John Oakley is seriously entertaining the question of whether Canadian judges should give those who commit “honour” killings a break because they have different “cultural practices” and may not be aware of our norms and laws; defence attorney Lawrence Ben-Eliezer thinks judges should take these differences into consideration because we have “multiculturalism”.
… read on.
Speaking of cultural sensitivity … an oldie.
Update: Cultural sensivity in Progressia is never a two-way-street.
Update 2: Wente
Mindy Jacobs has a column in the Edmonton Sun today on the topic:
http://www.edmontonsun.com/comment/columnists/mindelle_jacobs/2010/06/17/14429711.html
The comments are interesting.
Well, I guess I’m just a contrarian. I think we should show cultural sensitivity in the case of honour killings. Instead of giving Parvez pere et fils 18 years, we should bind them hand and foot, cover them with BBQ sauce, and pitch them into a pen full of hungry swine.
Then deport Momma and the rest of the pustulent clan.
What the h-e- double hockey sticks is going on in this country?!!
Customers coming into MY business do not tell me how to run, change, conduct MY business. If a customer does not like it then get out and find another one ready to take your crap.
Murder. How did the slide in morals/values/common sense take us here? Murder – seriously?
Honour killing. Do these morons not get the oxymoron?
And as a libertarian/conservative: I’m the stupid one?!
There is a story about a general in the British Army in India.
He witnessed widow burnings and wanted the practice stopped. When told it was a their culture to do so.
His answer, “and its my culture to hang those who do.”
A Toronto Sun editorial…
The pure evil of ‛honour′ killings.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2010/06/17/14431741.html
And Michael Coren (whom I usually admire for his intelligence and accuracy) suggested that Muslims aren’t the only ones who practice honour killings — Latin Americans also practice it! Coren suggested that Latin American “machismo” includes “honour killings”.
Seems like everybody is trying to excuse this horrendous act, which is probably unique to Islam, by trying to compare it to other cultures because it is just too inexcusable to digest.
With all due respect to Mr. Coren, he is flat wrong about “honour killing” being a part of Latin American culture. In some areas of Latin America there was a tradition you could refer to as “honour suicide” — where a young man would kill himself if he failed at love, as an supreme show of fidelity to his lost lover. But not “honour killing” — there is nothing honourable about killing the object of your love.
The “honour suicide” tradition in Latin America is more reminiscent of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, not the murderous practice in Islam.
Obliviously Oakley and Ben-Elizer don’t have much respect for women, but then most idiots and bigots don’t have much respect for anything else other than their own feelings.
ET: If you’re looking in here, my apologies for over-reacting to your comment about not wanting to be adversarial with Muslims on that sausage thread.
I meant to add, but thought the thread was probably dead:
PROVOCATION: The argument that we should perhaps ban things ‘cos they might provoke our imported muslims is an impossible position to take because the number of potential provocations is infinite.
NOW, here’s my angle on needless provocation: allowing muslim immigrants, or at the very least not very strictly limiting it esp. from certain regions like rural Pakistan.
Think of Parvez, Pere and Frere, both getting life in prison for the murder of daughter/sister Aqsa Parvez, a teenager who, faced with the impossible conflict between peer pressure, and her father’s rural Paki honour-shame culture. The provocation was too much for them.
Think of the needless, easily preventable provocation of having a rural Paki muslim arriving on these shores for benefits and having to put up with pop culture, booze-drugs, porn, scantilly-clad hotties on billboards and in the flesh even among his daughter’s friends. And think of the dozens of similar medieval rubes that will soon follow from our insane family unification philosophy.
REDUCE provocation: they stay out our lands, we stay out of theirs.
I think there’s a legitimate argument that the moral depravity in the West just might be too much of a shock to the system of people from more traditional parts of the world. Let’s face it, we who were born and raised here can barely morally survive the hedonism ourselves and the effects it has had on raising healthy families.
But the irony is the same Lefties who excuse Islamic “honour killings” as a cultural reaction, are the same people who have dumped any and every symbol or practice of morality down the drain in the West. Secularism is the new religion, and it eulogizes moral depravation.
Some moral/religious rules are in fact good, and instilling a sense of right and wrong in children at a young age will keep them out of jail later in life. The Left doesn’t recognize that and has created an environment that encourages sociopathologies instead.
oh it’s early yet, perhaps later we’ll converse regarding “Healing Circles” and how they’ve added so much to our antiquated justice system.
those who may not be aware of our norms and laws … should not be permanent residents of our country.
because they have different “cultural practices” and may not be aware of our norms and laws
I remember when they used to say, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” and then throw the book at you.
