Zahra is a young girl who should be known to every person cares about liberty and the plight of young girls in many traditional Islamic areas. Zahra wanted to go to school and follow her dream but she lived in Afghanistan where girls are often treated like commodities. She ended up being transferred to a family as part of a dowry at 11 and married off while in the sixth grader. She was later allegedly burned alive and died in a Kabul hospital — she was four months pregnant. The reason was that the family (which reportedly beat her savagely) was mad that she was not working hard enough.
Before she was bargained away, Zahra had performed in school dramas and was selected to perform a juggling act in Kabul. She had dreams. Yet, her mother became paralyzed and her father, Muhammad Azam, decided to remarry. The dowry included Zahra who was married off. Her father worked as a laborer for a family who owed him wages. The family was a powerful clan in Ghor. When his wife was paralyzed, his employers offered him a daughter to marry rather than the wages. Later, the employer backed out of the deal but the father eloped with the girl and her family demanded restitution. Zahra was part of that restitution — treated like a donkey or jewelry. She was six at the time.
Her husband married her when she was in sixth grade. Her father (who bears obvious responsibility for her demise) accused the other family of beating and stabbing her for refusing to work in the opium fields while pregnant. He says that they set her on fire. The family insists that it was a case of suicide and self-immolation. They have the continued support of the police, which was accused of ignoring the father’s complaints about the family beating Zahra. The family’s power in Ghor is well known and the police chief of Ghor, Mustafa Hussaini changed his findings in the case from murder to claim that Zahra had self-immolated in protest of her abuse.
What is particularly sad is that her family still defends the tradition of marrying off young girls. Afghan law sets a minimal age of 16 for marriages but it is routinely violated, including in this case. Indeed, her father appeared to admit that he bartered her away and arranged the marriage when she was too young under Afghan law.
The in-laws have been arrested. Activists have called for her father to be arrested despite the obvious effort of Afghan officials to ignore that she was below the age for marriage. When confronted over the father’s own account in bartering her away at age 11, one of Mr. Azam’s relatives, Hajji Abdul Khaliq, exclaimed “Why are you asking me? Go ask the Prophet.”
What’s ironic is that during the actual dark ages Muslims had the most advanced and hygienic societies on earth as noted by European scholars even in talking about the Moors in Spain etc. There was s thirst for learning and technology. Even recently in Afghanistan just 50 years ago you had women teaching, wearing pants, science etc. Now turmoil has allowed these uneducated wahabi degenerates to take over the religion and demand that a strict interpretation of sharia law trump all. That is the problem. It is strict fundamentalism.
If you look at some of the stories JT posts of ultra conservative Orthodox Jews who get out of prison to stab women for not dressing a certain way or Christian society in the dark ages, the Salem witch trials, or in demanding that religion be taught over science in schools it is the same issue just not as extreme. If you add rampant poverty, war and violent fanaticism to the mix you have the situation that has hijacked Islam in much of the Middle East.
We have to understand that to combat it you don’t turn the entire religion against you or that hatred will grow and spread throughout the fastest growing religion in the world like a cancer. You treat the wahabi cancer like the disease that it is and isolate it, teach prevention methods, protect good cells or citizens against it regardless of religious affiliation, and when it’s taken over an organ or heads of state you work with other organs or countries and people to fight it off, don’t go it alone so it can develop again.
Islam is not the problem. If you look in the Old Testament depending on the translation you will find many tenants that offend modern sensibilities and put women or the non religious in danger. Strict fundamentalism and those who would twist it and brainwash and hijack others to suit their own evil desires are the problem. We must eliminate that line of thinking for our future sake
Sorry KC if I was wrong in your case,but the mass of people here DID support Bin Laden, and his boys, the mujahadeen. As for blaming all the worlds ills on the USA, YOU are wrong about me. In FACT, I supported the First Gulf war, I even had my letter in support of it published in the SF Chronicle at the time. I was also flattered when our State Rep. Ogg mentioned it in an interview he had on TV. I also supported the US attack on the Taliban and Afghanistan. I get a lot of flack from many on the left for a rational approach to things.
Carter was a fool for having an exiled Polish nobleman for a foreign policy adviser, since a Pole will always have as a solution to any international problem, Kill some Russians first. What the Soviets did was perfectly LEGAL under international laws and the UN Charter. The US had no rational or legal reason for intervening in Afghanistan apart from simply wanting to kill Soviets and screw the Afghans. I usually have nothing good to say about Stalinists, but they did act as a modernizing force in Afghanistan, which is one of the reasons the war erupted. Being Stalinists, they resorted to guns rather than reason to settle differences. There is a bit of truth that they have been killing each other as a tradition. In fact, the reason the Soviets were called in was that the two factions of the Communist Party had a gun fight in the cabinet room to settle their differences. The Soviets were supposed to impose a peace among them.
