# Nazir Ahmed and other ignorant fucks of his ilk **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 29, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621 "2005-12-29T20:26:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/41 "2006-01-02T20:53:38Z")
What I am saying is that it doesn’t help to demonize a particular cultural practice. What does help is taking a look at the systems involved, and seeing if there is a way to change that. For example, there was a case recently where a woman who was raped was given the chance to marry her rapists, who would then not have to serve any time. Sounds barbaric, right? Just a slap in the face to the woman or something. Well, actually, in that culture what is “taken” in rape isn’t personal dignity as much as ones ability to marry in the future. Raping a woman condemns her to a shadow life as an unmarried woman and burdens her family with an unproductive (male child bearing- sons will eventually bring dowries that improve the whole families standard of living) mouth to feed. Because of the prevalence of blood feuds in the area, a rape can also lead to generations of killing between the families. Marrying the couple doesn’t make things better, but at least she has the option of living a somewhat normal life. After all, plenty of women are married to people they hate and can still find joy in their children and religion. And it allows one man’s act not to throw two families into chaos for decades. If we had stopped at the first paragraph and said “What a horrible country! What a horrible judge!” we would never figure out what the problem actually was. Now we can focus on giving unmarried women more options in life and trying to open up, doing something about blood feuds, and opening up the definition of “marriageable woman”. See? Now we’ve done something productive. Yes, Pakistan tacitly approves of honor killings. But I promise you nobody in Pakistan supports slaughtering all of your female offspring. This could be a chance for the public to begin to acknowledge that honor killing is a bad thing, and make more changes (notice that they’ve recently instituted mandatory minimum sentences) without appearing to cave to the west. Kind of how like Matthew Sheppard made it a bit more acceptable to support gay rights by tying a smaller less acceptable cause to a big universally accepted cause. Now, imagine if the gay rights people had started saying “This shows that everyone in America wants to brutally murder gays! America is a culture that supports killing gay people!” If we had been dumb enough to do that, it could have soured the public to the cause and ruined all that had been done. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/42 "2006-01-02T21:39:06Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Yes, Pakistan tacitly approves of honor killings. An exaggeration. It seems clear that a substantial number of Pakistanis disapprove, however lax enforcement of the law has been. > [@](#): > > But I promise you nobody in Pakistan supports slaughtering all of your female offspring. Ludicrous strawman. > [@](#): > > This could be a chance for the public to begin to acknowledge that honor killing is a bad thing, and make more changes (notice that they’ve recently instituted mandatory minimum sentences) without appearing to cave to the west. You missed this (again): _“The independent Human Rights Commission **of Pakistan** (bolded for your attention) said that in more than half of such cases that make it to court, most end with cash settlements paid by relatives to the victims’ families…”_. So human rights advocates **in Pakistan** are calling attention to the situation, not just the decadent West. > [@](#): > > What I am saying is that it doesn’t help to demonize a particular cultural practice.What does help is taking a look at the systems involved, and seeing if there is a way to change that. > > For example, there was a case recently where a woman who was raped was given the chance to marry her rapists, who would then not have to serve any time. A nifty solution. Except there are fewer options for murder victims. Go back in time to America’s old South and the lynching of Emmett Till. Substitute “states’ rights” for “cultural sensitivity” and you have the same tired arguments about proceeding incrementally, not offending the locals with outside pressures etc. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/43 "2006-01-02T21:54:53Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > What I am saying is that it doesn’t help to demonize a particular cultural practice. What does help is taking a look at the systems involved, and seeing if there is a way to change that. > > For example, there was a case recently where a woman who was raped was given the chance to marry her rapists, who would then not have to serve any time. Sounds barbaric, right? Just a slap in the face to the woman or something. > > Well, actually, in that culture what is “taken” in rape isn’t personal dignity as much as ones ability to marry in the future. Raping a woman condemns her to a shadow life as an unmarried woman and burdens her family with an unproductive (male child bearing- sons will eventually bring dowries that improve the whole families standard of living) mouth to feed. Because of the prevalence of blood feuds in the area, a rape can