JONATHAN TURLEY
Noor Basra, 16, and Noor Sheza, 15, and their mother were delighted to have rain in their area of Northern Pakistan recently. Two teenage sisters began to dance in the rain and a video was shown of them dancing in traditional dress with younger children. Local men saw the video and proceeded to kill the girls and their mother in an “honor killing.” Police have detained their step brother as part of the murder plot.
The police stated that the “two girls have been murdered after they were accused of tarnishing their family’s name by making a video of themselves dancing in the rain.” The video produced outrage among Muslim clerics and followers in the village as an affront to Islam.
It is yet another tragedy that shows the plight of women in many Islamic areas as well as the cultural divide between this country and some of our Muslim allies. What Gene Kelly and millions of Americans see as an act of release and joy, these locals viewed as a death-penalty offense.
Psychotics. Same disturbed mindset as Son of Sam or Jim Jones. But murdering innocents in “God’s” name isn’t just for Muslims anymore. Inhuman US drone strikes that kill children are just a different form of the same type of senseless murders, except it’s for an American “God”.
Their ”Allah” is a real piece of DRECK!!! I believe it’s time to arm the women of Pakistan with machine guns…. for a little self-defence!!! The men of Pakistan must have really tiny penises… to have to exert such control…
when are decent Muslims going to put a stop to this? When in the name of Allah are you going to kill these animals who do this?
Enough, enough already.
3 happy souls destroyed for expressing their delight in just being alive. There is no way the God who gives us life would not want us to celebrate being alive.
I want to cry.
Reply to Bron… I’m crying with you. Everyday I just sit and shake my head with down right horror at what is going on around me!
I’m w/ Bron. I have seen a lot of violence and the results of it. But, reading these continuing accounts is stomach turning.
Sad so very sad. Unfortunately we have many political leaders and “religious” leaders in this country who are also willing to sacrifice women’s lives for their political power. Men need to speak up in every country about the ways in which men and governments are suppressing and abusing women.
Karl Marx said something to the effect that “religion is the opiate of the people.”
Opiates can cause hallucinations.
Celebration of the Human Spirit……….. Not allowed in the Sh*t Religion, Islam…. and don’t you forget it! Damn-it!!!
test post…
This v.sad event is driven by a very toxic fundamentalism. It is horrible, and there is no way to express hyperbole at how backward, stupid, wrong, and wrong headed and tragic this event is. Among the sorrowful things about this is that this is just the one we have heard about. There are many more we don’t hear about, because this is not simply an event by some fringe this is the way this culture is organized. Fundamentally.
A few thoughts on the comments so far, and then I want to turn the attention closer to home and our own fundamentalists, and isms.
> I appreciate the sentiment to “arm the women with machine guns…”. It is addressing the problem at the same level as the problem, and thus is no solution at all.
Do recall that it is not so very long ago that America constitutionally did not allow its women to vote. And times before that in the Puritan era would not be so different from this one. They may not have been killed for dancing but flogged and likely outcast.
My point is that we have the seeds of the same virulent stream of religion based, fundamentalism in our DNA.
> @Disgusted… makes the point about celebration of the human spirit is not allowed in the Islamic religion. To the degree this is true, and I am not certain it is – Take a look at the poetry of Rumi or Hafez – it is as true of our own national religion of Christianity. It comes down to making distinctions. And this discussion that involves broad-brushing an entire sixth of the worlds population what claim Islam as their faith with this level of invective needs some distinction. Otherwise it is just bellicose, self righteous, behavior worthy only of our own demagogues.
> As to religion and opiates : I’d like to suggest that religions take many forms. How many people are killed and maimed, not to mention having their lives destroyed, in the service of our own, supposedly god-free, capitalistic religion? Especially its “global” strain. Many.
So while being properly horrified at this event, I think if we could somehow gain a commensurate sense of horror and outrage at what our economic “religion” does to people on a daily basis, and far worse in many cases, that would be a good thing.
(Shall we arm the people so abused with machine guns?)
Michael Beaton:
The poets you speak of wrote 800 years ago. The Rubyiat is also very life affirming. But so what? Islam has always been mystical even if there were a handful of thinkers who were not. They lost in the end in any event and what is left is what we are appalled by on an almost daily basis.
In the count of bodies based on economic systems, Marxism/Socialism is still in the lead by at least 150 million souls destroyed. In fact I imagine the favored economy of Islam is probably Marxism/socialism.
The survivors of that family should move to Egypt.
Note to Mr. Kelly: Avoid Pakistan. Even though you’re already dead.
Land locked Pirate Territories are worse than those that have some coastline. Pakistan is pure Pirate Territory with a semblance of government. Do not go there by land and if you must fly over please flush twice. We need this nation to adopt the BarkinDog Doctrine, which is to identify Pure Pirate Territories, Marginal Pirate Territories, Police States, Free Civilized Nations. The U.S. should not trade with, allow emigrants, or give or loan money to the first three categories.
