Barbaric ‘Honour Killings’ Become The Weapon To Subjugate Women in Iraq
At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene.
The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone. Her “honour killing” is just one in a grotesque series emerging from Iraq, where activists speak of a “genocide” against women in the name of religion.
In the latest such case, it was reported yesterday that a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for becoming infatuated with a British soldier serving in southern Iraq.
In Basra alone, police acknowledge that 15 women a month are murdered for breaching Islamic dress codes. Campaigners insist it is a conservative figure.
Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase.
Du’a Khalil Aswad, 17, from Nineveh, was executed by stoning in front of mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a boy outside her Yazidi tribe. Mobile phone images of her broken body transmitted on the internet led to sectarian violence, international outrage and calls for reform. Her father, Khalil Aswad, speaking one year after her death in April last year, has revealed that none of those responsible had been prosecuted and his family remained “outcasts” in their own tribe.
“My daughter did nothing wrong,” he said. “She fell in love with a Muslim and there is nothing wrong with that. I couldn’t protect her because I got threats from my brother, the whole tribe. They insisted they were gong to kill us all, not only Du’a, if she was not killed. She was mutilated, her body dumped like rubbish.
“I want those who committed this act to be punished but so far they have not, they are free. Honour killing is murder. This is a barbaric act.”
Despite the outrage, recent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. “Honour killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government,” said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. “If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.
“In the past five years it is has got [much] worse. It is difficult to described how terrible it is, how badly we have been pushed back to the dark ages. Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off. Self immolation is rising - women are left with no choice. There is no government body or institution to provide any sort of support. Sharia law is being used to underpin government rule, denying women their most basic human rights.”
In August last year, the body of 11-year-old Sara Jaffar Nimat was found in Khanaqin, Kurdistan, after she had been stoned and burnt to death. Earlier this month, two brothers and a sister were kidnapped from their home near Kirkuk by gunmen in police uniforms. The brothers were beaten to death and the woman left in a critical condition after being informed that she must obey the rules of an “Islamic state”. One week ago, a journalist, Begard Huseein, was murdered in her home in Arbil, northern Iraq. Her husband, Mohammed Mustafa, stabbed her because she was in love with another man, according to local reports.
The stoning death of Ms Aswad led to the establishment of an Internal Ministry unit in Kurdistan to combat violence against women. It reported that last year in Sulaymaniyah, a city of 1 million people, there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through “family problems”, and threats of honour killings. Rape is not included as most women are too fearful to report it for fear of retribution. Nevertheless, police in Karbala recently revealed 25 reports of rape.
The new Iraqi constitution, according to Mrs Mahmoud, is a mass of confusing contradictions. While it states that men and women are equal under law it also decrees that sharia law - which considers one male witness worth two females - must be observed. The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone. The fundamentalists have sent out too many chilling messages. In Mosul two years ago, eight women were beheaded in a terror campaign.
“It was really, really horrifying,” said Mrs Mahmoud. “Honour killings and murder are widespread. Thousands [of people] … have become victims of murder, violence and rape - all backed by laws, tribal customs and religious rules. We urge the international community, the government to condemn this barbaric practice, and help the women of Iraq.”
© 2008 The Independent
I feel horribly sorry for any woman within islamic culture who has to fear this sort of thing.
I am impressed to see this on the commondreams website. To many of us out there, it seems as though “progressives” are SUPPORTING things like honor killings. Its time to see some real condemnation of this barbaric practice.
I guess the freedom from tyranny that Bush wanted for the Iraq people only applies to men; so what is new?
Another unintended consequence of this ill-gotten, uncalled for war. Americans do not need to be in the middle of this return to medieval times; this isn’t what our service poeple are working and enduring for and I doubt the rest of the US will consider this a “victory”.
Rocker: Yes, I don’t like Saddam but he ran the one secular arab country in the world and we have ruined it.
Nice job Bush!
“it seems as though “progressives” are SUPPORTING things like honor killings. ”
This statement is downright idiotic and seems as though its written by just another right-wing nut. Whether you are progressive or regressive (read: republicans/democrats), this article should definitely make you terribly upset.
The truth is a whole slew of wing-nuts would take the gist of this article to somehow justify the invasion/occupation of Iraq and would further extend it to somehow slander Islam in general rather than damn the monsters who commit these acts.
I am a “right wing nut” who does NOT support the iraq war, partly because of incidents like this.
But you are wrong about islam. This is not the “action of a minority” it is islamic theology in action. This is what europe is already dealing with, and what will happen in america if we don’t watch ourselves.
The same things goes on in Saudi Arabia. I cant say that it is as common as it is in Iraq but it’s not unusual to see an announcement in the English language newspaper of a beheading or a stoning (usually of a woman accused of breaking sharia law)and all are welcome to come see tribal justice. Of course as long as there is oil in the ME the U.S. will look the other way.
I’m of many minds about this issue.
1. We have our version of this: angry men killing their wives/girlfriends, children and then sometimes themselves. So perhaps every culture has its lunacy. On the other hand, honor killings differ from these episodes in that multiple members of the family conspire to do them, quite rationally.
2. Our society and laws don’t tolerate this sort of thing. Assuming he survives, the man goes to jail for quite a while. On the other hand, there seems to be way too much tolerance for honor killings in Islamic society. I’ve read that Jordan specifically requires a steep sentence reduction for honor killings.
3. To say we need troops in Iraq to stop honor killings is absurd. We’re not doing Muslim women any favors by shooting up or bombing their homes, accidentally or otherwise.
4. Honor killings seem to be an inevitable yet small-scale feature of Islamic immigration. Germany had a wave of half a dozen or so a couple years ago. They pop up in the news here every once in a while. It’s upsetting, yet far less of a killer than smoking. I’m more worried about polygamy and threats to freedom of expression (e.g. Salman Rushdie, “Submission,” Danish cartoons) and other aspects of Sharia in the West.
The most civilized and enlightened societies are matriarchal and matrilineal. The most prosperous too. Societies that oppress women are dying societies.
There are some conflicting sentiments among progressives about this. Most of us condemn the abuse of women in fundamentalist Islamic societies. Most of us also favor pulling out of Iraq and leaving it citizens to solve their own medieval and tribal squabbles in their own way, therefore abandoning women to these savage customs. Holden is right that Iraq was on a secular path before we interfered. Perhaps our presence has called up a backlash of fundamentalism that would have become less virulent over time if we weren’t there to threaten their cultural foundations. In any case we are not very good at social engineering, and our typically heavy handed approach only makes things worse. If modernization were not perceived (correctly) as equivalent to occupation and exploitation we might make some headway coaxing them into favoring some human rights. But yes, Iraq is ruined. It will be a long time before America’s notions of civility find a popular audience in that part of the world.
“But you are wrong about islam. ”
Really ? Maybe if you take a little time and “read”, you may become more enlightened, till then you are squarely in Bush territory as far as basic intelligence goes … I do not have the time or inclination to point you in the right (or left) direction. You can either wallow in your unsubstantiated positions or you can read and grow a brain.
Historically, Iraqi women and girls have enjoyed relatively more rights than many of their counterparts in the Middle East. The Iraqi Provisional Constitution (drafted in 1970) formally guaranteed equal rights to women and other laws specifically ensured their right to vote, attend school, run for political office, and own property.
