Jordan's dilemma over 'honour killings'

[NNN0LHI]

These are Bush's best buds?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3094736.stm

"A woman is like an olive tree. When its branch catches woodworm, it has to be chopped off so that society stays clean and pure."

So declared one tribal leader when pressed on the issue of "honour killings" in Jordan, where approximately every two weeks a woman is killed by a male relative because of the shame she has brought upon her family by an alleged sexual transgression - "sins" which include being raped.

Her killer will, on average, receive a sentence of some six months' imprisonment.

Latest efforts to impose a harsher penalty on men who kill their daughters and sisters suffered a fresh setback in parliament this week, after deputies refused to sanction an amendment to the penal code.

The day after parliament sat, three brothers hacked to death their two sisters with axes "to cleanse the family honour".

more

[Pert_UK]

1. Dilemma how, exactly?

Damn - that's a hard decision!

One of those occasions where one's anthropological training to avoid judging other cultures gets over-ruled by one's inclination to yell "Assholes!" and shoot the bastards....

P.

[mike_c]

2. thank you....

Your response to this post blew my mind. Damn. Right on, but I'm still at a loss for words.

[Mairead]

3. My avoid-judging-other-cultures rule doesn't even get invoked

A more basic rule always gets called first: people should be free to live their lives without interference by others.

Probably similar to that rule of yours that results in 'yell "Assholes" and shoot the bastards'.

[demdave]

4. The cradle of civilization, when will they grow up?

I hope Iraq gets back on it's feet and shakes the entire region to it roots. These are backward customs and I don't care to tolerate any of the foolishness. Burning women in India over dowerys, using ultrasound to determine the sex of the unborn and then killing it if it is female and then this. The entire middle east needs to drag it's sorry butt into the 1800's.

[StandWatie]

6. honor killings were common here until the late 19th century

They still happen all the time and if you in the sticks down south you usually still get away with it.

[demdave]

7. They are not endorsed by our penal code.

Latest efforts to impose a harsher penalty on men who kill their daughters and sisters suffered a fresh setback in parliament this week, after deputies refused to sanction an amendment to the penal code.

[StandWatie]

8. I think it was part of English commonlaw

anyway it's not exactly some "Heathen" sort of thing.

"Die, die Lavinia, and thy shame with thee/And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!"

Titus Andronicus

[Ilsa]

5. It's another form of conservatism.

I see it as anthropological conservation of their culture. Inability to prevent judgementalism, etc. ad nauseum.

But is very difficult for me not to want to kill the hateful family members instead of the rapists, etc.

[aquart]

9. What difference is there, after all?

If a man's honor is not his, but his woman's? Then nothing he does is honorable, is it? Only what she does.

Nothing will ever change in the middle east until men take responsibility for their own honor, and leave their women the hell alone.

[LastDemInIdaho]

10. Thank goodness that can't happen in Palistine

Or at least I'd like to think it can't.

[salin]

11. Why isn't Laura - who took up the cause (PR) of women in Afghanistan,

speaking out on this issue?

I will let the silence of Laura Bush, speak for itself.

[theHandpuppet]

12. Oh, because Der Bushreich's "demands" for democracy...

... and women's rights don't apply when it comes to our "allies" such as Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia!

Funny, isn't it, that women had substantially more rights in a secular Iraq than they do now in countries considered "friendly" to U.S. interests.