also lead to generations of killing between the families. Marrying the couple doesn’t make things better, but at least she has the option of living a somewhat normal life. After all, plenty of women are married to people they hate and can still find joy in their children and religion. And it allows one man’s act not to throw two families into chaos for decades. > > If we had stopped at the first paragraph and said “What a horrible country! What a horrible judge!” we would never figure out what the problem actually was. Now we can focus on giving unmarried women more options in life and trying to open up, doing something about blood feuds, and opening up the definition of “marriageable woman”. See? Now we’ve done something productive. > > Yes, Pakistan tacitly approves of honor killings. But I promise you nobody in Pakistan supports slaughtering all of your female offspring. This could be a chance for the public to begin to acknowledge that honor killing is a bad thing, and make more changes (notice that they’ve recently instituted mandatory minimum sentences) without appearing to cave to the west. Kind of how like Matthew Sheppard made it a bit more acceptable to support gay rights by tying a smaller less acceptable cause to a big universally accepted cause. Now, imagine if the gay rights people had started saying “This shows that everyone in America wants to brutally murder gays! America is a culture that supports killing gay people!” If we had been dumb enough to do that, it could have soured the public to the cause and ruined all that had been done. This is one of the most disturbing posts I’ve seen on here in a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/44 "2006-01-02T23:26:10Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Go back in time to America’s old South and the lynching of Emmett Till. Substitute “states’ rights” for “cultural sensitivity” and you have the same tired arguments about proceeding incrementally, not offending the locals with outside pressures etc. That’s because she’s proceeding from the assumption that we don’t have the right to judge this other culture, or at least that if we do judge them as wrong, we still have to respect them and not strongly condemn the practice and to fuck with Pakistan’s cultural sensitivities. It’s a version of what the OP got jumped on about by the usual suspects. Guess Xtisme is kinda vindicated now. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/45 "2006-01-03T00:03:11Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > That’s because she’s proceeding from the assumption that we don’t have the right to judge this other culture, or at least that if we do judge them as wrong, we still have to respect them and not strongly condemn the practice and to fuck with Pakistan’s cultural sensitivities. It’s a version of what the OP got jumped on about by the usual suspects. Guess Xtisme is kinda vindicated now. No, you completely have the right to judge them and strongly condemn them. The practice of honor killing is reprehensible and should be stopped. However, we aren’t going to stop honor killing from our easy chairs in America. Only the Pakistanis can make it happen. And as long as we base our critiques on simple demonetization, we are only going to hurt the cause. But if we look at the real reasons behind honor killings (which isn’t “Pakistanis like to kill their families”) we can offer some helpful advice and support them as they make changes. Lumping every crime that happens in Pakistan together is a good example of how not to help eliminate this practice. People have tried to ban suttee (widow burning) in India for the last 500 years. But they knew our vision of a screaming widow being thrown into a funeral pyre didn’t jive with their version on the widow dressed in her wedding finery calmly making a sacrifice of great piety and devotion and becoming a venerated person who’s shrines are celebrated centuries afterwards. It wasn’t until India got it’s own state and eliminated one of the major motivations for suttee by making shrines or veneration of suttees illegal that some real progress was made. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/46 "2006-01-03T01:33:53Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > No, you completely have the right to judge them and strongly condemn them. The practice of honor killing is reprehensible and should be stopped. However, we aren’t going to stop honor killing from our easy chairs in America. Only the Pakistanis can make it happen. And as long as we base our critiques on simple demonetization, we are only going to hurt the cause. But if we look at the real reasons behind honor killings (which isn’t “Pakistanis like to kill their families”) we can offer some helpful advice and support them as they make changes. Lumping every crime that happens in Pakistan together is a good example of how not to help eliminate this practice. > > People have tried to ban suttee (widow burning) in India for the last 500 years. But they knew our vision of a screaming widow being thrown into a funeral pyre didn’t jive with their version on the widow dressed in her wedding finery calmly making a sacrifice of great piety and devotion and becoming a venerated person who’s shrines are celebrated centuries afterwards. It wasn’t until India got it’s own state and eliminated one of the major motivations for suttee by making shrines or veneration of suttees illegal that some real progress was made. Yeah, and that’s exactly what’s happening in some parts of the Middle East. Turkey banned the practice of “honor” killings in its bid to be admitted to the EU. The governments of Pakistan and Iraq, likewise, are trying to eliminate it because they want legitimacy in the eyes of the West. Like many deeply-rooted tribal practices, I doubt “honor” killings will ever completely disappear. But there is sufficient economic and political pressure from the West that governments will likely begin to prosecute offenders. Robin ---