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/wrd/iraq-women.htm
Good job USA! Read together with the CD article that states one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military ( http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8564/ ), the USA demonstrates that it only gives lip service to women’s rights.
Ridd, do not in any way shape or form compare me to Bush. That’s nonesense. READ about islam too, and you will be amazed how much it has in common with the kind of thinking that motivates our current administration.
Vox: Right on the money. Our country has destroyed a beautiful secular arab country, the only one in existence that isn’t simply a playground for the super-rich. Saddam was an evil man, but he could have been OUR evil man. That would have sent a far better message then what we did.
Get ready for more honor killings, persecution of christians, and suicide bombings. That’s what Bush calls “liberation”.
“and you will be amazed how much it has in common with the kind of thinking that motivates our current administration.”
Actually radical Islam and radical Christianity (southern baptist/american variety) have a lot in common. Bush is their progeny. Christianity has manged to destroy the lives of millions of people the world over these last 500 years and yet we embrace it in its fullest glory !! To blame Islam in general for the acts of a few is to blame Christianity for what the Amricans have been doing in Iraq and elsewhere. They are both incorrect assumptions.
“The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone.”
Those were the days of Saddam Hussein. Iraqi women were teachers, doctors, college professors, engineers, business managers, government leaders…. Now, with the “freedom” and “democracy” that the U.S. invasion and occupation brought, Iraqi women can’t leave home without a veil.
Thanks a lot, Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld. And, thanks to all you right-wing Christian jackasses. You voted for these lying, thieving bastards. You enabled them. You are responsible for the horror in Iraq.
Holden- did you read Ann Wrights article about the potential cover up of rape and murders of women soldiers? I suppose you will pin those on Muslim extremists as well, after all rape and murder seem to only happen to women in Islamic countries according to your logic.
Riddimboy- I like the energy in the posts you write, but you are simply wasting your time with the likes of Holden.
Good comments, riddimboy. All three major religions have their murderous fundamentalists. None follow the teachings of their religions.
And, heck of a job, Bush! This man will go down in history with quite a record of disaster. If you ascribe to a theory that everything happens for a reason, maybe it was the time for a bull in a china shop to come along to wake people up. But what a frightful price so many millions have paid, and as Americans, we are accessories to Bush’s crimes. I wonder if we will ever find out how it feels to be invaded, occupied, tortured, bombed and butchered. Is that what it would take for us to stop supporting and condoning slaughter with our passive acquiescence?
kathyodat
Hmmm, I just checked and if she did read the article she didn’t bother writing a post. I don’t think this is the kind of article she has been waiting for on commondreams, it just doesn’t fit her right-wing-islamaphobic arguments.
What qualities of “faith” drive one to kill another? To disrespect women is to deny the sacred feminine in your midst!
Awaken Men everywhere!
Honor the women in your sphere of life. Nurture their emotional and mental health -respect and protect their physical safety and right to choose their mate, cherish HER presence among you.
Release the fear that warps your thinking into disrespecting women! You denigrate the Divine’s creation -denying the beauty and light brought into your life through SHE!
Let go of this weight, ascend to the higher possibility of your faith! Honor all women everywhere. Thank them for giving you life and nurturing you when you were a helpless child, making sure you were fed, clothed, and clean. Respect and honor women as your favorite auntie or mother.
Namaste dear brothers,
Sunyata
www.mythiclove.net/sunyata
Full I did read and was horrified by that article. Its nonesense to claim I do not care about the crimes committed against american women, and those in service to the country no less.
However, can you point me to a book or ideology in mainstream american life that seeks to JUSTIFY the rape, murder, and subjigation of women?? Do we not put rapists and murderers of women in prison?
As I said before, Bush and company have a lot in common with islam. It doesn’t suprise me one bit that that sort of thing would be happening on american bases.
holden — you try to come off as some sort of righteous and indignant american who is appalled at the barbaric practices of the world while turning a blind eye to our nasty, dirty little skeletons in the closet. This is precisely the kind of hypocrisy that has been exposed time and again by the US (us) as we go about on our global quest for empire and dominance and our goal of maintaining OUR standard of living at the expense of the rest of the world.
Riddle, I cannot, every single time I post, condemn every single bad thing in this world. This article was about honor killing, and I talked in my responses about honor killing. You should also note that I squarely blame our “war in iraq” for this situation, as Saddam held the islamofascists in check.
Our standard of living has nothing to do with this. The iraq war has lowered our standard of living. Its simply not true that Bush and his corporate buddies represent in any way shape or form the american people. Their actions are not for us and not meant to be.
I use honor killings as an example when pro whaling people try to say: but its part of their culture! Dont dictate your morals to others!
If its ok for people to victimize whales then it is ok for them to do honor killings.
You cant have your cake and eat it too.
Justice is blind.
Holden,
you said yesterday that you are not only a right wing nut but a Zionist.
Is it now the Zionist new line to distance themselves from Bush even though many in the Israel lobby worked for him and gave Bush encouragement and cheered him to take him out?
Israel’s Natanyahu said 9/11 was good for Israel. What do you say to him? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html
Only a right wing nut would ever think that progressives were in favor of honour killings.
But stay with us and you will learn more about us… We aren’t perfect but we are mostly open to facts that can be proved.
Honour killings are not the norm in most Moslem communities, but endless war makes everyone crazy… that is a fact. All sides have done their share of killings, and war for profit is the worse kind.
Also Jimmy Carter is not Israel’s enemy.
Holden, our standard of living has everything to do with this. Our military adventures have been for the resources or cheap labor (supporting despotic regimes of others, or bringing down uncooperative democracies) and Americans have turned a blind eye to our depredations. They prefer not to look behind the curtain. What happened to the subject of torture? A nonstarter.
Unfortunately Americans are misinformed about the oil cartel’s intentions re Iraqi oil. They think it is for a cheap access to oil, but the cartel really wants to control the output, keeping prices high, and gain a voice in OPEC. The problem for Americans is the access to Iraqi oil is beginning to look like a long expensive adventure. When Bush and Petraeus claimed the surge was working, noisily supported by the propaganda machine (formerly known as the fourth estate), the invasion - AKA “war” - became considerably more popular. Ever since Vietnam, I realized Americans base their judgments on how it affects their wallets. On that, they keep a close eye.
kathyodat
While “honor killings” are associated with Islam, they actually predate the introduction of the religion, and like the corresponding tradition of purdah, an Islamic scholar can actually argue that the Koran actually has no specific passages that explicitly command the faithful to do so. In fact, it is one of the great failures of Islam to put a definitive end to these barbaric cultural practices that were standard operating procedure in the Middle East during Mohammed’s day.
There are non fanatical, non fundamentalist Muslims whose women feel perfectly comfortable and well treated in their relationship with their community and their family. I’ve been in those kind of communities. Same thing in any place in the world where people are in balance with their social and physical setting.
The desire to control and manipulate other people by force seems to be bred bone deep in male animal. Society finds ways to channel that aggression into useful activities so that aggression doesn’t tear the community apart. Other species that live in groups also have ways of defusing male aggression before it destroys the group.
