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'Honor Killing' in Italy Spurs Quest for Justice
What a sad state of affairs that some people still can justify murder to themselves in this way. I personally can't even begin to comprehend how someone can kill a family member. I'm not a father, but supposing I had a daughter it seems impossible to even think of a hypothetical situation where I would want to harm her. What in the world makes one believe they have the right to dictate how someone else should live their life? It's things such as these that make me, an ardent optimist when it comes to human nature, doubt sometimes.
I found this article on another board; it's is about a month old, specifically it focuses on an "honor" killing of a Pakistani woman in Italy, but it has plenty of other information. http://www.womensenews.org/article.c...ontext/archive there's a picture of the girl in the link. article click to show |
There is so much I could say, but I fear it would bee too emotional and get me into trouble. I shall just say... Rest her soul.
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I think they reckon that there is about 1 of these a week in the UK - a lot of them never even really get reported cos its just portrayed like the girl ran away. Hard to see how you can come to understand your God in a way that finds honour in slaughtering your own children... but people have a lot of funny ideas. I guess it does seem to be that these idea's are concentrated in certain faiths and certain ethnic communities right now... but above and beyond being an ethnic or a religious issue, I think we do need to say it is a "a person being a degenerate fucking piece of shit issue" first of all.
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to me the idea of having honor, and family honor is a good thing- what these people are doing, however, goes against what I think honor is about, and dishonors their families- especially the killing of rape victims- WTF sure, I am ok with killing the rapist, and more power to em if they do- but killing a victim to redeem family honor- that is like blaming someone for messing up the family car cause they were hit by a drunk driver..... and I can understand shunning a family member that does not follow the rules of or ascribe to the values that the rest of the family does, but killing them does not make sense to me unless this is one fucked up family - hell, my family has black sheep, and we disowned them like civilized people- this just shows the cultural gap between some of the east and some of the west- we are only getting closer, and its gonna be a bumpy ride ahead indeed........
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Fire, you fairly well expressed most of my views. On the contrary, I am the family black sheep because of my religious beliefs. They tried the disowning thing but found that they missed my company and it wasnt nearly as bad as they thought it was. :D
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we have never disowned someone for religious beliefs- our black sheep are multi state drug traffickers who allowed relatives to support them while claiming to be on hard times... while running a drug running network for boco dinero.... and then getting caught and expecting the family to pay for legal defense - still pisses me off.........
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Here's the thing, though. You're 100% "Westerners". Therefore you can't relate to the family. You might think it's wrong but, then again, you weren't raised in that culture.
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I think that crimes on their face are deplorable but if this is how the community polices itself within their own belief systems and structures, sucks, but it is what it is. People hiding their stuff behind religious beliefs doesn't make it any more right. |
under some circumstances killing a man may be acceptable (morally), but killing a woman or a child never is.
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Yeah, Im sure it does happen, but it is exceptionally rare - like a ratio of 1/1000 prolly compared to male violence against women. If a woman was attacking me in some fashion, I would do the least possible to stop her and get away - I dont think its likely to be killing her. I also don't think its very likely that Im ever gonna get attacked in that way by a woman - not because Im some kind of tough guy, but it just isnt in female nature to be violent. If that sounds sexist, thats my view of the world based on my experiences and knowledge. Yes - some women can be stronger than an average man or stronger than me - and there might be rare cases of women being violent (in the same way as some men feel like they want to dress as women or have a sex change because the feel they are the wrong gender) - but the essential female character is nuturing and caring, not destructivve and violent. And I'm also not saying its open game - that killing a guy is somehow an acceptable thing. Just that in some rare cases I think that you can argue that the guy deserved it & that doesnt apply to children (because they are not responsible fully for their actions) and it doesnt apply to women - because women are mostly not capable of the kind of things that would make some deserve to be killed. |
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i guess that's why women prisons are so empty. :shakehead: so because it's rarer that makes it okay in your book? |
Well, to take it back a little closer to OP-ville, I will agree with IL in that, even though this is a horrible, deplorable thing that is not acceptable under any circumstances, it is an act that is so far removed from Western cultural mores that we cannot relate to it on our terms. This is a practice that has been prevalent not only in Muslim society, but Hindu, as well.
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Should we stand by and watch genocide - in the 1940's should the Allies have said "well, in Nazi society, however wrong it is to us, it is ok to kill people for being Jewish or Romany or homosexual...we really have no right to enforce our morality on them"??? |
Have I said we don't have a right to intervene?