The US policy should have been to let the Soviets bleed if they wished to, and the worst that would happen is that Islam would be routed and a modern society might emerge. If not then the Islamics would win and we would have the same situation we have now, only we would have saved billions of dollars and maybe no 9/11.
” those folks were ALL in favor of getting rid of the communist government of Afghanistan””
Horsehockey. All?
Not me. Prove it.
“In fact, the civil war was sparked when…”
Horsehockey. In fact, those people have always been fighting each other, for centuries, back and forth.. Hence their stone age society failing to modernize.
In which randyjet predictably and reliably uses LEFT’S REACTION Rule 5. Because of the stinkin’ American war in [INSERT WAR].
It is a variant of the wife-beater’s lament (Look what you made me do!), the narcissist’s favorite method of blame transference .
More, it ignores the fact that these 7th century behaviors have been in practice long before the war in Afghanistan, and even before the US was a twinkle in Madison’s eye.
I have to laugh at the folks who protest this kind of thing since all of those folks were ALL in favor of getting rid of the communist government of Afghanistan that DID fight against this kind of thing. In fact, the civil war was sparked when the communists sent women into the villages to teach women how to read. The US and ALL of you were gung ho for supporting the mujahadeen and Bin Laden, despite KNOWING the kind of people you were supporting. So please save us the crocodile tears, until you admit you were wrong. You all got what you wished for, Too bad you lacked the wit to see the consequences that were easily foreseeable.
Abuse of other people can come from ignorance, culture, mental illness, desperation, fear, training, any number of conditions. The US has the capacity to peacefully help developing regions toward a better quality of life. Instead, US leaders seem to prefer bombs, drones, guns, and other heinous behaviors. I don’t advocate for pushing religion, but US foreign policy specialists might want to take a look at how Mormon missionaries try to be help the folks they are trying to convert.
Isaac:
“There is no difference whatsoever between this religious, power, sociopathic behavior in Islamic countries and this less than nothing that completely ruined her daughter’s life.”
Using that logic, one would be unable to oppose a religion that engaged in human sacrifice, because murder unrelated to religion occurs around the world.
That is a straw man argument.
You oppose and combat the motive for crime or the abuse of human rights. That motive will be different depending on the crime. You cannot undermine the fight against one motivating factor for violence against women by the simple claim that there are other motives in unrelated cases.
Otherwise, yes, I agree that the responsibility is on Islam to determine if it’s going to stay in the Dark Ages or follow reformers who practice it within the matrix of human rights. Any religion or society may be reformed to correct abuses or problems. Islam is not exempt from the same crucible of change as any other religion when its practice veers into darkness.
I am having difficulty formulating a comment that is printable.
I am so disgusted with the treatment of women in the Middle East. We have spent billions of dollars in treasure and lakes of blood to combat terrorism, and help the Afghan people leave the Dark Ages. We’ve tried to encourage them in democracy. But the same problems of corruption and extremism persist. The enslavement of women and girls still exists. You cannot impose Western values upon another people against their will. So what do you do? Because I don’t want to spend a dime on anyone who would give a little girl away to a pedophile, and defend her being beaten, stabbed, raped, and burned alive. If they believe their religion gives them the right to be pedophile child abusers, then I have a fierce objection to their denomination. In my own mind, I consider the range of the practice of Islam to be different denominations, although Muslims only recognize a few variants (Sunni, Shiite, etc). I consider modern, moderate Muslims who coexist just fine with everyone else and treat women equally here in the West to be a completely separate denomination than the Dark Ages of Sharia Law and traditional, extremist Islam that subjugates women around the world. I have no patience for the Dark Ages practice of Islam, because I oppose the abuses of human rights perpetuated in its name. Who cares about PC? How many little girls need to be raped and burned alive before people stop being concerned about offending the sensibilities of abusers?
So what do we do? Become Romans and impose our values by the sword, and claim the region for our own? Take over the country and enforce the equal treatment of women, until there is real change in their society? Because apparently all this time and effort and money and war hasn’t been enough. And I seriously doubt we would support colonizing the entire world in order to drag everyone into the 21st century and Western values.
I think it is so unfair that any women and children have to live in places like this. The men are not fit to have their company, and are unworthy to have the families they’ve been blessed with.
NEWS ITEM:.
