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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 6:10 pm Post subject: How to cure the honour killings �cancer� |
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Opinion piece regarding the alleged honour killings that occured in Ontario last month.
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Almost as soon as news broke that the murders of three Afghan-Canadian teenage sisters and their father's first wife in Kingston, Ont., were possible "honour killings," some in the Muslim community reacted in the most predictable fashion: defensiveness and denial.
Instead of voicing outrage at the murders, two Muslim callers to my CFRB radio show in Toronto slammed me for raising the subject, and suggested I had some hidden agenda. "This has nothing to do with Islam," said one caller, despite the fact no one on the show had, to that point, even mentioned the word "Islam," let alone accused the religion of sanctioning honour killings.
The callers were not alone. The head of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) told the CBC more or less the same thing - that the story was unrelated to Islam, which apparently does not permit honour killings.
They are both right and wrong. It is true that Islam's holy book, the Koran, does not sanction honour killings. But to deny the fact that many incidents of honour killings are conducted by Muslim fathers, sons and brothers, and that many victims are Muslim women, is to exercise intellectual dishonesty. At worst, it is an attempt to shut off debate.
When Mississauga, Ont., teenager Aqsa Pervez was killed, everyone from Mullahs to so-called Muslim feminists claimed it was not an honour killing - even though there were allegations she had run afoul of her family for socializing with non-Muslim friends and not wearing a hijab. Critics then charged that to refer to the murder in such words was to be an anti-Muslim bigot. Humbug.
As I said, it is true that the Koran does not sanction such murders, but man-made sharia law, which has been falsely imputed divine status, does allow for the killing of women if they indulge in pre-marital or extra-marital consensual sex. This is precisely why so many progressive and liberal Muslims have opposed the introduction of sharia law in Canada.
There is no denying that Islam, in its contemporary expression, is obsessed with women's sexuality, and considers it a fundamental problem. The hijab, the niqab, the burka and polygamy are all manifestations of this phobia.
The mullahs and the mosque leadership may deny their role in ensuring that Muslim women are second-class citizens within the community, but the place they reserve for women in the house of God, the Mosque, reveals their real conviction. Other than one mosque in Toronto, not a single other is willing to let Muslim women sit in the front row. They are sent to the back, or behind curtains, or pushed into basements or balconies, for they are considered not as our mothers or daughters and sisters, but as sexual triggers that may ignite male passions.
Honour killings take place because some Muslims have been convinced by their mullahs that the burden of their family's honour and their religion is vested in the virginity of their daughters and sisters. Most mullahs acknowledge that according to sharia law, a woman who has consensual sex with a man outside marriage deserves to be lashed in public or stoned to death by an Islamic State or an Islamic court. Don't these Islamists see how this interpretation can be taken as a license by men to take the law into their own hands?
Not until Muslim clerics and imams seriously abandon their notion about women being the possession of men will we begin to address the cancer of honour killings, which take more than 5,000 lives in South Asia and the Middle East alone.
The underlying mentality is a problem in virtually all parts of the world. In October 2006, for instance, an Australian imam of Lebanese descent, the country's most senior Muslim cleric, triggered outrage when he described women who dress immodestly (in his view) as "uncovered meat" who invite sexual attacks. Sheikh Taj Al-din al-Hilali, the so-called Mufti of Australia, condemned women who, he said, "sway suggestively," wear makeup, and do not wear the hijab.
Until 2007, only men had translated the Koran and interpreted it. That's because the very idea of a woman translating the holy book offends Islamists. Consider, for example, the reaction to the first-ever translation by a woman - Laleh Bakhtiar's The Sublime Quran - two years ago.
Mohammad Ashraf of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) - the same gentleman who this week told the CBC that there was no provision for honour killings in Islam - told The Toronto Star that he would not permit The Sublime Quran to be sold in the ISNA bookstore. "Our bookstore would not allow this kind of translation," he said. "I will consider banning it ... This woman-friendly translation will be out of line and will not fly too far."
What had Laleh Bakhtiar done to deserve the punishment of having her translation of the Koran banned from ISNA's Islamic bookstores? Her fault, in the eyes of Islamists, is that she believes the Koran does not condone spousal abuse, as claimed by Islamists.
If a woman's translation of the Koran is banned from an Islamic bookstore, what is available at such places. At one Toronto bookstore, the title of a gaudy paperback screamed at passersby: Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell. The book, which is also widely available in British libraries and mosques, lists the type of women who will face eternal damnation. Among them are:
� "The Grumbler ... the woman who complains against her husband every now and then is one of Hell."