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you are saying we cannot relate to it on our terms, and I would assume the extension of that is we cannot properly judge it. I am saying that we relate to it on human terms, and judge it thusly. |
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And the practice of murdering a child is inhuman, and is insane. All kinds of murder are an ancient as human society and all of them are prohibited. Islam does not encourage or condone parents killing their children... it is a gross perversion of Islam that is practised by these people. It is not the standard of their society. The majority of Muslims condemn these actions as do the majority of non-Muslims. The appropriate treatment for this killer is not to be excused with some kind of absolute relativism... it is to that he should be hanged by the neck until death. |
I am saying that we cannot approach it on our terms. As if this were something occurring in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. We are looking at cultures where, although it is not as widespread as it was a few centuries ago, it is still somewhat understood because of cultural standards that we cannot relate to. So to sit here and say that it is wrong as if we were talking about it within our own cultural conceptions and standards isn't taking the entire picture into consideration.
Personally, I would love more than anything to see people stop killing each other and treating each other with brutality, period. But sitting here wagging my finger saying 'they shouldn't do that, it's just wrong' would be oblivious to the complexities involved that make people act the way they do. That's all I'm saying. |
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it is not a baseless assumption, it is a logical extension of the argument. |
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As someone who not only is friends with many devout Muslims, but has read the Qu'ran a great deal, I can tell you with great confidence that this barbaric behavior is not Islam anymore than burning a woman at the stake for witchcraft is Christianity.
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I though am arguing that we should not just condemn them, we should stop them - through physical force if other methods do not work. Since you feel that I am putting words into your mouth, I wont try to say whether I think thats whay you call for as well. |
Well, why can't we stop child abuse with physical force?
You can't stop it with physical force unless you can see what is going inside people's homes. In most, if not all, countries where this is practiced it is illegal. From what I understand, enforcement is a problem. Because of the reasons I stated above. What needs to change is people's attitudes and just like we haven't been able to stop people with force from beating and killing their children in this country, for much less banal reasons than 'honor,' you will not be able to stop this by force. |
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(But yeah, Italy should be able to handle this one on their own.) |
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I don't *think* you were disagreeing with that. I'd just add that I wouldn't limit such intervention to internal atrocities. |
The only thing I'm not disagreeing with is that Italy should interfere with their law system since the laws were broken in Italy.
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the key point I think you are missing Logan is that this is NOT anyone's culture.
Killing your kids is only the accepted culture or murderers. As Will correctly said, Islam does NOT make this acceptable, it condemns it. Any true believer would condemn the murder of a child in this fashion. I dont know a lot about the Hindi religion, but I would be shocked it it condones killing your kids. Yes, there are snatches you can take out of the bible that can support murder and so on if you view them out of context & and prollt the Qu'ran too (although I accept that the Qu'ran can only be read in Arabic truly which I cannot do) - but the whole "Thou shalt not kill" thing is pretty universal among people of the book at least. There is not a whole coherent culture of people who support murdering children who fall in love with someone the parents dont like... it is the action of animals, of sub humans. |
I would like for just one person to tell me how killing a woman because she was raped OR wanting to better her life by getting a college degree is an acceptable behavior.
Perhaps we should kill the men in her family instead for failing to protect her from rape or provide for her in a manner so that she didnt feel the need to go out and earn her own way. |
I killed my daughter in June and her body hasn't been found-primarily because she's still walking around.
People have always been stupid, at least since we came up with the concept. When we'll gain the will to be less so is still up in the air. |
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well... I dont deny that there are maniac Hindu's... but I am saying I am unsure if the Hindu religion endorses this - or if it it is just pure PERSONAL sexism of certain louts which is unchecked by a decentralised society. There are maniac Christians and maniac Muslims and maniac atheists too... but their religion isnt the key factor in making them mad.
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While I don't deny that sexism does exist in those societies, men face the same fate if they stray from the family value system. It is just how they live and what they believe in. You're not seeing it from their point of you, but trying to reason it with what you believe in, which makes it sound barbaric.
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again... I am not claiming that Western values should dominate Eastern ones. I am claiming to represent - on certain things - human values which apply to all people. I dont even buy the claim that there is no LAW above or below 60 degrees.
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We've got such maniacs all over Europe - they're all muslim Arabs and Somalis of course. When our police step in and send them to prison they claim that we are racist because we are not "respecting their culture"! To think that we spend so much of our tax money to bring those primitve baboons to our country because our Christian hearts don't want them to perish in the very same situation they're taking with them to our country! Baaa! Our prisons are much too good for them. Send them back home into a cross-fire of their own making!!! :mad: |
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I find it worrying that so many of the posts in this thread seem almost an attack against other members, races or religious groups.