However when the lid does come off and the group is shattered anyway, or stressed beyond it’s capacity to adapt the social pressures that keep the real hardliners in check are gone, women, children and the old are the first to suffer.In Iraq honor killings, in Darfur rape, in America divorce, abandonment, child and adult pornography, homelessness. Rats do it too. When the population of rats confined in a lab setting exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment rats start attacking females and eating young. We are not all that different.
In Iraq the carrying capacity of the environment has been degraded to the point it cannot support it’s population so the rats are out in force.
Ahh so Holden is a zionist … this puts everything he/she says into perspective … i should have heeded your advice FullMetal … this is a useless endeavour !
How were honor killings treated under Saddam?
‘When U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein 15 months ago, the Bush Administration proclaimed that women’s rights would be a centerpiece of its project to make Iraq a democratic model for the rest of the Arab world. But for many Iraqi women, the tyranny of Saddam’s regime has been replaced by chronic violence and growing religious conservatism’
http://www.vday.org/contents/vday/press/media/0407231
Why do we keep reading of saddams ‘tyranny’, with all that that word implies, when under saddams’ tyranny’ women fared much better than under the american enforced ‘democracy’!
from the same article:
‘At the same time, as the power of Iraq’s Muslim clerics has grown, the everyday freedoms that Iraqi women enjoyed under Saddam’s secular Baathist regime have eroded. Women who once felt free to dress in Western clothing and shop alone now must wear a hijab, the traditional Muslim head scarf, when venturing outside. Many government offices require female employees to wear a veil at work’
So here we learn that under saddam ‘tyranny’, women were free to dress in western clothing…
‘Under Saddam’s laws, which are still in place, men convicted of honor killings can receive up to three years in jail. But because the crime is rarely reported, few are actually prosecuted. And since there is widespread sympathy for the killers among police and judges, those who are convicted rarely serve more than a few months. ‘
SO Saddam favoured prosecution, but many iraqi men did not. When US overthrew Saddam and his government (yes, there was a government!), they unleashed the honor killing monster, held in check by Saddam.
I had a crazy Italian friend (a woman) who tried to get me to believe that I had no right to judge their (Muslims) culture. The same woman loved the author Oriana Fallaci until she turned vehemently anti-Muslim. I don’t know about judging their culture, but I am pretty sure I know barbarity when I see it. I don’t even want to get started on the “female circumcision” that is still practiced in some Islamic societies.
P.S. Snow crab,
I don’t know what argument you are trying to make but rats are rats and good people are good people. Trying to find some kind of moral equivalence between honor killing and divorce, pornography, etc. is repugnant. The rapes in Darfur are being committed by one society on a completely separate (separated by ethnicity, religion, color) society. I hope that I am misunderstanding and that is not what you are doing. You cannot lay the problems of a disintegrating social order at the feet of men in such a blatant generalization.
Actually, I’d even go so far to say that most of “social order” is about finding ways to sublimate male aggression. I don’t see much difference between violence against women and girls in Islamic countries than in our own. They end up just as dead and injured.
Hey Riddimboy- I enjoy your comments very much especially when directed at a self proclaimed Zionist, I just think it is like talking to a wall. I wonder how the “Zionist” can explain the atrocities the Israelis have been commiting against the Palestinians for years in the name of Religion. I find it intersesting how one so against atrocities commited by one group is so totally blind to the atrocities commited by another. When the victims become the victimizers they need the likes of Holden to shout Anti-Semite in order to stifle any serious debate.
I know Holden, this article has nothing to do with Israel, but being the Zionist apologist you are, I feel confident in making such an assesment of you and feel I have hit the mark squarely.
I think people like Holden and kendpotter are always very quick to jump on the “Barbaric” tactics employed by those who call themselves Muslim and blanket all of Islam under that stereotype, but if you look back throughout history each major religion has had their share of barbaric tactics and have employed them with much impunity in the name of GOD. Islamaphobia is still the same name no matter how else you try to package it.
It is a female planet and males still don’t understand how to live with that, they are always trying to control creativity because they so easily forget they too have the power to create. Men are not inherently evil, but they want patriarchy and are willing to go to some pretty dark places to maintain that position. What they don’t realize is that it puts the world out of balance and everyone suffers to one degree or another.
The Patriarchal Puppy Mill Is The Weapon Of Choice To Subjugate Women in America.
“SAN ANTONIO - More than half the teen girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday.”
I first became aware of “honor killings” several years ago, when the BBC produced a documentary called “Death of a Princess”, which recounted the public beheadings of a Saudi Arabian princess and her unapproved boyfriend. I don’t recall the exact circumstances of the incident (perhaps someone can enlighten me), only that even at the rank of princess, disobedience to the males in a certain kind of ME family or tribe or society can have deadly consequences.
I’ve been following reports of these murders ever since, and gather that they are not common to all Moslem communities, nor are they an inevitable feature of Islam; rather they seem to arise either in primitive tribal communities (such as in Turkey, where these murders are common in the countryside where tribal laws and customs dominate; uncommon in cities, where the “secular” government has some oversight and the people more education.)
The other circumstance in which honor killings are common is in countries which are dominated by fundamentalist forms of Islam such as Sunni Wahhadism (SA) or that of the Iranian Shiite Immans, where the Sharia is the law.
There IS a fundamental difference, not only in degree and nature, in crimes against women in third-world fundamentalist countries/tribes/religious sects (which include some in Africa and Asia as well as the ME) and modern, secular societies, as has been pointed out in this commentary and elsewhere.
Exploitation by the latter group has been a constant for over two hundred years of predatory economic and cultural imperialism, rationalized and justified by catch-phrases such as “the white man’s burden”, “manifest destiny” and other “mandates”: all of them aimed at civilising or evangelising the former “barbaric” or “primitive” societies, to bring them in line with the enlightened practices of the developed world.
For many progressives, the disgust we feel with this odious rhetoric, now coupled with the even more offensive and certainly more dangerous, ideology of the “free market” used by rampaging national governments and multinational corporations to justify such horrors as the Iraq invasion, is exceeded only by our revulsion at the hypocrisy of politicians and preachers who spout these platitudes while ignoring the “barbaric and primitive” violence still rampant at home.
But there is an enormous difference in both degree and kind between ILLEGAL, UNSANCTIONED violence against women, gays and others in western society and organized, socially and religiously-approved practices such as honor killings, female genital mutilation, enforced prostitution and kidnapping that rages, not just unabated but actually on the rise, in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and in South Asian and African nations. To conflate rape, spousal abuse and gay-bashing in the US, the UK or the EU with these other crimes, downplays the seriousness of rising anti-female violence in the third world, which amounts to socially-sanctioned femicide.
In societies in which honor killings are approved, the female (for the victim is not necessarily a woman; many are girls who have yet to reach puberty) is RESPONSIBLE NOT JUST FOR HER OWN BEHAVIOR OR DESIRES BUT FOR HER OWN VIOLATION BY MEN OR BOYS. Thus in the case of rape, the rapist does not pay for his crime; the woman or girl he raped is killed, usually by her own father or brother. ANYTHING can be considered a violation of (male) family “honor” - as the article points out, from not wearing the veil, to having an unknown phone number, to being the subject of unwanted attention, to being attacked in her own home — all can be cause for her stoning or beheading or stabbing or shooting. Usually, her brother will be ordered to do the deed himself.