� "The Woman Who Adorns Herself."
� "The Woman Who Apes Men, Tattoos, Cuts Hair Short and Alters Nature."
Not until the leadership of the Muslim clergy takes steps to end gender apartheid and misogyny will they be taken seriously when they say, "honour killing" is not permitted by Islam. They cannot have it both ways: proclaim women as the source of sin as well as deserving of death for consensual sex, and then claim the men who carry out the death sentence are acting against Islamic law.
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http://www.nationalpost.com/most-popular/story.html?id=1826529 |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Allah is one bad-ass mofo who keeps bi*ches in line! |
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ytuque
Joined: 29 Jan 2008
Location: I drink therefore I am!
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 5:23 am Post subject: |
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What had Laleh Bakhtiar done to deserve the punishment of having her translation of the Koran banned from ISNA's Islamic bookstores? Her fault, in the eyes of Islamists, is that she believes the Koran does not condone spousal abuse, as claimed by Islamists.
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The Koran quite clearly states that a husband can beat a disobedient wife. So Bakhtiar's translation is revisionist and would obviously be opposed. I also recall there was no penalty for a parent for killing a child. I suppose that would lead people to believe that honor killings are condoned in the religion.
Regardless of what you think about Islam, the Koran is an interesting read. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:57 am Post subject: |
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I have no respect for any feminist for whom muslim anti-women hate is not her/his most important issue.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/07/25/robert-fulford-western-feminists-mute-on-ravages-of-shariah.aspx
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| Feminist journalists like to speculate about the future of activism among women today, but you can leaf through a fat sheaf of their articles without encountering a mention of Muslim women. Feminist professors, for their part, show even less interest. Trolling through the 40-page program of the European Conference on Politics and Gender, held in Belfast last winter, I found feminist scholars (from Europe, the United States and Canada) dealing with women�s political opportunities, the implications for women of new medical technology, the politics of fashion and even women�s response to climate change. What I couldn�t find was even one lecture or discussion devoted to so-called �honour killing.� Nor was there any mention of the thousands upon thousands of women routinely flogged, raped, imprisoned or stoned to death, often with the tacit or explicit agreement of Islamic governments. |
The problem is the feminists are chickenshit. They are used to dealing with a totally feminized male in their day to day lives (husbands, colleagues etc) and they simply do not want to deal with a conservative, aggressively defensive male because they're chickenshit.
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A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art � and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity.
The show includes a video of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth.
The open Bible is a central part of Made in God�s Image, an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (Goma) in Glasgow. By the book is a container of pens and a notice saying: �If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.�
The exhibition has been created by the artists Anthony Schrag and David Malone, in association with organisations representing gay Christians and Muslims. Mr Schrag, the gallery�s artist in residence, said that he did not believe in God, but that his research for the �7,000 show had underlined his respect for people of faith....
A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: �One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced.�... |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6723980.ece
Why only the bible? Because they're chickenshit. That's it. These people think themselves brave, clever, radical. But they're not. They're pathetic and yellowbellied.
Last edited by mises on Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:35 am Post subject: |
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| Why only the bible? Because they're chickenshit. That's it. These people think themselves brave, clever, radical. But they're not. They're pathetic and yellowbellied. |
I mostly agree with this. This type of artistic anti-clericalism is especially lame in the UK, a country where organized Christianity is pretty much without any political influence whatsoever. It's a little like a 50-year old man sitting in his room and tossing darts at a photo of his long-dead mother, just to show what a rebel he is.
That said, I'm not sure that a desecration of the Koran would neccessarily have prompted a more violent result. There was, in fact, just such a desecration a few years back, and nobody seemed to make much of an issue of it at all.
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Then again, I'm told that buring a Koran is actually regarded as a theologically proper way to destroy it. Maybe if Merrill had smeared his koran with bacon grease, that would have prompted more of a reaction. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:41 am Post subject: |
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Hamas to force Gaza women to cover hair
Senior Hamas officials had claimed, in the wake of Hamas' June 2007 Gaza takeover, that the organization did not have any intention to turn the Sharia, Islamic religious law into official state regulations. Two years later, however, it seems that the Hamas government is slowly introducing more and more regulations in the spirit of the Islamic decrees.
