Barbaric: woman stoned to death in Pakistan

[IC3D]

83% of those surveyed support stoning for adultery according to this survey by a US think tank
http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/08/13/chapter-2-religion-law-and-society/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...nually-why-is-this-still-happening/?tid=hp_mm

 

[Lemon Eddy]

83% of those surveyed support stoning for adultery according to this survey by a US think tank
http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/08/13/chapter-2-religion-law-and-society/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...nually-why-is-this-still-happening/?tid=hp_mm

That makes for some fucking grim reading:

Pakistanis overwhelmingly favor stoning people who commit adultery (83%), and comparable percentages favor punishments like whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery (80%), and the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion (78%). Support for strict punishments is equally widespread among men and women, old and young, and the educated and uneducated.

If we accept that western society is massively corrupt, controlled by elements with incredibly dark agendas, has historically committed some absolutely terrible atrocities on other people, yadda, yadda, yadda...are we then allowed to say that it's still barbaric to favour stoning adulterers, killing people for renouncing islam, and killing your children over a matter of honour?

Or do we just have to give everything a blank cheque now, because we've done terrible things in the past, and our leaders are fucking dreadful people?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Killing your own pregnant daughter and feeling proud about it?

I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. Barbaric is exactly the right word. The degree to which humans can willingly twist their morality makes me despair.

If a perspective whereby your daughter is a chattel, beholden to obey you, is the only perspective that you've ever known, then "morality" (i.e. the normative morality of the people of your community) will conform around that perspective, and "pride" might be expected. That doesn't make such people "bad", "barbaric" or "evil", it makes them different to us.

The fact that their morality differs from ours isn't really the issue. The issue is that to us, with our normative morality, what their morality permits can be brutal, and it's the brutality that shocks and horrifies us.

 

[Dr Jon]

barbarian knuckledraggers

 

[Lemon Eddy]

If a perspective whereby your daughter is a chattel, beholden to obey you, is the only perspective that you've ever known, then "morality" (i.e. the normative morality of the people of your community) will conform around that perspective, and "pride" might be expected. That doesn't make such people "bad", "barbaric" or "evil", it makes them different to us.

With all due respect to varying cultural norms, if your perspective allows people to be your property that you can kill if they disrepect you, fuck you. You are a bad person.

 

[phildwyer]

If we accept that western society is massively corrupt, controlled by elements with incredibly dark agendas, has historically committed some absolutely terrible atrocities on other people, yadda, yadda, yadda...are we then allowed to say that it's still barbaric to favour stoning adulterers, killing people for renouncing islam, and killing your children over a matter of honour?

It might be advisable to put our own house in order first.

 

[Lemon Eddy]

It might be advisable to put our own house in order first.

Done deal. I hereby promise not to stone my daughter if she looks at men. Are we good now?

 

[phildwyer]

Done deal. I hereby promise not to stone my daughter if she looks at men. Are we good now?

You have to abolish neo-imperialism too.

 

[ViolentPanda]

With all due respect to varying cultural norms, if your perspective allows people to be your property that you can kill if they disrepect you, fuck you. You are a bad person.

My point is that to those around you, to your social and familial milieu, you're not, however much of a cunt we might think they are.

 

[likesfish]

Maybe its time to clone General Napier
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Some fuckers obviously werent repressed enough by the empire release the drones

 

[Pickman's model]

So, because the events in Lahore aren't uniquely despicable, you're some sort of hypocrite to be upset or outraged by them? That appears to be the tenor of the discussion here.

i'm making a simple point, which has nothing to do with the vicious killing in lahore. my point is, in response to farmerbarleymow's 'these people are backward and we don't do that sort of thing in europe any more, we've grown out of it', that we haven't (and tbh i think it's racist to claim that they're backward and we're advanced and anything which happens in wartime to the contrary doesn't count). as evidence i've brought forward the holocaust and the campaign of rape in the balkans among other things. if you think i've said you're a hypocrite to be upset or outraged by the killing in lahore then i would be grateful if you could show me where.

 

[Pickman's model]

Nah, that's just pickmans.

it would be me if i had said that.

 

[Pickman's model]

You know, in spite of your seemingly desperate attempt to out a tewibble wacist, it may just be possible for people to think both things are barbaric.

not only is it possible, it's even desirable. but farmerbarleymow doesn't seem to think that mass rape in the balkans in time of war barbaric.

 

[Pickman's model]

What is this 'we' nonsense? People are killed here in the UK, but society as a whole in no way condones that killing. In fact, society as a whole roundly condemns it.

yes. but what does society as a whole do to prevent it, to reduce its incidence?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

not only is it possible, it's even desirable. but farmerbarleymow doesn't seem to think that mass rape in the balkans in time of war barbaric.

