(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.
Surely you could’ve quoted any source other than LGF. The story was in the Philly Inquirer today.
It’s not just Muslims who are capable of honor killings… where are the posts about the Hindus who kill their own kinfolk for marrying out of their caste?
I put these type of actions under, “abuse of children” and “crimes against women” category. And there is a lot of that going on in this country also.
“makes me damn thankful on this Christmas eve for the society weÂ’ve been blessed to have been born within ” for all the things I am certainly thankful for being born in the U.S. , its certainly not for the supposed lack of a violent or vengeful culture. let’s not be naive
*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,
Clarification: Meaning that the guy said something along the lines of “haalat ne mujhe majboor kiya” etc, as if he had no personal choice in the situation but to take the aforementioned violent steps. Obviously I don’t mean that the younger daughters convinced him to kill them — just in case any nutters lurking on SM misconstrue my words as such.
Kumar,
People often think & behave like this because they think there is tacit or explicit cultural (and sometimes religious) support for such actions within wider society. As far as I know, there is no cultural sanction in mainstream modern-day America (or here in the UK, for that matter) for the kind of behaviour exhibited by the murderer in the main story.
Anyway…..
Clarification number 2: My statement above regarding the killer using the excuse of circumstances forcing his hand is of course hypothetical at this stage — I’m not actually quoting anyone here.
In addition to the points I made in my first post, I think that the problem of some parents regarding their children (especially their daughters) as literal possessions — to the extent of believing they literally have the right of life & death over them, regardless of the son/daughter’s basic human rights — is a major driver behind such behaviour. Some parts of the world and/or communities have this attitude more than others, of course, especially if it is further reinforced by a mindset of “blaming the victim”, along with excessive self-rationalisation of actions which are blatantly immoral/unscrupulous/unethical/ruthless, and in the more extreme cases actually psychopathic.
In the minds of the perpetrators and their supporters, it becomes easier to live with the guilt (if any) of their actions and deflect any finger-pointing away from themselves if they somehow find a way to twist the blame back towards the target (“I know what I did was wrong but I had no choice, they forced me to take such drastic steps, and that vindicates my actions as morally appropriate”), especially if the perpetrators decide to play the “aggrieved victim” card themselves.
I find it all very cynical, corrupt, and twisted.
this is something from another comment i wanted to reply to,
Teresa I hope you all in Dehli keep going with your outrage at the corruption there because those of us in the diaspora are rooting for you all. Keep going!!
Bull! The relative frequency of such acts are higher in muslim societies. Even in india such acts are seen more in muslim areas. Regarding LGF being the source, well those folks will pickup on all such stories for their agendas. Big deal.
Any approach here should not be about villifying a religion or a whole society of people
well, unless that is christian and western society 🙂
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.
yes, i am prejudiced against muslims. i admit it. hate and prejudice aren’t always a bad thing. pretend i was a republican (oh wait, i’m registered as one!) and i’m sure you guys can appreciate the power and joy of prejudice and hate.
what happened to appreciation of diversity and genuine difference?
a) yes, action x can be found in any society b) but, the frequency of action x may differ
to make gross generalizations, if i was a female infant, i think that my chances of getting killed or dying of maltreatment, let alone being aborted, would be higher if i was born in northern india or china than in southern india or the muslim world. my chances of getting killed for enjoying extramarital sex at the hands of relatives would probably be higher in the islamic world than in the non-islamic world.
all cultures have good or bad, both in a relative sense (judged by their own standards) and by generally agreed upon universal criteria (i.e., cultures where you might kill slutty women are also often very gracious toward guests!). equivalence between amerika and brownland (or any land) is well and fine, but there was a reason that many of our parents (or us) moved to the west. far more brown dies at the hands of brown than is ever at risk of harm from the white.
i’m sure many of you feel good looking down upon my honest appraisal of islamic barbarism. some of you are rather eloquent in what i perceive as obfuscation of nasty truths, while some of you are not. suffice it to say that in my own model of the world there is a definite chain of evil and barbarity. contextualizing does not imply equivalency.
