Honor
| Thu Nov. 13, 2008 7:10 AM PST
HONOR... I don't have anything to add to this, other than it makes me sick to my stomach. The UN Dispatch on an honor killing in Somalia:
Last week, 13-year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was stoned to death in Somalia by insurgents because she was raped.
Reports indicate that was raped by three men while traveling by foot to visit her grandmother in conflict capital, Mogadishu. When she went to the authorities to report the crime, they accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death. Aisha was forced into a hole in a stadium of 1,000 onlookers as 50 men buried her up to the neck and cast stones at her until she died.
When some of the people at the stadium tried to save her, militia opened fire on the crowd, killing a boy who was a bystander.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
Shakesville on honor killing:
This is just such an unmitigated clusterfuck of misogyny, classism, poverty, and privilege, it's hard to know where to begin. There are so many institutional biases at work, working in catastrophic concert to put pressure on everyone involved. That's not to say that the murders were justified; to the contrary, they are unjustifiable, but it is an indictment of the system and tradition that the people who committed them could not live a fully functional life in a village of intimate interdependence without the heinous act.
Before I turn it over for discussion in comments, I just want to note one thing about Reuters' coverage: The picture of the bodies that accompanies the story really struck me. I'm not certain of its purpose: Would readers not have understood the horror of a double-murder for the "crime" of seeking a life of love in freedom unless the story were told with a gruesome picture?
And further, I sincerely doubt that Reuters would have published an image of the white bodies of Jane Doe and Jack Smith, if the story had been about, say, an Indiana couple who was murdered by the girl's family for similar reasons?which is hardly unheard of (though we try to pretend we're above such things by not calling them "honor killings" and imagining ourselves all members of a giant middle class). That the photo of the corpses was included in this case (as an editorial decision, irrespective of the availability of the bodies being made available for photography, which generally doesn't happen in America) strikes me as a nefarious little bit of Othering, as well as a reflection of an existent double-standard.
Shakesville on honor killing:
This is just such an unmitigated clusterfuck of misogyny, classism, poverty, and privilege, it's hard to know where to begin. There are so many institutional biases at work, working in catastrophic concert to put pressure on everyone involved. That's not to say that the murders were justified; to the contrary, they are unjustifiable, but it is an indictment of the system and tradition that the people who committed them could not live a fully functional life in a village of intimate interdependence without the heinous act.
Before I turn it over for discussion in comments, I just want to note one thing about Reuters' coverage: The picture of the bodies that accompanies the story really struck me. I'm not certain of its purpose: Would readers not have understood the horror of a double-murder for the "crime" of seeking a life of love in freedom unless the story were told with a gruesome picture?
And further, I sincerely doubt that Reuters would have published an image of the white bodies of Jane Doe and Jack Smith, if the story had been about, say, an Indiana couple who was murdered by the girl's family for similar reasons?which is hardly unheard of (though we try to pretend we're above such things by not calling them "honor killings" and imagining ourselves all members of a giant middle class). That the photo of the corpses was included in this case (as an editorial decision, irrespective of the availability of the bodies being made available for photography, which generally doesn't happen in America) strikes me as a nefarious little bit of Othering, as well as a reflection of an existent double-standard.
Submitted by Christopher (not verified) on Thu Nov. 13, 2008 7:59 AM PST.
Can you cite one progressive that says this murder is acceptable?
Me? I mean. I can't say that's it's not. What standard do you have?
Can you cite one progressive that says this murder is acceptable?
Are you purposefully distorting the point?
I don't know of anyone that says murder is acceptable, but there are many self-claimed liberals that will try to dismiss vicious acts like this one and fgm as belonging to ancient cultures, and will go far to justify other actions like repression of free speech, forced abaya/burqa/hijab wearing by using cultural relativism arguments.
There's a split in feminist circles that does seem to arise in part with enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thinking. Some feminists are aghast with these actions, and others invoke the brown world is oppressed theory.
I think both sides have interesting arguments.
But more remarkable to me is how even trying to discuss it in so called progressive forums leads to cries of racist, sexist, and similar. So instead of at the least, making it a teachable moment, we get speech police action and misdirection like yours.
Yeah, this doesn't really belong on this blog. Liberals only like to discuss the horrors, real and imagined, of American society and governments. If we start talking about this, then we might have to start making - gasp! - judgments.
So, according to Mr. Smith and Jerry, the essential point of this story is that it demonstrates the horrors of cultural relativism. Just like how Katrina showed that those black people in New Orleans were no good, evolution proves the existence of god, and the financial crisis proves that banks need less regulation.
This is excellent news...for John McCain!!!
I don't know of anyone that says murder is acceptable, but there are many self-claimed liberals that will try to dismiss vicious acts like this one and fgm as belonging to ancient cultures, and will go far to justify other actions like repression of free speech, forced abaya/burqa/hijab wearing by using cultural relativism arguments.
Bullshit. This is simply not true. Topics like "female circumcision" may cause some soul-searching among multiculturally-minded liberals, but honor killings? Nope.
Submitted by Carl Nyberg (not verified) on Thu Nov. 13, 2008 9:21 AM PST.
I'm concerned that these anecdotes about Muslims doing fucked-up things are given extra visibility by the same media outlets that are able to ignore patterns of human rights abuses by the Israeli and U.S. governments.
Do people do fucked-up, backward stuff?
Yeah, but the Chicago PD tortured false confessions out of people as standard policy. The Cook County State's Attorney's office had plenty of info this was true, including some information that Asst. State's Attorneys were present during the torture.
Mayor Richard M. Daley was Cook County State's Attorney at the time.
The Chicago torture story has struggled for coverage. But when Iran mistreats a homosexual the Israel lobby and media do their best to hype the story.
The portrayal of Muslims as being culturally backwards needs to be seen in the context of the West mistreating Muslims regularly and these human rights abuses arouse a ho-hum reaction in the West. And there are millions of Arabs and Muslims living under military occupation by the West. And the people who want the United States to attack Iran are enthusiastic purveyors of the stories that portray Muslims in a bad light.
Maybe you should learn to read dob.
I specifically said, no one finds them acceptable.
I said that many try to dismiss them as belonging to ancient cultures and that part is absolutely true.
When various people complain about the honor killings in Islamic societies, a standard response is this has nothing to do with Islam and has to do with the older underlying culture, and there is no way to criticize Islam over this.
Reading dob, because as liberals we believe that even *your* mind is a terrible thing to waste.
But more remarkable to me is how even trying to discuss it in so called progressive forums leads to cries of racist, sexist, and similar. So instead of at the least, making it a teachable moment, we get speech police action and misdirection like yours.
Wapiti calls Adam Smith on his strawman, and Jerry, true to form and with absolutely no sense of the irony, cries racism, sexism, & police action all in defense of -- wait for it -- the teachable moment. Genius.
@ Everett: That link leads to nothing but a picture. There is no transcript and no video.
It would be a mistake to make this about cultural issues. Somalians risked their lives to try and stop this teenager from being murdered. These crimes are not a reflection on the Somalian people or Muslims as a whole. Aisha was a victim of a despicable, fundamentalist religious tyranny.
My sense of irony was muffled in its sleep by you and yours Junebug, arguing against free speech in the Mohammed cartoons, arguing for the forced wearing of the niqab and burka, and demanding that in the United States, free speech on campus should be abolisted and diversity programs put in their place.
In the meantime you and Wapiti miss Smith's larger point, apparently intentionally and you fully intend to castigate anyone who even thinks to ask the question.
My sense of irony was muffled in its sleep by you and yours Junebug, arguing against free speech in the Mohammed cartoons, arguing for the forced wearing of the niqab and burka, and demanding that in the United States, free speech on campus should be abolisted and diversity programs put in their place.
Whatever, troll.
My sense of irony was muffled in its sleep by you and yours Junebug, arguing against free speech in the Mohammed cartoons, arguing for the forced wearing of the niqab and burka, and demanding that in the United States, free speech on campus should be abolisted and diversity programs put in their place.
Here's the funny thing -- contrary to that "you & yours" remark, I've never argued any one of those positions. I'm sure a few people have, maybe even some folks you know, but rather than ascribe those positions to the people who actually -- you know -- hold them, you'd rather throw them out at anyone that suits you. It's a convenient little stunt that allows you to pull out your soapbox & shout down the unclean masses you deem as insufficiently liberal (and let's not kid ourselves -- *everyone* is insufficiently liberal in your book), but it's a) juvenile, and b) completely dishonest. Keep it up, though. The world loves a good caricature.
Sorry, junebug,
If you want to know who holds those points of view, just see upthread at Caitlin, Carl and others.
Or go visit and read Salon's Broadsheet and Shakesville, Feministe, Feministing, and Pandagon.
So I'm just making it a bit more clear.
If you're going to work to pretend there aren't a sizeable group of so called liberals making these points and you're going to work to hide them and denigrate those that would call attention to it,
Then enjoy it. Wear it. It looks good on you.
Oh you don't like it, and you disagree with them?
Then you should say so. And since apparently you agree with me then on these points, perhaps you shouldn't be castigating me for daring to point that out.
Other good people to see in rebuttal: Phyllis Chesler, and archetype feminist of the 70s/80s who now seems to write exclusively on this issue and so has been tossed out of feminism (and into PJM). Go read the Apostate blog from a former Muslim who now lives in the Bay Area. Be very careful, she links to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and we know that since *she* had the temerity to take a job at AEI, than all of us liberals have to get our hate on off of her.
Honor. Isn't that what John McCain was always talking about?
I am not a sociologist, but I wonder if this kind of behavior is more rooted in tribal tradition than Islam. Muslims and Christians can both be very good at using religon as a cover for their base behavior.
I don't know any liberal who would tolerate this barbaric execution on the basis of "cultural relativism".
Of course you don't, because they don't exist. That is entirely a "straw man" set up by a troll trying to ruin a thread. The reality is that no sane person in the U.S.A., whether liberal or conservative, would condone, excuse or justify such an atrocity.
If you want to know who holds those points of view, just see upthread at Caitlin, Carl and others.
Interesting that neither of those two appeared until after your tiresome little rant.
Or go visit and read Salon's Broadsheet and Shakesville, Feministe, Feministing, and Pandagon.
Here's a novel idea -- you have a problem with those folks, take it up with them. Your constant cries for a liberal orthodoxy became tiresome long ago, particularly as they always result in tedious digressions from whatever the topic happens to be, and they inevitably return us to you as the arbiter for Good Liberal Thinking. Add a healthy dose of projection (Wapiti was apparently distorting the point & misdirecting the thread, while I'm guilty of castigating anyone with the temerity to raise a point -- rich, that), and you've got the recipe for another hyperbolic screed from Jerry. Never at a loss, are you?
You've got the wrong guy, junebug.
I'm not calling for a liberal orthodoxy, just the reverse. I'm calling for us to do away with the tradition of calling people trolls because they disagree with the liberal orthodoxy.
I'm calling for us to use our time honored values of listening, respect, discussion, and nuance.
I'm disgusted by how our liberal blogosphere, bloggers and commenters have just recapitulated right wing talk radio tactics.
Self-congratulatory, ostracizing dissenters and threatening them with ex-communication.
The response to ugly speech is more speech, not name calling and speech policing.
I'm calling for us to use our time honored values of listening, respect, discussion, and nuance.
Folks might take you a little more seriously if you weren't so fast to skip past the first two of these in order to get to the last two.
Feministe on honor killing:
Whether Taslim and her baby were murdered so brutally and grotesquely due to alleged adultery or due to a land dispute is largely irrelevant. The results are the same and they are equally appalling and unjust. Either way, she was used as a tool of patriarchal revenge. Like with 13-year-old Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow in Somalia, Taslim Solangi was murdered because she was a woman and therefore believed to be a subhuman piece of property by her killers. She was murdered because her killers thought that due to her status as a woman, no one would care about her death.
I hope that the female senators who walked out of parliament in protest are evidence that her killers were wrong. Like everywhere that violence against women exists, it will not stop until those perpetrating it are proven wrong, until their actions are risen up against and shown to be unacceptable both to the masses and to those in power. It will not stop until it's demanded loudly enough, by both women and their allies. And it has to fucking stop. If there was ever evidence of that, Taslim's murder is it. It has to fucking stop.
Feministing on honor killing:
Sounds so simple right? He killed her because his "culture" made him. Not because he might be mentally ill or pathological. There is no denying that in basically every culture there is pressure put on women to act a certain way and especially with regard to marriage or the ownership of her sexuality. But the way that "honor" killing is discussed in the media you would think it is some normal cultural phenomena, when it is not. It is a sign of illness, culture gone awry and patriarchy at its most exaggerated.
In a ground-breaking essay, that I recommend you read if you are into theory, Leti Volpp talks about the notion of the cultural defense. One of the moments that this plays out is through the justification of violence against women as a cultural norm (usually based on racist ideas of culture).
It appears that there are two ways the mainstream US media talk about "honor" killings. The first is in a way the demonizes the horrid, brown, ugly, probably terrorist perpetrator, that is trying to hurt the innocent child like brown female that must be saved. Or making assumptions about the role of women in a given non-American culture as much more misogynist than our own and thereby engages in these forms of blatant abuse of patriarchal power that are cultural.
Neither scenario gives us much hope for how the case will go or allows for an intersectional analysis of the ways gender, culture and power play out. And when it is revolving around a violent murder of a young woman, it is very difficult to understand the nuance.
Shakesville on honor killing:
This is just such an unmitigated clusterfuck of misogyny, classism, poverty, and privilege, it's hard to know where to begin. There are so many institutional biases at work, working in catastrophic concert to put pressure on everyone involved. That's not to say that the murders were justified; to the contrary, they are unjustifiable, but it is an indictment of the system and tradition that the people who committed them could not live a fully functional life in a village of intimate interdependence without the heinous act.
Before I turn it over for discussion in comments, I just want to note one thing about Reuters' coverage: The picture of the bodies that accompanies the story really struck me. I'm not certain of its purpose: Would readers not have understood the horror of a double-murder for the "crime" of seeking a life of love in freedom unless the story were told with a gruesome picture?
And further, I sincerely doubt that Reuters would have published an image of the white bodies of Jane Doe and Jack Smith, if the story had been about, say, an Indiana couple who was murdered by the girl's family for similar reasonswhich is hardly unheard of (though we try to pretend we're above such things by not calling them "honor killings" and imagining ourselves all members of a giant middle class). That the photo of the corpses was included in this case (as an editorial decision, irrespective of the availability of the bodies being made available for photography, which generally doesn't happen in America) strikes me as a nefarious little bit of Othering, as well as a reflection of an existent double-standard.
Actually to PUT some light on ISLAM - its not in the quran that says someone who comits fornication should be stoned to death, but SOMEONE who comits ADULTERY ( a married person, sleeping with someone else), SO WHEN someone comits fornication they get LASHINGS ..i hate when people talk about something that they havent even researched on, or are educated on..dont just ramble on
im not justifying this great ordeal, which is really sad, but I just hate when people act smart, by talking about something that doesnt make sense..where in the quran GORE does it says, that the one who comits fornication should be killed????
Having searching the Pandagon site extensively I could find no posts specific to honor killing. However, from what I have read of Amanda Marcotte's writings I would be extremely surprised if she thought honor killing was justified due to the cultural relativism. But if anyone critical of her blog, or Jill & co at Feministe, Jessica & co at Feministing or Melissa & co at Shakesville has such links I be most anxious to check them out.
