(via Little Green Footballs) Now you can devote an entire blog to the depressing topic of modern day honor killings in the Pakistani hinterlands. In fact, LGF sorta fills this role. But this killing was particularly gruesome and makes me damn thankful on this Christmas eve for the society we’ve been blessed to have been born within –
MULTAN, Pakistan – A father angry that his eldest daughter married for love slit her throat as she slept, then killed three other daughters in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police said Saturday. Nazir Ahmad, a laborer in his 40s, feared the younger girls, aged 4 to 12, would follow in their 25-year-old sister’s footsteps, police officer Shahzad Gul said.
There’s a sort of North Korean / Nazi / Stalinist sense of justice here – you don’t just bring down the perp but his / her family too. Not only to stomp out the meme but also to ensure that any future individuals are thoroughly disincentivized. Fascism comes in forms big and small.
feh. little green footballs.
Typical response… doesn’t matter if the story is true, LGF is not “politically correct” enough for this blog. 😉
or, more accurately, it’s not popular with some of this blog’s READERS.
How come this does not elicit even more disgust?
If you imagine you’re hearing things from the sky and nearly kill your kid, aren’t you certifiable? what to do – The human brain is just irrational. What seems loony to one seems perfectly normal to another. it’s always been like that and will always be like that.
The context the story is presented in is as important as the story itself, it matters that the stories on the site are specifically selected in order to reflect badly on muslims.
Its analogous to quoting a story found on a white supremist site like duke.org to do a post on jewish practices.
duh : There are several interpretations to the Abraham-Isaac story. Those that rely on the original Hebrew of the story make very good sense too.
Maybe it doesn’t elicit any disgust because it a couple of thousand years old and is not a recent event like the event in Pakistan? Just a guess…
So Sepia mutiny has now stooped to the obsession of hates sites like LGF with ‘Islamo Fascism’. Wonder why Sepia mutineers were not discussing the ‘fascism’ behind the Sikh dude in Canada killing his daughter for dating a white guy or the honor killings by Hindus in UP. Even if these topics are discussed, they are never characterized as Islamo fascism or fascism or whatever is the flavor of the month at LGF. In the LGF, Sepia Mutiny world of ‘fascism’, only criminal acts perpetrated by Muslims qualify for fascism. Lovely.
duh:
i can’t even commence explaining how many ways you’ve offended me on a day meant for calm and joy. since it’s a sin to go to church while cursing another, i’ll just emphatically state that your analogy blows because IT IS NOWHERE NEAR THE SAME THING.
I agree with Pankaj. It is analogous to quoting stories (true stories though) about the shortcomings or criminal acts committed by Blacks or Jews from a KKK website. I always thought the people who post stories here were better than this.
ANNA, Are you now a party to quoting stories which identify muslim criminal acts and then generalize them as ‘fascism’ from hate websites like LGF ?
Aha/Vinod Da Man/ANDY:
Mind sticking with ONE handle? Makes it easier to follow your attempts at argument, thanks.
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blockquote> The context the story is presented in is as important as the story itself, it matters that the stories on the site are specifically selected in order to reflect badly on muslims.
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blockquote>
The LGF posting linked to an Associated Press article on the killings. So are you saying AP is biased against Muslims ?
The LGF posting linked to an Associated Press article on the killings. So are you saying AP is biased against Muslims ?
The context the story is presented in is as important as the story itself, it matters that the stories on the site are specifically selected in order to reflect badly on muslims.
Its analogous to quoting a story found on a white supremist site like duke.org to do a post on jewish practices.
1) muslims have caused problems in multiple countries. sikhs have certainly cranked up in the barbarism-quotient after going medieval on a offensive theater presentation, but i think they have a ways to go in matching muslims (they will never match muslims in absolute terms because they are small fry, but per capita barbarism is within reach, especially if they mobilize well).
2) some stories on white supremacist sites about jewish practices are correct. they simply put a particular spin on them. look in the letters of paul how he portrays circumcision, and note how christian apologists have exaggerated his comments to make circumcision seem like an unseemly and repulsive act. jews would not disagree that circumcision is part of their faith, but they would disagree with the interpretation. whether honor killings are fundamentally part of islam (i come close to being a nominalist on the question of what a religion is), i would submit that many muslims would argue that they are an unfortunate byproduct of a good thing about many muslim cultures, i.e., their emphasis on familial honor and female virtue. i have talked to my own cousins who wax on about the virtue of bangladeshi women, after telling me how they enjoyed fucking american women (i use the word “fucking” consciously to impart their tone). i have listened to a close friend recount with horror the approval his arab cousins (western educated) gave toward honor killings, at least as a necessary evil to preserve familial honor.