Careful… such comments will get you labeled as a “Right wing, Fox News watching, O’Reilly Factor fanatic” Islamophobe…. Don’t you know it is just a tiny minority who are responsible for such acts ? 😉
“Right wing, Fox News watching, O’Reilly Factor fanatic” Islamophobe…. Don’t you know it is just a tiny minority who are responsible for such acts ? 😉
whether i have ‘right wing’ is debatable. i don’t watch fox news (have no TV), read it online, nor have i ever watched o’reilly except for the one where jenna jamison was on 🙂 and actually, it is just a tiny minority who are responsible for the acts. but 1% is different from .001%. i have argued that in the aggregate the ‘problem’ with islam is that ‘moderate’ muslims are really equivalent to conservative christians. the entire distribution is shifted over, resulting in many more times the number of radical nutsos amongst muslims than christians (islamist = christian calvinist thenomist) and far fewer liberals theists in the vein of martin marty.
people see to want to talk in terms of idealized types. i don’t think that’s fruitful. a category like ‘muslims’ explores a large parameter space…as does ‘christian.’ i simply assert that the density of the various distributions differs….
oh, and hey, i don’t shirk the term ‘islamophoboe’ to the first approximation. muslims have often not been shy in their contempt and disgust for me as an apostate, and traditional islam imposes capital punishment upon apostates. i do tolerate the expression of hatred and intolerance in a voltairean fashion, but i do not pretend to not detest it fundamentally.
(this is not to say that all muslims behave in such a manner, or that my generalizations apply in the broadest sense in all cases, i consider aziz poonwalla a friend, but he treats me like a peer, not an abomination, and that sort of respect demands to be returned. some might be surprised that i got honorable mention in the brass crescent award’s last year :))
My comment was deftly tongue in cheek about what people would label anyone who was not confirming to the warm fuzzy PCness that seems to abound when subjects like this are discussed. I love how people will spend so much time and resources finding “cultural excuses” for the “alienation of Muslims in the Westbeing extraordinarily quick to label people “Islamophobes” “racists” “Uncle Toms” etc if they express a view that refuses to buy into the apologistic attitude that the cultural experts (sic) express. Being branded an apostate bizarre and disturbinmg in this day and age, yet perfectly acceptable to those who preach “cultural sensitivity” to Muslim social views.
Razib: hate and prejudice aren’t always a bad thing. Oh really? Maybe that is your understanding, but to me – hate and prejudice achieve nothing but divert from the truth. With regards to your previous point, I have nothing against Christians or western society in general so I don’t know why you made that point.
what happened to appreciation of diversity and genuine difference? Who said I was against that? I’m against blind prejudice, but that has nothing to do with appreciating diversity.
my chances of getting killed for enjoying extramarital sex at the hands of relatives would probably be higher in the islamic world than in the non-islamic world. Sure, maybe.
but there was a reason that many of our parents (or us) moved to the west. yeah, primarily money. IF you think it was because they saw western culture as superior, then you’re in lala-land.
far more brown dies at the hands of brown than is ever at risk of harm from the white. depends if you’re talking about the current situation or taking a historical view.
suffice it to say that in my own model of the world there is a definite chain of evil and barbarity. Never denied there was some evil people in the muslim world. There are plenty. But my main points were: 1) Such a stance doesn’t help the people who it is supposed to – the opressed women. 2) 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.
That is certainly not your approach. Your approach is rather like that of the western Jesuit who though the brown people could only be saved by adopting western religions and cultural values wholeheartedly.
Razib,
With all due respect, hate and prejudice are always a bad thing. Apart from the corrosive effect they have on one’s own psyche, they also distort one’s judgement and the clarity of one’s thinking.
Hate the idea (although not to the extent that you become neurotic about it and the hatred fries your brain), not the people.
However…..
Sunny,
Sure, but one consistent mode of behaviour that is perpetrated repeatedly by yourself, both here and on Pickled Politics, is that you appear to be unable to tolerate any criticism of either Islam or Muslims without automatically dragging other groups (usually other South Asians) into the equation, by attempting to draw parallels between the perceived similar behaviour of the two groups — even if, for example, a particular form of behaviour or thinking has its origins in Islam and/or Muslims, or if said behaviour occurs with significantly greater frequency amongst certain quarters of the Muslim population compared to other non-Muslim South Asian groups. Some would interpret this as an attempt to dilute the focus of the argument and thereby deflect attention away from the area one is addressing.
