CAN'T WAIT FOR ROMANCE & ARABIAN NIGHTS? LET'S PLAY DRESS-UP, MY DEAR!

Ah, the dream!

The 1991 film "Not Without my Daughter," which featured Sally Field as Betty Mahmoody, an idealistic and trusting wife of an Iranian-American doctor, touched on a painful subject for an increasing number of American families, namely. the heartbreak caused by Muslim fathers in foreign lands preventing their American children from returning to the United States.

Then, the reality?

Following coverage of the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, I could not help but think back over my years in Saudi Arabia, when I saw not a few disillusioned American women fleeing from marriages with Saudi Muslim husbands.  The saddest aspect of those break-ups concerned children with American citizenship who were forced to remain in Saudi Arabia, owing to Saudi Sharia law, which gave complete control over their lives to their Muslim fathers.

Katherine Russell, Wife of Accused Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev

And then there were the photos of Katherine Russell, the wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the young Chechen who subsequently fell mortally wounded in a shoot-out with police.  What possessed a young American woman, I asked myself, to don the hijab and ally herself with a belief system which stands in such complete opposition to the freedom and liberty which have been the linchpins of  American society?

Alas, I thought, perhaps the answer could be found through a thorough examination of the American psyche in the 21st century. Somehow, I couldn't help thinking that such an assessment would reveal that, since Americans believe so passionately that they are world citizens; it is not a quantum leap in logic to surmise that their naive trust in toleration and faith in diversity as strengths must mean to them that others from totally different cultures would happily accept their values.  Unfortunately, that is not how the world turns.

In 1950, the seminal sociological analysis "The Lonely Crowd" was published by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney.  In this work, it was pointed out that, increasingly, American society was dominated by "other-directed" people, who could only distinguish themselves and their beliefs by virtue of how those beliefs were delineated by society at large. Thus, American society no longer had the impetus to adhere to conventions and customs that had previously served as its bonding elements. The result would eventually be a spreading anomie, and a societal rootlessness suggesting breakdown.

Could it be that an expanding anomie has produced  more and more rootless people who are susceptible to the firmness of conviction of individuals coming from less developed societies with belief systems in direct opposition to what had once been robust American traditions?  Could young American women sauntering about under cover of hijabs and abbayas be symptomatic of  a deep malaise and a societal crisis of the first order? These possibilities are worth considering in light of the fates of numerous children holding American citizenship, who are being held in Muslim countries which do not recognize international agreements such as the Hague Abduction  Accords.

Despite frequent congressional hearings and efforts undertaken by public figures such as Representative Dan Burton, whose 2009 trip to Saudi Arabia in behalf of children abducted to that country was unceremoniously rebuffed, little or no progress has occurred in these sad cases  Perhaps young American women should consider the long-term consequences of Muslim-American mating before they slip on the garb of exotic places.  All too frequently, those dreams of the romance of the Arabian nights morph into Arabian nightmares.