I’m also wondering why, between this, 9/11, executing a rape victim in Pakistan, and a few other atrocities in Pakistan, why haven’t mainstream Muslims denounced this? If they have, I sure haven’t heard about it. They really ought to police their religion better.
Like the Catholics, airdisc?
A bit of reading comprehension could have avoided the embarrassment of this post.
Some group of people in Pakistan behave in an utterly barbaric way.
A Pakistani rights organization calls for an investigation and redress.
The Pakistani police announce that they will arrest all the participants (and have already picked up some of them).
In a related event, it is reported that an Islamic court in Pakistan has ordered that a similar tribally imposed punishment on a rape victim be stopped.
So, in a nation where we already recognize that there are some groups who engage in brutal and barbaric practices regarding “honor” and women’s rights, we have information that three separate agencies (one independent, one governmental, and one religious–but all indigenous) are taking steps to eliminate this sort of injustice and your response is to set up the false dichotomy that they must all be either “innocents” or “savages” with the clear impication that we ought to vote for “savages”?
Yeah, I should think dropping a bomb on the girl will make her forget about the gang rape thing altogether.
Allow me to clarify my point before I get lynched.
Context: A Tribunal Council (which has no legal authority over anyone) ordered this attrocious “punishment” over a social digression.
Lisa Ann said she was glad she lived in America, implying that we are above that sort of activity, as most of us are.
Correlation: An Urban Gang (which has no legal authority over anyone) orders an equally attrocious “punishment” over a social digression.
All I’m saying is if you think pseudo-authority figures in this country don’t commit attrocious acts in the name of their “groups” as well, you’ve got some blinders on.
I’m not saying that this type of barbarism is rampant in the States, but then again, I’m not sure how rampant it is in Pakistan either. This story seems to try to plant the seed that this kind of shit happens every weekend over there.
My last post clearly meant that I have no problem with the utter destruction of any culture that doesn’t fit my standards! Gosh, cant you people read!?! 
I should give up the keyboard, cause rarely what I end up typing has any semblance of the original point I had in mind when I started. I either need to type faster, or think slower, but there are already too many Democrats! Just forget it.
“False dichotomy”! That’s funny! 
Yeah, thats what I was doin’! Settin’ up one of them there “false dichotomyz”!
Sometimes a random failure is just a random failure.
But this is a false correlation, because the tribal councils in rural areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan are, in a real sense, the legitmate government and the law. Sure, Karachi may disagree in prinicple, but then Karachi’s a long way away. So the correlation is not if some outside-the-law American gang did this, but if some American governmental unit did. The tribal council is not a “pseudo-authority;” it is the authority, the legitimate local authority. That’s the horror of it.
You’re “not saying this type of barbarism is rampant” in the US?
This statement, and the one following it, seems to imply that there is no easily discernable difference between the plight of many women in Muslim countries versus their status in the United States.
I defy anyone to present evidence equivocating the treatment of women in general in the United States versus their treatment in general in Muslim countries.
And Jodi is correct - for all intents and purposes, the tribal councils are the local law over there. And evidently, the local law feels that gang raping 100% innocent women is called for both under their legal system and the followings of their so-called “religious beliefs”.
I would love to see a link showing anything similar happening in the US…in the last 100 years…
Uuuugh…just uuuuugh…
How horrible…
This is one of those things that are universally WRONG, regardless of culture!
And, while I supported the invasion of Afghanistan, I didn’t support of the bombings. Just wanted to say that. And no, it’s not a contradiction (just in case someone was going to say that). The people in Afghanistan killed by the bomings were also innocent.
Small indeed. People seem to have overlooked this:
Let’s get a grip, here.
I’m not equating the social landscape in Pakistan with the social landscape of the United States. The correlation I made is very valid, because it is a correlation, not an equation.
My point was to point out the naiveté of saying, “Thank God I live in the United States,” where it is implied that we are perfectly safe from violence and atrocity.
I know nobody reading this thread thinks that I think that living in Pakistan is preferable than living in the United States, but this place can be pretty fucking brutal too.
The United States is not Utopia.
I know the US is not Utopia, but I interpreted her post as meaning “Thank the powers that be I was born into a country like the US where I can’t be gang raped as some half-assed punishment”. When I see horrific treatment of women in other parts of the world, I, too, am glad I live in the US. It’s not that those things don’t occur here or that we’re in a Utopia, it’s that we don’t live in a place where things like gang rape as punishment for someone elses “crime” and female circumcision are not acceptable and expected.