PLEASE - do not let anger at US imperialism, belief in the right of indigenous societies, cultures or religions to maintain their own practices, or disgust with the hypocrisy of political or religious leaders at home cause you to lose sight of the desperate plight of these women, who have no advocates, no allies but those of us on the outside.
MILITANT LIBERAL: ” Honor killings seem to be an inevitable yet small-scale feature of Islamic immigration. Germany had a wave of half a dozen or so a couple years ago. They pop up in the news here every once in a while. It’s upsetting, yet far less of a killer than smoking. I’m more worried about polygamy and threats to freedom of expression (e.g. Salman Rushdie, “Submission,” Danish cartoons) and other aspects of Sharia in the West.”
“Upsetting”? “Small-scale feature”? “far less of a killer than smoking”?
Maybe to you, these acts are merely “upsetting”; to me the idea of a family handing a gun to a boy with the order to shoot his sister (whose crime consisted in being raped by a man from another tribe) is not upsetting but obscene.
Perhaps honor killings by ME immigrants are still only “small-scale” in the west; in the ME they are anything but small; they are a regular and very large feature of tribal life.
Certainly, if you consider only statistics, honor killings kill less women than smoking. But bear in mind that people CHOOSE to smoke; no woman chooses to become a victim of murder when she enters a number in her cell phone.
I prefer to confine my response to the objective points you raise and let the casual, off-hand tone in which you talk of these crimes against women and against humanity speak for itself. I’m only grateful you didn’t add the public’s indifference to re-cycling and stubborn preference for SUVs to your list of things that worry you more than honor killings, since they “pop up in the news” a lot more often than the murder of a few immigrant women.
There seem to be many posts in here that somehow equate wearing the veil with “subjugation, undemocratic, non-secular, etc.”
I am university educated. I am Canadian. I love freedom and would fight for it tooth and nail. I have studied Islam. I also wear the veil. However, I neither consider myself subjugated nor enslaved. The hijab/veil is as freeing to me as a bikini would be to other women.
There are many nationalities, cultures, customs, languages and tribes in this world who share a common thread: They are Muslims. To say Islam agrees with or condones the actions of all these human beings is plain stupid.
Simple Example: Islam FORBIDS suicide or suicide-bombings. Islam has strict laws for war — to the extent that trees have rights and are not to be harmed (let alone the civilians in suicide bombings). Does every Islamic government/party/group/military follow this law? Does everyone who says they are Muslim follow this law? No. Does that make Islam the culprit? No!
Does Islam allow female circumcision? No. Do some tribes go against their own religion to satisfy tribal customs? Yes. Is Islam to blame for that? You tell me.
Does Islam allow honour killings? No. It’s called murder. Do some Muslims kill — for honour or for a myriad of reasons?
Do some Christians kill? Do some Jews kill? Do some Buddhists kill? Do some Hindus kill? Do some Masai kill? Do some agnostics kill? Do some atheists kill?
Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and YES!
Does Islam forbid gambling, drinking, prostitution, drugs, backbiting? Yes. Do all Muslims from all nations, tribes and walks of life follow these laws? Duh!
According to Islamic Law/Sharia, once I become the citizen of a country, every law of that country is obligatory for me. When I do not follow that law (even down to the speed limit laws), I sin. If my country tells me to do something that is against Islam, there are strict guidelines for what I am to do about it.
So, for instance, if I am supposed to fast in the month of Ramadhan and the laws of my country say I cannot fast, then I have to find a legal way to fast. And if I have exhausted every legal arena and still I am not allowed fast, then I am supposed to migrate to another country that would allow me to fast (to practice my religion freely).
Do not judge a country’s citizens by the action (or inaction) of its government. Do not judge a religion by the action (or inaction) of its followers.
Lest you be judged similarly…
Instead of killing themselves, why don’t women in these countries form secret gangs to attack and castrate unaccompanied males in dark alleys? A few tens of thousands of nutless males, and the men in these societies would discover in themselves a new respect for women.
Conservatives rule.
Honor killings, forced child marriage to older men, wife beating, persecution of unbelievers, incest (60% of marriages), bloody vengeance, draconian punishments for minor offenses and savage repression of women are staples of Muslim life, sadly. Although Islamic apologists always trot out moderate-sounding suras and hadiths, there are plenty more barbaric passages and, more importantly, actual practice in most places by most Muslims follows the low road. This does not justify wholesale discrimination or persecution, and we must realize that our policies of the last 100 years have driven so many Muslims into radicalism, but it’s naive and dangerous to accept the “they’re just like us” pablum.
Holden, it may appear that progressives support honor killing when progressives denounce the capitalists’ expoitation of honor killings to make declared enemies look bad. We take the issues one at a time. We are trying to divide the capitalists from their support networks, so we can conquer the capitalists, cage them, and make them take orders, according to the rules and regulations imposed by their godfather Adam Smith and their messiah Jesus Christ. When we properly cage the capitalists they will stay out of the Middle East and stop contributing to the radicalization of Islam.
Well thanks to the Zionist neocon lobby we overthrew a secular Iraqi leader and replaced him with a secterian war and fundamnetalists where, innocent men, women, and children have their lives destroyed on a daily basis. But Holden being a self-proclaimed Zionist as he states on other boards of CD points the blame elsewhere. Enjoy your oil you slime.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=332835
How to explain human-to-human horror? There are many viable age-old takes on this question, though over the ages some have more staying power than others.
I offer no radically new insights here, but I think that some older, hard-won life groundings, known by ancient, now forgotten traditions might bear repeating.
One of which insights is: There is an underlying, commonly-defective, meta-social design lynchpin in us humans that enables and perpetuates most of the horrors we continue to visit on one another, quite unconsciously and quite unconsionably. A design flaw of our phylogenetic, DNA-reproduced physical brain structure that blocks us from feeling the pain we cause each other as keenly as a similar pain would be felt in our self; and which (through no design-wish of our Own) allows us to generally remain violent, while simultaneously allowing us to sense a bad conscience that tell us: As we are, we are Fallen, hopeless creatures.
Some of the older existential-knowing systems adduce that Nature’s food chain, that violent chain that instinctually directs lower animals on this planet to kill and eat other creatures, including not infrequently their fellow creatures, “…is as it must be.”
But the more interesting of the older systems of knowing also suggest that we humans don’t have to know for sure what Nature Is, or Who or What is behind Nature, in order to see that Nature has also given humans a tiny cusp of something else, beyond the mindless instincts of earth’s ‘lower’ food chain dynamics.
Call it what you will: a human mind potential for self-reflectivity, or a sense of conscious collective spirit, or the individual ability to be personally instructed by the cognitive OPTION to feel a fellow human’s pain, etc. This other property of human mind Does seem to be real.
Whether for a conscious cosmic purpose or not, these eralier ways of knowing say that humans provably do have something more existentially discerning in their hard-wiring, over and above the lower food chain animal dynamics, that appears to allow for individual survival beyond hard-wired Violence and/or the instinctual impulse toward war of all against all.
