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 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

Originally Posted by Rajagra

I don't even want to comment on this.

Ok I'll comment then.
It seems to me fair as long as you allow this group of people to set disputes among themselves, to also allow that other group of people. I think most here believe in personal freedom and responsibility, so if two parties agree among themselves on some matter, I see no reason for the society to step in and change that.

I don't know why would such agreements have to be enforced by the 'official' system though. In my thinking the 'official' system should only enforce the official judgements.

The fact that the jewish arbitrage courts or whatever they are would rule closer to what the legal system would, and the sharia ones wouldn't doesn't make the first more credible than the second. If you want to outsource justice you either have to keep up with the exact same standard, or it is a completely different kind of justice.

And as long as their decisions do not have to be enforced by the state if somebody is not happy with these unofficial courts they can turn to the official system of justice which is enforceable. Of course this would just make these communal courts completely irrelevant, but in my opinion they should really be. Justice has to be enforceable, otherwise it's pointless.

At least that's how I think I'd like it to be set up. And I don't have any legal training, so it's just my 'common sense'.

Originally Posted by jockeys

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.

Ah, there's your post.

That's sounds like a very bigoted outlook.

Originally Posted by Amyn

Explain what you mean by wipe it out? I hope you do not mean kill them all?

that's exactly what I mean. it's foolish to assume that you can reason with unreasonable people.

Originally Posted by Blade Wielder

Ah, there's your post.

That's sounds like a very bigoted outlook.

it's a very ugly truth. but no less true for being ugly. most people think that you can solve conflicts like this with talk and reasoning. I just really don't see that ever working.

Originally Posted by jockeys

that's exactly what I mean. it's foolish to assume that you can reason with unreasonable people.

it's a very ugly truth. but no less true for being ugly. most people think that you can solve conflicts like this with talk and reasoning. I just really don't see that ever working.

So in your opinion it seems it is "reasonable" to kill an entire group of people because their culture poses a threat to yours... well if you find that reasonable then

There are no double standards in my mind I reject all fundamentalist views from any side.
Unfortunately no one from the "other side" happen to shave or for that matter use a str8 so it is highly unlikely that they would become a member of this forum any time soon.

In case they do and happen to post their views then you will see a similar response to them.