Thread: Honor killing and the difference in cultures.

Not wanting to hijack the recent thread on the beheading in Buffalo,NY I am posting another thread on the question of "honor killing" The beheading thread brought to mind this report I heard on NPR back in 2005 concerning "honor killing" in Iraq .

It is eight minutes long and you can listen to it here . When I heard the murderer of poor Fatima say that the family couldn't have held their head up unless he had done what he did I knew that our cultures were so far apart that it is unlikely we would ever find a peaceful co-existence.

For my culture and I hope yours killing Fatima would have been the dishonorable action. How do we "win" and bring democracy to people who have a mindset such as this ?

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

How do we "win" and bring democracy to people who have a mindset such as this ?

We kill them all. Sometimes peaceful coexistance is not an option. When my very existence offends their imaginary pal up in the sky, there's not going to be any rational dialogue.

Unreasonable people can't be reasoned with.

OK Jimmy; NPR is like that expired bran cereal that nobody wants! LOL!

I've got to agree with Jockeys on this one! They will never rest until we "the world" are either all converted or killed. The only way to break this ideology is to eradicate it.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

For my culture and I hope yours killing Fatima would have been the dishonorable action. How do we "win" and bring democracy to people who have a mindset such as this ?

I will be called names for this. Let me ask another question that is related to yours: how do we retain our democracies despite the influx of people who have a mindset such as this? (both North America and Europe)

Originally Posted by sparq

I will be called names for this. Let me ask another question that is related to yours: how do we retain our democracies despite the influx of people who have a mindset such as this? (both North America and Europe)

That is a conundrum that I don't know the answer to. People have been asking that question in relation to immigration for a long time. In 1908 when my grandfather came to the USA from Russia there was a lot of discrimination against eastern Europeans, Italians, Irish ........ "foreigners" in general who were not WASPs. Cultural assimilation was encouraged, even demanded and it gradually occurred. We all became "Americans"in our perception of ourselves and our cultural beliefs. The radical Islamic fundamentalists that we are concerned with appear to be a minority within Islam as a whole. At least I hope so. There are already a fair amount of muslims from around the world in the USA and in Europe and most of them seem to be good hard working people who only want to live and let live. That is my perception anyhow. Whether they will assimilate as previous immigrants have remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by jmueller8

OK Jimmy; NPR is like that expired bran cereal that nobody wants! LOL!

I've got to agree with Jockeys on this one! They will never rest until we "the world" are either all converted or killed. The only way to break this ideology is to eradicate it.

I hear you. The same could have been said for "winning" in Viet Nam. We didn't "kill them all" then and we won't do it now. After 58,000 + American dead and many more wounded we now can buy cargo shorts and what have you made in Vietnam in our local Target store.

The "war on terror" would have been better pursued if we would have done as the British did with the IRA. Treat the terrorists as the criminals that they are and pursue them as individuals instead of invading these countries and setting off a guerrilla war within them. Sad to say when we finally pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan in however many years it will be much the same waste as our previous fiasco in the Nam.

I don't even want to comment on this.

Originally Posted by sparq

I will be called names for this. Let me ask another question that is related to yours: how do we retain our democracies despite the influx of people who have a mindset such as this? (both North America and Europe)

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

That is a conundrum that I don't know the answer to. People have been asking that question in relation to immigration for a long time. In 1908 when my grandfather came to the USA from Russia there was a lot of discrimination against eastern Europeans, Italians, Irish ........ "foreigners" in general who were not WASPs. Cultural assimilation was encouraged, even demanded and it gradually occurred. We all became "Americans"in our perception of ourselves and our cultural beliefs. The radical Islamic fundamentalists that we are concerned with appear to be a minority within Islam as a whole. At least I hope so. There are already a fair amount of muslims from around the world in the USA and in Europe and most of them seem to be good hard working people who only want to live and let live. That is my perception anyhow. Whether they will assimilate as previous immigrants have remains to be seen.

This is the true heart of the problem, immigrants no longer wish nor need to become part of the country that they are immigrating into...

My mother though born in the US went back to Greece as a baby because her mother died here, so her father packed up his two daughters and returned to Greece to re-marry, they returned to the US 8 years later, when my mother was 10 years old, she had her early childhood in Greece....
Upon their arrival back in the US her father laid down the law... They were raised "American" speaking and acting Greek was not to be tolerated, nor encourgaed... His statement to them was simple "We live here now, you will learn the language, and you will study the history and culture" This is what has changed.....

The attitude now has become so warped that the new waves of immigrants actually believe that their new country somehow needs to adapt to suit them instead of the other way around....
We actually see this with the huge influx of people moving to Nth Idaho from the coast, both California and Washington transplants have the same attitude when they move up here with their continual statements of "We used to do it like this where I am from"


The thing is if where you came from (insert place) is so much better than where you moved to (insert place) that you want to change it, why did you move in the first place????

Steps down off the soap box

I agree with what has been said, although I don't think the Viet Nam comparison is entirely useful. Different motivations, different circumstances, religion, Israel, cold war, oil, etc.

To add to what has been said about immigration and blending in - not only does their not "melting" into the pot fracture our society, it keeps them from achieving the "American Dream". That dream involves adopting certain attitudes and values. If you don't live by those values, you're not gonna make it here. Then they act surprised and blame everyone else when they don't succeed.

EDIT: This doesn't mean they have to give up their heritage or deny their culture, but they do have to embrace basic American values. Not just live according to the letter of the law.

Jordan

Originally Posted by jnich67

This doesn't mean they have to give up their heritage or deny their culture, but they do have to embrace basic American values. Not just live according to the letter of the law.

Actually the only enforceable thing is the letter of the law, the rest basically is an individual choice. As Glen noted - his grandfather set the rules for his children, it's not the society that did it.
It's a free country and as long as it remains so people can make their free choices and live with the consequences. The smart ones would make smart choices, the dumb ones will make dumb choices. I don't see any problem with this, and I don't see how the problems that have been noted can be solved in a way that preserves the same values that the solution is supposed to preserve.