And I would maintain that everything good and fellow-decent that humans have done on this planet, has come from the conscious recognition, shared activation, and physical play-out of this tiny edge of ‘Higher Wiring;’ ‘Higher Knowing.’ In short, from the shared sense that no enduring Good against the unwonted lower Nature that besets us all, comes from anything less than a shared concern, by all of us: foucsed on the wordly predicament of all of us.
These [ancient/dimly recapped] recognitions arent’ meant to say or imply some kind of collectivist Goo, wherein no person can rightly be rich or happy until every other person is existentially similar. Such recognitions only mean that our humanly shared systems of social and political values ought not create victims by human design; and that where sheer fate other factors create such victims, the fortunate should instinctually feel the pain of their follows, and do what they human can to close the gap.
Humans on this misbegotten planet only started systematically advancing to such a tolerant, Reason-based, humane world as roughly described above, in the wake of the west’s erstwhile commonly-shared Enlightenment arguments.
The western Enlightenment never, by definition, meant that western peoples are, for having distilled such principles, therefore better than other peoples whose cultures didn’t experience Enlightenment arguments.
The western Enlightenment only means to this Day, that if there is to be any hope of humans being brought together on principles of non-violence, Medieval authoritarians with nukes, like Bush and Co., or mindless ego driven Muslim Mullahs, must be seen for what they are.
They are all, initially, freely choosing humans, who have chosen to emabrace violence and authoritarianism, simply in order to grow ever more personally powerful at the expense of others.
Canadian_Thankfully,
Thank you for giving this discussion the truth from a Moslem woman.
Holden, you ask: “However, can you point me to a book or ideology in mainstream american life that seeks to JUSTIFY the rape, murder, and subjigation of women?? Do we not put rapists and murderers of women in prison?”
Response to your second question: True, rapists and murderers of women are punished legally in America now but it was not always so: think KKK death squads in southern states in recent memory, legal slaveowner sexual abuse of women slaves a bit farther back, and so on, analogous to the horrible conditions in fundamentalist Islamic states today with respect to honor killings and violations of sharia law.
But the difference between “us” (america, UK,
the west) and “them” (fundamentalist Islamic societies) is not between non-Islam and Islam, as you appear to presume. It is the difference between non-fundamentalist and fundamentalist. This will become clearer after reflection on your first question: “However, can you point me to a book or ideology in mainstream american life that seeks to JUSTIFY the rape, murder, and subjigation of women??”
Well … how about the Christian Bible, and these biblical laws of God therein which some Christians of dominionist inclination would like to see translated into civil law?
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (NLT)
“If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he MUST pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he MUST marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will NEVER be allowed to divorce”
As someone commented: “God is good! That will teach the SOB. Rapists have to marry the victim and his punishment is that he can NEVER divorce her. One can see how well God thought this one through. Makes perfect sense!”
and….
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 (NAB)
“If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.”
“‘but but Judge…he had his hand over my mouth….but but’ ….thunk… God is good!”
Then there is this one:
“A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)”
And then:
“They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.” (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
“And we get upset because we think Islam kills those that won’t convert.”
Then there are multiple and prominent passages in the biblical prophets, such as Ezekiel and Nahum, which liken worshippers of unapproved gods to a wife which has committed adultery and therefore deserves to be made naked, publicly humiliated, gang-raped, and killed (e.g. Nah 3:5-6; Hos 2:12). While these are texts of words, they allude to existing customs.
It will be objected that no Christian (or Jewish) society today literally carries out these biblical commands and analogies set forth by God anciently, and only a minority of Christian intellectuals in America–they must be outnumbered by at least 8:1 in the present executive branch of the United States–are serious about wanting to base America’s civil law on the Bible.
But we can see that religious texts of both Islam and the Christian West are horrifyingly violent toward women. Responses to this vary: some defend women through various means of exegesis of the troublesome texts; some defend women by repudiation of those scriptures rather than attempt to exegete their meaning; a few deny that messages approving wrongful violence toward women exist in the Bible and hence deny the existence of a problem; and some–not a majority, surely not more than maybe only 10 or 20 percent of the voting American public–long for the day when biblical law can be imposed on a godless secular american society.
How different is this spectrum–when you look at it this way–from the parallel spectrum in the Islamic world with respect to responses to their sacred texts’ treatment of women?
You asked for a book or ideology in mainstream american life that seeks to justify the rape, murder, and subjugation of women. I have shown you one, the most basic book in mainstream american life, the Bible. The ideology which would make the ten commandments civil law is, when you look under the surface, calling for the death penalty on women who commit adultery.
May there be a day when all women on earth can live free and without fear, says this man.
“while homosexuals are judiciously murdered in Iran by having walls toppled on them.”
Damn PowerSlave … you pulled that one right out of your ass. How do you do that ? Thats one trick i need to learn as it seems to be the only way to end these ridiculous islamaophobic arguments. So how does this work … they have walls toppled on them (supposedly) while we just tie them up to stakes (idaho anyone?), beat the shit out of them and leave them to die.
The flip side of radical Islam is clearly Zionism in all its unadultered glory. The Zionists were out in all their regalia in my own little town out here in the West coast when they had a big-tent event to protest the rape of Darfur !! Apparently Gaza is inhabited by ants. Cognitive dissonance i believe is the word to use.
Organized religion is the root of all evil. Period.
A poster said “Do not judge a religion by the action (or inaction) of its followers.”
What else can you judge a religion by? Its holy book? Its past? No. A religion is defined by the action/inaction of its followers. All religions create an “us vs them” dynamic, which inevitably results in killing the non-believers in one form or another. Organized religion has been used over the centuries as a way of manipulating the masses into following the plutarchs and oligarchs. All preach peace and espouse war. If god is not dead I hope he is figuring out a way to undo the deeds done across the centuries in his name.
To begin, my apologies to all the women in the world who have suffered heinous gender crimes. To understand this problem one needs to focus on the two root causes, which are intertwined: gender and religion. Men around the world need to examine their cultures and see how many of the barbaric acts committed are committed in the name of gender. What passes for a working definition of “masculine” is what is often responsible for crimes against women. Although the crimes may differ slightly from culture to culture (date rape in the US, honor killings in Iraq) the result is the same: females suffering horrific acts of violence. Each generation of older males in societies around the world pass on to younger generations of boys becoming men that it is ok to treat women cruelly. Men must reexamine their love affair with violence. They need to institute new coming of age rituals to make young men aware of their violent tendencies and to find strategies to control them. Older men must take the risk of challenging age old beliefs about masculinity and embrace new definitions- and then teach them to their young boys. We must stop worshipping and idolizing roles and occupations that are overtly violent: gangbanger, athletes and soldiers. Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and MLK must be held up as the most highly developed form of masculinity.