Ah shit, Ellen Feiss moment ate a comment.
Junebug, I said the feminist sites maggie cited said exactly what they said. I said, "I don't know of anyone that says murder is acceptable, but there are many self-claimed liberals that will try to dismiss vicious acts like this one and fgm as belonging to ancient cultures, and will go far to justify other actions like repression of free speech, forced abaya/burqa/hijab wearing by using cultural relativism arguments."
Here, the part of the ancient culture that normally shows up, is played by "all men, part of the evil patriarchy."
Pity you don't know how to read.
And then look what Samhita at feministing said, and apply it to the feministe piece. It applies almost 100%.
It appears that there are two ways the mainstream US media talk about "honor" killings. The first is in a way the demonizes the horrid, brown, ugly, probably terrorist perpetrator, that is trying to hurt the innocent child like brown female that must be saved. Or making assumptions about the role of women in a given non-American culture as much more misogynist than our own and thereby engages in these forms of blatant abuse of patriarchal power that are cultural.
Feministe demonizes the killer beyond what is necessary, and then makes assumptions about that culture being much more misogynistic than our own.
Samhita at Feministing, critizing Feministe's take on it.... Hilarious.
By the way, Volpp's take doesn't support Samhita's point. It's just askew. Volpp was referring to what happens in courtrooms not in the media. Apples and Oranges.
Ironic too, since Samhita is guilty of many racist and sexist remarks regarding the Duke students, including how they deserved what they got and it should be a good learning experience for them, and her current belief they are still guilty of rape.
Various liberals and feminists have talked about this, and what it says for liberalism and feminism.
Sorry junebug that this is all news to you. (By the way junabee, you realize that as maggiecat points out those quotes were not concerning the case that Stein mentions, but different cases?)
K, let's see if it posts this time.
... I said the feminist sites maggie cited said exactly what they said. I said, "I don't know of anyone that says murder is acceptable, but there are many self-claimed liberals that will try to dismiss vicious acts like this one and fgm as belonging to ancient cultures, and will go far to justify other actions like repression of free speech, forced abaya/burqa/hijab wearing by using cultural relativism arguments."
Here's a thought -- direct your complaints about those posts to their authors. Your right-thinking liberal litmus tests are inappropriate on threads where they're not an issue. You repeatedly attempt to drag up grievances with unnamed "self-claimed liberals," and you never miss an opportunity to incorrectly attribute statements/positions/attitudes to commenters who don't have them. Seriously -- work your shit out with a therapist instead of hijacking threads for the sole purpose of ranting.
No one thinks honor killing is justified.
Larn to read.
********************
Here goes:
"I don't know of anyone that says murder is acceptable...
...BUT...
there are many self-claimed liberals (Feministing, Feministe, Shakesville, Pandagon)...
that will try to DISMISS...
...various acts LIKE THIS ONE....
...as belonging to ancient cultures and will go far to...
...JUSTIFY other actions...( "like repression of free speech, forced abaya/burqa/hijab wearing"--none of which have come up in these blog posts on honor killing)...
...BY USING CULTURAL RELATIVISM ARGUMENTS."
So what exactly did i misresrepresent in your statement?
Submitted by Dan S. (not verified) on Thu Nov. 13, 2008 1:10 PM PST.
Jerry, et ilk: Are you willing to comment on the atrocity itself? If so, what do you have to say about it?
If so, what do you have to say about it?
Seems that his only opinion on the atrocity is that it's a useful cudgel with which to beat his caricatures of liberalism and Islam.
Kudos, by the by, to those of you willing to rebut the troll's so-called argument rationally. I find myself with little patience these days for those who argue in bad faith.
To bring the discussion back to the matter at hand, a reasonable point of discussion would be, what's a good response? Were there a functioning regime to sanction, that'd be an obvious place to start, but absent that?
