fourth year where episodes of suspected mass poisoning of school girls is reported from Afghanistan. Like in the previous years the events are triggered off with one girl developing symptoms of headache, weakness, dizziness, nausea and fainting. Often these outbreaks were believed to be the work of political elements in the country who oppose girls education. Reports of stench smells preceding the appearance of symptoms have given credit to the theory of mass poisoning (chemical/bioterrorism). However, investigations into the causes of these outbreaks have yielded no such evidence so far. In the last four years over 1634 cases from 22 schools have been treated for Mass Psychogenic Illness (MPI) in Afghanistan. There are no related deaths reported.

Reuters is read by a whole lot more people than some WHO epidemiological weekly, eh?

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Luckily, the NY Times at least posted a blog post by Matthieu Aikins writing from Kabul, The ‘Poisoned’ Girls of Afghanistan, by way of alerting us to the WHO report:

I’m willing to bet that there was no poison.

Over the past few years, thousands of girls have fallen victim to waves of alleged poisonings in Afghan schools. The government, media and education activists have blamed the Taliban, and the police in a number of provinces have produced the “guilty” parties, with some of them confessing on national television.

But last July when I investigated the subject for Newsweek, I discovered never-released reports showing that the United Nations, the World Health Organization and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force had investigated the incidents for years and had never found, despite extensive laboratory tests, any evidence of toxins or poisoning — a fact that may explain ISAF’s conspicuous silence on the issue.

I’m glad that’s been cleared up.

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Here’s another DoubleQuote for you:

Of course, the Taliban spokesman was addressing a 2012 outbreak of the same hysteria story, and the “no claim of responsibility” report is from one of this year’s versions.

But why would anyone claim responsibility in any case, if the actual cause is mass hysteria rather than poisoning? There’s history to these things — they didn’t begin in Afghanistan:

The cases the Afghanistan incidents most resemble are the Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962, in which hundreds of people, mostly schoolgirls, were overcome by fits of mirthless, extended laughter, in what is now known as Tanzania, and the West Bank fainting epidemic of 1983.

The similarities between the heavily studied epidemic in the occupied West Bank and Afghanistan are particularly striking. Both places are in a state of conflict, where political violence is a fact of life, and both have powerful local rumor mills. The incidents follow a similar pattern: First a single report of a bad smell, then a small number of girls come down with symptoms, then it spreads. Local media fueled the rumors and the incidents spread in Afghanistan, just as they did in Israel and Palestine.

Albert Hefez, Israel’s lead psychiatric investigator of the incident, wrote in his 1985 study “The Role of the Press and the Medical Community in the epidemic of ‘Mysterious Gas Poisoning’ in the Jordan West Bank” that Israeli newspaper reports of “poisoning” at the start of the epidemic added fuel to the flames. A front page article in Haaretz on March 28, 1983 even claimed that Israeli military investigators had found traces of nerve gas and quoted “army sources” as saying they suspected Palestinian militants were poisoning their own people in order to blame Israel and provoke an uprising. Palestinian leaders followed up with accusations that Israel had poisoned them in an attempt to drive them from the West Bank.

And such things don’t only happen “abroad” — as detailed in that same NYT blog post I quoted above:

The phenomenon of groups of people falling ill for psychological, rather than physical, reasons is not unknown, nor is it limited to Afghanistan. Moreover, the typical victims are school-age girls. In late 2011, when a group of girls in Le Roy, New York, fell victim to a mysterious twitching illness, medical authorities eventually concluded it was psychogenic.

[ by Charles Cameron — an addendum to my Mahdist video, pt 2 ]
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My thanks to Aaron Zelin, who suggested that the “Jewish (Bible) scholar” I’d mentioned in the post to which this is an addendum (and who featured beginning around 05.32 on the video) looked like looks Simcha Jacobovici and commented, “he is not a ‘scholar’. He’s a journalist.”

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Jacobovici is indeed the fellow in question, and after a quick search I was able to find his film, Quest for the Lost Tribes. The section excerpted in the Mahdist video can be viewed via YouTube here:

If you’d like to see the whole thing, you can begin here:

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And Jacobovici’s opening claims are both striking and decidedly apocalyptic:

In the Bible there’s a prophecy. And that prophecy says that in the end of time, all these people that were exiled, that we call “the Lost Tribes of Israel”, will get up and come back to Israel. And it will start happening all over in the four corners of the world. And they’ll just get up and start moving back.