I don’t support villification of any kind full-stop. However, if it is feasible that a certain negative attitude or behavioural trait has its origins in particular religious tenets/practices/precedents and/or scriptures, one should not shy away from condemning such destructive attitudes — not the religion as a whole, note, but the specific aspect of it that triggers the negative behaviour. The same applies if there is a possibility that the divine origin of the tenet or the scripture (or at least parts of it) is not necessarily authentic — one needs to at least consider this and undertake the requisite research, with the associated rigorously academic discussion, in order to explore this possibility. One should not make inappropriate excuses about “interpretations” and “commentaries”. Nobody is under any obligation to defend unjust, unethical, or inconsistent religious precedents, tenets, scriptures, or religions in their entirety — unless the person concerned actually believes in the authenticity of their divine origin, in which case one should make this very clear indeed.
The terrorist impulse doesn’t always visit itself on foreign populations. By killing his daughters this man has terrorized the women of his region in general, and on behalf of all like-minded men. The purpose is to keep the women in line. Islamic extremism can be looked at as a rear-guard action to maintain male dominance. You don’t have to be a freudian to see a sexual sickness behind this.
yeah, primarily money. IF you think it was because they saw western culture as superior, then you’re in lala-land.
money & western culture have a definite non-trivial association. do you think capitalism thrives without rule of law and amelioration of omnipresent nepotism? brown immigrants might complain about the freedoms of american or european society, but without those freedoms (and concomitant social and legal capital) affluence is difficult to achieve for the masses.
1) Such a stance doesn’t help the people who it is supposed to – the opressed women. 2) 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.
1 – there are people out there who will excuse barbarity and exclusion in the interests of cultural relativism/diversity. i’ve met plenty of them. so i think the stance is important, according to the values espoused in some societies it is kosher to kill women who are ‘impure. you need to make a full front attack on particular values.
2) as for your second point, i believe there are societies where killing of females is widly accepted. and as for villifying religion, i am skeptical that people who pull their punches in regards to islam are as charitable to evangelical or fundamentalist forms of christianity. after all, there are many liberal evangelical and fundamentalist christians, irregardless of the fact that on the whole they are the segment of american society which tends to espouse conservative or reactionary views. should one not criticize the views represented by falwell because they are somewhat related to the religious views held by wallis?
3) i think that it is important for secularist minorities to ‘hate’ on religion in liberal societies. dissent and critique are important aspects of cultural development. since militant atheists generally have to flee islamic societies because of threats to their life, that attack on islam must come from the west. now, in the interests of anti-islamophobia some progressives want to muffle attacks on islam because of its association with ethnic minorities. clearly the high tide of the enlightenment is past among some sectors, and i smell the creeping toleration of medievalism in the interests of diversity.
4) oh, and That is certainly not your approach. Your approach is rather like that of the western Jesuit who though the brown people could only be saved by adopting western religions and cultural values wholeheartedly. if i had a binary choice between jesuitical tyranny and islamic traditionalism, i would pick the former. but i don’t think i am offering a binary choice, and i don’t think you honestly believe that there is a binary choice. just a nice talking point.
With all due respect, hate and prejudice are always a bad thing. Apart from the corrosive effect they have on one’s own psyche, they also distort one’s judgement and the clarity of one’s thinking.