As I have not seen anyone say that they believe the family did the right thing (for obvious reasons) I think that maybe everyone should take a step back and calm down before coming back to the OP. It is a fact that these killings happen and they happen in a variety of cultures, though not always in such a premeditated fashion. I believe it is the fact that these killings are planned out that makes them so disturbing. Due to one of my jobs I work with quite a few people who are from middle eastern cultures and they do treat their women (and by extension me) in a way that I personally find quite hard to stomach. However I also understand that my refusal to cover my hair or dress in a manner they approve / act submissive is hard for them to handle. We all have to make compromises. I think that what Infinite_Loser - mixedmedia and LoganSnake were trying to point out is that while we might not see her actions as impacting on family honour another culture / religion might. They did not say that the actions taken were justified. As for those commenting on the race and religion of the perpetrators of the crime, police basic sterotype of a killer is generally white male ... |
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The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of honor-killing victims may be as high as 5,000 women. Morocco: Article 418 of the Penal Code states "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery." |
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I think when the man in Italy is found guilty, we should give him over to the women of his culture so that they can take out all of their frustrations on his hog tied gagged body.
Thats fair enough. |
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Fast Forward, do you seriously think it's okay to call any human being a primitive baboon? Do you think people on this forum are going to sympathize with you, especially when you are using this kind of language? And are you aware that we have quite a few Arabs on this forum, among other people groups that you seem to lump into one category of animals? |
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I can see that's the way you see it but then I hope you never feel the urge to reside in my country. Stay home. All right? |
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I think once you classify a nationality or ethnic group as "baboons" - it doesnt really matter what else your agument contains, because quite rightly no one is going to pay any attention to what you say.
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I’ve been busy, and have been sort of absent from a topic I started. First, I’d like to respond to the point made by a few of you here that it is wrong to be so judgmental about this crime when the impetus behind it is related to a culture we do not understand. Where in the world does such an argument end? Can we therefore not be upset at a murderer because we can’t read his mind? No, I don’t think anyone would say that, but call him hasan and let him live 3000 miles away then maybe it’s far enough removed for us to ponder it pedantically. I believe that my right to influence someone ends at physical coercion(as an aside, I’m not too keen on causing someone emotional distress either, but I’ll leave the physical part as a general precept). This I will apply to any person living anywhere and it is by this that I will judge his or her actions. If you look at it in this fashion I think you’ll see that I don’t need first hand knowledge of someone’s culture to form a rational opinion, or be outraged. If something as heinous as murdering someone for such slight offenses is truly part of a people’s culture then it will be in their laws. Then, this would be an entirely different case in my view since government is not held to the same principle as I described above.
Next, I never intended this topic to be fodder for some Muslim bashing or what have you. My parents, though they don’t practice the religion would still call themselves Muslims. I have grown up around a mostly Muslim population(admittedly not devout) and I can’t name a single person that I know that would think murdering one’s child is justified. I’ve had some time to mull it over, so I have slightly more to say then I had in my original post. Leaving aside for a moment the nature of this type of crime, I was thinking about the cause. The thing that struck me was the conflict between a child that has been almost fully integrated into a foreign society and parents who have not. It must be particularly difficult for Muslim people, especially those of dark skin, to be accepted. I have first hand knowledge of the deeply imbedded racism that exists in Southeastern Europe and can only imagine that, even with the high ideals spouted by some, it must not be much different in the whole of Europe. So while the older generation stands firm to ideals from the old country, and perhaps in the face of racism embraces more radical ideas, the young generation ceases to be defined by the same principles. This is an awful situation which, as I know from personal experience, leads to conflict; but, is this really enough to kill someone over? |
It seemed more...simple
Once upon a time, it did. Has too much time passed? |
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We can't relate to it because its evil and twisted. Its an archaic system that has no place anywhere today and to justify even in the slightest way by saying 'its their way' is moral cowardice. I'd also add that at least the supreme court of India has labeled Honor killings as an act of barbarism, demanding punishment for murder. I Its evil and wrong, period. Quote:
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I'm personally rather done with the concept that we can tolerate this type of thinking in our own borders. And we can stop it, without force, they can get out. |
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1). Really are terribly lacking in reading comprehension. 2). Are purposesly misquoting me for your own, personal (trolling) agenda. 3). Doing your best, but you just don't speak/read English very well. I'm an idealist, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that English isn't your language. No problem. I speak 7 languages, 4 of them fluently and the others "good enough to get around". Tell me what language you speak and maybe we can come to an agreeable understanding with one another. I know that non-English is frowned upon on the threads but I think it is alright on the private messages. OK? :) |
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Your last sentences here are just that. You were even asked first what country you resided in but failed to answer it, to even begin down this path is downright trolling if you ask me. |
Since when did slitting a young girl's throat become a litmus test of cultural tolerance? In what alternate reality does such an act fall into the realm of the acceptable? So where is the line to be drawn? If a society practiced dragging their retarded kids behind buses until they disintegrated into fleshy lumps of goop, would we approve of this too on the basis of respecting their "cultural practices"? What about if they threw all their ugly, hunchbacked, unmarriable girls into vats of boiling acid? Copout indeed.
