Barbaric: woman stoned to death in Pakistan

[Sirena]

A contested part of the tradition of the country. One that Pakistani feminists, socialists, secularists, modernisers, human rights advocates and others would vociferously reject (as presumably would the women beaten to death by the misogynist lynch mob).

Sometimes traditions do not change as quickly as we, Western cultural imperialists, would like. It's because they have their roots in thousands of years of history and they have trouble meeting change.

And I don't think it was a lynch mob. I think it was her family because it was a family dispute. Family disputes sometimes lead to murder, even in England.

 

[Sirena]

Yes, very much so, although it is more contested in some parts of the country than others. And as a Pakistani activist I heard talking yesterday pointed out, these traditions in many cases predate Islam - they have been incorporated into the particular Islam of Pakistan, or rather, Islam has been incorporated into them.

Yes, they are cultural, rather than religious.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Sometimes traditions do not change as quickly as we, Western cultural imperialists, would like. It's because they have their roots in thousands of years of history and they have trouble meeting change.

And I don't think it was a lynch mob. I think it was her family because it was a family dispute. Family disputes sometimes lead to murder, even in England.

So not wanting women to beaten to death anywhere is 'cultural imperialism' now. FFS.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, they are cultural, rather than religious.

It makes little sense to separate the two, tbh. The traditions may predate Islam, but they are now justified using the language of Islam. It's not 'Islam's fault', but then neither does it exist in separation from Islam. There is plenty of stuff in Islam's holy books that can be used to justify such things.

 

[MrSki]

It makes little sense to separate the two, tbh. The traditions may predate Islam, but they are now justified using the language of Islam. It's not 'Islam's fault', but then neither does it exist in separation from Islam. There is plenty of stuff in Islam's holy books that can be used to justify such things.

See post 170.

 

[Sirena]

So not wanting women to beaten to death anywhere is 'cultural imperialism' now. FFS.

No need to be patronising. A woman has been killed in a family dispute thousands of miles away and all of a sudden it is a political cause celebre among the chattering classes of London. I smell propaganda, that's all.

No, it's not all right for a person to be killed but neither you nor I know the background other than what is being peddled by the press. But I don't think it's all right either for you to talk about misogynistic lynch mobs.

 

[Sirena]

It makes little sense to separate the two, tbh. The traditions may predate Islam, but they are now justified using the language of Islam. It's not 'Islam's fault', but then neither does it exist in separation from Islam. There is plenty of stuff in Islam's holy books that can be used to justify such things.

It makes little sense to separate the two if it doesn't fit your position perhaps. Just because a person lives in a muslim country doesn't make everything bad that happens in that country the fault of Islam.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No need to be patronising. A woman has been killed in a family dispute thousands of miles away and all of a sudden it is a political cause celebre among the chattering classes of London. I smell propaganda, that's all.

No, it's not all right for a person to be killed but neither you nor I know the background other than what is being peddled by the press. But I don't think it's all right either for you to talk about misogynistic lynch mobs.

What else would you call a large group of people beating a woman to death for disobeying some order in the full knowledge that they will never be arrested for it?

As for telling people what they do and don't know, some people do know more than 'what is being peddled by the press'. Don't assume everyone else is as ignorant as you are.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It makes little sense to separate the two if it doesn't fit your position perhaps. .

No, it just makes little sense to separate the two. Religion is a part of culture. In Pakistan it is a very important part of it.

 

[Dowie]

Yes, they are cultural, rather than religious.

They're both.

Tbh... religion is a part of culture IMO - I don't believe in any particular deity and see religion as a man made. I don't think there is any need to automatically become an apologist for any particular religion any more than there is to criticise all members of a religion for the actions of a section of people who follow a particular conservative interpretation of it.

This case is linked to religious beliefs, I don't think trying to deny that is helpful - historically there might well be a culture of abusing women, killing them etc.. that predates current religious beliefs - I don't know if there is or not. However the current conservative religious beliefs being followed by the majority of people in Pakistan* are very much to blame for perpetuating the situation. Its those conservative beliefs that lead to women being treated as property, as second class citizens - its those religious beliefs that endorse punishments such as stoning for adultery leading to people believing that carrying on with honour killings has some justifiable logic to it. Its also those religious beliefs present in the court system that allow the family member of a victim to forgive the perpetrators... leading to the farcical situation whereby a family can conduct an honour killing and then family members forgive anyone prosecuted for it - essentially honour killings are also largely unpunished by the court system thanks to religious doctrine enshrined within it.