The London-based newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the organization's Gaza government had recently approved a series of laws, a Muslim code of conduct of sorts, meant to guard Muslim religion and morals. These guidelines join an increasing amount of reports from Gaza residents saying that modesty patrols were forcing women to wear head coverings, especially at Gaza's beaches, and that they were inspecting isolated cars in order to prevent unmarried couples being alone together.
Gaza's judicial authority, which runs the strip's courts on behalf of Hamas, had even recently ruled that all female attorneys must wear the traditional Muslim head covering, the hijab, and wear dresses during court appearances. The ruling was condemned by the independent lawyers association.
Supreme Court chief justice Abdul-Raouf Halabi said Sunday that female lawyers will be required to wear a headscarf and a long, dark colored cloak under their billowing black robes when the court returns from its summer recess in September.
Halabi said his order was designed to ensure that women dress in accordance with Islamic law, which requires women to cover up in public, wearing loose garments and only showing their hands and faces. |
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1102900.html
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| "Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit � for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism....I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal..." |
-- Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009
I don't think it is the "view of some in the West" that women are less equal. It is the "view of some in the Middle East" that women are less equal. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think it is the "view of some in the West" that women are less equal. It is the "view of some in the Middle East" that women are less equal. |
I think what he meant was not that people think "Women who cover their hair are inferior to women who don't", but rather than they think "Women who cover their hair are being treated in an inferior way than those who don't".
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| I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal..." |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 12:49 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
I have no respect for any feminist for whom muslim anti-women hate is not her/his most important issue.
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Why should muslim 'anti-woman hate' be the most important issue for feminists? Can you give me a convincing rationale of why feminists should be as obsessed with muslims are yourself?
Why not hindu 'anti-woman hate' for example? That's pretty foul - although at least burning widows at their husband's funerals is no longer legal, thankfully.
And how would any of this effort by feminists to wank on about muslims change anything?
I recall the late nineties when there was a lot of discussion and campaigning by women's groups to highlight the plight of women in Afghanistan. No-one gave a rat's behind. Nothing changed, except that some women (like myself) donated to organisations like RAWA. Quietly donating to the warrior women at the coalface is the best one can do, I believe.
I don't see how western women mouthing off about muslim transgressions will change things for the better - and possibly it will do damage by conflating women's issues with perceived Western haughtiness/imperialism etc, making it harder for the local women fighting for change. People will see them as 'agents for the West' or whathaveyou, rather than simply women's activists. We should just shut our big mouths and instead support them usefully, like donating to women's organisations in these countries - and stop making women's rights a 'Western' thingamy. Not helpful at al. Remember how Koreans who had previously never fancied dog, went out and stuffed themselves full of it once foreigners started lecturing them on it.
I'd also wager that it's not Islam itself that causes men to be c***s to their womenfolk. Men needing to exert power over women will look to any excuse to justify what they do. Muslim men will conveniently interpret Islam so as to justify their behaviour, as will Hindu or Christian men with the same issues will find warped justifications in their own religious literature. Secular women-haters will find their excuses elsewhere - and sure enough they'll find them. You're not really getting to the underlying cause if you accept that Islam/Hinduism/Whateverism is to blame.
Feminists speaking at conferences should stick to what they know, and not mouth off about things they have little knowledge/experience. If Christianity is what they know, then fair enough. If Christianity has had an effect on your life, you have a right to mouth off about it. You shouldn't also be expected to mouth off about other religions too, just in the interest of balance. That's just wanking. It's up to muslim women to campaign to change their situation.
Like this muslim woman:
Lubna Hussein: 'I'm not afraid of being flogged. It doesn't hurt. But it is insulting'
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Sitting in the restaurant where her ordeal began, Lubna Hussein looks at the offending item of clothing that caused all the trouble and laughs softly. "In Sudan, women who wear trousers must be flogged!" she says, her eyes widening at the thought. The former journalist faces up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine if she is convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese criminal law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public.
What exactly constitutes "indecent" is not clear. Last month Lubna was among a crowd listening to an Egyptian singer in a restaurant in a swish area of Khartoum when policemen surged in. They ordered Lubna and other women to stand up to check what they were wearing, and arrested all those who had trousers on. Lubna, who was wearing loose green slacks and a floral headscarf, was taken to the police station.
"There were 13 of us, and the only thing we had in common was that we were wearing trousers," Lubna says. "Ten of the 13 women said they were guilty, and they got 10 lashes and a fine of 250 Sudanese pounds (about �65). One girl was only 13 or 14. She was so scared she urinated on herself."
