Something is broken.
I heard a very upsetting story on NPR as I was driving home last night. Please take a moment to listen to it if you have the chance. The report investigates the practice of "Honor Killings" in Iraq- a brutal tradition of killing women that have been sexually active outside of marriage regardless of circumstances. It made me so angry.
Such blatant injustice makes me wonder what I tacitly swallow under the shadow of my cultural expectations. And I am grieved by the knowledge that this is just one example among so many around the world.
Such blatant injustice makes me wonder what I tacitly swallow under the shadow of my cultural expectations. And I am grieved by the knowledge that this is just one example among so many around the world.
posted by Erin 12:08 AM
2 Comments:
I remember reading a rather graphic account of one Palestinian family where the daughter was raped and became impregnated by her brother. The Mother went out to the store, bought some razorblades and proceeded to give them to her daughter instructing her to slit her wrists. The daughter refused, the Mother ended up murdering the daughter and then was acquitted of the charges against her. I just couldn't imagine anything remotely to this as being reality and I work with murderer's and pedophiles!
Too often we meddle in the affairs of other cultures causing problems (just look at how things are in North America with the Aborigibal peoples), but there must be a line somewhere. Even here in Canada there are doctors who carry out secret female circumcisions which I think is appauling. The area between meddling and intervention is very fine. The Middle East is a perfect example of different cultural ideals tempered with greed resulting in blood and chaos.
Minister- That line is so hard to determine. It requires making value judgments, and that is difficult to defend on a truly level, global plane. I agree that it is ground we must tread, but- oh- we should tread lightly!
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