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I have never stated that it was not evil and twisted. I myself stated that the act is illegal in most of home states that it is practiced in - but it is erratically enforced because of cultural standards that we can not relate to on our own terms - my exact words, more than once. I think that is a shortsighted tendency that does no more than toss a little mental 'poo-poo' over the problem. I have not uttered one word in defense of this practice in any way, shape or form and I always think it interesting when people try to paint you into a corner for not sharing one or the other of two diametric possibilities. I have simply questioned the way we approach it. I don't understand your objection to that. And also, since it bears clarifying one time, in the entire scheme of things, when you take in the massive Muslim and Hindu populations on the planet, this practice is not chronically widespread and there are many activists at work in the home countries where it exists who are trying to stop it. I do not 'understand' it. I do not 'understand' this concept of family honor. Yet, I do not 'understand' people who believe it is their right to shoot someone who is running away with their television, either (they exist - I know - I've talked to them!). I just want to make it clear that I will never support or endorse or show understanding for murder, regardless of where it is happening. But I will always assert that there are minds in the world that I can never understand due to the way I was raised and shown to see the world, and this is as much true for all of us as it is for a man with a 1000-year-old view of family honor. |
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You also cannot cop-out to this behavior by admonishing it first and then just as quickly taking back any actual judgment of it, as something we can't understand, in the same sentence. It seems like a very passive-aggressive way of indicating disagreement without actually committing to a negative opinion of others' beliefs. Killing another person is wrong- period, end of story, checkmate, BINGO, gin, and Yahtzee- and no human being on the planet, regardless of who they are, is exempt from that most basic of ideals. The guys knew they were wrong in doing it, they are just hiding behind what they call their beliefs to justify their uncontrolled, racist rage. Saying we cannot understand the religious/cultural implications in what has happened is akin to dismissing our ability to judge the circa 1800's to early 1900's often-performed tradition of hanging black people as being unfamiliar with the culture of the American racist in that time period. Strong religious, or cultural, personal beliefs are not ever grounds for murder, and that's that. Quote:
And "honor" is hardly a banal reason. "Honor" is always part of a belief structure, and people will do just about anything, including kill or give their lives, to uphold or enforce their beliefs. footnote: when I say "belief structure", I don't mean that it's part of the actual religion they practice, but part of some offshoot belief structure that some have subscribed to, which is not in keeping with the actual religion they claim to represent. |
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Tactical issues aside, I couldn't disagree more. Quote:
I think he needs to realize that his post needs more precise wording, as it can easily be interpreted to be saying "not all Muslims are maniacs, but all maniacs are Muslims". Which, if that's actually what he meant, is at least naive and probably racist as well. I do think that you leaped a little with the "all Muslims/Arabs are maniacs" interpretation. I didn't see that in his wording. |
”Honour Killing”is not a Christian thing. It's not a Jewish thing. It's not a Hindu thing. It's not a Budhist thing. It's a Muslim thing. Naturally, that doesn't mean that all Muslims agree with the pratice. But no matter how you look at it, it is Muslims (Arabs in particular) who commit ”Honour Killings”. To say it out loud is a exercise in the obvious. And to deny it is ridiculous. Do you really think that Arabs, or any Muslims, would take offense in that fact of knowledge? Members of this board seem to think that they would!
