Response to Anil Bhai regarding the oppression of women - FP article by Azra Rashid

Anil #230 {"I for one would like to hear your, Zeemax and HP Sahibs views on such brutal killing. I do not want to dignify it with honor. There can never be an honor in killing. It is improper to dismiss it as tribal, when something like this has been reported in Jordan, Egypt, and yes even in Turkey, until Turkey started to reform its laws to join EU."}

Anil Bhai,
It is always a pleasure to discuss serious topics with you. You have this highly appreciated gift for making people think without offending them. Unlike BJ Coomar, CreateAlpha, and others, you are sincerely affected by acts of horrible cruelty and don't use them as a pretext to score points against neighbors and adversaries. I am grateful for this opportunity to interact with you and I truly support your indignation at the words "honor killing."

First of all there is no legal basis or religious, let alone moral, justification for this brutal, cruel, indefensible, and illegal act of murder. Whether we are talking about the reprehensible Mukhtaran Mai type of panchayat justice, ridiculous Tally Ban enforcement of "piety," or the accursed Hudood Ordinances of Zia, the fact remains that these are aberrations of a culture that has tried to pervert an entire religion. They have as much to do with Islam as the Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, and the excesses of the Thirty Year War have to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

To the list of abuses against women, let's add the cruel, stupid, and horrible act of female genital mutilation. This practice, sometimes attributed to Islamic ritual, is unheard of in the larger Islamic world stretching from Bosnia, Albania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, the cental Asian "Stans," Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, to Malaysia and Indonesia. Therefore, it would be safe to state that most of these awful practices are not related to religion, but rather to the specific male-dominated and perverted cultures of certain areas. The Sicilian tradition of raping one's reluctant "sweetheart" to cause a favorable response to a marriage proposal was certainly not a cherished teaching of the Catholic Church.

Personally, for me, everything in Islam, except for the belief in One God and His Final Messenger (PBUH), is subject to discussion, interpretation, and reformation. So, the best thing we can do is to disassociate the mantle of religious "blessing" from these horrible residues of ancient cultures. These, at one time, included sacrifice of virgins to preclude floods and burial of female babies to enhance prosperity - something that Indians seem to have modernized into a cornerstone of "family planning." One could also add the stigma of being a widow in India or the encouragement of young Catholic girls to join convents and get "married" to Jesus Christ.

Once we remove religion from this obvious oppression of our fellow human beings, who just happen to be of the female persuasion as a matter of biological accident, we can then reverse the wrong. Challenging the genuine sensibilites of normal, sympathetic, and righteous followers of Islam, or other religions, is the wrong approach to eliminating this evil. Insulting the very firefighters who are in a position to extinguish the flames is, in my opinion, in the "stupid" category - if putting out the fire was one's candid intention.