And what if it was actually happening? Here you have this prophecy, and people are actually getting up, they may be in your own neighborhood. And they’re packing their bags, and to you they’re just somebody else packing their bags and moving. But in actual fact they’re responding to some kind of Biblical “post-hypnotic suggestion”, I’m not talking about a thousand year, I’m talking about twenty seven hundred year old “suggestion”, that they’re responding to now.

And we can actually film these people, and match the prophecy with the events.

And the reason it should matter is that — because once they do what they have to do, they trigger the apocalypse.

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Jacobovici’s Internet Movie Database [IMDb] page is quite a long one: he’s a journalist, yes, and specifically a documentary filmmaker — and an Emmy winner for “Outstanding Investigative Journalism”.

You may also be able to view the entire film online at his own site…

[ by Charles Cameron — the Jewish Afghans — part 2 of a series on two end times videos that Tamerlan Tsarnaev “liked” ]
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At this point, we are about a quarter of the way into the Mahdist video I was describing in the first part of this post, and you’d be well-advised to catch up to speed there if you want to follow along here… with the fascinating story of the Afghan children of Isaac.

At [03.16, 03.28 and 03.37] the story begins to unfold [transcripts below]:

The first of these reads:

The army of Imam Mahdi will consist people fro the region of (ancient) Khorasan. Then a question arises: who will give hin alliegance (who will be the majority in his army)? Will it be a certain race or will all the inhabitans of Khorasan give their alliegance to him?

The second:

Pity poor Taliqan (a region in Afghanistan) that at that place are treasures of Allah, but these are not of gold and silver but consist of people who have recognized Allah as they should have

Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir al-zaman, p.59

It is interesting to note that Harun Yahya quotes this same hadith under the heading “The Occupation of Afghanistan (1979)” and comments:

There is an indication that Afghanistan will be occupied during the Last Days. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan took place in 1979 (1400, according to the Islamic calendar).

The third is headed “Note” in red, and reads:

The word Taliqan not just mentions the Taliqan region of today only but it describes the whole of the area since in older times sometimes a name of small region describes the whole of the region for example the King of whole Afghanistan and many parts of Central Asia i.e. MAHMUD OF GHAZNI was known as the KING OF ZABUL (Persian Poet Firdausi always called him as SHAH-E_ZABUL in his famous poem “Shahnama Ferdausi”). Zabul was a small province but the whole area was known as ZABUL at that time. SO the word TALIQAN means the whole of the area of Khorasan and not just TALIQAN itself.

I have tried to copy the spelling and syntax of the original, which to my ear might betray a touch of the subcontinent — but may of course have introduced errors of my own, or those of some damnable auto-correct function.

To continue. There’s something decidedly educational going on here in this video – the first, I do believe, that I’ve seen footnoted in quite this way.

The next four text slides read [04.00, 04.10, 04.15 and 04.30]:

We now know that the army of Mahdi will come out of Khorasan with their black banners and as to the question earlier (will it be a certain race or will all the inhabitants of Khorasan give their alliegance to him?

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This answer is given to us when we read (the hadith in)
Saheeh Muslim Kitaab al-Fitan Hadith 2920

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Abu Huraira (RA) reported that the Prophet (SAW) said, you have heard about the city of which is in the land and the other is in the sea (Constantinople). They said, Allah’s Messenger, yes. Thereupon he said, The last hour would not come unless seventy thousand persons from BANI ISHAQ would attack it.

Ishaq/Isaac: son of brahim/Abraham, father of Yaqub/Jacob

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When they would land there, they will neither fight with weapons nor would shower arrows but would only say: “There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest,” that one side of it would fall. Thaur (narrator) said: I think that he said: The part by the side of the ocean. Then they would say for the second time: “There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest” that the second side would also fall, and they would say: “There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest,” that the gates would be opened for them and they would enter therein and, they would be collecting spoils of war and distributing them amongst themselves that a noise would be heard and It would be said: Verily, Dajjal has come. And thus they would leave everything there and would turn to him.