Had any one individual from that "culture" come forward to call me out on my original comments, the two of us would have come to an understanding whereby neither of us would have felt offended. My original comments were directed to those cultures that sanction ”honour killings” but it would be wrong to believe that all persons of such a culture would disagree with my damnation of such crimes. To believe that would be EQUALLY racist as to believe that each and every person of that culture is guilty of the crime. Quote:
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I have not given anyone grounds for murder. You align me with ideas that I have never written or implied. Quote:
Also, one more thing, I never compared child abuse to honor killings I compared the difficulties in forcing a solution to the problem. And in fact I said in my own post the issue was not law enforcement but changing attitudes. So all in all I think we agree on this issue more than we disagree. |
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If I was an Italian citizen, I would expect my justice system to act in the full defence of the murder of one of my fellow citizens. |
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As for the rest of the posters, I don't think any one of us is condoning this behavior. Murdering people is wrong. But there is no one single ethnic or religious group who has the corner market on murder, or even on honor killings. Even Italians were doing it not very long ago. No one should get off scot-free from murdering anyone, in any ethnic group. That doesn't mean we can't consider the bigger picture of what's going on, and to try and understand why people behave the way they do, even if you don't like it. That's called cultural relativism. It's not EXTREME relativism, which is what a good deal of you are chalking it up to be. There is a big difference between the two ideas, and anyone who took any kind of basic anthropology course worth its salt ought to have learned that. If you haven't taken a course like that, then that'll be our next area of discussion on this thread. Just because you are trying to understand another way of thinking does not mean that you approve of it. How difficult is that to understand? |
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I'm saying kick them out as non-citizens, and while the second generation should go if they think like the first, we can place strict rules about immigration to prevent any more from entering. If anyone thinks its unfair, try to get a Saudi Visa some time. And then try to immigrate. |
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Murder, whether it is out-right treacherous murder, or murder with motivation, is still murder. It's probably the same. I agree with you. But here's the catch. In most societies murder is punishable by law, that is to say murder is illegal - it is against the law. Some may make consesions to those murders comitted "without design" and Americans may give leniency to murder comitted in a fit of jealously by way of an infidel husband/wife. It is all still a crime to murder someone and some punishment is expected. The Moslem law (as pertains to religeous rights, duties and obligations) not only allows "honour killings" but it it acutually encourages it. That law (though not in the same paragraph) also includes the obligation of every Moslem (anywhere in the world) to murder whoever is on the "Fatwa" list. I honestly don't recall any Pope condoning (least of all demanding!) the head of any one human being on this earth. Now, if you don't like my conclusions you may feel completely free to make your own. |
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How many Muslims do you know personally? In addition to that question, which country are you from, for the 3rd time? (I guess it wasn't Iceland or Thailand?) Quote:
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Speaking as a baboon, it's just us here. I take offense at the word "them". WE have common problems and various solutions to them, some of which comprise evil, and some of which are only ineffective.
All seem to me affectations. Any person who kills their offspring is obviously insane. |
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I assume he's Dutch? |
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The part about ”crazy lunatic” is yours – and yours alone. So be so kind not to continue this mis-quoting of me. It's gone much too far already and it's getting irritating. OK? Quote:
Furthermore, I'm also banking on your intelligence to see that the subject is ”Honour Killings” - not attrocities committed by Irish Catholics upon Irish Protestants – Irish Protestants committed upon Irish Cahtolics – Moslems committed upon Hindus – Hindus committed upon Moslems – Moslems committed upon Sihks – Sihks committed upon Moslems – Tutsies committed upon Hutus – Hutus committed upon Tutises – Serbs commited upon Bosnians – Bosnians committed upon Serbs – Americans committed upon Cubans – Americans committed upon Iraqis – Americans committed upon Vietnamese – Americans committed upon Iranians – Americans committed upon Nicaraguans – White Americans committed upon Black Americans – etc. etc. etc. Quote:
I have been in about 20 Moslem countries. The majority being Arab countries. Furthermore, I live in a predominantely Moslem part of my city. I am a minority in my own town. I am a minority in my own country, you could say. I will be moving to another part of city on the 1st. of October because after 8 years of living in such an invironment, I 've had more than I can take. Believe me that I can tell you things that me and my family have had to endure that you would think are untrue. For example, my daughter is pelted with stones (by Arabs and Somalis) whenever she is seen with her boyfriend in our neighbourhood. Why, you may ask? Because she walks with him ”hand in hand”. But isn't this my country – my culture? Worst of all (and the deciding factor in me taking my family out of this part of the city) is the ”Honour Killing” comitted upon my daughter's classmate. Her family (father, brother, and uncle) slit her throat while she was sleeping in her bed because she was ”sweet” on a local boy – a non-Moslem. Apparently, she didn't even get around to tasting ”the goods” with her boyfriend. It is enough for the family that there was a possibility of her eventually ”doing it” with him. The girl was round to our house many times to listen to my daughter's music CD's and she seemed like a nice girl, coping with the difficulities of her Moslem background yet enjoying the freedom of expression allotted to life in Europe. My daughter is still going to therapy because of her friend's death. She now clings to me and my wife and she's afraid to go out with her friends after school. She's becoming a recluse at the age of 14 and we don't know how to help her. |
So, can I get a clear, unequivocal statement from you that there are a minority of Muslims in the world who, by virtue not of their religion but by virtue (or vice?) of their own twisted version of it (combined with a number of other complex factors, including cultural and economic ones), commit murder? If you agree with that, then I have no problem with that statement.
You have not answered Baraka_Guru's question about your interpretation of Muslim law, which would be helpful for this discussion. Quote:
And in fact, since you point out several ethnic groups here, the subject is honor killings by Pakistanis, not Arabs or Somalis, so why did you bring those up in the first place, if we're indeed being so specific? Quote:
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But the big picture is much more complicated... looking at the history of European and African (and Asian, South American, pick your developing country) politics and economics helps us get some understanding on how the current system came to be. International population movement didn't just spring up out of nowhere. Conditions were created to induce people to move away from their homes, and the only way you are going to get them to "go back home" is to endorse more ethical trade and subsidies, and to not think in terms of us vs. them. Because we are all "them." Thinking otherwise is what got the world into its current situation in the first place. Now, this is completely off track of honor killings, but it gives some context for international migration and how these problems came to be in your neighborhood. It's complicated, and there is no easy solution... certainly not "go back to where you came from," which is entirely unhelpful and simplistic. |
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And fatwas aren't just about murdering people, any more than mitzvahs are only about coming-of-age parties. At the risk of sounding preachy myself, you shouldn't let fundamental extremists teach you about their religion. |
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Thirded with a side of amen. |
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If we confine ourselves to "my family's problem" then moving to another part of the city is certainly "making the problem BETTER". Probably eliminating that problem alltogether. I believe in a quiet, clean invironment, where neighbours respect everyone else's peace. These are common qualities of my countrymen and I am part and parcel of that culture. Remaining where we are now is out of the question and I can see not the slightest possibilty of "making the probelm better" by staying there. The place is a bomb - ticking, ticking, ticking away. I don't want to light the fuse nor do I want to still be there when it goes off. I'd much rather read about it in the newspapers when the big kabooom(!) rattles the windows. The very worst part of it is that I doubt I'll shed a tear when it happens. I'll probably give a smirk cause they'll have done it to themselves. The OTHER PROBLEM, to which you hint, has gone beyond the boundaries of simple understanding and education. We have failed to educate the masses upon masses of political refugees who turn up at our doorstep. This failure has never before been a tragic event because we've had a long history of accepting refugees who (themselves) have thrown themselves into the task of learning and respecting our culture and way of life. These last years, however, have seen several thousands of refugees (weekly!) who have no interest in our way of life at all. They scorn us. They ridicule us. They sabotage the language classes by shouting down female (who such people consider inferior) teachers and critizing my countrymen, our language, our culture, our values, our religion, our system, our general non-agressive behaviour, etc. In short, that OTHER PROBLEM is beyond correcting by persons like me remaining in the midst of people who purposely sabotage my cultural and disrespect everything that me and my country stand for. Me, my wife, my 14-year-old daughter, and our 2½ month old son are getting out and I promise you that we won't be looking back. Quote:
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The reason I keep asking what country you live in, is because you keep referring to "your" country and how its culture and people are, and I have no idea how to understand what you mean until you give me the actual context for those comments:
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In fact, you could almost take the following quote and take it back 200 years, depending on your country, and I am very sure that the colonized peoples would be saying the exact same thing about the European colonizers (substitute for "refugees"). Wouldn't you agree? Quote:
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You also have not answered the question about why you have persisted in discussing Muslim Arabs and Somalis, when the OP is about Pakistanis. They are not "all the same." Also, you have not answered whether or not you agree with my statement: Quote:
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on the op: the article's interpretation of this killing is odd--decontextualized presentation of infotainment, curious rhetorical choices, etc. it kinda set up what has happened thus far here.
