honor killing

You know, I think you've hit on a point about the immigration issue that isn't often discussed and that's about "fitting in." Up until recent times, every single wave of immigrants from different ethnic origins has worked hard to become "Americans." The American culture is as distinct as any other, and becoming an American meant taking on the American culture and the American language, American customs and dress, and so forth.

Yes, I know other countries do it differently and get on just fine. Canada celebrates their diversity. But the U.S. has always celebrated itself as the "great melting pot" and lately the fondue has been getting pretty chunky.

It's all well and good to celebrate their heritage. I have no problems with my Latino neighbors flying a Mexican flag on Cinco de Mayo. But I expect the rest of the year to belong to the Stars and Stripes. And for crying out loud, they've been here for years and the wife/mother and the little girl don't speak English yet. The little girl has no incentive for learning English if it's not spoken at home and she'll be taught in Spanish when she goes to public school. These particular folks are hard-workers and fit into the neighborhood just fine. But as far as fitting into American society as a whole they're not doing themselves or their children or this country any favors by sheltering in the Mexican-American community.

Bruce - sorry to get off topic. I just intended to make my first paragraph an aside to your topic, and then I couldn't stop.

And now, back to Bruce's topic ----->

From the first link....

I'm sorry, but that's the biggest load of I've ever heard!

A young girl was murdered by her own father! He got away with it! I couldn't even read the whole article....I am sick.

Honor killing is an oxy moron. I don't even know what to think, other than to want to sit here & cry. I can't believe this kind of goes on in our world multiple times every single day.

First, let me say that this is horrific, and completely unexceptable. BUT...the first link was a story from their home land, so we can't do a d*mn thing about it. We don't control their contry and can't step in and make things right. The second link was about another incident that happened in Germany. That is up to the Germans to figure out and do whats right.

I only hope if it happens on US soil that SOMEONE should have to pay, and I only hope the courts don't back down out of fear of "discrimination".

& at least in my state, that's the LEGISLATURE'S fault.
my school just recently hit that 'magic number' that requires a bilingual program instead of ESL...
hey, this was on my local news tonite!
http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=256181

These so-called honor killings are a cultural phenomenon, devised by men to control the women in their sphere of influence. It has nothing to do with the Koran or their religion. It's BS.

I hope they throw the book at that boy in Germany.

Part of the problem in Europe, too, is their differences are not as well accepted as they are here in NA... France is a PRIME example of that...where the Muslims live in large enclaves with high unemployment, etc. They also REFUSE to accept the ways of their NEW country, trying to bend the French to accept their ways as right.

I personally don't like to be FORCED to accept someone else's point of view... I'm a live-and-let-live kind of person.

I followed this thread from the Lounge because I wanted a chance to say:

Nobody respects cultural diversity any more than I do -- but my respect for any culture (including my own) ends where cruelty begins. It makes me sick that U.S. law allows certain religions to practice animal sacrifice... so you can imagine what I think of these so-called "honor killings."

I find it extremely difficult to imagine how any amount of cultural brainwashing can convince a man that it's "honorable" to murder his own daughter or sister. Surely there's something fundamentally lacking in a person who is capable of such a monstrous act... isn't there? Or are we humans really that malleable, that our upbringing can blind us to such evident evil?

I couldn't bear to look at the links, so I don't know whether this was one of them -- but a Muslim man here in the Dallas area murdered his two beautiful teenage daughters a few months ago... because they were dating boys.

Some things are just cosmically wrong, no matter what anybody's culture or religion may say. And when wrong is done on American soil, I hope we will not allow our principles of respect for other cultures and religions to be twisted into an excuse for inaction. It's one thing to be "politically correct" in the sense of being considerate of the great cross-section of humanity we have in America -- it's another to use PC as a reason to compromise our commitment to human rights.

As for bilingual education: it should exist only as a means of bringing foreign students up to speed in English -- not as a way of demanding respect for our language, not as a sign of disrespect for anyone else's language, but as a way of giving those students the best possible chance of being successful in American life. Anyone who chooses to view that as an attempt to eradicate his cultural heritage is simply wrong.

So... in these areas, Bruce, it appears I agree with you. Whaddayaknow!

you can look at my link, Carol - this is the subject/topic area it addresses.

It's not that they don't fit into western society, these beliefs do not fit into civilized society.

Although I agree with the rest of your post for the most part, I can't see where animal sacrifice can be equated with honor killings. It's apples and oranges. And I can't even see where animal sacrifice can be consider cruelty. The law prohibits cruelty to animals, and so how can it do that and permit sacrifice at the same time? It's contradictory. And if animal sacrifice is cruel, how about animal slaughter for meat? Wouldn't that be worse? Yet it's just fine with both the law and society. Do you eat meat? I do. So if I eat meat, and animals need to be slaughtered for meat, it follows animal sacrifice must also be OK with me. But it's not. Huh. Well, then, maybe it's not OK, but it's not cruelty. Oh. And what does any of this have to do with honor killing? Ya. Back to the first question.

As illustrated by the link to Germany's latest honor killing, I have to agree. There are millions of Muslims living in Germany, and the vast majority don't practice enforced marriages or honor killings. Most Muslims living here insist that honor killings have a cultural, rather than religious background, and I tend to agree. Honor killings are also abhorred in a great many non-Western/Muslim societies.

We have a thread in Breaking Mews http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=167108 that might lead people to think that "Muslim" = "Anti-Semitic", and I don't find that to be true. Turkey is an Islamic country that doesn't preach the destruction of Israel, and I'm not aware that Asian countries with majority Muslim populations do so. Muslim doesn't necessarily equal Arab, and not all Arabs are Muslim. Generalizations are dangerous.

Although this thread is on a topic much more serious than animal sacrifice, I'm still going to throw in my few cents.