no. see descarte’s error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. the computational model of cognitive science has overemphasized, i think, the extent to which we make our choices based on benthamite utilitarian calcuses. to be overwhelmed by hate & prejudice are bad, but all decisions and choices can not be made with recourse to rational models. those that can should be evaluated rationally, but even then, the root reasons behind rational calculations are emotional (satisfaction of wants and needs). to be explicit, i do not hate and detest people who justify the murder of theirs daughters because they stain ‘family honor’ solely on the basis of axiomatic respect for the utility bundle that should be the opportunity of each human being, i empathize with the powerlessness, lack of volition and subsequent pain felt by these women. the solutions should surely be predicated on rational principles, but the reason for our concern is emotional, and hate and implied prejudice against particular values and norms are implied with that (also, a great deal of human daily cognitive processes are reflexive, not reflective, i.e., they reflect the prejudice of the brain conditioned by innate hardwiring or prior inputs). in regards to sunny’s assertion that “hate and prejudice achieve nothing but divert from the truth,” that is irrelevant, because whether killing a woman because she is impure is correct or not is not a matter of truth, but of values (i am not a thomist FYI, i do not believe that natural law is a plausible proposition). values have no meaning aside from the individuals who express them, and individuals are expressed in societal contexts. fadime was killed by her father because of the shame he felt due to the disapproval of others of the kurdish culture in which he was embedded. this attempt to decouple the actions of individuals in many contexts from their social matrix strikes me as disingenuous and facile.
Totally random and idiosyncratic anecdote that this conversation has made me think of (it’s me, so of course we are going anecdotal).
I was at the bank and the gentleman at the desk looked at my name and said, “Indian?” I said I was born in India and raised in the US. “Oh”, said this gentleman – who stated he was from East Africa – “you are Americanized, Westernized,” and he went on about his business. The clear undertone was that it was a pity, a shame, for a nice “Indian” woman such as myself to be Westernized. And, I thought, why? Why is this acceptable for him to say? If I said, “oh, you’re African,” and put a little sneer into it I would be judged as a close-minded person. So, why wouldn’t I think the same about this man? I didn’t, as it happend, what I thought was this: well, he’s like a lot of new immigrants, he misses home, he thinks it is sad that I am now part of this place that doesn’t feel like home to him, he thinks I should feel the same. And it made me think about Western values and the way in which that is used as a slur, or an epithet at times. I’m a woman and I like the way that I live, as a woman, in this Western world with it’s Western values. I do. And a lot of that (much of it) has to do with being embedded in that social matrix that razib is talking about, but it is more than that. I think a lot of women, experiencing both the West and the East, would find the way they are treated in the West very, very pleasant compared to their treatment ‘back home’. I add the very important caveat that the social matrix you have grown up in would change that view: if you grew up in India you might very well like India much better, regardless the general differences between the way women are treated in India vs America (and of course, the general hides the particular which varies so much in both places).
Where am I going with this? Oh, I dunno. I guess when we talk about a social matrix we need to realize it evolves, it is an ever changing thing, and adopting different values may be interpreted as evolution as much as any kind of cultural imperialism, if one were so inclined. And, in many instances, I am inclined to think of it as evolution. Talk of forcing democracy or women’s rights on another culture seem absurd to me, as absurd as saying penicillin is some sort of cultural imperialism. The world moves, continually. Change will happen. And resistance to change can be a very deadly thing, as we have seen.
(You know, it seems that I had a romantic notion of India and Indians and thought they were so much more gentle until my own desi marriage to an abusive and troubled man. It became very clear to me in dealing with his substance abuse that the everday American culture I was raised in, my personal social matrix, had many, many strengths and the gentle sneering about how much ‘better’ Indians were when it came to family issues hid a great many weaknesses, which is not to say there aren’t strenghs of course. Now, flame away at my points if so inclined……)
md, there is a difference between talk and action. my parents wax on about bangladesh and now much they miss, and how much better it is than the lascivious culture they live in now in the USA. they’ve been talking about selling their house and retiring to bangladesh for the past 10 years now. haven’t done it yet. i know some old brown immigrants do go back. what percentage? for all the shit they sometimes talk about amerika, i’m skeptical that in their heart of hearts the homeland is as dear to them as they claim (as a point of fact, after a few decades, many first gen. immigrants became aliens where-ever they are, never at ‘home’ in their adopted country, but confronting a changed ‘homeland’ whenever they visit, their only real home is in their memories, and that is what is being contrasted with the amerika of their present).
Some religions kill more than others and some communities, like America, like to kill their young and glorify it as patriotism. As for corruption, all of you know of America’s robber barons and cheats like Elihu Yale. Reading SM, one would think it was a particularly Indian phenomenon. What’s interesting is, if there is any depravity, Indians jump and claim it as a major Indian activity. How well some have been taught by colonial masters to despise their own. Few Indian writers in English have any affection/understanding of India, but many can write well enough to suit the western media. Are we perhaps the only group with a hatred of our country and culture? Who take pride in not knowing their language or in speaking it poorly? I don’t see this among the Chinese who have undergone horrible famines, corruption and the worst regimes ever. I don’t see the Jewish community hating their own religion/ culture although it directly led them to horrific suffering. Neither do Jews reflect, leave alone blame, the Jews who actively collaborated with the Reich for money, etc., leave alone harp continuously on it!
I don’t see Jews clamoring to call a street Hitler Strasse. I see India’s English educated minority get most upset if some colonial name is removed from a road in India.
Re murder of women, men and kids, yes some communities and religions tend to do it more often. I still wonder when Indians, in particular, will learn not to drag their community down unnecessarily. Colonizing teaches to hate your own, so you can fit in with the conquerors comfortably and do their bidding. By the way, the percentage of female murders in India is no more or less than in the west: read the intensely researched book by Dr Oldenburg: Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime.
Yet you remain fervent supporter of Bush’s imperialistic war in Iraq and “battle” (the US should call it an invasion ..) of Falluja, which was done to avenge the deaths of mercenaries.
Nobody ever denies that America is a land of opportunity, ideas and always attracts talent. There has to be said about the power of liberal democracy and a forum for voice for “almost” everyone in West. However, the concept of “equality” is not entirely a western construct (Read Amartya Sen – Rather me paraphrasing him). Sure, on a day to day basis, the life in America for women is far better, no cigar.
There is a lot of violence that lurks here just beneath the surface – it is like landfill – you just do not see the garbage on a daily basis, it is just tucked away. Once a women in America stops looking like Katie Holmes, the Tom Cruise will walk away without any compunction. As a post-doc at Indiana University, near my apartments, I think HUDD used to rent some apartments. I never seen similar “stark loneliness” that I saw – not even in Europe, Africa, India. Trust me, I also know violence due to class-conflict (poverty) from India up close and personal [would rather not go into detail in a public forum].
I have been living here in States now more than 2 decades. However, I know a lot of people who went back to India – after being quite successful here for many reasons. First my parents, some of my uncles and aunts (one of them was in States in 1940s)……The best graduate student from India I knew at Cornell is now a faculty of IISc (Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore). I just got an email from a friend of mine today – He and his wife (a medical doctor) are moving back to India from NYC at the height of their career.
I know about half a dozen Desis (US citizens) from Bay area who with out-sourcing business are practically maintaining two households (one in US, and one in India) – with properties, etc. We are not going to even talk about to and fro movement of Chinese diaspora these days or for that matter Irish diaspora. I have to agree with laksmishakti on some points. The ultimate colonization of mind is self-loathing – Check out an incredible movie “Massey Sahib”. There is a huge difference between self-loathing and being self-critical. It ain’t that simple.
MD: Its not democracy or womens rights that we object to but the motives of the democracy crusaders in this White House. The colonial mission does have civilizing aspects too it, but the colonizers never have the best interests of the colonized in mind when they plan these adventures. Now you can sit on the sidelines and cheer the war and explain away the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis (yes I know Saddam had mass graves and now we have open graves)
The ultimate colonization of mind is self-loathing
So true.
I don’t see the Jewish community hating their own religion/ culture although it directly led them to horrific suffering.
the jewish community might not, but many individual jews do criticize aspects of jewish culture. if anyone wants substantiation of what i speak in the context of german jews, read walter rothenburg’s ‘hear o israel!’
“but many can write well enough to suit the western media”. The abominable pankaj mishra comes to mind.
Article from NY Times: Indians find they can go home again
From my own travels in India in the past few weeks, I think India is getting a better and better place to live for many professionals. There are tons of infrastructure issues, but they are also slowly being addressed, and there’s a lot of optimism in the air. For computer and biotech professionals, there’s no limit to what you can do and the lifestyle can be pretty good.
I still think I want to spend a few more years in the US, though; the dating options are a lot more diverse 😉
Typical response… doesn’t matter if the story is true, LGF is not “politically correct” enough for this blog.
LGF is an openly racist site that regularly does things with images, words and concepts of Arabs that would get us banned if we did them with Desis here. There can be no serious “political correctness” contention with the kind of scum that frequent LGF unless you’re also thinking that maybe it’s time for a “debate” about whether the Holocaust happened. We are honestly disturbed to see you give them this kind of attention. Maybe you can get together with them and set up a “Burn them wogs award” for fundamentalist Hindu pogrom-leaders who bag more than their quota, like the pancake references for Rachel Corrie and the pizzas offered to IDF killers for successfully protecting the world from another human that, frankly, to an LGFfer probably looks like you. Also, LGF is the first entry in the Case for the Inferiority of Rightists. It’s not just badly written, it’s an inferior, ineptly put together site that takes 20 minutes to load even though it’s all text. This unusual problem (common with right-wing sites) is highlighted by the fact that LGF webmaster Charles Johnson fancies himself an internet entrepreneur, and recently co-founded a testament to media stupidity called “OSM.”
Seriously, seeing a link to LGF here was as shocking to us as hearing that Faux was dumb enough to associate directly with Stormfront. Have you not read any of their comment threads? Are you thinking that American Zionist war fans can telepathically detect religion and only hate Muslims?
I wonder why do people presume that all mutineers do not agree with the agenda of LGF. If you are a regular reader of Sepia Mutiny its pretty clear that some commenters and moderators do share the agenda of LGF.
I have failed to understand the hoo-ha (sp?) surrounding Vinod’s hat tip to LGF. Damn you’re right that I’m sure some share their agenda here. But they are certainly in the minority.
Vinod’s first post was not factually inaccurate – he merely stated where he had first noticed the story. He even likened LGF to a site devoted to honour killings, effectively agreeing with all those that chastised him for sourcing material from a one-trick pony website. If people are using the argument ‘he’s giving them exposure’ then posts about FOX News should also be contraband. LGF’s traffic is far in excess of SM’s, they’re in the top 30 blogs in the world or something, most bloggers are aware of them already. In his Vinod’s second post mentioning LGF he again verified the facts elsewhere.
Sorry, didn’t notice you said moderators there. Which moderators share LGF’s agenda? Come on, that’s nonsense.
“i am skeptical that people who pull their punches in regards to islam are as charitable to evangelical or fundamentalist forms of christianity.”
… but for the most part, those extreme christians are only considered as a few bad apples in an otherwise ‘just’ religion. But, such generosity is not extended to Islam these days – I do think that there are problems with muslims and muslim nations, but that is different from villifying an entire religion that has existed for over 1400 years and when vast majority of its people are like any other people who don’t care rat’s ass about what others are doing – they are just focussed on their daily struggle to move on with life. Your painting of Islam with a broad brush is inaccurate – and I am not sure where you get this 1% data – that is over 10 million people who are willing to do murder for their cause!!! Islam, like any other religion has different flavors – from Muslim Refusenik to Sufis to liberal muslims, they are all muslims of different flavors and kinds. Like any major religion, it is a very complex one – failing to understand that would result in a skewed and ‘prejudiced’ picture.
With respect to honor killing, it is a pracice that pre-dates Islam. However the male-favoring shariat laws in many muslim countries let the men get away with this brutal practice. the immediate inference to declare islam as the religion of such injustice is what troubles me – that draws an end to the discussion. A religion that has a billion followers is not going away anytime soon – it is better to understand the context prevailing in many of these countries that is letting these things happen than outright declaring the whole religion evil.
LGF is a haven for racists, both in comments and in the bloggers’ slant. It’s full of hate speech, regularly conflating all Muslims with extremists:
Look at how their post titles conflate all Muslims with criminals:
Hello, people. I’m from http://www.lgfwatch.blogspot.com a site that, as the name suggests, reports on the odiferous racism and bigotry of Charles Johnson and his self-styled (no kidding!) “Lizardoid Minions”. A visit to our site and a stroll throught the archives will tell anyone more than they want to know about the far-right torture enthusiasts and Bushite fanatics who inhabit that sorry place. But for sheer entertainment, and a definitive “slapdown”, let me commend writer James Wolcott to you. While not directly addressing the main theme of LGF, inciting hatred of all Muslims, he nails the “Lizards” perfectly: http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/12/headhunters.php The simple truth is that Charles Johnson and his goons only interest in honor killings is to smear Muslims. Simple as that.