Muslim(s) [CHOOSE ONE: tortures, kills, blows up, shoots, drives over, immolates, kidnaps, rapes] innocent [CHOOSE ONE: co-workers, children, tourists, Christians, neighbors, family, apostates, shoppers, non-Muslims].
THE LEFT’S REACTION:
1. Not a real Muslim (see: “No true Scotsman”).
2. Not representative of Islam (28,856 deadly terror attacks since 9/11).
3. All religions are bad.
4. Christians are worse. [INSERT PEDOPHILE STORY]
5. Because of the stinkin’ American war in [INSERT WAR].
6. Xenophobe!
7. America needs to import more Muslims.
8. Don’t forget the real victims here here: “British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing”)
Recently there was a case of a heroin addict who traded heroin for her 11 year old daughter having sex with her pusher. The pusher was as disgusting as could be but eclipsed by the mother. The sex included all sorts. The mother encouraged and comforted her daughter as if it was OK. She got 55 years. The pusher is still waiting to be sentenced.
There is no difference whatsoever between this religious, power, sociopathic behavior in Islamic countries and this less than nothing that completely ruined her daughter’s life. In the US when this happens the society is revolted and the perpetrators and victims are dealt with. There is no design whatsoever in secular society for this to happen. However, there is a design in Islamic society regardless of whether it is found only in the backward nations. It is also found in the richest as well as the poorest Islamic nations.
The mere fact that there is any discussion going on in this society illustrates that Afghanistan and other Islamic nations enable this perverse and disgusting behavior. Until Islam regularly, vociferously, and regardless of threat, stands up to this sort of activity, Islam is complicit. Islam is responsible indirectly for this disgusting sociopathic behavior. Only Islam can heal itself. It is interesting to note that there is an Islamic police force(s) in some countries that roam society to prevent humans from enjoying their basic freedoms yet there is little to no Islamic police roaming Islamic societies preventing this sort of depraved activity.
Christianity and Judaism are still healing their selves. Disgusting and perverse activities take place in the name of Christ and Judaism. However, Christians and Jews are disgusted and prosecute the animals that justify their mental illness in the name of their religion. Only the taking of a place under the secular umbrella of more evolved societies can Islam survive. If Islam continues to see itself as the only way to the degree that it will override human rights then Islam will not survive. It may cause much chaos but it is doomed.
Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs.
Bringing a lot of these people into this country not vetted is a very dangerous practice. When will the people of this country wake up realize this? When I visit another country I am there as a guest. This should be a 2 way street. The demographics of this country are changing but I do believe most of the new immigrants come here to make a better life for themselves. I don’ t feel they came here to change us or our country. I also feel a lot of them came here because they feel safer in this country than where they came from. This is our culture and I believe it’s worth keeping.
Religion is the opiate of the people. All religions. Yeah. You dorks with the Christ on a Cross and you guys with the Star of David too. Combine it with meth, heroin, pot, tobacco and outlaw them all and put the addicts in guest houses in Florida which they pay for by working the work gangs.
The guy has got a point. However, Mohammed lived with Aliysa for several years before having intercourse with her. So, she would have been ‘legal’ in several states when I was growing up.
FWIW, Mohammed isn’t “God” (or “Allah,” the Arabic word for God). He is believed to be the last in a line of prophets beginning with Abraham. Muslims also believe that Jesus was a prophet, but not God or the son of God. Thus they see both Mohammed and Jesus as essentially equal and both revered, although to the extent that Mohammed’s teachings differ from those of Jesus, they go with M’s version, because he was one of them, and spoke to them in their own language about 700 years after Jesus.
As to the practice of marrying children, Muslims base that on M’s marrying a 7-year-old named Alisha. So yes, he was clearly a pedophile. Whatever excuses they may proffer about the customs in the 7th century, it is inconceivable that such practices would be allowed today. But in the Arab world, the sexual abuse of both young boys and girls is widely practiced. The civilized world should enact very harsh sanctions, such as cutting of foreign aid and imposing trade sanctions against these countries. That will never happen under Obama, given his close familial affinity with the Muslim world, but he’ll be gone in 6 months, so there is still hope……
What can you expect from people who worship a God whose prophet is a pedophile.
This is an example of the support people finds in religious belief to justify their cruelty, lignorance, lack of compassion and above all lack of self respect. I believe this last one involves all the others.
In this case the individuals hide their inability to exercise basic natural values behind the Prophet which automatically becomes the guilty party and they become free to commit the same error again. Who and where are the spiritual leaders of this community?
I simply cannot wrap my brain around it. My God in heaven…☹️
JT
immolation, not emulation. You may delete this comment if you want.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter