Back atcha. Why DON’T we just legalize honor killings, TVAA?
You’ll find it’s easier to ask hard questions than to answer them; unless you’ve got an answer prepared, I’m not sure it’s fair for you to sit back and ask other people.
Daniel
But that’s precisely my point. The vast majority of people do not have a genuine code of ethics: a set of standards by which actions can be judged. Instead, they use a list of things that are considered ethical or unethical.
I read the article, and it’s just a wee bit short on demographics. I can cite articles in which fired American employees shot up their workplaces here in the US; does that mean there’s wide support for killing your boss amongst Protestants?
Your personal anecdote is horrifying, sure, as is my anecdote about a woman I know who’s hiding from her fundamentalist Christian husband out of fear that he’ll kill her. Makes you wonder how much violence against women goes on behind closed doors in the United States, doesn’t it?
There may significantly more violence against women in Muslim countries. This article doesn’t offer such evidence.
Daniel
Cite? Or are you just describing your personal experience here? What do YOU use?
Daniel
Still, the answer to the OP remains the same – “honor killing” is not a protected freedom-of-religion issue AS THE LEGAL SYSTEM STANDS while circumcision of male infants is considered no big deal AS THE LEGAL SYSTEM STANDS.
Does that leave us unprotected from a change in the societal consensus that would lead to the legalization of some Bad Thing<tm>? Yes. Is there an objective/subjective, absolute/relative, individual/collective, universal/particular set of ethics and rights that would lead us to identify the Bad Things<tm> in the absence of either a legal (civil or religious) system or a societal consensus (whether based on tradition, reason or emotional outrage)? Different question.
The whole point of asking questions is to learn the answers.
If we need to have answers prepared before we ask the questions, how can we ever learn anything new?
I’m disappointed in you, DanielWithrow. You should know better than this.
Evil Captor: I’m not sure how you got from this…
To this…
First of all that spousal killings is a Muslim tradition ( i.e. religious ) per se is a tough argument to make. A very legalistic faith, Islam tends to frown heavily on most extrajudicial acts, period.
That spousal abuse is far too common in many, probably most Muslim countries ( as it is in Third World generally, see “dowry killings” in India for example, mostly in certain Hindu subpopulations ), appears certain. However I have never seen figures citing “honor killings” as being exceptionally widespread throughout the entire Muslim world. Pakistan may be the worst case ( many, though a minority, of the victims of honor killings in that country involving men, probably mostly the result of a “bloodfeud” mentality ), but Jordan is pretty bad:
Meanwhile, police reports indicate that between 25 and 30 women are killed annually (one-third of the murders in Jordan ) in the name of family honor, making it the most common type of murder of women in the country.
From here: http://iwraw.igc.org/publications/countries/jordan.htm#_ednref44
That in a country of ~5.5 million. In 1998 there were 1,320 women murdered by intimate partners in the United States ( cite: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ipv.pdf ), out of a population of 270 million. So the rate for Jordan is worse, but not drastically so ( if Jordan was the size of the U.S. the killings would add up to ~1,470/year ). Pretty damn bad, but worth putting in perspective. ( By the way, I’ll note that overall Jordan’s murder rate is much lower than that of the U.S. ).
Contrast that with Morocco:
“Honor crimes,” a euphemism that refers to violent assaults with intent to commit murder against a female for her perceived immodest or defiant behavior remained extremely rare. However, two cases of killings did occur in March. In Skhirat the father of 17-year old Hanna Bousalhi slit her throat and stabbed her for allegedly having a relationship with a male classmate. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In Sale the husband of Fatna Kriaa was convicted of killing her for allegedly having an affair with his cousin.
Egypt:
“Honor killings” (a man murdering a female for her perceived lack of chastity) were not common.
Or for that matter Tunisia, whose laws were to some extent the opposite of Jordan’s lenient take on spousal abuse:
Nonetheless, there are stiff penalties for spousal abuse. Both the fine and imprisonment for battery or violence committed by a spouse or family member are double those for the same crimes committed by an individual not related to the victim.
The preceeding quotes taken from the 2002 U.S. State Dept Report on Human Rights.
So to go from “strong Muslim tradition of support for killings in some countries” ( even if we could agree that it is a Muslim tradition ) to the notion that honor killings are widely supported by Muslims generally seems a stretch.