Zette
Point taken, and fair enough - that just wasn’t how it came off at first. I withdraw my indignation.
JACK –
But it’s not a valid corrolation. Government-sponsored and legitimated rape has no corrolation in U.S. society. Period.
Where is “my country is perfect” implied in “thank God I live here”?
I am perfectly serious when I say this: I don’t dream of winning the lottery, because I know I won the lottery the day I, as a female, was born in the United States in the modern era, where I as a woman have more rights and privileges – including the privilege to meet my own responsiblities as I see fit – than in any other time, in any other non-western country you could name. If you’re a girl, this is the time and this is the place to be one.
None of that has anything to do with thinking this country is perfect, even in (especially in) the area of gender equality. But it’s a hell of a lot better than a lot of places – including this particularly horrific corner of Pakistan. But who said anything about Utopia? This isn’t an either/or proposition. I don’t have to be living in a perfect paradise to acknowledge that this poor girl has been treated shamefully and hellaciously.
It’s a horrible thing - horrible things go on all over the world. Unfortunately in some places, rape and honour-killing (of “shamed” women) are still part of a tribal culture justice. However in most countries where they take place - including Pakistan - they are NOT legal, accepted by the mainstream people or government, and there are huge efforts locally and internationally to prevent them.
This despicable thing is on a par with female circumcision - an outrage against an innocent young woman, but sadly part of an ancient (and wrong) tradition that is still very deep rooted in the culture of isolated pockets of people.
I can’t think of a western equivalent other than something like witch-trials/witch-dunking - where a village would drown the “witch” in a pond, I imagine this was often quite a local thing and not necessarily sanctioned by state or even church, but by some village council or consensus.
I hope very much that the extensive international media attention on this case will serve to help the Pakistani government’s efforts to stamp out this sort of custom. However, having spoken extensively to Pakistani colleagues about the tribal situation on the northern border, it seems that many of these tribes and warlords really are out of jurisdiction, they are a law unto themselves, and not easily controllable by the Pakistani government.
Well, you got second prize. First Prize would have been Canada.
Hey, I supported the previous invasion of Afghanistan, and I despise commies. The USSR was seriously fucked up, but they were a lot less fucked up than Afghanistan before and after the 1980s. Of course, I have to ask how Afghanistan even got into this discussion.
Okie-dokie.
Jodi, I really don’t think you are reading my initial comments in the spirit in which they were intended. In retrospect, my follow up comments weren’t perfect, and in fact, perhaps this thread was not the ideal place to point out the naiveté in what I saw as an ironic statement. But my comments are valid, and my correlation is valid.
What happened in Pakistan was not Government sponsored. It was not legitimated by anyone but the offenders. The government is in fact investigating the matter. Similar – not identical, similar – things have happen in the United States. The first example that sprung to my mind was gangs. We can include other pseudo-authorities (who believe they are an authority, or that they should be an authority), such as the Ku Klux Klan, religious cults, and even family feuds if we’d like to stretch it.
My initial non-sequitor was simply a comment on violence in America. Nothing more, nothing less. And it is valid. It’s definitely not what I intended this thread to devolve into. I completely thought everyone would read it and either say, “I see his point,” or “what the fuck does that have to with anything?”, but this is now gotten ridiculous. I’ll try to make this clear once more –
I am not equating Pakistan with the United States.
But you go on thinking I’m a raving America hater if that’s what keeps you warm at night.
Pardon the hijack, but, why?
I can think of a few rights I have in the US that I wouldn’t have in Canada, and nothing I’d have there that I can’t have here.
If this should be moved to another thread, I’m ok with that.
Somebody mentioned (I think in #straightdope) just today that you get more paid maternity leave in Canada than in the US. However it was pointed out that both women AND men get 12 months maternity/paternity leave in Luxembourg. Obviously, being irc chat, it’s probably not the best cite!
Well, to continue the hijack, the courts here can’t silence reportage of criminal trials, as happened in that husband-and-wife torture/murder case about a decade ago.
To the OP: Mr. Jinnah’s country has gone sadly wrong if they continue to allow these barbaric tribal courts to mete out savage penalties for breaking their ignorant-ass codes.
Jack Batty, you are speaking out of your ass. Pakistan may have had a female prime minister, but the status of women in the rural provinces is little better than that of brood mares/pack animals. Even in the supposedly more sophisticated cities, women suffer injustice and harrassment on a daily basis that make America look like a feminist paradise.