3) i object strongly to any analogy between anti-islamism and anti-semitism. the reason is that anti-semitism is generally connected an ethnic-racial bias in the modern (post-scientific) age. the objection by white supremacists is more to the jewish race and people than a specific set of beliefs. some anti-islamists are racist, but, for these anti-islamism is simply a subset of more generalized racism. but, many anti-islamists object to the ideology that is normative within the preponderance of modern islam. hatred of barbarism expressed in the name of the god of abraham should be no sin, and i am offended by the line some seem to be crossing in giving the imprimatur of fundamentalness of religious identity as they would racial or sexual identity. what god you bend the knee too is a choice, and the worship of some molochs should not be sanctioned by civilized folk.
oh, and merry christmas everyone!
well, this is a thoughtful xmas present. we spend the year trying to create a case for unity on this blog while half our readers smack their foreheads in disgust, because they feel that we shouldn’t show solidarity with muslims when “it’s muslims who are reponsible for london, 9/11 et al”…and now we’re allegedly persecuting muslims by posting a link from LGF. i don’t give a fuck what you think of LGF, i abhor the fact that many of you are willing to jump all over THAT vs focusing on the horrific slaughter of four girls, three of whom were mere children. FANTASTIC priorities, people.
read my lips: we don’t love or hate muslims anymore than we love or hate christians or hindus. frankly, at this moment, i loathe a good lot of you. bah humbug, indeed. you want to quote (and by quote i mean poorly create analogies with) biblical parables which are meant to teach us about faith? how about a little faith in our intentions and efforts at this blog? to much to ask for? too bad, i’m not taking it (or anything else) back.
i abhor the fact that many of you are willing to jump all over THAT vs focusing on the horrific slaughter of four girls, three of whom were mere children.
come now, details, let’s focus on the big picture, charles johnson is satan.
hey anna, ?, you have said you are a catholic, but syrian christians have eastern origins, so do you celebrate the eastern or western calender (december or january christmas). just talked to a guy today who is half greek and half armenian. he said armenians celebrate a different xmas than greeks, who celebrate a later one than the western church of course, so he celebrates 3 xmases! (and 3 easters)
Anna, calm down, please. I didn’t intend to offend anyone at all, so my apologies if it appeared that way. You see it as a women’s rights issue. But I saw it as an issue of child murder. The analogy may not appear apposite to you, it seems apposite from my point of view.
i’m not catholic, i just flirt like one in my myriad plaid skirts, including the original box pleat i wore back at st. veronica’s in south san francisco. “Mother mary donÂ’t you know? SheÂ’s got eyes like marylin monroe.” 😀
it’s not just you, a lot of people think i am. after attending catholic school for most of my life, i have weird attachments to certain “unorthodox” things: lighting candles in front of various saints for specific reasons, muttering requests to st. anthony (usually when i’ve lost my keys) and of course, the aforementioned pleated skirts…i also frequently mention (on my personal sites) my all-consuming devotion to st. patrick’s cathedral in midtown, so i give good catholic. but, i’m orthodox. greek orthodox, to be precise. my parents are (more logically) indian orthodox. my father insisted that christmas was january 7th, so truth be told, i never really “feel it” on the 25th. 🙂 january 7th i walk around with a fixed, slightly smug smile on my face while i celebrate the REAL christmas. 😉
You see it as a women’s rights issue. But I saw it as an issue of child murder.
hm. well, the story seemed to imply they were killed because they were female, not because they were children. certainly children were killed, but then, so were mammals and pakistanis. the salient point was that the intent was to kill future women, not future mammals or pakistanis.
anna, apologies for the confusion, but you really should change your handle to ann_the_orthodox 🙂 that sort of thing works for me….
no worries, RtA. love means never having to say you’re sorry. 😉
I personally think Christmas is pagan- add me to your “loathe” list, Anna!
Or was I already on there?
Ooooh, good idea, Razib, I’m liking this too.. but you have the easiest one- athiest. If I really wanted to be specific, I could do “daycruz the malayalee pentecostal”
a bit wordy, though.. back to my three hour break at intel..
duh: I recommend a copy of Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. This will give you a philosophical approach to the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Bible.