Furthermore, short of honor killings there are honor beatings. I personally knew a woman whose sister married a Muslim man and had to go on the lam after she separated from him and learned that her cousins would be looking for her to beat her up fro doing so. I tend to wonder how much violence against women goes on behind closed doors in Muslim countries.
Quite a bit, I suspect. But it is not a problem at all unique to Muslim countries. Even our own is not immune as the above linked DOJ report reveals ( thankfully it appears to be declining in the U.S. ).
Sure but overreaching can result in the same ;).
- Tamerlane
Yes, and I’m asking YOU for YOUR answers to these questions. Your disappointment is as bizarre as it is irrelevant. And you’ve still not answered my questions about whether you think cultural aspects ever actually determine an act’s moral status.
Off to read Tamerlane’s presumably more substantial post.
Daniel
There is as yet no answer to these questions. To resolve the debate, we must reduce the issue to its most basic components, and there is no way to do that but to determine which of our assumptions we do not consider questionable.
So which do YOU not consider questionable?
Daniel
Internal beliefs do not justify external actions that impact others without their consent…
Then add all the necessary caveats.
Maybe, TVAA, a new OP would address this better?
TVAA, not sure where you’re going. I hesitate to raise again the topic of circumcision, but I must note that it’s A) perfectly legal, and B) practiced by whoever wants to regardless of culture or religion(although it is a cultural and religious item for Jews and Moslems). Definitely material for another OP.
As for Honour killings, they are a global problem and not specific to Islam, though it doesn’t surprise me to see the standard attacks based on ignorance. Tamerlane is far too gracious.
Attitudes of machismo/strong patriarchy may have something to do with it – it would certainly explain the problem in Brazil.
In Employment Division v Smith Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, clearly articulated the controlling rule of law.
A law religiously neutral on its face and applied generally is constitutional although it burdens a religious practice.
State laws prohibiting murder are of this type and thus, there is no violation of the Muslim’s Free Exercise of Religion.
You can’t compare Muslim honour killings to some freak shootings made by some moron in a Christian country. The fact is, domestic violence is a big problem and I think it is a problem more so in Muslim countries, just because their countries with the exception of lets say Turkey and Malaysia, and to a lesser extent Morrocco and Egypt, the economies and wealth are in a downturn more so than in Western society can affect the state and mood of the populace. When people are frustrated and cannot express their anger in any given form, its usually gonna be the nearest person they explode onto, in this case lashing out at their wives.
And what modern day Christians do is in some cases is, far, far less in its extremes than what Muslims do, I’m not saying is Christians have not been as bad as what some Muslims do but we have made strides in combating domestic abuse. If we haven’t I want evidence to support it.
sorry for the phrasing, it sucks.
Tamerlane
On target as usual. However, the numbers cited appear to me to be “official” figures. Would you care to wager that the actual numbers are higher?
**
I wasn’t clear there – I should have made it clear that I was referrring to Muslim CULTURE and not Muslim religion specifically. Like any big religion, islam is full of blapcrap that can be taken either way or any way by those who wish to believe it, and I’m sure that some Muslims point to support for honor kilings in the Koran and others point to condemnation of them in the Koran, so that it is indeed a cultural issue. It’s just that an awful lot of Muslim nations have this little cultural tidbit of honor killings going on.
I consider all countries in which Islam is the dominant relgion to have a Muslim culture – practices which are widespread among countries that have Muslim culture and not present in non-Muslim countries.
Now, when you say honor killings also occur in non-Muslim countries, you’re right, they do, but I’m betting the vast majority of those killings are of the “found my wife in bed with another man” variety. I’m not sure it’s a pure “honor” killing since there are volumes of sexual jealousy and betrayal present in this case that are not present in other cases. The honor of the killer is of course assaulted in this case, too, but it’s mixed in with a lot of other things, eh?
What seems to be unique to some Muslim countries is the case where male relatives kill daughters or sisters or nieces or cousins or what have you for behaving in a manner that is perceived to bring shame on the family, such as by not marrying the right guy. Obviously, this is not so much driven by sexual jealousy and/or betrayal. It’s more purely a matter of staining the families honor, by my standards a pretty abstract reason for killing.
It’s more akin to the Hindu practice of burning a widow to death when her husband dies, which also lacks a strong element of sexual jealous or betrayal and devolves more on personal and family honor, though I don’t think sexual shame is a part of it. If anything the Hindu practice is more abstract than the Muslim one.