*ref the pew data for Pakistan posted earlier - majority support for death for apostasy, majority support for death for adultery.... frequent cases of lynch mobs stoning people after allegations of blasphemy - tis a very conservative version practiced over there.

 

[Sirena]

What else would you call a large group of people beating a woman to death for disobeying some order in the full knowledge that they will never be arrested for it?

As for telling people what they do and don't know, some people do know more than 'what is being peddled by the press'. Don't assume everyone else is as ignorant as you are.

I'm sorry, you're just being an idiot now....

 

[ViolentPanda]

Are all those honour killings just family arguments gone out of control?

Condemning the acts as barbaric and wondering about the social / cultural circumstances which seem to a large degree, to support and condone those acts is absolutely fair enough. TO equivocate and diminish these crimes through moral relativism is patronising weak liberal crap. It's more or less saying "It's just what they do over there."

Alright, that's probably not quite fair to anyone who's posted in this thread. But that's just where I come from on stuff like this.

Thing is, expecting people to conform to some supposedly-universal set of ethical and moral predicates is dumb in and of itself. That's not to diminish or excuse the horror of what happened, but it does illustrate that morality varies between cultures, and that customs/traditions often lay outside of morality or even good sense. Expecting a Pakistani villager to conform to western Judaeo-Christian-informed morality is a bit like expecting the Pope to rim you - it ain't gonna happen, unless you're G-d.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm sorry, you're just being an idiot now....

And you come across as rather confused. Are we falling victim to propaganda if we discuss honour killings in Pakistan? What about if we talk about FGM in Somalia? The death penalty in the USA?

What are we allowed to talk about? Perhaps you could provide a handy list.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

No need to be patronising. A woman has been killed in a family dispute thousands of miles away and all of a sudden it is a political cause celebre among the chattering classes of London. I smell propaganda, that's all.

No, it's not all right for a person to be killed but neither you nor I know the background other than what is being peddled by the press. But I don't think it's all right either for you to talk about misogynistic lynch mobs.

Seems like an entirely accurate description to me. It was a band of people (matters fuck all whether they're family or not) engaged in an extrajudicial killing, a killing that would only be engaged in by people who'd internalised the most extreme misogynist values. It's not merely a 'cause celebre among the chattering classes of London' but also a major concern for women's rights advocates in Pakistan - people you presumably don't care about because you think they exist outside of some dominant cultural frame.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

SIt's not merely a 'cause celebre among the chattering classes of London' but also a major concern for women's rights advocates in Pakistan .

Yep. Many of them fucking brave people given the context in which they are operating. For me the only question really is 'how best can they be supported?'

 

[ViolentPanda]

You know i get pretty pissed at the way this topic can become well we are just as bad. as if one wrong makes the other less horrific.

But i imagine your not an unintelligent person, your what i imagine is irritation with what you see as almost apologetic tone of others went contrasting this with our behaviour in the west.

But the phrase " barbarian knuckledraggers" just has to much baggage given our history of dehumanising non western people.
That language is like a call to arms to those who are sensitive to our past behaviour with non western peoples.

Being senstive to the baggage language has is not giving in to the people you might see as too senstive.

Really in the end its paying respect to the women who are suffering these appalling crime.

Lets not make their pain and death the battle ground of opposing views.

If none of this applies to you, my apology.

I doubt more than a handful of posters here view the people involed as innately different from us.

The problem seems to be people reacting both inarticulately and emotively.
Given Pakistan's literacy and schooling record, it's possible to speculate that this family was ignorant, insofar as "book-learning was involved, and that whatever scripture they knew was mediated to them by their local imam, who himself may be illiterate, and therefore "busking it" with regard to Koranic lore, and where the book ends, and local tradition starts.
It's not possible to speculate that people are "barbarian knuckledraggers" merely because the above might be the case, or because they did something that goes against our own sense of right. That's just cheap emoting.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Seems like an entirely accurate description to me. It was a band of people (matters fuck all whether they're family or not) engaged in an extrajudicial killing, a killing that would only be engaged in by people who'd internalised the most extreme misogynist values. It's not merely a 'cause celebre among the chattering classes of London' but also a major concern for women's rights advocates in Pakistan - people you presumably don't care about because you think they exist outside of some dominant cultural frame.

So perhaps we need to ask "why are they still internalising such misogynistic values, and what can be done to change that?". Part of the problem in Pakistan will always be the balance the Pakistani political and ruling classes walk between religion and tradition on one hand, and the (shaky) claim to democracy they make with the other. As my grandfather said of his time in what was then India, the landowners have kept the landworkers ignorant for a thousand years or more - it's not in their interests to have an educated population that can't be gulled into accepting their lot on the basis of "tradition".