if you look at the op as just telling a story--and in a sense, that all it does--and telling that story in a very particular way--you can work pretty easily out what is happening both in it and in this thread. we live in fucked up times. one characteristic of these times is an obvious convergence between the discourse of "terrorism" and the paranoia of neofascist politics. it's because these are such curious times that it pays to do react to information at a remove so you can wonder about the extent to which responses to the story are built into the story itself and so require no particular thinking--or to enable you to consider the extent to which the way a story is written pitches you into associations shaped by ideological memes. this is gonna be a bit long. tant pis. the narrative is a variant of tragedy. a) it involves a clash between rationalities, between mutually exclusive rule sets. b) this clash generates a killing, which enacts the conflict between mutually exclusive rules sets c) this sets into motion another conflict, a legal one, in the context of a meaning is ascribed to the killing. as a conflict (c) repeats (a) except it 1. can be seen as itself resolving the question of which law/norms obtain and so resolves the conflict by imposing a meaning particular to one rule set onto an action carried out in terms of another. this is how the orestia works, it is how this story works. this kind of conflict does not mark a distinction between inside and outside a "culture" simply because you can find them everywhere--family vs. wider community, norms of inclusion/exlcusion as over against contextual norms (which community identity is primary in a situation where more than one is at play). and such conflicts arise continuously, in various forms. and these conflicts are often undecidable on their own terms. and the legal decision is often arbitrary. the idea that a "culture" presupposes a unified or coherent single set of social rules is ludicrous. running with this idea puts you into untenable positions--like you can start pretending that such conflicts indicate the collapse of "western civilization" as if without these Others there'd be no crime, no-one would die and everything would be hunky dory. if you state this directly, the appeal goes out of it simply because stated directly, its removal from the world that other people know about, the retreat into fantasy, is obvious. but such fiction---rooted in the implications of the word "culture" and not in reality--the idea that a "culture" is a unified or even coherent single formation --this is the stuff neofascist dreams are made of. in principle--that is in the abstract--such conflicts can be taken as posing problems of limitations: limits of legal authority, limits of legitimacy--but (referring to an earlier paragraph here--->) if these problems are raised at the level of (a) then they are resolved at the level of (c). this conflict between rationalities unfolds in an environment that is legally circumscribed----so the conflict between rule sets falls under the legal definitions of actions----so the outcome of this clash is murder, in this case. but you can imagine other conflicts between rationalities that would lead a court to sanction what would otherwise be understood as murder. war for example. anyway two mutually exclusive sets of claims play out across the body (living and dead) of the victim. after the fact, the act is subjected to a judgment. that judgment defines the act around legal criteria and there we are. one of the reasons tragic conflict has its power is that it generally unfolds (in the stories) during a period of political crisis. that "western civilization" is experiencing such a crisis is projection, and more stuff from which neo-fascist dreams are made. this simply because the notion of "western civilization" is even more ridiculous than that of "culture" if you think about it. where is it? where does it stop and start? who is inside and who outside? how would you determine that? who determines that? this is another level of appeal of contemporary neo-fascism: it purports to resolve this question of "western civilization" by redefining it around the new and improved "same/other" distinction: if the new and improved Other is muslim then "we" are judeo-christian (but contemporary neo-fascism is pretty good at erasing the judeo- part)--the work of the binary is obvious. it is tedious to rehearse it all again. because believers in such political nonsense are looking for essence, in these transient inside/outside distinctions they find essence, so there is usually no sense that "western civlization" is nothing more than an abstraction that is shaped by a series of stupid oppositions on this order. they want "western civlization" to be a thing, like a toaster or a rock. so the category is not about being descriptively coherent--it is therapeutic. back to the op: the decision on the part of the author of the op article to call this an "honor killing" is bizarre. she could have called it any number of other things, which would have been equally applicable, and this thread would not be happening as it has been. "honor killing" obviously echoes other associations--the logic of feud as over against the logic of modern law----and because the story is set in italy and the english-language press does not devote a while lot of space to providing any detailed news about italy, the associations operate at the level of caricature--and so "honor killing" resonates with the mafia and so to a criminal conspiracy that functions as a double of state power in certain areas. so it brings two associations without even