The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s position on honour killings;
“There are thousands of things that happen in the province of Ontario on a daily basis and we don’t comment on all of them,” she said.
But, I spluttered, women are being murdered.
“As I said, we are a small commission.
“There are many problematic things that happen in our community and we have to make choices because we can’t respond to everything,” [Barabara] Hall said.
So honour killings are merely “problematic”?
Here’s a woman who’s advocated for years on behalf of women’s rights. She found time to crucify Steyn and Maclean’s, but she’s too busy to raise the issue of women who are being murdered over some hideous interpretation of “honour”?
Well, yes! They’re females being murdered by brown males. Hello??
When determining equality as it applies under human rights codes, “female” trumps “male”, but only when there isn’t “brown”. It’s works the same way as “sex” trumps “religion”, but only when there isn’t “muslim”.
You folks in media are kind of slow to catch on.
Much ado – as always, rational and tempered arguments are interesting, I bet nobody comes here to have their mind changed though, including me.
Some of the issues you raise relate to culture and religion.
Not to prolong things, and to try to hone in on specifics, one important difference between certain Christian religions and Islam, are the “rules”.
For example with Catholicism, it’s easy to know what the “rules” are – just go ask the pope.
I don’t know what all the “rules” are in Islam.
Interpretations of the Koran are done differently by different Imams. If you want to see a variety of – “interesting” – responses to questions – go to “askimam.org”.
I have seen western Muslims write back to those some of imams’ comments and call them barbaric and primitive.
So, who wins, and who is right? The Imam who made the proclamation? The westernized Muslim who says that the imam’s proclamations are barbaric?
That is one of the important that I see with Islam – there is not one arbiter of “truth” in interpretation of the Koran.
And then, on other issues, there are things like the niqab, which are traditional, rather than religious, but get “lumped together” with Islam.
Lots of problems, and no solutions
“These honour killings bother me about as much as someone forgetting to signal when he turns right. They bother me about as much as hearing about one gangster shooting another in a distant city. They bother me slightly less than hearing about a cockfighting ring in Texas. Let them live in their own hell. When they feel like joining the rest of the human race, maybe I’ll put some value on their lives.
Posted by: dp at February 11, 2009 2:56 PM”
That’s a pretty piss-poor attitude, dp. Especially when you consider that, at least here in North America, the victims of honour killings tend to be those young girls that are fully aware of much freedom they are denied by islam, and who are trying to integrate themselves into society at large. Girls like Aqsa Parvez, for example, who was murdered (allegedly, heh) by her islamist father, presumably for not wearing the head-rag. A girl who was, by all accounts, TRYING TO become a part of the human race, while also trying to not cut all ties with her family.
Honour killing is a tool used by the islamists to keep their womenfolk subjugated, and to keep their tribe from integrating into Western society as a whole. That is why we should fight it vigorously, and why it is so much worse than ordinary domestic abuse. Honour killing is planned, directed violence, with a specific goal in mind. It is a war tactic, if you will.
I just fail to see the point of demonizing one community for its rather pathetic antics, when similar actions take place in every community.
– Much Ado –
Pathetic Antics? Antics? UBC Engineering students hanging a VW off the Lions Gate bridge would constitute an ‘antic’. Honour killing, not so much. Check out religionofpeace.com to see the ‘antics’ thoughout the world for 2009 alone.
Then scroll down for page after page for 2008. Some ‘antics’.
Where pray tell might I find similar stats for the Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, or Christian communities?
If honor killings are a far stretch from domestic abuse, please explain how. – Much Ado
One word: Acceptance. Not universal to be sure, but broad nonethelss.
Forgive me for saying “fight domestic abuse” instead of saying “fight muslim domestic abuse only”. – Much Ado
Not a matter of foregiveness, but a recognition of the malady of the holier than thou: ‘moral equivalence’.
who cares about broads. lets bring back the poster boy for the first family of terrorists in Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/02/11/khadr-appeal.html
CBCKhadr All Khadr All the Time.
gordinkneehill- I’m not sure if my attitude has anything to do with it. My feelings are the result of half a lifetime of bombardment from a bunch of people who plan to tear down my home.
