(no subject)

[winterbadger]

A Killing Commanded by Tradition: Afghan Adultery Case Reflects Challenge of Extending Modern Law to Tribal Lands

This is a horrible story. I find the practice of honor killing to be a horrendous perversion of the concept of honor and of the responsibility of family for one another. But what I find remarkable about this account of it is how well the reporter conveys the feelings of the people involved and the internal logic of their appilcation of their own traditions. It's still horrific and wrong, but one can see the humanity of the people involved. Which, of course, simply makes it even more painful.

Comments

[azbound.livejournal.com]

This stirs so many different things in my brain, simply because they listened to everybody involved and reported everything involved. It stirs it to the point where it seems like I can't talk about it, not coherently, more like 80 million statements/questions/observations...

What is it like to be so devout in one's faith that you kill (or advocate killing) your child? How is it that she was killed, but the man was merely lashed? How on earth do we (implying that we are so much more evolved) show people that we (the Western we) find that reprehensible without offending an entire culture?

Sometimes I think I am presented with far more questions than I could ever hope to answer....

[winterbadger]

Your reactions are much like mine. I can't imagine believing the things these folks do, but the reporter's depiction of them makes them much more human than a lot of religious conservatives I hear here in the US every day.

[azbound.livejournal.com]

You would be so proud of me - I'm actually reading non-fiction books on faith! I'm in the midst of "Who Speaks for God" by Jim Wallis and "No god but God" by Reza Aslan. It's making me think more. Is that a good thing?

[winterbadger]

I *am* proud of you, even though I feel no responsibility for your having done so (with a tip of the hat to Jane B.)

Thinking more is pretty much always a good thing, I think, unless it totally prevents oen fromt aking an action one needs to take.

[blackperson.livejournal.com]

I almost wish they were villified. It would make it easier to condemn them.

[winterbadger]

That's true. It's what makes it so painful.

It makes me think more about the rant on religion and democracy I keep not writing down. It's no great shakes, but I need to get it out of my head and into words.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

How is it that she was killed, but the man was merely lashed?

My understanding of the story is that her offense was judged as greater in that she was married, and therefore had violated her marriage vows. There's also some big differences in how the Koran speaks of treating women as opposed to treating men in many cases, as I understand it, although I am no student of Shari'a.

How on earth do we (implying that we are so much more evolved) show people that we (the Western we) find that reprehensible without offending an entire culture?

We don't. Finding their actions (which are logical in their cultural context) reprehensible is the offense, and there's no way to hide that. We can say, "Your culture, your rules", and wash our hands of cases like Amina's, or we can say, "Come into the civilized world and your behavior has to change". (There's the third option, of course, of behaving like a British officer reportedly did when told that it was the custom among a group in India to burn widows alive ("suttee") -- he said, "It is also the custom among my people to hang such men by the neck until dead." You'll note that the practice of suttee has declined.)

Either some rules are truly universal, which means that cultures which violate those rules are wrong when they do so, or there are no universal rules. To quote John Adams in "1776", "This is a revolution, dammit! We're going to have to offend SOMEbody!" You can either point out how their cultural rules are wrong, which is surely going to offend them, or you can point out how they've been misapplied, which is almost as certain to offend.

Or you can just not point out anything wrong with the situation, and try not to think about it, and hope that they just stay up in the Afghan mountains and never come down.

[beckon.livejournal.com]

At the risk of offending. I don't find it horrific or wrong. Something I would like to see changed but there you go.

I'll see you later and you can harass me about that :)

[winterbadger]

I didn't have a chance to ask last night, but if you don't think it's wrong, why would you like it to be changed?

[winterbadger]

Either some rules are truly universal, which means that cultures which violate those rules are wrong when they do so, or there are no universal rules.

Well and succinctly put.

A problem with modern liberalism is that at its extremes it often tends towards trying to make everything relative and value-neutral. And that can be a problem. Gladstone's Liberalism, by contrast, had definite values (he fought to extend voting rights, to combat absentee landlordism in Ireland; he worked for intenational disarmament and Irish home rule; he provided shelters for prostitutes; his last public speech was against Turkish atrocities in Armenia), they just happened to be much more progressive than the Conservative values of the time.