thinking too much about it: outmoded/anachronistic community norms, and horizontal criminal conspiracy. this sounds like my favortie cartoon--"The Terrrorist" and from here, we are off to the races--literally in some of the posts above. people want to discuss this in ethical terms, but there is no attempt to do that in a serious way. to do that, you would need to actually consider the conflict itself and you simply do not have the information necessary about the family involved, who these folk are, where they are, what their situations were, what relations obtained between their assumptions concerning--say--marriage (as a flashpoint conflict between family/community norms and the norms of the ambient community--standard stuff, really). but without this information, there is no possibility of thinking about this killing as posing anything like a coherent ethical problem. folk above are using simplistic projections instead--so you dont know how it is possible that such an action could be undertaken--in what framework is might have seemed reasonable to do--but you make one up and pretend that on the basis of your projection, you can pose an ethical bind. you arent. the thing that makes ethics complicated is that you have to consider people acting in ways that they understand to be justified. the problem comes in considering this process of justification. if you frame an action as simply "primitive" or "abberant" you evacuate the ethical problem and substitute a simplistic spectator's judgment. which is not in itself a problem---it is an opinion--but dont pretend that you are resolving any grand ethical issue through it. you havent even set one up. one of the aspects of this that makes it actually tragic is that the killing was undoubtedly an act taken en extremis. people do not generally kill their daughters as a matter of course. the people involved in this horrible situation are human beings. if you want to play the game of making "ethical" judgments, then you have to risk trying to understand the complexity of the situation. again, the problem really is in the sense of justification more than it is in the act that followed from it. the problem that ethics can get to are about bounded rationalities and their relation to wider social norms...but saying "this is bad" based on no substantial information doesn't do that. again, it doesnt even start to do that. i am not justifying the killing, by the way. i just think much of the response to the op has been facile. |
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----- Originally Posted by Fast Forward ----- Anyone interested in any subject would do better to do his/her own research. Why draw any conclusion from a "second party" source - especially when that second party is unqualifed? Quote:
HIS/HER QUESTION IS ABOUT ”MY INTERPRETATION”. CORRECT? MY ”KNOWLEDGE” IS BASED UPON INTERVIEWS – BOTH PERSONAL AND ”OFFICIAL” (OOOOH, BUT I HESITATE TO USED THAT WORD). I DID A 9-PART TV SERIES BASED ON IMMIGRANTS IN MY CITY. THIS WAS A FEW YEARS AGO. ON ONE EPISODE I PARTIALLY DEDICATED THE QUESTION OF ”FATWAH” AND THEIR CONVICTION [OR INTERPRETATION(?)] OF THE ”OBLIGATION” OF ALL MOSLEMS TO KILL WHOEVER HAPPEND TO BE ON THE FATWAH.. I QUESTIONED ABOUT 25 TO 30 MOSLEMS, OF VARYING NATIONALITIES - BOTH SHIA AND SUNI THOUGH, BECAUSE OF REDUNDANCIES I ONLY TELEVISED 10 OF THEM. ANYWAY, THE RESULT OF THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE INTERVIEWED WAS NOT QUITE 50/50 – THOSE WHO PROUDLY DEFENDED THE ”OBLIGATION” AND THOSE WHO FELT UNCOMFORTABLE AND AHSAMED OF IT. HOWE ER, NOT ONE DENIED THAT THE OBLIGATION IS EXPECTED. TO PUT IT INTO OTHER WORDS ALL OF THEM ACKNOWLEDGED THE OBLIGATION WHETHER OR NOT THEY AGREED WITH IT PERSONALLY. THESE, (PLUS SIMILAR DISCUSSIONS WITH MOSLEMS), ARE MY ONLY CREDENTIALS. IF YOU WANT ME TO RESPOND TO ”MY PERSONAL INTERPRETATION” OF THE KORAN, MOSLEM LAW, THEN I'D HAVE TO READ IT THOROUGHLY FIRST. ----- Originally Posted by Fast Forward ----- I would rather that "respect" is awarded to earnest observances rather than emotional ones. Quote:
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So, can I get a clear, unequivocal statement from you that there are a minority of Muslims in the world who, by virtue not of their religion but by virtue (or vice?) of their own twisted version of it (combined with a number of other complex factors, including cultural and economic ones), commit murder? SEE ABOVE. |
No. See roachboy's post. That is all.
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Fast Forward, it sounds like your views of the Muslim faith are completely anecdotal, circumstantial, and personal. Have you considered doing some reading?
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The point is:
If ......... 1). My extensive travels to Moslem countries are irrelevant ... and 2). All of those Moslems I've met and spoke with on those travels are irrelevant ... and 3). The many thousands of Moslems living in my town are irrelevant ... and 4). The fact that I live in a predominantly Moslem neighbourhood is irrelevant .. and 5). The televison project I worked with interviewing many Moslems (putting themselves on record) is irrelevant ... and 6). Everything I've read on the subject is irrelevant ......and 7). The documentary films I've seen are irrelevant ...... ..... then I suggest that the literature you expect will disagree with all of that experience must certainly be equally irrelevant. |
Considering points 1 through 5 are anecdotal, and points 6 and 7 unknown, I don't know. What are some of the books you've read? Which films?
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