That spousal abuse is far too common in many, probably most Muslim countries ( as it is in Third World generally, see “dowry killings” in India for example, mostly in certain Hindu subpopulations ), appears certain.
Is it your intention to argue that Muslim countries generally have about the same amount of honor killings and general abuse against women as other countries, but that they are widely perceived as having more due to … misinformation? Something along those lines?
However I have never seen figures citing “honor killings” as being exceptionally widespread throughout the entire Muslim world. Pakistan may be the worst case ( many, though a minority, of the victims of honor killings in that country involving men, probably mostly the result of a “bloodfeud” mentality ), but Jordan is pretty bad:
Lemme help you out. First of all, a lot of honor killing in Palestine:
http://www.contrelislam.org/islam/femmes/honorkilling.htm
though as noted the figures are incomplete because honor killings are considered “a private matter” and hence are not publicized. The notion that murder of any kind is a private matter is, of course, an interesting one.
In fact, your post seems to have overlooked an important fact about honor killings in the Muslim world, which is that since they are widely regarded as a private matter, accurate statistics on them are VERY hard to come by. In fact, the sources I found say that crime statistics of any kind are hard to come by in Muslim countries. Here’s an example:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/chastity.htm
here’s a really relevant quote from that page:
Seems to directly contradict the notion that honor killings are rare and not at all tolerated in Muslim society. Note, too, that the Jordanian exception applies to “a female relative” not just a “wife.”
But it is not a problem at all unique to Muslim countries. Even our own is not immune as the above linked DOJ report reveals ( thankfully it appears to be declining in the U.S. ).
As noted, “honor killings” here are different in nature. We are not talking apples and oranges.
Sure but overreaching can result in the same ;).
I do not think I over-reached nearly as much as you seem to think I did. If at all. There are some people who speculate that the number for Jordan is ridiculously low, that the real annual numbers of honor killings run into the hundreds if not the thousands. In that case, Jordan rises far above the U.S. murder rate. Once source cites 400 honor killings in yemen in one year. that’s … remarkable. And not in a good way.
I can’t claim such numbers as absolute fact, but the widespread notation that the real numbers of honor killings is cloaked by the notion that they are a “private family affair” is a clear indication that there may well be a lot of murder going on that we can’t see at present.
In short, after doing a little research I feel very comfortable with my initial post.
tamerlane,
How is the rationale for the killings framed? I mean if I was to ask a fella who wanted to kill his daughter/cousin/sister in this context, “Why?” what would he say?
thanks,
SimonX
It’s pretty likely, I’m sure. Doesn’t really negate my point, though.
At triple the actual “honor killing” rate that is reported for Jordan, the level of intimate-related female homicides would be ( may well be ) pretty horrendous, maybe 3-4 times the U.S. ( overall homicide rate would still be far lower than the U.S., however, as I doubt there is nearly as much motivation to cover up male homicides ).
But by the same token, say we go all out and inflate the “honor killing” rate by 100x for Morocco ( i.e. from 2 to 200 ), we would still have a rate not that much higher than that of the United States. But nobody is saying the murder of spouses ( daughters, nieces, what-have-you ) is widely supported by Americans. Let alone extrapolating to say that high murder rates of female relatives in the United States, means English-speaking people in general widely support such actions.
The issue isn’t whether there are problems in Jordan, Pakistan, indeed the Third World generally, with spousal/familial murders of women. There most certainly are. Nor is the issue even that some of those countries legally soft-pedal on that issue. Jordan for one certainly does.
The issue is whether it is a) widely condoned by Islam as a matter of faith and whether it is b) unique to and widely endorsed throughout the entire the Muslim world as something right and proper. From where I’m sitting that that does not appear to be the case.
- Tamerlane
“They dishonored the me/the family”.
That probably sums it up 80-90% of the time. Machismo, puritannical ntions about sex, issues of patriarchal ( in the broad sense ) control, even economic issues ( not necessarily just dowries, but also clan/tribal/familial alliances being put into jeopardy by “stubborn” brides ). All can feed into such things. And some of those, of course, can be half-assed justified by referring to religious mores - i.e. Islam enjoins modesty and a women having sex with her boyfriend can be defined as immodest or Islam enjoins obediance to ones parents and refusing to marry a chosen spouse consitutes disobediance.
- Tamerlane