And at this point, with pedagogical precision, there’s a numbered summary of what we’ve learned thus far [05.01]:

Then an Afghan appears in video [05.06 forward] —

— while what sounds to me liker a cultured British voice translates:

When I was young, and had no beard, my grandfather’s uncle died at the age of a hundred and fifteen. He used to say that we are the children of Israel. I am of the Musahem, the People of Moses.

Got that?

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And then things take another interesting turn. Our next screen-grab offers an introduction:

What follows is the “Jewish (Bible) scholar” — on camera —

saying [05.32]:

We are in a country that is supposedly dominated by Muslims, but not Muslims just any Muslims, Muslim fundamentalism, And yet, we come face to face with people that say, “We are Musahem – We are from the people of Moses”. Reuben, Gad, Ephraim, Shimon – four more tribes. So we’ve actually located nine of the tribes. Or, let me put it differently: we think we located nine of the tribes. If we haven’t located nine of the tribes, then it’s a very strange coincidence going on, that you have all these people, with Biblical names, with Biblical practices, with an Israelite memory, exactly where they should be according to the Biblical map.

I’m glad the next slide says, again, “And Allah knows best”. But then it segues into the Mahdi’s physical appearance, and again there’s a Jewish strand…

And Allah knows best
Now, let’s look at a hadith which explains Imam Mahdi’s appareance

Here [06.44] follows a long paragrapoh, which I’ve transcribed for easier reading:

The appearance of Imam Mahdi (according to AHadith) is that he has deep wheatish complexion, light stature, medium height,beautiful broad comlexion, long straight nose, eyebrows round like bow, big natural black eyes, very white front two teeth and with a spacing between the teeth, a black mole mark on the right cheek, face glowing like a shining star, a mark on shoulder like that of Prophet Muhammad (SAW),complexion like the Arabs and body like the Childern of Israel, slight stutter in the tongue due to which he hits his right hand on left thigh sometimes because of annoyance, will appear at the agae of 40 ,while praying to Allah he will expand his hands for prayers like birds expanding their wings, will be wearing Qutwani cloaks (the clothes of the Children of Israel), will resemble in character to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) but in appearance he will be different from Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

And this section closes with an illustration — again, presumably from Afghanistan — of what is meant by a Qutwani cloak [07.26]:

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I am going to take a break here, at the end of the section in which the people of Afghanistan, and indeed the Mahdi himself, are seen as having characteristics of the Children of Isaac.

In the third and, I hope final, section of this post, Jesus will make a stunning appearance, and attention will then turn back to Khorasan and the march of the black banners on Jerusalem… That final section of this post will, God willing, appear tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’ll also post Tamerlan Tsarnaev end times videos II: a Vinnie Paz video, which deals briefly with a second “end times” song that Tsarnaev “liked” — this one a whirl of contemporary conspiracy theories with Shaytan at the helm…

[ by Charles Cameron — reflecting on the anthropology of honor – shame, its relevance to cover ups of many kinds, and its potential for impact in our search for a more peaceable modus vivendi ]
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Cardinal O'Brien & Lord Lennard, their images as juxtaposed on the Cranmer blog

Recent political news in the United Kingdom, from The Telegraph:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has been forced to admit that his office knew for years of claims that a senior party figure might be sexually molesting volunteers and staff.

The Deputy Prime Minister changed tack in a statement on Sunday evening over the sex scandal which is engulfing his party.

He broke into the end of his holiday to admit for the first time that his office had been aware of the allegations surrounding his former chief executive Lord Rennard since 2008. But he said he was personally unaware of the claims.

Nick Clegg admits his office knew of Lord Rennard rumours for five years

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In today’s Wired, concerning a cover-up in the US Air Force:

A military jury found Lt. Col. James Wilkerson guilty of groping a sleeping woman’s breasts and vagina. But the Air Force wasn’t done with the “superstar” F-16 pilot. It reinstated Wilkerson to active duty and wiped away his conviction — but, to save face, is pledging not to promote him to full colonel.

[ … ]

Now the embarrassed Air Force is looking for a face saving way out of its institutional mess. Its answer thus far, reports Stars & Stripes, is to remove Wilkerson’s name from its promotions list. There’s an opportunity for Wilkerson to appeal the decision.

