We have yet another horrific tale of the treatment of girls and women in traditional Islamic areas. In Pakistan, Gul Meena was forced by her family at age 12 to marry a 60 year old man. The man proceeded to beat her daily and when she ran to her family, they beat her and told her to go back to her abuser. She was bought and paid for. Instead, she ran away with a young man. However, her brother tracked them down and killed the man with an axe and stuck his sister 15 times. She survived the attempted “honor killing” by her friend.
The girl stayed with her abusive husband for five years as her family joined beatings when she tried to find shelter. She was not allowed to finish school in this conservative Islamic culture. After five years, Gul Meena ran away with a young Afghan man across the border into Afghanistan to the city of Jalalabad. Her family hunted her for its honor and her brother proceeded to kill the man and almost killed his sister — leaving her clinging to life.
The brother has never been arrested and the family denies that he tried to kill her.
Source: CNN
It’s not religion it’s barbarism. America has bureaucratized honor killings with the death penalty, but when individuals think they are doing Gods work by killing their kin and “non believers”, it’s time to call it what it is, brutal murder.
Hey Jude; It is a Pirate Territory, not a “country”. In my mind. I have not been there. I just flew over once on the way to Europe from India. Flushed twice.
Well, since you like Noir…
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” — Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell), the partner of Jack Nicholson’s sardonic private eye Jack Gittes, after Jake’s love interest Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) gets blown away by the LAPD. Screenplay “Chinatown” by Robert Towne. (Rated one of the top lines in cinema.)
Updated Line:
“Forget it, Jonathan. It’s Islam.” — RA
Ah, the “Religion of Peace” rears its ugly head — again.
Gene: how logic and ethics deprived does one have to be to think any of this is rational or a good idea?
I believe the idea behind honor killing is the idea behind the death penalty in general, or for another example, prosecuting whistle-blowers or lynching slaves that tried to escape. The point is no longer about the offender, the point is to intimidate others into abject obedience.
Men are beasts.
I hope to not offend any moderate Jews, Christians or Muslims who read this blog, but this is what happens when religions are allowed, by the moderates, to go to the extremes. I fear it is happening in this country, too. While I know there is religious tolerance and freedom here, it is therefore more necessary for each religion itself to police the extremes to which any religion can go. While no longer practicing, I was raised Jewish, still feel myself to be ethnically so, and I am appalled at the extremes in my own religion, insofar as the treatment of women, and at the extremes in Israel.
We all have to speak out against our own religions when they become cultish. I have to disagree with Michelle somewhat, in that I feel we all, in the United States, have seen what has happened to radical Christianity, in the form of some of the hate groups that still feel themselves to be Christian. It’s not for us to say they are not mandated by religion.
This is a cultural practice (you see it as much among the Hindu’s in India) not a religious one. The west has ideas about Pakistan that are not very accurate. Pakistan is a very secular nation in spite of the reputation that is given them by our govt. and the media. Atrocities that happen there are based in traditional culture-the same one that informs the Hindus in India, largely. Add some nationalistic, caste and yes, issues of honor to that and you have crap happen. But that is not about Islam, any more than the atrocities that happen to women in THIS country are “Christian” or “Jewish”. And when someone tell us it is mandated by religion, most of us know enough about local religion or holy books to dismiss that statement for the idiocy that it is.
Pakistan, what a country!
How about Pakistan step up to the plate and prosecute those who commit these acts. Oh, they claim they can’t. But they can spend enough money and commitment to make a nuclear weapons program but they cannot defend children and women against attacks such as these. Says a lot about the priorities of a country.
Ghastly.
Darren,
Yep, but you know what they say in the fundamentalists Muslim version of the Qu’ran, spare the ax, spoil the child.
Seriously, how logic and ethics deprived does one have to be to think any of this is rational or a good idea? This isn’t just an example of religiosity gone wrong. This – like all “honor killings” – is an example of garden variety insanity.
By there uses of the words “Islam” and “savages” I take it neither Bruce nor Darren refer to my Muslim friends who absolutely abhor the primitive and cruel behavior in the subject post.
What Mike S. said. This is an absurd and disgusting example of religion gone mad. How can you beat and kill your own child?
Savages
Ah Bruce, if only it were confined to a single sect or religion. please find me a religion that does not display this sort of insanity. You may say it is rare but we have had ‘good American Christians’ kill people or allow their children to die for a variety of reasons that make no sense to those not steeped in the delusion of their particular Hairy Thunderer.
Ah islam what a great religion
We formely termed certain territories as “Third World countries”. To term a person as Third World was derogative. The terms have gone by the wayside. Every patch of land is in the UN and they all have some Ambassador there looking civilized. But looking civilized and sporting a degree from Oxford does not make the home territory civilized and nor does it mean that the home territory protects human rights. In much of the world a passerby on a boat can be attacked by pirates and you and your boat can be towed to some port where they will hold you for ransom. Instead of coming into that port with military force and taking back the boat, the rest of the world has their insurance company pay a ransom. A similar scene can happen on dry land. A huge swath of territory is Pirate Territory. Do not go in or near. One gun with you if by land and two if by sea. If you have to fly over you should flush the toilet. When someone from Somalia or Yemen says that they have a product to sell on the world market remember from whence they come. Pakistan is one of those territories that has no respect for human rights. If a Muslim or a cobra attacks someone, the response is “who cares” “Muslims will be Muslims, snakes will be snakes.” If a Pakistani emigrates to your neighborhood you must realize that his wife and kids might be in danger from the schmuck they call father or husband. Do not lend their kids a comic book for example or invite the wife out to the picnic at Catolic Charities. Husband might kill either one. If you think I am being overly critical and exagerating, then try it.
Pirate Territories are worse when they have no coast. Fly over and flush.
Sometimes my tolerance for the freedom of religious fanatics to exercise their fanaticism runs low. There is no excuse, nor defense of those religious fanatics who would treat females in such a manner. They stretch the definition of family beyond its breaking point and return us to stone age savagery.