The connection of gender to organized religion is a strong one. The masculine, patriarchal war religions need to embrace new ideas. They must use all of their resources and energy to reject their violent history and to develop a non-violent atmosphere for which women can thrive. All groups, whether social, political or religious, have moderates and zealots. When the zealots hold influence, moderates often stand silent on the sidelines. It is this silence that allows zealots to do their dirty work. Although it is true, for example, that honor killings predate Islam, the fact that Islam has turned a blind eye to this custom for centuries acts as a de facto endorsement. It is disingenuous to say that because a few in a religion do a horrible act, that the rest of the religion is not accountable. In the story it said 2,000 people participated in a stoning. If most Moslems reject this type of murder, there should have been 20,000 Muslims in the street protecting the young woman. Organized religion can not wash its hands of supporting the view that women are worth less than men and can be treated as such. Just as Northern and Southern preachers plucked passages out of the Bible to support their view of slavery, so can members of a religion and those opposed to religion find passages that support their view of how religion is involved in gendered violence.
For the human race to survive, two things need to occur. Believers in organized religion need to reject the image of a violent, patriarchal God, and men need to evolve by embracing non-violence as a masculine trait.
As far as i’m aware, the town and surrounding area in central illinois where i grew up doesn’t contain any Muslims. And yet during the 15 or so years i lived there, here are a just a few things that happened. my mom got death threats and our house was broken into because she was single and didn’t go to church. A girl in my town had to be rescued from her father by neighbors while he beat her senseless on the hood of their car for having had sex with her boyfriend. another girl who had gone to my school was shot to death at point blank range by her boyfriend. two girls under the age of 10 were abducted, raped and murdered. I can think of at least six girls off the top of my head growing up who were being raped and molested by either brothers, dads or stepdads - those were the ones who talked about it. me and almost every other girl i know had been raped at least once by the time they turned 17. that’s just a little sample to scratch the surface. Did i mention my hometown has a population of 500? And no, they’re not wackos, just ordinary people doing their ordinary things. And that’s TAME compared to a lot of what goes on here. Welcome to America.
Amazing how many people want to “defend women” as long as they can hate muslims in the process. Before i moved to the city i never met a Muslim. But i did meet a lot of people who hate women.
Jim, I don’t follow a “line”, I speak the truth as I see it. Of course intelligent people of all political persuasions have been distancing themselves from Bush lately, but I’ve always been distant. And don’t worry I am not going anywhere.
Scroller: Yes, though I must point out most of that is not in the new but the old testament, clearly much of it is heinous. But I already said a lot of it was heinous. The difference is, I can be a religious jew and completely ignore all of that stuff without a second thought. Christians, similarly, also do not follow the more barbaric ancient practices in the bible. But its more then just not committing certain acts. Jews and Christians modify their religions as the cultures around them change. We have adapted to new codes of public morality that forbid things like setting women as fire in public as punishment.
This aggressive strand of islam we see today, however, seeks the opposite of harmony with existing cultures. It would rather completely erase them and replace them with one completely dominated by their interpretation of islam. The comparisons between this and say, catholic imperial spain back in the 1500’s are unavoidable.
Jcollins: I don’t know what to say to all of that horror. At least in this country we think its horrible, rather then noble. What we need is more serious punishment for domestic abusers, and the death penalty for rapists and certainly child rapists. Allowing pedophiles to walk our streets is as bad as allowing honor killings for sure. I’ll agree with you on that.
I think everybody on this forum knows that George Bush is an idiot that made thigs worse for oil and should know religion is just as bad (just more long term).
I feel so sorry for the women of this country and the fact the world is still in the dark ages when it comes to womens rights. And of course religion still controls almost everything and not just in Iraq.
This is a response for another situation but it fits here too. When this is happening in the USA why am I not surprised things have become worse for women in Iraq.
The Silent Epidemic
An incident of sexual abuse happens every 2.5 minutes in the USA, according to statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice. Over 200,000 Americans are victims of sexual abuse (SA) every year. This statistic may be less than the actual number of cases, due to the tendency to victims not to report their abuse to authorities. These numbers dwarf any other social problem in America. Medical studies and surveys show that about 20-30 percent of women and about ten percent of men have been sexually abused by the age of 18.
Females in high school and college are four times more likely to be sexually abused more than any other group. Although SA comes in many forms, rape is the most serious and is ranked by the FBI as a violent crime, second only to murder.
The social and health ramifications of SA are significant and contribute to generally poor quality of life for survivors. (Republicans make damn sure of it). Social problems include alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, smoking, unintended pregnancy, criminal behavior, and prostitution. Psychological problems include anxiety, depression, bulimia, anorexia, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, sleep disturbances, and suicide. Physical diseases associated with SA survivors include cancer, heart disease, obesity, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal distress, genito-urinary disorders, chronic pain, diabetes, arthritis, migraines/headaches, and skin disturbances.
http://www.stopsexualabusenow.org/
Carolyn Jessop found out rightly fast how the system doesn’t work…………
“I am now living in a trailer with eight children, on welfare and sick with post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said. “This cycle of abuse and poverty could have been stopped for me if I would have known there was help and where to go to get it.”
Women outside the ranch know what their alternatives are and so do the perpetrators. They know the system will not support them so that they can truly break the cycle of poverty and abuse.
Women are supposed to work two jobs sick with post-trumatic stress, pay rent and put their children in institutional daycare and pretend everything is perfect or lose their children. I would be willing to bet that is exactly what these women are going to be required to do in order to keep their children.
Sharia Law! Coming to a country near you!!!
“But you are wrong about islam. This is not the “action of a minority” it is islamic theology in action. This is what europe is already dealing with, and what will happen in america if we don’t watch ourselves.”
“Sharia Law! Coming to a country near you!!!”
Lay-off the disparagement of Islam.
What this ‘is’ is Fundamentalist-religion, period. ‘Europe dealt with’ similar during the Christian-institution of the Inquisition, and witch-trials, for example (not to mention Crusades and antisemitism/antihereticism). And, the Jewish Fundamentalist’s demanded stoning to death for any backtalking-teenagers, and for those so-poor they worked on the Sabbath, and for menstruating-women careless where their shadows-fell.
Whenever horrid-conditions/poverty/chaos has reigned in any society’s ‘environment’, this kind of Fundamentalist “magical-thinking” takes-hold, as a purported ‘answer’ to all-threats — which, in every-Reality, are always attributed to the suffering ‘innocent victims’ (rather than to whatever Elite-Interests are actually behind all/any-Threats, and who themselves fan-the-flames re: “Fundamentalism” for ‘cover’).
It has ‘always been so’…since we invented-agriculture and extended our ‘tribes’…
So-called “honor killing” is outlawed by Sharia Law as much as vigilantism is outlawed in any legal system. When the media call this type of murder “honor killing,” they subtly imply that it is somehow condoned in Islam or that it is part of Sharia Law. This is untrue. There is no such thing as an “honor killing” in Islam. Sharia Law would punish the killer. Sharia Law has specific ways of dealing with fornication and adultery that do not include extrajudicial killing.
I think that a lesson of this article, “Barbaric ‘Honour Killings’ Become the to Subjugate Women in Iraq,” is that a harsh military occupation brings violence to all levels of society. Things that were not so common when a civil social structure existed in Iraq are becoming more and more common. Society is unravelling. Religious values are being mutated into something never intended.
Thank you, Leisure Elf, for pointing out the difference between officially sanctioned and non-officially sanctioned violence.
It is difficult for some of us to realize that Bush and Hussein can both be horrible leaders. Someone pointed out that life was better for most people under Hussein, and that he could have been our evil dictator. He was our evil dictator! Hussein and the Baath Party came to power with the support of the USA, and they killed communists and others with lists supplied by the USA (same as Suharto did).
Honor killings are barbaric. It isn’t anti-Muslim to point this out.
Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator. It isn’t pro-American to point this out.
Female circumcision is barbaric. So is male circumcision, and it is widely practiced in the US.
Rape is horrible. There are more males raped in this country than females, because of the condoning and enablement of prison rape. Prison rape of men is considered fodder for comedy in America.
Fundamentalist Christians, I believe they are called Dominionists, want to take us back to Biblical law, including stoning of adulterers, homosexuals and disobedient children. If our society breaks apart, there will be incidents of this, and people will point out that this is Biblical law. Then there will be discussions of “true” Christianity, just like the discussions of “true” Islam here.
It is past time mankind evolved to the point where religions were unnecessary.
Mankind no longer needs religion to explain nature. We no longer need the gods of volcanoes, the sea, the sun or the moon, etc, but yet our societies still rationalize belief in the products of what those gods evolved to become.
Since its inception, religion has been the root of all evil.
It has enabled tribal societies to reject all others and mandates the tribal mentality be maintained. It has always been used by rulers to subjugate their subjects, and has always promulgated hypocrisy and inequity.
The three Abrahamic “revealed” religions emanated from the same source and the fundamentalists of all three are equally as dangerous. “Mosaic Law”, biblical law, is not much different in barbarity than is “Sharia Law”. It is past time that they all need to be abolished if mankind is ever to become civilized.
And these fanatics deserve respect? No way. Their crimes should be strictly punished. These are savage, primitive actions that simply are not compatible with modern civilization, and they must be outlawed.
The savages should be rendered into women via rusty knives and diligently exposed to what they propagate - very publicly - and keep the message up that any found playing that game will suffer the same fate
Green, comparing male circumcision to female circumcision is sick. Male circumcision doesn’t cause lifelong pain and mutilation, or lead to infection and sterilization.
You people will say anything!
Holden,
I know nothing about your beliefs or background or previous postings on CD; all I know of you comes from your responses to this one article. Most of the points you make seem reasonable to me, though I may not agree with all of them; therefore I don’t see why you appear to have come in for more than your fair share of abuse in this forum. I don’t know where all the hostility is coming from, except that it appears to be centered on your self-identification as a Zionist. Frankly, I don’t know enough about Zionism historically or it’s current relevance to Israel and the ME, to have any views on the subject. Those who have slagged you off for being a Zionist have been really vitriolic in their comments, which you don’t deserve.
I beg you, however, not to fall into the same retaliatory pattern: “You people will say anything!” I was about to make the same point about circumcision that you just did, and I identify myself as a progressive, a leftist, a liberal, etc. Up to this point, you have been admirably civil in your responses; I can certainly see where an off-base comment about circumcision would be particularly offensive to someone who is Jewish, but try to be patient a bit longer; greenerthanthou also made some good points; we both know she/he’s wrong in conflating male and female circumcision, but what was needed in response was an EXPLANATION of the difference between the practices -you don’t have to jump down their throat to do it.
greenerthanthou: Male circumcision, as I understand it, is a routine procedure done in hospitals on newborn babies by doctors, for reasons of cleanliness and health; female circumcision is done to young girls outside of any medical supervision, often with a rusty knife or razor blade and no anaesthetic, for the sole reason of promoting female “chastity” by removing the entire external genitalia. Intended to eliminate any possible pleasure she may take in the sexual act (and thus ensure her “chastity”), this horrendous mutilation not only causes extreme pain and suffering at the time it is done (as well as infection); these effects don’t go away with time, but remain throughout the woman’s life as a cause of suffering and health problems.
Also, greenerthanthou, I thank you for making another point I wanted to make myself; namely that Hussein WAS “America’s dictator”: supported by us throughout the Iran/Iraq war and dumped when we decided we had other uses for his country. Iraq was one of the few secular governments in the entire ME; Turkey and Egypt are the only others I can thin of, and the presence of Islamic extremists in the latter country and the rise of fundamentalists in the former make it moot that they were ever as secular as Iraq under Hussein.
So, what does that make me, Holden? One of “us” or one of “them”? I hope I’m open to learning from either “side” of any political or religious divide, when I hit an area I know little or nothing about. Although I identify myself as a rock-solid, life-long liberal, I am certain I hold positions on some issues that many progressives would consider conservative; whereas on other issues my views may be to the left of theirs.
I thought this was one of the few sites that maintained at least some level of civility; I hope it will continue to be so, and that more posters will realize that “you get more flies with honey than with vinegar”: you convert more people to your point of view by providing the facts and offering reasoned arguments than you ever do by attacking with ad hominem remarks, which do nothing but alienate others and further inflame the discussion.
Leisure, I agree with you and appreciate your post. Yes, I am in for it because I identified myself as a zionist. This is just fine and in fact I welcome the challenge. I am in fact surprised by the fact that many people have been responding to what I’m saying and arguing with me, rather then just attacking. I’ll try to keep my end of the discourse positive as well!
Untill there is peace between women and men worldwide, war will prevail.
This comment is directed to the people who keep bashing Islam. Have you people even read the article or did you see the headline and decided to bash Islam? Read the article again esp the part about Du’a Khalil Aswad who was murdered for falling in love with a MUSLIM BOY. Google up Yazidi. It has nothing to do with the Islam mentioned in the comments. I am seriously sick and tired of eurocentric/orientalist, us vs. them views.
The western world has to come and fuck up these countries. As others have mentioned during Saddam’s reign this was unheard of. Pakistan did not have issues with militancy until dear old uncle sam came along. This also includes Imperial empires like great Britain, France,ect used women and religious divisions as a tool in colonized regions and made the situation for the natives much worse and created new dilemmas. So please stop fucking us, brown, black, yellow, including white women over.
Honor killing needs to be condemned and something should be done about it. NGOs, Human Rights Organization, Activists, Religious leaders,ect are trying to do something about it. They also use religion as a way to stop this. So for all those people who like bashing in Islam, let me ask you: what are you doing to help these girls and women?
sheesh reading idiotic comments has given me a headache.
sorry if i make no sense. i am just extremely pissed because people need to re-read the article and quit being xenophobic. There is enough hate in this world, we don’t need any more.
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/index.php
The first problem here is the term “honor killing” and the next is the constant media attempt to link every stupid thing in the Middle East to Islam. We Americans seem not to realize how the world looks at us; we rarely read about another country in our news and when we do, it’s almost always negative. Other countries constantly create news reports on what happens in the USA. In other words, they know us better than we know them.
I wouldn’t want to be known as the land of religious cults like the one making the news south of San Angelo Texas. I specify which one because we have had so many before. I don’t want to be known as the place where citizens are pre-occupied by stories of where O.J. played golf today or Hannah Montana showed off her A cup bra. If we as a nation were “better than” everyone else and had something that they desired for themselves, they would adopt our ways and want to be like us. That isn’t happening.
Maybe it’s because we torture prisoners of war. Maybe it’s because we execute them too, even teenagers. Maybe it’s because of our craving for drugs - mostly prescription. Maybe it’s because we invade other countries and set up puppet governments that allow us to steal their resources. Maybe any number of things that could be listed here but the point is that nobody likes a nation with a holier-than-thou attitude.