I don’t put a high priority on integrating damaged goods into our society. Maybe it’s not their fault they were born into a culture of insanity, but it’s not my fault either.
[quote]
Fur = BAD
Renewable = GOOD
FUR = RENEWABLE
BAD = GOOD
[/quote]
and if GOD didn’t intend us to eat animals he wouldn’t have made them outta MEAT.
What that has to do with Babwa Hall is unknown but it sounded as profound as anything else in here.
Just remember … IF YOU HAVE TIME TO BITCH ABOUT THE CHRC IN HERE YOU HAVE THE TIME TO DROP YOUR MP AN EMAIL TOO. LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. MOST OF OUR “LEADERS” ARE SO OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVE THEIR EVEN MORE RETARDED HANDLERS AND “ADVISORS.”
“Course as a white male christian I’m sure they care about me. If only to fine companies for hiring too many white males.
How much money is wasted with racist CHRC audits?
Posted by: dinosaur at February 11, 2009 1:24 PM”
According to a spokesperson at a BC Human Rights Council office, a few years ago, white males are not discriminated against, therefore there’s no reason for a white male to lodge a claim.
(As told to me by the white male in question.)
“[W]e have to make choices because we can’t respond to everything” translates to “we will make arbitrary decisions and go after our ideological enemies”.
Hall exemplifies the entire security of the oppressors in contemporary, “liberal” nations.
I wonder if Commissar Hall would respond, as she did to the request for comment on Islamic mens’ “honor” killings of women, to a request for comment on the criticism, inconvenient-truth-telling about, bashing and killing of Muslims and GLBTs? Oh, wait… I’m sure she already made her position clear on the latter stuff… so the reasonable impression of doublethink/double standard on her part remains. Until she unequivocally clearly sets the record straight without clouding it up with the standard Left-wing-elitist verbal diarrhea.
Someone like Tom Clark ought to put her on the spot with a question of that context. That I’d like to see. Would it ever happen? Not bloody likely…
Also she should be asked to comment on whether it’s a hate crime for Muslims to go around inciting hatred and violence against Jews and against GLBTs. Wonder who’d have the balls to ask her to comment on that stuff?
These people need to be put on the spot and held to account for their doublethink, double- and multiple-standards application, prejudices and intolerances. Like hell we can afford to have these arrogant, elitist, entitlist, mentally-disordered fascists unilaterally deeming that which shall and shall not be. We know what happens when a People permit their state apparatchiks to make such decisions as whose rights trump whose, or who has rights and who doesn’t, and so on and so forth. This kind of situation historically has been observed as leading to the mass murder of innocents based on arbitrarily-determined criteria such as religion, skin color, gender, political point of view, etc…
Could Canada, vis-a-vis the HRCs, be on such a slippery slope? How can we be certain it isn’t? Dogma and denial aren’t sufficient!
It is not a religious or cultural practice. It is not legal anywhere in the world (it would be if it were an acceptable religious or cultural practice). No matter where you go in the world, it is punishable. …. I am just making it clearer.
Heh, I think that you’re just deluded or making this up.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, India, South America…etc. All of these countries have the barbaric laws regarding the man’s so called honor over the woman’s virtue.
Look you can continue to lie to yourself and others, but I know differently.
Like the pious Muslims – their claim, that order woman to be raped as a form of punishment? Or when the rape is NOT Imam sanctioned, the girl is then stoned to death. How about granting a child bride to an older male, closely related for favour or dept? That’s their culture are you going to deny this as well?
Honor killings do not take place across all cultural groups. That is an ignorant statement. There are two kinds of societies, guilt societies and shame societies. Islam is a product of a shame society.
Here are some situations
I do something morally wrong, nobody knows. In a guilt society, I feel bad, in a shame society, no problem.