Oh, and you never pay a ransom and you kill pirates the same day or hour in which you catch one. Insurance companies which pay ransoms for ships should be fined and put out of business. If a ship is taken and then taken into a port in Yemen, Somalia, et al a navy has the right to go take it immediately and kill anyone who interferes. If the pirates harm the hostages then eliminate the port with air strikes.
Bron,
Fair points, and we are not really disagreeing so much as pointing out different angles…maybe.
There is much appalling, as you say. However I continue to think that it is important to make distinctions. It is not all Muslims as individuals that do these daily appalling things. As many have pointed out in other situations most Muslims are not violent. And I know that from personal experience. It just isnt fair nor right to not be clear on this point.
As to the Marxist economies and the 150mil figure cited. Not sure what that has to do with anything…But to follow the point…It seems your statement conflates systems and historical points. Just to make some distinction between Marxism as an economic philosophy and the political systems that adopted very twisted forms of it for their purposes.. It was not the economic theory that created the rational for the killing, but the political powers et al.
But if you must go there, I’ll suggest that in your tally you add the ravages of capitalistic governments upon the world. While not so dramatic perhaps as your total, the number is still respectable and has the additional benefit of including the destabilization of entire nations. Be sure to count the British in your history. And add the USA actions in Iran 1952, Chile, Guatemala, and etc. The consequences of these events (killings) reverberate to today. Including such events as the Iraq War.
Just say’n. There are not many clean actors when you start doing body counts.
And then to go completely off topic, you could add the ravages that is Climate Change to the list… A condition completely created as a by product of the industrial age – a completely Capitalistic enterprise – and presently sustaining the well known conditions to perpetuate the problem while those same “capitalistic” institutions work tirelessly to prohibit any systemic change that might make a difference.
If you must put it in the crass/broad terms of Capitalism vs Marxism, I’ll think in the end Capitalism will win the battle of body counts.
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When I wrote the post above this morning, the posting system would not take all of my post. The balance is after this one. In that post I posit the point that that it is the Fundamentalist faction of nearly any system that gains power that, in the end, does the death dealing. Whether to nameable individuals as in this original article, or the nameless millions.
The text of this post was meant to follow the post above time stamped 1:57.
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I want to point that even on this blog today, a few posts up , there is a report about our own fundamentalists reveling in the death of the firefighters. ( I think in self righteous delight – I think it encourages them and at some level makes them happy when people die and they can ascribe it to the wrath of “their” god.) What really is different in these two stories but the details?
And if you think there are differences I propose a thought experiment…lets say we did not have separation of church and state, the men like Roberson et al had power not only to express their bile, but enforce it with deathly power… Do you think they would hesitate? or that it would be any different?
The differences between our fundamentalists and theirs in the Muslim world is simply a matter of context and opportunity. Not a moral difference.
This being a legal blog it is worth underlining the reason for the difference in our social norms is due to the underlying predicates in each nation. America is built on a substrate of humanism, and in that context has tolerance for a range of ideas and humanity as enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Muslim, and other fundamentalist regions, are founded on something altogether different.
Far to complex to fully elucidate in this post of course, still I think it is not too much to say that religion based societies are predicated upon a notion of “This is the Truth”. This is the essential form of all fundamentalism’s: they have the Truth, and therefore anything that is not in keeping with that Truth is a lie. And further, that lie has to be eradicated and anything that is not the truth has to be suppressed.
Like dancing in the Rain.
Looking at it like this I suggest it is not Muslims per se, but other forces and beliefs in play… And that while we express our outrage and horror, we should also be aware of our own fundamentalists – both in the pulpit and in the corner offices of Wall Street, and on the radio… And reserve some of our outrage for the tragedies and horrors they inflict, here, and abroad.
“There is a report about our own fundamentalists reveling in the death of the firefighters…”
They didn’t murder them and the Christian religion, as far as I understand it, doesn’t call for the death or conversion of “the infidel,” as Islam does.
Under Islam, a woman also is considered property and worth far less than a man.
And God kills Homos…? My question is… Who’s god, what god….
@Amy
“There is a report about our own fundamentalists reveling in the death of the firefighters…”
They didn’t murder them and the Christian religion, as far as I understand it, doesn’t call for the death or conversion of “the infidel,” as Islam does.
Under Islam, a woman also is considered property and worth far less than a man.
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Part of the “problem” when analyzing events like this, and especially when attempting to compare larger contexts like Christianity – Muslim is that there is a time shift.
In “modern” America/West we are so infused with a humanist ethos that derives from the Enlightenment era that it is hard to realize how much of our modern Christian ethos is affected by it.
I think we have to look back to a time when Christianity had the same position in society as Islam has today. In those times the points you raise about women, and decrees of death for not being of the faith was the norm.
My point, or at least proposition is that what we despise and recoil at in “them” is also with us in our own fundamentalists. The essential difference being we have a state that is a little further down the road in terms of humanist values, rather than being a society governed by religious institutions. And our fundamentalists don’t have the power to enforce their brand of righteousness. But I think they would if they could.