The well-off return to India because it now suits them. India has become comfortable thanks to those who live there. The engineer who lived comfortably here with never a worry for those back home now decides this is the perfect time to look after the old folk, ie inherit their homes. How about contributing for the highly subsidized IIT education? (Govt subsidized.)
The Indians who send money to India are usually the poor Gulf workers, not the educated, reasonably welloff folk here. They sent money when interest rates were high and drew it out immediately when they fell. Because yes, “there breathes a man with a soul so dead that his heart has never homeward turned … who has never to himself said this is my own, my native land!” Colonism did that and the mission educated thought undying, unnecessary often incorrect self criticism was totally different from self loathing. After all being ‘a good sport’, beinga ble to criticise your institutions was high praise and a good concept for loyal natives, everyone else knew the importance of winning. Until you put your soul and self into your roots and heal your primary relationships, the rest is infirm. The Jews and the Chinese know that, the proliferation here of Hebrew and Chinese language schools, culture, adoption, increase in immigrants and myriad related spin offs in the US is an amazing phenomenon. Perhaps I stray. Our Indian Muslims having grown up in a secular democracy for the most part are wonderful. They love their religion and also respect ours. I refuse to include them in the destructive elements from the M East or elsewhere.
lakshmishakti
What statistic etc do you have that can substantiate this?
“The Indians who send money to India are usually the poor Gulf workers”
I think this is true, though part of the reason is that the investment options for guest workers in gulf countries are rather limited compared to U.S
I was debating whether I should get involved in this thread, but the last few commentators have pretty much said all I wanted to say.
Steve Kelso : I was going to mention http://www.lgfwatch.blogspot.com when this thread started, which I think does a great job at exposing the agenda at lgf.
Manish Vij : I was planning to do a similar post but didnt want to “waste” my time. When people believe that the problem with sites like lgf is that they (lgf) are political incorrect as opposed to a hate site, then those people are a brick short of a full load. What next??? Reading the hezbollah website for information about jews and Israel, using stormfront as a source of information on blacks and other colored people..????? As for this story, the article by this guy written on monday 26th, pretty much sums up how I feel about this case. The govt needs to go medieval on this !@#$%^ ass.
People “going medieval” is the fundamental problem, my friend…..
Razib,
Buddy you’ve actually paraphrased exactly what I said ! However, it’s good to know there’s some scientific rationale for what I was saying too 😉
Thanks for taking the time out to write that message too.
lakshmishakti,
what you are saying is broadly true. however, it is changing slowly. it is a start. surely, it is a tiny droplet compared to what Irish immigrants do for Ireland (what I read about Ireland, Irish-Americans have played a big role in addition to other internal factors in making the country from sick man of europe to a celtic tiger), or Chinese diaspora is doing for China-Taiwan-Singapore or American jewry has always done for Israel – Golda Meir, the history of IDF, and so on, and so on.
i have been told iit (kharagpur) is building world-class labs with endowment from nris/ expat indians as we speak. i’ll check on iit (roorkee) once i am there. i was recently told one of the roorkee alum from here is working on providing internet connectivity to every dorm room. last year, i was an external examiner for a phd student at roorkee- it is outreach, maybe not with money.
i forgetting the name – one of the nris built a institute near meerut – bill clinton being his friend was at the opening ceremony – i am fogetting the details. through india today, i do read some of them reaching to village. sure, it is just a start.
about two weeks ago, i visit some of my old friends in bay area – it seemed all the vcs and tech entrepeneurs are eyeing india pretty hard – that is all the buzz i got.
PS: I have lot of respect for an Indian laboror who works in Middle East – they are just trying to better the life of their family under very harsh conditions – like anyone else. Maybe, they know about the conditions but they are just trying to break the cycle of poverty. Not everyone has the resources to get educated at IITs and IIMs in India and then go to MIT or Cambridge.