**Author:** ![Jojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jojo)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621/47 "2006-01-03T03:18:43Z")
> [@](#): > > But this guy is just a bad person. No need to generalize that to his entire country/culture. I think, though, that when you find that a country has actual laws which serve to legitimise honour killings (or rather - laws which decrease the sentence received) then it may be possible to infer a cultural aspect to the whole thing. Laws are often a reasonable indicator of the social mores and values of a country. Honour killings are a particular problem in Jordan where 25% of their homicides each year are honour killings. Article 98 of the Jordanian penal code says: > [@](#): > > He who commits a crime in a state of great anger resulting from a wrongful and dangerous act on the part of the victim shall be liable to a lesser penalty [in view of extenuating circumstances]. A “wrongful act” could be said to include sex outside marriage (or adultery) if you class “wrongful” as anything outside of the religious strictures (in this case, islam). Thus there have been cases of murderers getting away with [extremely light sentences](http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1321/context/jounalistofthemonth) in Jordan because they used this Article as a defence. [And it’s not just Jordan](http://www.soas.ac.uk/honourcrimes/Mat_ArabLaws.htm). Algeria has this: > [@](#): > > Murder, wounding and beating shall be subject to excuse if committed by one spouse against the other spouse or against his/her partner at the moment of surprising them [in flagrante delicto] in the act of adultery. _Article 279 Penal Code 1991_ Egypt: > [@](#): > > Article 237 Penal Code (no.58 1937) > > He who surprises his wife committing adultery [in flagrante delicto] and immediately kills her and the person committing adultery with her, shall be liable to a prison sentence instead of the penalties provided for in Articles 234, 236. _Article 237 Penal Code (no.58 1937)_ and also Article 17: > [@](#): > > In crimes requiring the sympathy of the court, the judge can reduce the penalty in the following way: in place of capital punishment, permanent or temporary hard labour Kuwait: > [@](#): > > He who surprises his wife in the act of adultery (in flagrante delicto) or surprises his daughter, mother or sister in the act of sexual intercourse with a man, and immediately kills her or the man who is committing adultery or having sex with her or kills both of them shall be punished by prison for a period not more than 3 years and a fine of not more than 3000 dinars\*) or by one of these two penalties. _Article 153 Penal Code_ Yemen: > [@](#): > > If a husband kills his wife and whoever is fornicating with her at the moment of their adultery (in flagrante delicto), or if he attacks them in a manner that leads to death or disability, no option of qisas\* arises; the husband shall be penalised by imprisonment for a period of not more than one year or by a fine. This ruling applies also to a person who surprises one of his ascendants, descendants or sisters in the act of illicit fornication (zina). _Article 232 of law no.12/1994_ Even France used to have such a law (repealed in 1975): > [@](#): > > He who catches his spouse, his female ascendant, female descendant or his sister in the act (en flagrant dÈlit) of adultery or illegitimate sexual relations with a third party and commits unpremeditated homicide or wounding against the person of one or the other of them may be exempted from liability.\* > > He who commits murder or wounding may be liable to a lesser penalty [in view of extenuating circumstances] if he has surprised his spouse, female ascendant or descendant or sister with a third person in a suspicious situation.\*\* > > - une excuse absolutoire quiconque > \*\* une attitude equivoque. The other arab countries have similar laws. The solution is simple really - it’s a cultural thing exacerbated (if not actually created) by religious belief. They need to change their culture. Changing one’s culture sounds like a big thing but it’s not really. Cultures change all the time, cultures are constantly changing. The culture of 1950s US or 1950s UK is remarkably different (whilst still similar) to the culture of today. Since I’m not religious, I would ultimately like to see all the arab countries (and all the western countries) lose their religious belief too but that’s not necessary to get rid of honour killing. Changes in culture would probably do it. They just need to get on with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazir-ahmed-and-other-ignorant-fucks-of-his-ilk/337621.md?page=2)