Lubna asked for a lawyer, so her case was delayed. Despite the risks, she is determined that her trial should go ahead. Before her initial hearing last Wednesday, she had 500 invitation cards printed, and sent out emails with the subject line: "Sudanese journalist Lubna invites you again to her flogging tomorrow."
The court was flooded with women's rights activists, politicians, diplomats and journalists, as well as well-wishers. During the hearing, Lubna announced that she would resign from her job as a public information officer with the United Nations, which would have provided her with immunity, to fight the case. The judge agreed, and adjourned the trial until Tuesday.
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This woman is amazing. She's a Sudanese Emily Pankhurst. She could have got off, because of her position, but she is stepping down from her job with the UN just so that she can be prosecuted. Hopefully, the publicity of the case may force a social change. This is what muslim women need. Not some silly women's issues major presenting a paper at a conference. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 7:47 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Why not hindu 'anti-woman hate' for example? That's pretty foul - although at least burning widows at their husband's funerals is no longer legal, thankfully. |
Yeah, fine. That too. White, bourgeois feminists don't have the guts to take on any non-white culture. They're chickenshit. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| What gets me is the people on both sides of the issue painting it as a "Muslim issue." It's quite evident that it's not the religion driving FGM and "honor killings." They're holdovers from the culture that preceded the Islamic Conquest. And not valuable holdovers, either. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:01 am Post subject: |
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Well. Have a cry about it. Be balanced and worry about the context of the mass organized violence cause you just want to be nuanced.
muslim girls are dropping like flies all over the world. 4 just killed in Ontario last week by their dad. He drowned them for being 'western'. I will not listen to any selfish rambling from any weak "feminist" until there is a sharp turn away from chickenshit multiculturalism. And I am not alone. They -chickenshits- are marginalizing themselves and appearing pathetic. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| muslim girls are dropping like flies all over the world. 4 just killed in Ontario last week by their dad. He drowned them for being 'western'. |
Well, I'm personally gonna wait 'till the jury is in, quite literally, on that one, before drawing any solid conclusions either way. A few things about the case strike me as a little odd. Not least the statement from Kingston police...
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"The four victims in this case, three of which were only teenaged girls, all shared the rights within our great country - to live without fear, to enjoy safety and security, and to exercise freedom of choice and expression - and yet had their lives cut short by members of their own family," he said.
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This sounds more like a Christopher Hitchens column than a statement from law-enforcment agents conducting an objective investigation. I'm guessing that the defense lawyers are going to have some fun with this as well.
link |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 9:28 am Post subject: |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
| What gets me is the people on both sides of the issue painting it as a "Muslim issue." It's quite evident that it's not the religion driving FGM and "honor killings." |
And the same people are silent on the issue of male genital mutilation (routine infant circumcision) in the West. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Big Bird wrote: |
| I'd also wager that it's not Islam itself that causes men to be c***s to their womenfolk |
The view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture and directly cited in the Qur'aan. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. No, the right to kill wives and daughters wasn't prescribed, but females as property certainly was, and Islam therefore takes some semblance of blame if males take the concept of property to its logical conclusion and use it - including destroy it - as they see fit.
There are thousands of women killed per year in honor killings and, yes, there are also thousands killed by Hindus because women's dowries are considered insufficient. Obviously, in these grotesque religions, murdering women can be perceived as excusable or understandable (something to remind theists of when they insist - as they always do - that decency is inseparable from theism. Perhaps one day, in hundreds of years perhaps because progress here is slow, the penny will drop).
If 5000 women per year are murdered in honor killings, the levels of general miscellaneous violence on women in the Muslim World (and among Hindus) must be immense, because this honor killings stat, alone, is far in excess of general violence against women in any country I'd visit. This is remarkable because of the level of severity, premeditation, meticulousness, excusability and involvement from other family members. This severity of violence is very rare, but overwhelmingly motivated by religion.
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| Secular women-haters will find their excuses elsewhere - and sure enough they'll find them. You're not really getting to the underlying cause if you accept that Islam/Hinduism/Whateverism is to blame. |
The rate of premeditated murder of wives/daughters with remorseless excusability - involving family members - is exceptionally rare and perhaps even nonexistent in secular societies.
As such, it hardly seems irrational to set aside the Muslim World for special criticism. People are understandably appalled by the severity and the frequency of this vile male violence against their own wives and daughters. |
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