In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman there is a discussion of Hmong animal sacrifice. It's been a long time since I read it (1998 actually), but the Hmong family involved wanted to sacrifice either a dog or a cat in order to help their daughter who was brain-dead. That wasn't allowed, but eventually they were allowed to sacrifice chickens that would have been butchered anyway. I think they were made to follow certain procedures, for sanitation, such as having a butcher there.

I suspect what the poster is referring to is the Moslem practice of sacrificing a sheep for their New Year.

I wouldn't want this topic about honor killings to be thought of as a Muslim problem. I agree that it's a cultural thing. For example, I understand it's also a huge problem among some segments of the population in India.

I remember learning somewhere that Turkey has always been good to the Jewish people.. Didn't Turkey take in many Jewish people during WWII?

The way I read her post isn't that she was comparing the two. She said she didn't agree with animal sacrifice, so you can imagine how she feels about honor killings. I certainly don't think she was equating them, she was using that as a point of reference. At least, that is the way I took it.

Oh, OK. That's a valid point of reference.

To tell the truth, I think I went adrift in there somewhere; I'm still trying to figure out what I said myself.

Hey, it happens to the best of us. Of course, I NEVER go off on a tangent.

so called "honor killing" has nothing to do with ISLAM. its a crime, its a sickness that has a cultural background NOT religious! its a lack of something very important that should be taught in childhood...




please don't draw a conclusions about islam reading some articles in newspapers or watching movies or watching muslims! it's an anti-islamic time, i don't know why it is so, i don't understand the reasons for that is it money/oil/power i don't know WHO needs it, but it is so wrong to mix with mud the whole religion! not all christians act like it is written in Bible, not all jewish people act like it is said in Tora and not all muslims act like it is said in Quran!
the amazing thing is whenever 'muslim' does something wrong in the news it is always reflected as a "muslim man blah blah blah", have you ever heard them saying "christian man" or "jewish man" or "bhuddist man"???
i live in Azerbaijan which is near Turkey and the new party there is NOT RADICAL (and not new either). one of the most noticeable things they did by now is allowing wearing hijab in universities and other places where is was forbidden before. and it is just great! because it was a huge problem which prevented a lot of muslim women to get a good education. so now it is finally SANE and more democratic than it was before.

on animal sacrifice topic: whats wrong with slaughtering the sheep in order to give the most part of it to feed the poor???
muslims are allowed to sacrifice only sheep/cow and couple of other similar domestic animals which are slaugheted daily for food anyways!

Those articles made me sad to read. Beautiful young women cut down before ever began and to be killed by the hand of loved one is truly tragic.
This goes along with bride burning, female mutilation and stoning. A real shame.

Thank you for chiming in. I was just about to PM a Muslim member whom I know isn't Arab to ask her to express her opinion, although she rarely if ever participates in IMO threads. I believe a lot of people are equating Islam with terrorism, following 9-11, which is probably why you notice the "anti-Islamic slant". It's unfair, I agree.

I object to arranged marriages, which are more common in Islamic countries than in non-Islamic countries, but I personally have to say that I think immigration and assimilation play a far greater role than most people realize. My first encounter with an arranged marriage was that of a former junior high school classmate whom I was working with right after we graduated from high school: Her Christian Hungarian immigrant parents pressured her to marry a distant cousin from Hungary, because they wanted him to take over the family's wrought iron business once her father was ready to retire.

Why associate animal sacrifice solely with Islam? How many of us have experienced/heard of animal sacrifice in connection with voodoo rituals?

yeah i think people need to know more about Islam because of all misunderstandings that are popping out here and there all the time.
well, i have something to say about arranged marriages too. and i bet you will be very surprised to know that Islam forbids forcing someone to marry! its a solely cultural thing too! in Islam parents have to HELP their children to find someone whom they may like, well not only parents but relatives, friends et c. Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet have all instructions with respect to marriages and how you should choose your partner and what qualities should he or she have. Everybody have their own rights and duties and if someone tries to practice his religion in the best way he should turn to Quran and seek guidance to the right path.
Information about crime and punishment in Islam (including adultery and a punishment for that). taking into account that it all take place IN ISLAMIC STATE
The article is very long but if you want to know something more about Islam please read it carefully. It is about crime and punishment in Islam including punishment for the adultery (which is 100 lashes for non-married person and stoning to death for married person)


In his book, Islam: The Misunderstood Religion, the well-known Muslim author Muhammad Qutb, states the following: http://www.islam4all.com/newpage18.htm (http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/S...=1119503544052 - The Concept of Punishment in Islam)

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By the way, Islam is not the first religion which said about stoning. These are the verses from Bible:

"If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die." (Deuteronomy 22: 22)
and also in Leviticus: "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife-with the wife of his neighbor-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death" (Leviticus 20: 10).




and i will repeat again that every act of punishment ( as in the worst case of scenario -the stoning)in islam has a very strict regulations and situation should fit the certain conditions.
everything is regulated, starting from war ending with divorce. both men and women have rights and obligations.
you should keep in mind that Islam just like any other religion is a science, and if you are not studying it and if you are not familiar with it you simply can't make any valid conclusions regarding its stances.


anyways, its all for information and i respect each and every person in the world whether he is christian or jewish or agnostic or atheist or muslim.


Peace!

is it the longest post in the history of TSC?

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p.s. you can search for any additional information here: http://www.islamonline.net/completes...arch.asp?hID=0

Short post: if the girls in the USA were draped head-to-foot in shapeless black garments with only their eyes showing, parents here would have to arrange marriages, too.

AS<3me:I would hope people would judge people as individuals and not by extremists. I am not familiar with the Quran and have never read it. I certainly don't know enough to pass judgment on people.
I had no idea about the things you posted. Thank you for the information.