 

[Lemon Eddy]

so you only give a fuck about this sort of killing if it's a spectator sport? yesterday i posted links to 2 stories about women killed by their partners in the uk; you've not even told me it was irrelevant to the thread. seems to me you get more het up about this sort of thing the further away it is.

I give a fuck about this sort of killing because the circumstances are particularly vile. I would actually be significantly "more het up" if it happened in the UK, because it would really offend me if the people I live amongst subscribed to the mind set required for this.

And to be blunt, no I don't find your links comparable. Evil murders? Yes they are. Evil murders committed by a number of the persons own relatives in a public place with tacit support from the local authorities? No.

That distinction has fuck all to do with geographic location. It's a wholly different set of circumstances.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So perhaps we need to ask "why are they still internalising such misogynistic values, and what can be done to change that?".

Yes. And as is normally the case, the answer lies partly in many indirect things. Teaching people to read, for example - something as simple as that - and not just to read the Koran, as can happen, but providing real education and access to the world of the written word. Pakistan has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world - over half the adult population is illiterate.

With the will to do it, such a situation can be changed very quickly. In Cuba in the 1960s, a largely illiterate rural population was taught to read by armies of volunteers from the cities. It can be done.

 

[Lemon Eddy]

It's not possible to speculate that people are "barbarian knuckledraggers" merely because the above might be the case, or because they did something that goes against our own sense of right. That's just cheap emoting.

I dislike the phrase barbarian knuckledraggers, as it's clearly a loaded phrase with all manner of nasty connotations.

But I see nothing wrong with judging the people who did this as evil scum, because they fucking are. Are you really trying to argue that we can't judge acts such as this based on "our own sense of right"?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes, they are cultural, rather than religious.

Unfortunately, they can be, in a system where religion is diffused through the rote teaching by recitation of scripture, assumed to be "religious" by both the imam and his flock, if neither are equipped to analyse the actual text. It wasn't so long ago we were opressing people because it was G-d's will ourselves. Mass education had a hand in laying that to rest.

 

[Lemon Eddy]

No need to be patronising. A woman has been killed in a family dispute thousands of miles away and all of a sudden it is a political cause celebre among the chattering classes of London.

If you're going to criticise other people for being patronising, you're better off not then referring to "the chattering classes" in your next sentence.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I dislike the phrase barbarian knuckledraggers, as it's clearly a loaded phrase with all manner of nasty connotations.

But I see nothing wrong with judging the people who did this as evil scum, because they fucking are. Are you really trying to argue that we can't judge acts such as this "our own sense of right"?

What is "evil"? Evil can't be quantified in any meaningful way. At best we can say something is evil when it offends against what we hold to be right/good/true. It's a value judgement, and making value judgements is fine, as long as you acknowledge that your judgement is pretty much meaningless outside of your own social context. Condemn by all means, but keep in mind that you're condemning from a different perspective, where we've been educated to our own particular set of rules - rules which aren't universal by any means.

 

[Pickman's model]

I give a fuck about this sort of killing because the circumstances are particularly vile. I would actually be significantly "more het up" if it happened in the UK, because it would really offend me if the people I live amongst subscribed to the mind set required for this.

And to be blunt, no I don't find your links comparable. Evil murders? Yes they are. Evil murders committed by a number of the persons own relatives in a public place with tacit support from the local authorities? No.

That distinction has fuck all to do with geographic location. It's a wholly different set of circumstances.

so as long as murder happens behind closed doors you're not too fussed about it, but if it takes place in public then that gets your dander up

 

[littlebabyjesus]

so as long as murder happens behind closed doors you're not too fussed about it, but if it takes place in public then that gets your dander up

Ah ok. You're trolling.

bravo, Pickman's, bravo

 

[Jeff Robinson]

So perhaps we need to ask "why are they still internalising such misogynistic values, and what can be done to change that?". Part of the problem in Pakistan will always be the balance the Pakistani political and ruling classes walk between religion and tradition on one hand, and the (shaky) claim to democracy they make with the other. As my grandfather said of his time in what was then India, the landowners have kept the landworkers ignorant for a thousand years or more - it's not in their interests to have an educated population that can't be gulled into accepting their lot on the basis of "tradition".

I entirely agree we should be asking those questions. I think in addition to the points you've raised the role of 'western' imperialism cannot be overlooked. I read an interesting article about five years ago that suggested that the 'honor killings' tradition was in fact buttressed by British imperial rule, which introduced 'crimes of passion' defences to murder into Pakistani law. The country's first penal code after independence incorporated these laws. Then even worse 'honour' defences were introduced under the dictatorship of ul-Haq - a former British army officer who was supported to the hilt by the US and its allies. In the same period we were also supporting radical islamists in Afghanistan that ultimately lead to the Taliban who have now infested Pakistan due to the last Afghan war.

This is part of the reason why its wrong to talk about 'their culture' and 'our culture' as if they are entirely separate phenomena. 'We' helped create the conditions for these sort of outragerous practices and we backed the forces that killed and suppressed those that fought against them. This is what makes charges of 'cultural imperialism' so wide of the mark.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ah ok. You're trolling.

bravo, Pickman's, bravo

haven't you questions to answer? or is that what the 'little people' do, everyone else should answer your questions but you won't repay the compliment?

you seem rather keen to fight other people's battles today.

 

[ViolentPanda]

They're both.

Tbh... religion is a part of culture IMO - I don't believe in any particular deity and see religion as a man made. I don't think there is any need to automatically become an apologist for any particular religion any more than there is to criticise all members of a religion for the actions of a section of people who follow a particular conservative interpretation of it.

This case is linked to religious beliefs, I don't think trying to deny that is helpful - historically there might well be a culture of abusing women, killing them etc.. that predates current religious beliefs - I don't know if there is or not. However the current conservative religious beliefs being followed by the majority of people in Pakistan* are very much to blame for perpetuating the situation. Its those conservative beliefs that lead to women being treated as property, as second class citizens - its those religious beliefs that endorse punishments such as stoning for adultery leading to people believing that carrying on with honour killings has some justifiable logic to it. Its also those religious beliefs present in the court system that allow the family member of a victim to forgive the perpetrators... leading to the farcical situation whereby a family can conduct an honour killing and then family members forgive anyone prosecuted for it - essentially honour killings are also largely unpunished by the court system thanks to religious doctrine enshrined within it.

*ref the pew data for Pakistan posted earlier - majority support for death for apostasy, majority support for death for adultery.... frequent cases of lynch mobs stoning people after allegations of blasphemy - tis a very conservative version practiced over there.

Pakistan, besides their fairly straightlaced Sunni mode of worship, also labour under several other religion-connected problems: The incursion of the Taliban and their Salafi/Wahhabi beliefs, which they are wont to impress upon people on pain of death; the never-ending influx of Saudi money into Madrassahs that teach the Wahhabi way; the social decay that means that in the sticks, schooling is often only available from the madrassahs, not from the state (unless you can pay the piper).
Add to that the social fractures inherent to a tribally-based society, and a legal system that constantly shifts sympathies between law and religion, and we have a big stewpot of conflicts which make any resolution seem unlikely this side of The Trump.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ah ok. You're trolling.

bravo, Pickman's, bravo

you'd be very happy if this thread had stayed a morass of people slapping themselves on the back and saying how this sort of thing doesn't happen in auld blighty, how us advanced europeans no longer did what these benighted evil people do.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I entirely agree we should be asking those questions. I think in addition to the points you've raised the role of 'western' imperialism cannot be overlooked. I read an interesting article about five years ago that suggested that the 'honor killings' tradition was in fact buttressed by British imperial rule, which introduced 'crimes of passion' defences to murder into Pakistani law. The country's first penal code after independence incorporated these laws. Then even worse 'honour' defences were introduced under the dictatorship of ul-Haq - a former British army officer...

Point of order - The British Indian army. .

And yes, colonialism not only buttressed tradition through law, it asymmetrically applied that law in terms of class, and interfered with the Koranic principle of divorce, attempting to make a personal/familial matter, a broader civil/legal matter instead, widening any possible "circle of shame" caused by the act.

who was supported to the hilt by the US and its allies. In the same period we were also supporting radical islamists in Afghanistan that ultimately lead to the Taliban who have now infested Pakistan due to the last Afghan war.

This is part of the reason why its wrong to talk about 'their culture' and 'our culture' as if they are entirely separate phenomena. 'We' helped create the conditions for these sort of outragerous practices and we backed the forces that killed and suppressed those that fought against them. This is what makes charges of 'cultural imperialism' so wide of the mark.

I don't argue from a "cultural imperialism" perspective myself, just from a psychological perspective - if you're reared to a set of rules, then those rules are, in the absence of contrary arguments, what you live by. Judging people solely on the basis that our rules are different to theirs is daft, and too many people on this thread have done exactly that.