WITH COMMENTS: Honor Killing of 17 Year Old Girl

A number of you wrote in about the recent murder of a 17 year old Kurdish girl. She was stoned to death by relatives for loving a boy of a different religion. Her family is not muslim. The girl converted so she could be accepted by her boyfriend and his family. (See my original post: Multicultural Madness: Not All Cultures Are Equal.) Below are the additional comments (in green). By the way, in case you missed it, please refer to SUGGESTED READING below, too. Michael Harrington said [yesterday]... Yes, this mass hysteria or mob mentality murder is horrific (the QuickTime Viewer shows the clips in high resolution!). There is no question that this represents a backward element in Iraqi culture. However, is stoning that rare? The video clips I saw remind me that it wasn't too long ago that for many in our own culture a gleeful way to pass the time was to gather at the town square to watch an angry mob with a rope tie up, stone to death, and/or lynch Blacks. There were no cell phone cameras back then, but early box camera photos tell us of our nation's own sad history. In both America and Iraq these inhumane behaviors don't and can't represent the totality of a culture. As for multiculturalism, my understanding of the concept is that it is mostly about acknowledging cultural differences and respecting them. I have not heard anyone use multiculturalism to defend inhumane behaviors which translate into abuse, torture, or murder - whether in isolated instances or widespread and socially sanctioned as in this Iraqi case. MY RESPONSE Michael, You miss the point. You are right to say "it wasn't too long ago that for many in our own culture a gleeful way to pass the time was" to watch a public hanging. True, but I notice you used the past tense, and the public hanging was a regional thing. Never happened in Wisconsin, for example, and has certainly not been endemic in all of Western culture for a very long time. More often than not, the public hanging was a horse thief or murderer conducted by authorities. I'm not sure how you compare that to a gang of men ambushing and murdering a 17 year old girl. That happens frequently throughout Islamdom. I wish you were correct, but you are not. The fact is, judges in the U.S., Canada, and Europe have taken a criminal defendant's home culture into account when deciding what to do to a person accused of a crime. An example from Germany: The judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said the German woman of Moroccan descent would not be granted a divorce because she and her husband came from a "Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife," according to a statement she wrote that was issued by a Frankfurt court. "That's what the claimant had to reckon with when she married the defendant." Seems like the "she deserved it" line of reasoning is actually a bridge between cultures. Hey, we hear it in Canada too - Muslims and non-Muslims alike. MORE... Canadians call this kind of thing “reasonable accommodation of minorities." An Aussie offers an interesting observation in a piece titled, " Australian Views Canada's Multi-Culti" here. There are countless other examples. You only have to look, preferably with your eyes open. You wrote a curious passage: "In both America and Iraq these inhumane behaviors don't and can't represent the totality of a culture." I agree, but far too many on the Left do just that. The Mathew Shepard murder, for instance. Many took that sad incident and painted all of America as homicidal bigots. Again, there are countless other other examples. SUGGESTED READING: How Multiculturalism is Betraying Women - C.A.I.R. Watch - Jihad Watch - Memri Blog - Memri TV - Multiculturalism & Marxism - Religion of Peace ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Moonglum said... First, she was Yezidi not Muslim as this post implies. Second, have you actually heard of any examples of someone's cultural background being used to alter the outcome of criminal proceedings in the US? I don't know of any laws that are different for people of different backgrounds, outside of hate law style laws in the US. e.g. our recent "honor killing" in roger's park: "Under American laws, the perpetrators of "Honor Killings" are not given special protections and Ebrahimi could face the death penalty unless a jury finds that he was "insane" at the time of the murder." I would be very interested to hear of a US court that found in favor of a claimant based on religious or ethnic background, as in the German case you cite. May 5, 2007 12:15:00 AM CDT T.Mannis said... Moonglum: Had you read the post carefully (Multicultural Madness: Not All Cultures Are Equal) you would have seen this paragraph: "They said she had shamed herself and her family when she failed to return home one night. Some reports suggested she had converted to Islam to be closer to her boyfriend." It is not IMPLIED that she was Muslim, she had, in fact, converted to Islam. But the post plainly states that those who killed her were NOT muslims. R-e-a-d. May 5, 2007 11:26:00 AM CDT Anonymous said... You seem to forget tht public hangings or lynchings were quite common in the south. Usually innocent black men strung up by racist mobs. May 4, 2007 11:17:00 PM CDT T.Mannis said... You wrote, "You seem to forget tht public hangings or lynchings were quite common in the south. Usually innocent black men strung up by racist mobs." Not true. I wrote to Michael [yesterday] that he was "right to say 'it wasn't too long ago that for many in our own culture a gleeful way to pass the time was' to watch a public hanging." I went on to say that it "has certainly not been endemic in all of Western culture for a very long time." I did not discount the lynchings of black men. But the fact is that lynchings are strictly punished and far from normal - they are, fortunately, extremely rare in modern Western culture. But stoning women to death is all too common today among some culures. May 5, 2007 11:32:00 AM CDT Neil in Chicago said... I'll make you an even swap: I'll "explain how that culture is equal to ours" if you do the same for the people right here, all over the United States, who bomb health clinics and murder doctors, because their God wants them to. May 5, 2007 12:08:00 PM CDT T.Mannis said... Deal, Neil. I condemn those who bomb abortion clinics and murder doctors, unconditionally. Period. Your turn. May 5, 2007 12:44:00 PM CDT