As for this article, while it is truly horrible what happened to those girls(and we damned best be counting our blessings this Christmas), aren’t acts like this pretty commonplace in certain rural parts of India and various other parts of South/Southwest/Southeast Asia? I mean, is this something endemic to the religion or is it a byproduct of a 2000+ year old culture(since Pakistan came out of India)?
daycruz.
what. what? WHAT did i do to deserve that comment?
anyway, i don’t care if you think Christmas is pagan, i’ll still wish you tidings of comfort and joy. i think birthdays are super special. why should Jesus Christ’s be any less? i also think the whole “pentecostals can’t wear jewelry” thing is silly. add me to YOUR loathe list– probably no need, since it’s ME who’s apparently already there. :p
Anna, I don’t think the no jewelry thing is silly- but I don’t really care either way. I defend a woman’s right to wear it though! You are not on my loathe list, no one at SM is. I love you reading you guys too much..
even if I get frustrated sometimes…
Oh and with as much exposure as SM is getting lately, Anna, you are gonna have to deal with a wide range of people online- this includes the obnoxious ones like myself.
While the year is ending, did you ever figure out what thendi means? Did you ask your mother like I told you to?
Merry Christmas y’all (I can’t believe I said y’all)
I mean, is this something endemic to the religion or is it a byproduct of a 2000+ year old culture(since Pakistan came out of India)?
this sort of behavior is not uncommon in many cultures. it is not particular to islam, it simply is often exhibited within muslim cultures and religion is used to justify the behavior (whether “rightly” or “wrongly” is irrelevant in the broadest sense, though in practice religion can be used to argue against it). please see the recent movie pride and prejudice where the bennets worry about the stain that their young daughter will leave upon their family after she ran away with a soldier. or note the end of first knight where gwen is put on trial for adultery, the penalty of which is death.*
btw daycruz, i emailed you. you said you wanted to get in touch? was it a hot day in corvallis?
Shoot, Razib, I didn’t see it- I’ll go find it- it’s probably in the spam folder or something..
yeah, we’ve already gone through that delightful stit shorm of obnoxiousness, no worries.
Razib, thanks for the reply
I knew the attitudes toward women and marriage were pretty common. I was talking about such heinous acts of violence concerning said attitudes. I mean, damn, slashing his own daughter’s throat, when she was sleeping no less. Makes you wonder if humanity has this much barbarity deep down and if we use religious dogma to justify our release of it.
The story itself had nothing to do with ‘muslims causing problems in multiple countries’. It was about a Pakistani man who brutally murdered four of his daughters in a village in Pakistan.
The fact that you mention this confirms, my point about how the story being about vilifing muslims (read browns) as trouble makers and a threat to western civilization, rather than being about the tragic murders of four young women by their father.
Also judging by the comments on the LGF blog, the reactions that it has evoked are fear and anger as opposed to the sadness that one may expect from such a tragedy. Once more I see many parallels between the comments posted on LGF and the reactions to stories posted on white supremacist sites like amren.
White supremacists think of everything in racial terms, but explicit white supremacism is no longer the norm America. Jews in America are not persecuted on a racial or ethnic basis. In modern day mainstream usage I would argue that the opposite is true. Anti-semitism has come to mean criticism of anything thats vaguely associated with the Jews. LGF itself frequently conflates anti-zionism with anti-semitism.
On the other hand the anti-islamism in mainstream America, post 9/11 is about fighting a racialized enemy rather than criticizing islamist beliefs (Saddam Hussein was hardly an islamist). This is why brown non-muslims running for office are attacked as terrorists and also why racial profiling of browns is considered justifiable. The fact that Islam is not an ethnic religion vis-a-vis Judaism is irrelevant, because it is viewed as such by the mainstream.
Don’t get me wrong, I would prefer it if the discussion was about the prepondance of extremists over moderates within the Islamic fold, but the discussion I have seen on LGF and elsewhere is rarely about that.