“John Oakley is seriously entertaining the question of whether Canadian judges immigration officials should give deny those who commit “honour” killings a break entry in the first place because they have different “cultural practices” and may not be aware of our norms and laws”
There. Fixed it for him.
because they have different “cultural practices” and may not be aware of our norms and laws
Their cultural practice is that the laws of infidels do not apply to the Sons of Islam, but they seem to be all too aware of our laws when it comes to resisting deportation, eh?
Seems to me like it’s a pretty selective ignorance.
Honor killings are common not only among Muslims but also among Hindus, and probably also in certain tribal cultures.
Regardless, it must be of course be condemned and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Come on Oz, you KNOW that only counts if you’re white. These brown people can’t be expected to function like white people, be serious.
Strip away the progressive lingo, and multiculturalism looks pretty damn ugly. Kinda RACIST, you ask me.
I agree with Mike @12:29. Also, an understanding of one or both of our national languages should be a prerequisite.
Bang on, Phantom. As I’ve said many times, on these boards and elsewhere, racism in Canada and the U.S. would be essentially dead, but for the progressives and their agenda who keep it alive for political purposes.
I have to disagree with Johan that honour killings are common among Hindus, but I suspect he is confusing Hindus with Sikhs. He is I believe correct that it is found among tribal cultures, though not all of them.
I also agree with Ricardo in that claiming honour killings as part of Latin American culture is pure rubbish. Ricardo is also correct about the growing lack of any moral compass in the West and its cause.
As to the subject it is an insult to one’s intelligence, because murder is murder and this can never be a “cultural” excuse. Perhaps those arguing otherwise should be put in the place of the victims in order to increase their cultural sensitivity to the victims.
We can’t spank our kids without howls of outrage. They kill their kids and we’re supposed to cut them some slack.
Actually I am all for cultural sensitivity. I think we should be sensitive to traditional Canadian culture that says murder is murder even if you believe your ‘honour’ has been besmirched.
It’s a hate crime if you hit or shoot back.
Quick note. John Oakley is a common sense guy who was just hosting the show during this topic. he was not for it by any means and challenged the lawyer who was making excuses for the horrer that is Honour killings.
Ah yes, welcome to Two Tier Feminism where if you’re Brown no-one cares if you drown, and if you’re Red no-one cares if some drunk beats you dead.
This issue will not be addressed properly until the silent majority of women stand-up and say ” The FemNazis don’t speak for me!”, and start demanding justice for ALL women regardless of their colour.
C’mon women, this is your time in history, it’s your time to take it back! Take it all back! Take back Feminism. Take back Parental Rights. Take back Education. Take back Justice for Woman Victims. And take back everything else the Progressives have taken-away from you; taken-away from you in your own name.
Today it’s women that have the power to publicly resist the communist Progressive agenda. It’s time to put that hard earned “equality” to good work before that “equality” is a thing of the past.
We’ve got your back ladies!
ricardo you say it well @ 12:09. You must have read “The Enemy At Home” by Dinesh D’Souza as you say “But the irony is the same Lefties who excuse Islamic “honour killings” as a cultural reaction, are the same people who have dumped any and every symbol or practice of morality down the drain in the West”.
This is exactly the point D’Souza makes as to why the radical Muslims have decided to destroy us. They do not want this moral depravity that many North Americans to infect their homelands.
Good point gord @ 1:13. That is just typical thinking of the left. Most of them don’t have the morals of an ally cat.
You clearly don’t know John Oakley very well. I listen almost every day. I never listened to that specific segment and I’m still 100% confident that is not his position.
Last time I checked we had one law that was to be applied equally to all citizens. Well, maybe with the exception of Aboriginals and those in la belle province.
So, in Canada, if you murder someone you are simply subject to the same law as your neighbour or somebody on the other side of the country.
Why do the Oakleys of the world find this such an abstract concept?
Now, now folks; aren’t we getting a bit carried away here. Multiculturalism means in practice “All Cultures Are Equal”. Honor killing must be defended according to that wonderful document left to us by Mr. Trudeau. Right to life carries no weight. Look at the way the courts treat self defense. They went into court and had a good argument over the death of Aqsa Parvez. The family and community got closure.
That’s it!
(Sarcasm off!)
ricardo
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: “We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks”
1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family
• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and take away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
• abolish all forms of male dominance – hence the presence of women in the armed forces
• declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
· merging or reversing the sexes or sex roles;
· abolishing the family as we know it’
ricardo
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: “We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks”
1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family
• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and take away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
• abolish all forms of male dominance – hence the presence of women in the armed forces
• declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
· merging or reversing the sexes or sex roles;
· abolishing the family as we know it’
I guess these are just words, then, ala “freedom of speech is just an American concept”:
“I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful
and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada,
Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada
and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.”
Can’t say that justice for the two Homolka’s was equal. Id like to hear a feminist defence of that.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
So it’s ok the kill your wife or daughter?
Nuts.
You know, I keep saying issue every girl in Canada a .38 snubbie and lessons for their 16th birthday, even ET argues with me. Two queens and a gun beats four aces and a knife every time.
What’s up ladies? Is that a government program you could get behind or what?
Headline I want to see? Young woman acquitted of murder for blowing Dad and Mum’s heads off in attempted honor slaying. Cop who charged her slapped by the judge.
Wasn’t the idea supposed to be “everyone equal under the law” not, according to cultural sensitivity, serious inequality under the law? If you come over to this country, you have to live within our laws period. I would give these murderous pieces of crap the full exposure to the law – they are no better than Bernardo.
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” Gen Charles James Napier in India, mid 19th century
Why not just throw away the law books, seeing as they are not needed….
(the apocryphal) Napier was in the right, and he was in India. How much more in the right would he have been if Hindus had been burning widows in Boring-under-Quaintriver, Oxfordshire?
(Well, Napier wasn’t apocryphal. The anecdote is.)
I can hear those defence attorneys now:
“Members of the jury, yes, it’s true that my client did get stinking drunk in the ByWard Market and, yes, he did punch that constable in the nose. But as you deliberate, I would remind you that he is an Irish-Canadian.”
“True, Mr Rizzuto did arrange for Tony Sintallini’s body to be dumped in the St. Lawrence just downstream from Montreal, but I’d like the judge and jury to be sure to consider the rich heritage of age-old Italian social and cultural practices which…”
I wonder how long it would be before Napier was hauled before the “human rights” roos if he were alive today and said that in Canada.
*
sure, there’s all this yip-yap about “cultural sensitivity”… except,
of course, if you’re a heterosexual, caucasian christian.
funny how that works.
*
“And Michael Coren (whom I usually admire for his intelligence and accuracy) suggested that Muslims aren’t the only ones who practice honour killing.”
Well, he may be right. But I think they’re the only ones who do it on these shores.
I can’t recall the last time a Mennonite, Presbyterian, Jehovah’s Witness or an Opus Die adherent murdered their children because wearing make-up brought shame upon the family.
Steyn is right. The only person I see regularly denouncing this familial auto de fe. Is Pamela Geller at Atlas shrugged. Kate & Kathy AT their blogs & just a few here & there. Its like most Women don’t even want to face this. If they don’t females will end up chattel or property.
JMO
You’ll notice Comments have been disabled under Wente’s article.
Thanks Ham for the awesome quote, and a big ROFLMAO to JJM. Having a GOOD day here, the sun is shining and a nice breeze blowing through the house, the finches singing, and John Dowland on the stereo…sweet Friday.
They say “the law is an ass”.
A schitzophrenic one at that.
Bad spelling, I know, I know…..
A while a go, I was arguing with a co-worker about stuff like this. The co-worker is a graduate degree holding, cultural relativist type. He kept going on about “that is ‘their’ culture”, and how we had no right to judge. My position was that Judeao-Christian society was objectively better than other cultures. I ended the argument by hoping that he would enjoy living in the country he thought he wanted. I did not think at the time that it would be so soon, or that I would have to share it for so long.
Indiana Homez said, “We’ve got your back ladies!”
This has got to be the quote of the string. Yes, it’s time to put equality to work. Burning lingerie is bush-league stuff. And time to put the stake in the ground. You stood firm against back alley abortons – good for you! Are beheadings worth the perks that the liberal establishment promises? In the spectrum of issues against which feminists have been dinningly strident, the outrages of non-western cultures have been conspicuously absent. It’s your time, ladies. Claim it.
We have your backs.
So we’re becoming part of the caliphate?
Is this a problem?
Just because immigrants are more likely to be unemployed on welfare and less likely to pay taxes, why wouldn’t we want to debate immigration?
oh wait,
truth = hate
According to socialists.