Yes. I'm sure that's exactly what he thinks

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes. I'm sure that's exactly what he thinks

Oh fuck off. I was specifically talking about stoning people to death, and compared it to what horrible things we used to do way back like burning at the stake etc. We don't do that any more thank god. I wasn't referring to acts of war that you have brought up, so you can fuck off with your allegations of my views being racist you idiot.

edited as i think i might have misrepresented farmerbarleymow in my previous answer here and perhaps in previous posts. my point being that europeans still do barbarous things to (eg belgian congo, the balkans etc etc ad nausea) but his claim being that europeans have grown out of nasty things and acts of war don't count - this i think still stands. however, let's hope that yer man is in fact as shocked and horrified by that sort of thing in europe or at the hands of europeans as he is by the brutal death of one woman in pakistan.

 

[Miss Caphat]

When life is cheap, difficult, and a fight for basic survival, this kind of thing tends to happen.
It's always a shock to people like us who have it far better than that/ expect better than that of ourselves and each other because we (can afford to?) have such a high regard for human life and individuality.
But that's pretty much the long and short of it.


eta: you have to be pretty accustomed to violence and horribleness in order to watch your family stone another family member to death, much less participate in it

 

[TomUS]

That doesn't make such people "bad", "barbaric" or "evil", it makes them different to us.

No, it makes them "bad", "barbaric" or "evil." To view them as just different condones this activity. Are the members of Boko Haram just different from us?

 

[Pickman's model]

No, it makes them "bad", "barbaric" or "evil." To view them as just different condones this activity. Are the members of Boko Haram just different from us?

what about the sort of people who can bomb a bomb shelter? or who can drop a missile on a restaurant on the offchance saddam hussein's having dinner there? what are we to make of them?

 

[TomUS]

what about the sort of people who can bomb a bomb shelter? or who can drop a missile on a restaurant on the offchance saddam hussein's having dinner there? what are we to make of them?

Those who launched the Iraq invasion were/are "bad", "barbaric" or "evil."

 

[purenarcotic]

I think all Pickman's is asking is that we recognise the equally barbaric things that happen every day in this country as well as elsewhere. Scratch the surface (well, in many cases you don't even need to do that) and we're not really that much better.

We don't stone women to death (thank goodness) but we have appallingly low rates of rape conviction. That's nothing to be proud of, it doesn't really make us 'better' than them.

 

[Pickman's model]

Those who launched the Iraq invasion were/are "bad", "barbaric" or "evil."

the bomb shelter comes from gulf war i

 

[Miss Caphat]

I think all Pickman's is asking is that we recognise the equally barbaric things that happen every day in this country as well as elsewhere. Scratch the surface (well, in many cases you don't even need to do that) and we're not really that much better.

We don't stone women to death (thank goodness) but we have appallingly low rates of rape conviction. That's nothing to be proud of, it doesn't really make us 'better' than them.

no, it doesn't. but that doesn't mean there's a need to be condescending about it either.

 

[purenarcotic]

no, it doesn't. but that doesn't mean there's a need to be condescending about it either.

I didn't think I was being particularly condescending tbh. If you think Pickman's was, perhaps you should take that up with him.

 

[Pickman's model]

I didn't think I was being particularly condescending tbh. If you think Pickman's was, perhaps you should take that up with him.

nothing yet. *taps watch*

 

[Miss Caphat]

I didn't think I was being particularly condescending tbh. If you think Pickman's was, perhaps you should take that up with him.

I never meant to imply that you were. And no, thanks

 

[Miss Caphat]

maybe we could just have a discussion about this without it becoming a pissing contest? just a thought. I think this is a discussion that should go beyond people's ego issues.

 

[Pickman's model]

.

 

[weltweit]

maybe we could just have a discussion about this without it becoming a pissing contest? just a thought. I think this is a discussion that should go beyond people's ego issues.

I think I said earlier that I find the killing appalling.

This "honour" idea in families seems perverse. My upbringing was that we loved members of our families, and would forgive them pretty much no matter what they did because we loved them. The idea of killing a member of my own family because they failed to conform to some ideal is just totally alien to me.

 

[Dr Jon]

The idea of killing a member of my own family because they failed to conform to some deal is just totally alien to me.

Corrected for you.

The arranged marriage will likely have been part of some family deal.
A Hindu mate in India was disowned by his family because he married the girl he loved, rather than submit to the semi-commercial marriage deal being set up by his folks. Not only that, but his new wife was a Christian too!

Fortunately her folks were OK about it and supported them.
When their daughter was born, his folks relented and welcomed them back into the family.
This sort of thing is much more common in Asia than we realise and is taken very seriously by the older generation.

Not that it in any way excuses bride burnings, dowry killings, or any of the other barbaric shit that goes on under the banner of religion and "honour".