Makes you wonder if humanity has this much barbarity deep down and if we use religious dogma to justify our release of it.
people use religious dogma to justify anything. dogma can get awful flexible if interests are at play. anyway, yes, i think that people have a lot of innate potentional barbarity. though i am not surprised by the behavior of these men given the cultural context, i also do not think it particularly relevant to contextualize it in a fashion that makes it trivial and banal.
the fact that those innocent children were the victims here certainly makes this incident particularly gruesome and tragic. unfortunately such occurances are not limited to incidents in pakistan or india but are part of a global problem of violence against women. being hindu or muslim or christian has nothing to do with it. a cursory google search or other research into this issue shows that while these *honor killings target everyone irrespective of color, caste, age or sex, the overwhelming majority of victims are women.
The fact that you mention this confirms, my point about how the story being about vilifing muslims (read browns) as trouble makers and a threat to western civilization, rather than being about the tragic murders of four young women by their father.
men rape and murder women all the time. this story is, unfortunately, not novel in that context. it is salient because of its association with particular barbaric cultural mores. and yes, many muslims are a threat to western civilization. pakaj, you are fixated on LGF and you want to make this about that. that wasn’t the point of vinod’s post, it is common courtesy to give hat tips. perhaps we should regulate vinod’s web reading, i don’t know.
In modern day mainstream usage I would argue that the opposite is true. Anti-semitism has come to mean criticism of anything thats vaguely associated with the Jews.
well, i would agree with this, but it was not the definition of anti-semitism i was using above. i would argue that a lot of the crap that ADL claims as ‘anti-semitic’ isn’t, but that’s me.
The fact that Islam is not an ethnic religion vis-a-vis Judaism is irrelevant, because it is viewed as such by the mainstream.
yes, and it will remain so if one simply accepts the mainstream characterization. pragmatism is all well and good, but ignorance will never be abolished if we accept it on its own terms instead of trying to force a change. we must do both. attacking islam’s barbaric face does not imply a concomitant acceptance of racism or bigotry. rejecting racism and bigotry does not imply acceptance of a religion which, as it is practiced in much of the world, is patently barbaric in its treatment of females and non-members. simple as that.
honor killings target everyone irrespective of color, caste, age or sex
some white lutheran men might be the object of honor killings, but i think i am safe in saying that the likelihood of being the object of such attacks is greater if you are a muslim woman in pakistan (or germany). this is not to say that most muslim women in pakistan are the objects of honor killings (they are alive). rather, their probability is far greater than a white lutheran man.
which is what the words the overwhelming majority of victims are women and part of a global problem of violence against women meant. i didn’t see the need to keep belaboring the “muslim” aspect since it’s pretty obvious these things are common amongst hindus in india too. so there’s no point clouding the issue with an irrelevant (in this context) discussion of religion.
which is what the words the overwhelming majority of victims are women and part of a global problem of violence against women meant. i didn’t see the need to keep belaboring the “muslim” aspect since it’s pretty obvious these things are common amongst hindus in india too. so there’s no point clouding the issue with an irrelevant (in this context) discussion of religion.
this is what you said: honor killings target everyone irrespective of color, caste, age or sex, the overwhelming majority of victims are women yeah, sure.
while you’re at it, take some writing classes too. maybe you’ll learn to make a point in less than 2308400270328 words like the rest of the human race.
nice comeback. with all the verbiage i spout, couldn’t you find a more incriminating quote?
im trying to keep it simple for your limited intelligence.
“limited intelligence” 🙂
This story, sensationalized or otherwise saddened me. On one side of the same earth, women are getting educated and are even running governments and in the other, crap like this is still happening. Didn’t we have a story last month about that nutso Sikh man who tried to torture his daughter in law because he suspected her of having an affair?
This story is all the more heinous because it involved killing defenceless children. I hope someone can post a story about how this creature was punished.
Scarier still is that fact that I personally know women who have gone through beatings, abuse and forced marriages just because their ultra tradition-bound parents didn’t understand the concept of ‘love’. This story brought back memories of seeing bruises on the shoulder of a 17 year old girl friend who was beaten till the tennis racquet her father used broke. Why? Because she asked her mom if she has ever fallen in love and if marrying for love was such a bad thing. Disgusting..
I am not religious but stories like these make me want to pray to whatever powers there may be. If things like this still happen, has humanity progressed at all?
Stories like this are tough to deal with. For a start, LGF is no great source of news because whatever way you look at it, its dominated by xenophobic idiots with the intelligence and subtlety of a KKK gathering.
This story is clearly about a culture of women subjugation, and for that I believe liberals (incl myself) have to pick up such stories, confront them and talk about them. But we have to do that with the right assumptions.