You seem to imply that muslims in non-democratic countries (India is hardly secular) like Pakistan or places in the middle east are fanatics.
Keep in mind that the muslims in favour of splitting up the country, post-independence, in British ruled India were the more moderate Barelvis from west Punjab (now pakistan) and the liberal Ismialis from western India (like Jinnah).
Whereas the more extremist Deobandis from the UP valley in what is now the heart of India opposed the partition and the two-nation theory because they wanted all of India to become a part of the Islamic Ummah. (rejecting Jinnah’s western style nationalism)
While looking at intra-sect differences, Indian muslims are more moderate than the ones in Pakistan. Indian deobandis are more moderate than their Pakistani counterparts, and Gujarati Ishmalis are more liberal than the ones in Pakistan.
But the majority of muslims in Pakistan are Barelvis, whereas the majority of muslims in India are Deobandis.
So I think an average Pakistani muslim is likely to be more moderate than an average muslim in India.
But the majority of muslims in Pakistan are Barelvis, whereas the majority of muslims in India are Deobandis.
Maybe in Western UP (where Deoband is) but in other parts of India I am not so sure that the majority of Muslims are Deobandis.
Maybe Razib could post some numbers on the deobandi population of Indian Muslims. IMHO Southern and Western Indian states would hardly have any Deobandi Muslims.
Well said !!! I have been in Gulf Air flight to India, where from the Dubai to India leg, I had several passangers sitting next to me, who needed help filling the customs and immigration form, as either they were illeterate or didnt know English or Hindi. I filled out the form for the guy sitting next to me. So others found out and asked me to do it for them. They were from the Kerala state. So there was no common language for us to communicate but the language of gestures was enough. I realized that there was not much difference between myself and them. They were going to a un-hosipitable place (of those Saudi mofos) to make a better living and I went to America for better living. Only difference was, that I come from privileged background, so I could get degrees based on “merit”.
Maybe Razib could post some numbers on the deobandi population of Indian Muslims. IMHO Southern and Western Indian states would hardly have any Deobandi Muslims.
if had numbers i would offer them, but unfortunately i do not 🙁 but yes, i don’t think the majority of muslims in india are deobandi, deobandis reject hanafism theoretically (though i think to some extent they are an outgrowth of hanafism just as wahabbism is an outgrowth of hanbalism). though most south asian muslims are of various hanafi traditions, deobandis are particularly energetic, but i don’t think they are a majority. there is a big difference between north and south india in this in that i gather that mopillas of kerala are not hanafi, but shafi. this is reflective of that fact that north indian islam has a strong turco-afghan tincture, while south indian islam is more diverse, with a great deal of maratime arab influence.
and najeeb, i assume you read my weblog since you linked to it, so you know i am not talking about platonic ideas of ‘islam’ or ‘christianity,’ i’m talking about distributions. christianity is pretty much gelded. islam is not. at least to the first approximation. i think the attitude toward open apostates and atheists in muslim nations is a useful indicator in commparison to christian cultures (i glean that there are many atheists and agnostics amongst the elites of muslim cultures, especially those who espouse a leftist-marxist influenced ideology, but they are not explicit and open about their private views, either due to prudence [they would be killed or attacked] or strassian assumptions that ‘religion is good for the masses’). by the 19th century western societies had accepted the rights of atheists to publically criticize their gods, though not without discomfort. very few islamic societies have reached this state, even ataturk was not particularly vocal about his fundamental disagreemants with the axioms of islam as opposed to attacks on particular modes of expression.
there is much here that literature, film, and art can express
you are right about Kerala muslims – they are shafis. But there are a lot of hanafis in the south too – like most Tamils for eg. Most of South East Asians are shafis too.
“even ataturk was not particularly vocal about his fundamental disagreemants with the axioms of islam”
This is true about Bush or even Clinton – when was the last time a major politician disgareed specifically with the axioms of christianity? people don’ normally do that – but they show in multitude of ways how they differ from certain ideals by actions. You are right about the muslim dictators – but those are dicatorships, that is not what the people wanted – if people could have their way, some kind of representative government will come up. For a bunch of monarchies who are oppressing muslims as well as non-muslims, finding cause within their religion is futile, in my opinion.