Air Force Accountability for Sexual Assault: Not Promoting Convicted Officer

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And concerning Lockheed and China, a short while back from emptywheel:

I’m just wondering out loud here: what if China did more than just steal data on the F-35 when it hacked various contractors, and instead sabotaged the program, inserting engineering flaws into the plane in the same way we inserted flaws in Iran’s centrifuge development via StuxNet?

[ … ]

I don’t know that we would ever know if this clusterfuck was caused with the assistance of China. It’s not like Lockheed would publicize such information, just as it asked for another $100 billion. And I don’t want to underestimate the defense industry’s ability to screw up all by themselves.

What if China Not Just Hacked — But Sabotaged — the F-35?

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I think one of the least appreciated parts of our human make-up is what anthros call the honor-shame system. It considers the honor of a larger group — the family, the regiment, the city, the nation, the corporation, the church — as of overriding importance, with personal considerations clearly secondary. And by honor I mean the respect with which the rest of society views it.

That’s the system that gives us “honor killings” in a swathe of countries, and in modified western form it’s also at the root of every cover-up, every attempt by hacks and flacks to put a good face on things — and it’s very much something that investigative journalism exists to uncover, just as PR attempts to cover it up.

To my mind, this is one of the big battlefronts in the world today, comparable perhaps to the battle post-Descartes between “enlightenment” and “superstition”. And when there’s murky business to cover up or admit to, corporations are often slower than individuals to ‘fess up — if only because the stock market favors appearances rather than realities. Until the bubble bursts.

And much the same is true for politicians and the electoral market, and for churches and the market in faith.

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My mentor Richard Landes believes honor-shame is a large part of the battlefront between “the Israelis” and “the Arab world” — he quotes these two definitions:

Politeness is not saying certain things lest there be violence; civility is being able to say those certain things and there won’t be violence.

and writes:

In an honour culture, it is legitimate, expected, even required to shed blood for the sake of honour, to save face, to redeem the dishonoured face. Public criticism is an assault on the very “face” of the person criticised. Thus, people in such cultures are careful to be “polite”; and a genuinely free press is impossible, no matter what the laws proclaim.

Modernity, however, is based on a free public discussion, on civility rather than politeness, but the benefits of this public self-criticism – sharp learning curves, advances in science and technology, economic development, democracy – make that pain worthwhile.

Leaving aside their applicability to the Israeli-Arab issue, are those fair distinctions between two modes of being? How much of the battle between those forces can be found in the world around us, in our politics, our economics situation, and so on?

How much impact did the differences between honor cultures and modernity have, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where else might this kind of conflict of values confront our leaders and ourselves?

How can we best handle interfaces between these two ways of experiencing, evaluating and acting in our shared world?

[ by Charles Cameron — on the exclusion of worldviews not consonant with grey suits and security clearances ]
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These two persons are likely being polite.

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I’m wondering how any people at State or in the Agency or wherever know what it feels like to be one of the flagellants in Iran during Muharram, in Qom or Masshad perhaps… or at the Jamkaran mosque, and to believe the Mahdi is waiting close by in the wings… or to be in Afghanistan, Sunni, and expecting his army with black banners will sweep down on Jerusalem from Khorasan in accordance with hadith… or in Palestine, reliant on the hadith of the rocks and the trees, certain that Israel will soon fall… in Pakistan, listening to Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid and mentally preparing for the Ghazwa-e-Hind?

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I suppose I’ve been struggling to say this for years:

The sanction for extremist violence, even to the point of death, is that the cause is just and right. The sanction for messianic violence is that the cause is not only humanly just and right but divinely so — and final, for the entirety of the cosmos, for all Creation.

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Sources:

Jami Miscik, tesimony, House Intelligence Cttee
Reuel Marc Gerecht, Spooky Sex

h/t Nada Bakos

Further readings on messianisms:

Mahdi in the wings, Iran
Khorasan, army with black banners, Afghanistan
Hadith of the rocks and the trees, Palestine
Ghazwa-e-Hind, Pakistan

David Cook, Contemporary Islamic Apocalyptic Literature
David Cook, Studies in Islamic Apocalyptic
Timothy Furnish, Holiest Wars
Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days
Anne-Marie Oliver & Paul Steinberg, The Road to Martyr’s Square
Jean-Pierre Filiu, Apocalypse in Islam
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban
Ali Soufan, The Black Banners
Richard Landes, Heaven on Earth