As so typified by razib the atheist, such stories simply become a way to re-enforce their prejudices. LGF has made it a story because Muslims are showed in a bad light, they will never of course highlight a story where a Pakistani does something positive.
Such a stance doesn’t help the people who it is supposed to – the opressed women. LGF readers don’t really care about them, they possess a nice colonial mentality where these “uncivilised” brown people / Muslims (like they know the difference) are simply showing their barbarity. Who cares that Latinos, Sikhs, Muslims, Christian Africans etc engage in similar practices? There is a drum to bang dammit!
So I don’t buy the LGF agenda. Any approach here should not be about villifying a religion or a whole society of people, but rather trying to support women groups in Pakistan and worldwide (as Sepia Mutiny has admirably done before) to reform Pakistan’s extremely stupid laws regarding women, and put pressure on the govt to take such killings more seriously and set up internal support groups to deal with problems.
Just saying “see – told you these Muslims are a problem” is almost as heartless of the person who sees his daughter as simply a carrier of family honour.
The most feverent critics of the barbaric tendencies of a group of people is usually an opposing group that is oblivious to or justify own equally brutal tendencies. I agree with the ideal but when balance of power is skewed to one side attacking the non-dominant ideology does more to strengthen one type of brutality than weaken another.
If I lived in Iran for example, I would be critical of the Iranian regime, criticizing American or Isreali brutalities would be counter productive to the goal of ending the barbaric practicies in my society.
– Also to all the Christian mutineers have a Happy Christmas.
Damn its late at night… didn’t even spell my own name right.
Now that most here agree on how Muslims, er Pakistanis treat women, here is something from India. Tavleen Singh writes: (Link:http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=84644)
” Delhi Police picking up street children on a freezing December night and dumping them outside city limits as if they were stray dogs left to die of cold and hunger. If this were not enough we were treated by the news channels to blow-by-blow footage of ordinary, middle-class people in Delhi and Mumbai having their homes demolished before their eyes because corrupt officials failed to do their job.
The horror that is India was on full display. For me personally, the most horrific story was that of the children. What kind of monsters would do a thing like that? Aman Bradri, the NGO that rescued the children, says 250 children were rounded up by the Hanuman Mandir police station, flung into trucks, and dumped near Gurgaon. Are there no childrenÂ’s homes in Delhi? No night shelters? What has happened to the thousands of crores that taxpayers have spent on anti-poverty schemes? ” .. Sad.
mani:
there are night shelters — it was recently revealed that the gov’t has “outsourced” their management to local mafia who now charge for the “free” shelters. ouch. as for children? well, they don’t qualify for the night shelters which are for “adults and families” b/c the social welfare dept. supposedly has a “scheme” for homeless kids… haven’t seen it yet. you have to hand it to the NGOs though, they are trying their best, but it’s still an uphill battle.
delhi is rough, real rough. cm sheila dikshit is busting her ass but she has to compensate for the fucked-up acts of dozens of people below her, and the courts screwed up decisions, which she can only “object” to, but not actually change.
i live in delhi — and let me tell you, if the old uncles in my walking park are any indication people are getting damn pissed off about the recent spate of action against the middle class… all of the UPA government’s focus on rural infrastructure has put a spotlight on the simple fact that there was never a focus on urban infrastructure either!
The example in the original article is another chilling example of a person deciding that “the ends justify the means”. Even if he’s aware of the barbarity of his actions, I wonder if he’s subsequently going to use the time-honoured tactic of claiming/thinking that his daughters somehow “forced” him to take such drastic measures as retribution for the eldest girl’s love marriage and in order to pre-empt any similar future behaviour by his other daughters, and thereby using this justification in order to dilute/deflect his responsibility for his own actions.
As I’ve mentioned on other previous threads related to this topic, the very term “honour-killing” itself is a misnomer. Honour has very little to do with it, certainly if one interprets the word as “integrity”. This is all about ego. And, horrifically (and unfortunately, this is all too familiar an attitude amongst certain quarters of the South Asian population), the man concerned obviously thought that his own ego was more important than the lives of his daughters.
Off topic… but something SM could cover (a chilling news for students):
College student accused of stabbing professor over failing grade CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) — A college student upset about a failing grade followed his professor to her Cambridge home and allegedly stabbed her in the neck, police said… is from Calcutta, India, and is in the U.S. on a student visa. His mother is a middle school teacher in New York and his father is a research scientist in India.