I do something wrong, everybody knows. Problem for both guilt and shame, but guilt feels a little better getting it off you chest, shame feels horrible because it is public.
I do nothing wrong but am falsely accused. Guilt society, I am angry and fight back. Shame society, I feel the same shame as if I had done the wrong thing.
This is why a daughter can bring shame on the father, and why he feels he must kill her to reclaim his honor, even though it has nothing to do with him, from a Western “guilt society” perspective.
Liberals think everybody is like us, and that everybody thinks like us, that is why they say stupid things like Much Ado up thread.
One more argument for Much Ado, although I am sure they will not respond to it.
Honor killings are like lynchings in the old south. I am sure (NOT!) that Much Ado would say that 3 lynchings in Alabama in 1952 are a less serious problem than four traffic accidents.
Both types of killings have the effect of repressing and terrorizing whole classes of people who may never be subject to the actuality, but who know that it is not impossible.
Domestic violence is randomly distributed, and while reprehensible, does not threaten the freedom of women not directly involved in a systematic way.
I guess that Much Ado though sees lynchings, honor killings, stoning of gays and rape victims, etc, as cultural peculiarities to be savored as adding color to this vast world.
“female” trumps “male”, but only when there isn’t “brown”. It’s works the same way as “sex” trumps “religion”, but only when there isn’t “muslim”
An HRC version of paper-rock-scissors.
The question you need to ask is why women/men of any community would turn to the ‘outsider’ for help, when the most vocal outsiders express nothing but contempt for their community. Think about it. Why would a muslim woman go to a guy like Roger or Irwin Daisy to help change her culture? She wants to fix it. He wants to destroy it. See the problem? The problem is that the well-meaning and sympathetic discourses on the topic are drowned out by the hostile and antagonistic voices. Yes they need help getting out of there, but why would they turn to you. They want to remedy the situation, not toss their “good” beliefs into oblivion.
Ado, apparently you’ve never been in an abusive relationship, escaped an abusive relationship, or know anyone in any form of abusive relationship. Muslim women who are in abusive situations have unique problems, they suffer from the same problems as other cultures in the exact same circumstances , but they have fewer options when it comes to leaving. Do I expect them to go to a man and ask for help? Of course not! I would not ask ANY woman who has escaped domestic abuse to go to a man for help. For anyone to expect that is insanity (see the idea of dealing with one man who is abusive, then expecting that dealing with a different man will yield different results, people are not programmed to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, thats why women’s shelters rarely have male staff). I expect them to be able to go to a shelter though and speak with someone and get help, and unfortunately, if they cant speak the languages available in the shelter, how do they ask for help? If there was a single muslim woman on staff, she could more effectively communicate with other women of similar cultural backgrounds, allowing the shelter to help even more people.
What I meant when I posted was that we need to teach these women who often cannot fluently speak the language of their country of residence that they dont need to fear being beaten if they make dinner wrong, or fear death if they take off their hijab. It has nothing to do with tearing down their religion, it has everything to do with protecting a vulnerable group in our society that is unfortunately largely ignored by the groups that are supposed to be looking out for them.
Irene, I usually quite agree with you. However, I think your assumption that no abused woman would go to a man for help is an unhelpful generalization because it caricatures men, who are individuals. There are many men who would be stalwart supports for abused women, especially as the VAST majority of men are not abusers.
Re going to a shelter: they’re so full of men hating feminists and lesbians, going to a shelter could sometimes be likened to jumping out of the frying pan into the fire: the apparent saviour women at many shelters are often the perpetrators of another dangerous ideology.
Yes, many Muslim women need help. However, erasing men, as a group, and holding up feminist shelters as viable possibilities is a problem for me. Of the two, I think the men would be a better solution. Until shelters stop being nests of man hating vipers, I think they’re of little practical use to these women, who certainly need help.
lookout, maybe my city is different, but in my city, the men take a back seat in the women’s shelter in part because it’s a little easier to ask another woman for help because trust hasnt been destroyed. As for the man-haters in the shelters, many of those women can sympathize with every girl that comes through the door because they’ve been there.
I dont mean to paint men with a single brush because I know there’s really great guys out there and they VASTLY outnumber the jerks, and I apologize if that’s how it sounds. Please dont make the same generalizations about the women who work in the shelters, cause I know a few of them and they’re really wonderful individuals (and the ones I know are all in stable heterosexual relationships at the moment) and frankly, we could use more girls like them, if only to even out the ratio of positive feminists to man-hating feminists.
Irene, I appreciate your feedback: it’s good to hear that there are some feminists doing good work on the public dime. Where I’m from, that would often, even usually, be an oxymoron.
I appreciate that you’re not painting all men with the same black–as in bad–brush. The abuse industry uses such false generalizations as a deliberate policy. Thus, abused Muslim women in this country, unfortunately, find themselves between a rock and a hard place.
I believe (as I have met and dined with moslem women whose company was an absolute joy, who were gracious hostessess, worthy friends and secure, happy and self-confident people you couldn’t help but love) that the real problem isn’t Islam at all (although that faith has in many ways morphed into a more tragically political ideology than a faith).
The real problem is Arab pan-Nationalist racial and gender chauvinism crashing headlong into the wildly permissive, frivolous and hedonistic society of the modern West. And that is why the leftoids can’t fathom what to do. Arab (and to be fair, other middle-Eastern and far-Eastern) chauvinism wears the false colours of religious edicts to entrench the priveleges of its ruling male caste, at the expense of women and young girls.
These beliefs actually are not all that old in the West, perhaps 60-100 years ago. (let’s not be too smug shall we, we only gave women the vote after WWI) and a great many women suffered rampant gender discrimination in the West as recently as the 1970’s.
The “Arabist” culture is really not that far behind us, but what concerns me is the rate at which it is regressing. This presumably as it beholds the rapid degeneration of the Western moral fibre into the joke that is the modern International Left. I mean one cannot blame these people for being utterly rejectionist about just about everything modern and Western! Name one aspect of modern Western life that you’d want to emulate if you were a recent arrival from a genuinely conservative middle-Eastern society.
Now add in a tremendous sense of forboding about the future, coupled with a current tendency to wish to preserve the position of men as the saviours and protectors of your society, and why wouldn’t you think of sanctioning the unchaste, “liberated” woman?
Look what a sight the West is to behold to someone who still thinks like Archie Bunker: overtly and overly-sexualised 11-year old girls, enfeebled and disinterested male students in classrooms, a financial system that was really the world’s largest and longest-running Ponzi scheme (I mean in China they’d be shooting the entire banking class if they did what Wall St. did!) a pathetic excuse for war-waging and war-winning (as bin-Laden said, people naturally favour the strong horse over the weak) and a vast scheme to import seditious and destructive minorities into the majority population, followed by a craven pandering by the political elites to their every demand.
I mean, I’d hate us too. And then your daughter comes home dressed like a hooker, and you catch her texting “pornographic” messages to some boy across town, and rather than smile sweetly and accede to Papa’s will, because Papa is always right, she tells her father, in front of her brothers and mother, to “F*** O**”.
That’s it in a nutshell. It really is about control, about a sense of permanence and cultural survival, and ultimately about the culture of permissivity and permissibility against one in which there is no real sense of personal privacy.
In other words, the total debunking of the “multi-culturalism” myth…
bcf- I see a family counselor in your immediate future.
bcf – Yep
I’m not with you 100% on each statement, but I essentially agree with pretty much everything you say
Exactly Erik, as this is a blog post, and I’ve pointed out the limitations of blogging in a previous post here at SDA, I’ve had to magnify, and compress to make a long-winded argument readable in a reasonable amount of scroll-time ;o)
Hope you got the gist of where this is headed…
if it becomes taboo to criticize Islam and Arabs and those who get ‘offended’, we are truly doomed
same as in Afghanistan where you know you get killed if you dare speak up against medieval times
all our civilization rests on this realization