The way I understand it, cultural relativism means that everyone looks at the world according to the culture they were brought up in. It’s difficult to overcome our preference for our culture’s ways.
Accepting male circumcision as good because it’s done in a cleaner environment than those dirty 3rd world circumcisions is an example. Is waterboarding then not torture because the victim’s face is washed? Perhaps that is why the US calls terror bombing of civilian populations “surgical strikes”. It sounds so clean that way. And bombing and burning 400 women and children by “mistake” is so much more civilized than individually beating to death one woman at a time. (To name one botched “surgical strike”).
Circumcision is amputating the tip of a newborn baby’s penis. How is that not barbaric? Perhaps elf and holden should watch the procedure before deciding that it is benign simply because Americans do it. The terrified infant is strapped to a cold plastic tray, arms and legs splayed, looking remarkably like a crucifixion icon. He is left there until the doctor shows up to do the procedure. There are 2 basic ways the penis is mutilated, both painful. Complications do happen, holden. Don’t be so naive.
Reasons for circumcision have morphed, elf, like the reasons for invading Iraq. When the procedure became popular in the late 19th century it was explicitly promoted as a way to stop masturbation by removing a sensitive area of the penis, so that the boy would not experience pleasure by masturbating. In the late 20th century, the rationale switched to cleanliness. Lately, I’ve noticed they are pushing the anti AIDS line.
I think that if you saw a male circumcision, you would drop your causal acceptance and be as horrified by the mutilation as I am. At least, I hope so.
As I said before, green, I’m always open to learning more about any and all subjects, circumcision included. No, I’ve never seen one, and I know all kinds of barbaric things used to be done to infants under the facile assumption that their nervous systems were not developed enough to feel pain — now it seems those ideas were wrong, and a many, many infants suffered as a result — not just of circumscision, but of other “minor” surgical procedures done without anaesthesia.
I hadn’t heard that the use of circumcision had been rationalized in the 19th century as way to prevent young boys from masturbating. I wonder if it worked; somehow I doubt that circumcision did a whole lot to cut down on that particular pasttime. But I think circumcision goes back hundreds if not thousands of years as a Jewish practice. I doubt the “purity” rationale was used all that time to justify removing the infant’s foreskin. I should think that, like many early Mosaic laws, circumcision was required in order to protect the health of the population, like the Islamic stricture of eating with the right hand while reserving the left for later, related activities, which was required as a practice to prevent the transfer of bacteria from one area of the body to another: basic hygiene.
Since I am not a man, I’d had no direct experience with it, so I really don’t have much right to an opinion one way or another. However I don’t recall ever hearing from any of the men I’ve known who were circumcised, that they regretted having gone through it or had any problems, health-wise or other-wise, in later years. None of them remembered going through it at all, as a child.
I’d like to hear from someone who’s been circumcised and has ideas pro or con on the subject. Would you/have you allowed your child to be circumcised too? If so, why; if not, why not?
Women who’ve been forced into circumcision have begun to be very outspoken in condemning the practice, in the hopes of seeing it banned world-wide, and of exposing the brutality of female circumcision for the horror that it is. I’ve read several interviews with African women in magazines over the past few years; also, I’ve read excerpts from books some of them have written. If I can remember any of the names and titles I will post them here, but be warned: they make very heavy reading.
As to the women I know in this country, without repeating hearsay evidence, I can tell you the gist of their opinon is that they find circumcision aesthetically appealing; most of the men I know who’ve ever said anything on the subject at all, have generally remaked that removing the foreskin made the penis more sensitive: a result which they found to be a definite plus.
If anything else comes up about which I’m off-base, let me know about it, and tell me where I can find out more.
That’s one of the many things I like about CD: chances to learn more about all kinds of subjects, especially those I thought I already knew a lot about. If you think I’m wrong, I want to know it; I’m always open to change, when change seems warranted. It’s the only way I know to avoid being locked into a PC coffin; intellectual rigor mortis is something I really want to avoid.
Hey, I think it’s just you and me now, elf.
It would be very unusual for a man to remember his circumcision, since it’s routinely done to infants who are one or two days old. Yes, it hurts them, and yes, the doctor will look at you and tell you it doesn’t.
As a nurse who used to work in the nursery, where I refused to participate in circumcisions after I saw the first one, (as another nurse refusenik told me “I’m a conscientious objector”), I know that barbaric things were done. When I found out that open heart surgery was being done at San Francisco State University Hospital WITHOUT anesthesia, I called the child abuse hotline. The woman who took my call refused to believe it. I told her it was her job to investigate, but I don’t know if they did. I know that I read in Parade Magazine years later that the practice had been stopped in most hospitals in this country. But circumcision continues.
Yes, I used to think that circumcised penises looked better. (Actually, I still do, but wouldn’t want anyone to suffer for my aesthetic sensibility). That is the rationale they give for female circumcision also.
Any man who told you that removing the foreskin improves feeling is very wrong. There are millions of nerve endings in the foreskin. It decreases sensation and it was promoted that way in America in the 19th century, obviously for non-Jewish men. How would a man know the difference if his foreskin was removed at birth? That’s an after the fact rationalization if I ever heard one. Gay men have very strong opinions, usually pro “intact”, and they seem to be more experienced in male experience to me.
By the way, the only guy I ever knew growing up who was uncircumcised had a Jewish mother. My theory now is that she had seen circumcisions and refused to do it to her child, as I refused to do it to my son. And a doctor I work with told me that they way he gets people determined to circumcise their son to change their minds in to insist that they watch. He says they usually stop him before he gets too far. The thing is, it usually takes place out of sight of the parents, and unless something goes horribly wrong, as it did to one neighbor I had, whose baby almost bled to death, as she heard as they frantically paged overhead in her hospital, they know nothing of the pain and fear and agony their baby goes through.
Out of 13 pregnant nurses in the nursery I worked in, 12 told me that they would not circumcise their newborns if they were boys.
Wow!
Green,thanks for the info. I didn’t know any of this at all. This changes my mind, for sure. And you’re right — it DID have a lot to do with aesthetics (since there’s just you ‘n me here, and I get the feeling it’s just girls together.) Thanks for bearing with my ignorance on the subject and for setting me right.
Thanks, Elf. And thanks for checking here again. I don’t know if you will again, but if you do, I have some hearsay for you.
When my son’s pediatrician noticed that he was uncircumcised, he told me a piece of gossip. Bear in mind that he didn’t know my politics.
The American Academy of Pediatricians had come out against circumcision, and so the insurance companies wouldn’t pay for it for a while, and the rate of circumcisions dropped, then they (the Pediatricians) changed their position. My pediatrician told me that the new head (this was in the 80s) of the Academy was a right wing Christian and he had forced through the reversal. I thought that was kind of interesting.
I knew that James Dobson had a “beat your child for Jesus” line, but I didn’t know they had a “mutilate your son for Jesus” line.
Interesting also, because the Christians used to be different than the Jews in that they didn’t circumcise. I remember reading about gangs of Christians pulling down Jews’ pants (in Germany) to see if they were Jewish.