Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Rape victim is sentenced to 200 lashes

In Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old woman who was the victim of gang rape has been sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was in the company of a man who was not her relative when the attack happened.

Two hundred lashes. Can you survive it? Imagine being lashed even once. That would quite possibly be enough to break open your skin and cause a long, bleeding wound. Now imagine being lashed again, on top of that open wound. And then being lashed again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and... and... and...

Honestly, could you survive it?

Maybe they'll give the woman time to heal between each lash. Maybe she'll be given a week between each lash? Two weeks? How would it feel to be lashed on a tender, aching, barely-healed scar?

And anyway, if they are going to lash her once every week until they've given her two hundred lashes, then they will have to keep at it for two hundred weeks. Remember that there are fifty-two weeks in a year. If they are going to lash her every week two hundred weeks in a row, then that means that she will be lashed every week for almost four years!

Honestly, could you survive it?

And if you can survive it, what would your back be like afterwards? Could you move around? Do any work? Have a moment of your life without horrible, constant pain?

And the young woman got this punishment because she was gang-raped. No, correction, she got this punishment because she was in a car with an unrelated male.

This is what can happen to a woman in Saudi Arabia if she is caught with an unrelated male. She risks two hundred lashes. Because the Saudi Arabic law demands extremely strict segregation of the sexes.

Some of you on these boards may remember apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a system that demanded strict separation of black and white people. Black people had to carry passports to be able to move around in their own country and their own cities. They couldn't live in the same neighbourhooods as whites, couldn't sit on the same park benches, couldn't ride on the same buses etcetera.

Well, there was an international outcry against apartheid. It was considered inhuman to treat black people the way they were treated under apartheid. Because of loud international protests and economic sanctions, the system of apartheid was eventually abolished.

To the best of my knowledge, however, black people in South Africa under apartheid were not sentenced to two hundred lashes if they were caught in a car with a white person they were not legally working for.

Isn't the apartheid of the sexes in Saudi Arabia much worse than the apartheid of the "races" were in South Africa? And yet, where are the international protests?

Saudi Arabia is the world's leading exporter of oil, and its leaders are very loyal to the United States. That's enough, isn't it? Who cares about women when you can have oil and support for the West if you turn a blind eye to what happens to women in Saudi Arabia?

Let's bomb Iran. Their leaders are recalcitrant. Let's talk about how women are badly treated in Iran. And make no mistake, women most definitely are very badly treated in Iran. Iranian women are never allowed to show themselves in public without covering their heads under a veil, for example. And if an Iranian woman has been caught being unfaithful, she most definitely risks being executed, maybe even stoned to death.

The average Iranian woman, however, is so much freer and has so many more opportunities than women in Saudi Arabia. There is no strict segregation of the sexes in Iran. Recently there was an article in my own local paper about drug abuse in Iran, and about the Iranian society's efforts to help the addicts. The article was illustrated with a photo of a confident-looking, veiled, but bare-faced woman counselling a male drug addict. It was okay for this woman to counsel male addicts! She was hired by the Iranian authorities to do it!

Also, I am an astronomy fan as many of you know, and when I attended an astronomy forum a few weeks ago one of the lecturers was a leading Iranian astronomy populariser who talked about amateur astronomy in Iran. He showed us pictures of astronomy clubs in Iran whose members were teenaged boys and girls, smiling for the camera together.

In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive a car, and they are barely allowed outside at all if they are not accompanied by a male relative. Many of them cover not only their heads, but their faces as well. About two years ago I read a review of a book written by a woman who had lived in Saudi Arabia and who had to some extent shared the reality of Saudi women. I remember that she called the Saudi women human pets, because they were given no more freedom than we give our dogs in the west.

But in the west we don't even give our dogs two hundred lashes.

The next time someone tells you that Iran is a supremely dangerous country that treats its women awfully and that we ought to bomb, ask yourself why Saudi Arabia is never officially described as a supremely dangerous nation that treats its women awfully and that we ought to bomb. Is it because Saudi Arabia isn't truly dangerous? Because it isn't trying to make any nuclear weapons for itself?

If you think that Saudi Arabia isn't truly dangerous, then remember that Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia. And not only he himself, but the entire philosphy of extreme Islam and the idea of righteous jihad and attacks on the west are originally Saudi ideas. Most of the deepest roots of international Muslim terrorism originate in the barren, but oil-rich, Saudi soil. The same philosophy which says that a woman should be punished with two hundred lashes if she has been gang-raped after being in a car with an unrelated male also says that Western civilisation and all its people are legitimate targets for suicide bombers.

Saudis defend punishment for rape victim

Ann

I don't even want to think about that. Ugh.

What's really heartbreaking to me is that none of this is even in accordance with the spirit of the sharia. Islamic law IS strict, but sexual segregation is encouraged by Islamic law to PROTECT women, and not demean them. The rest of the world holds up countries like Saudi Arabia as poster-children for the consequences of Islamic rule, but the truth is that it's all because the people in those countries have warped Islamic dogma to accord with practices and attitudes that were already inherent in their pre-Islamic cultures.

This sort of misogyny has little to do with Islam and more to do with the fact that for some reason, these Middle Eastern countries never progressed beyond the mind-set of the Middle Ages. The West should thank any Gods that be for the Renaissance . Otherwise, you might well witness this sort of extremism today in Europe and the US, under the banner of a warped form of Christianity.

As for the veil-wearing, I am perfectly fine with it as long as it is done by choice. I have many Muslim friends who choose to wear the hijab, and they do so through their own choice and not through peer pressure, social laws or their parents wishes.

This is absolutely horrible. I really don't know another word that I can write in this forum. But reading stories like this makes me wish the same fate for the judges as well as the perpetrators - and everyone else who is able to but refuses to help.

I know this is kind of barbaric, too, but isn't it also ultimate justice?

Terrible yes and believe me I'm quite passionate about women's rights and consequently can again be very confrontational about it (like with many topics I'm passionate about).

Having done a little study into Islam in high school (which by conincidence I happen to be doing when 9/11 occurred) I know that it's not everyone way of thinking. Yes Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, but it is wrong to assume that every person in Saudi Arabia is a terrorist as in another person's eyes it can be construed as prejudice. I know many Muslims who are perfectly nice and do not condone the behaviour of this select group of people.

What we must remember is that as much as we believe that this is really wrong (and it is no person male or female should be punished for sitations beyon their control), this has been going on for centuries and aside from this behaviour they also perfrom so-called 'honour killings' where women are killed for disgracing their families well at least in their eyes anyway.

Like with the imprisonment of this particular woman and the fact that she'll receive 200 lashes should a woman be killed simply because she wants a divorce or commits adultery? Yes adultery is wrong and for those who are devout believers in their relgions, divorce is wrong too and what that comes down to is the interpretation of religious texts. So really this is what people shoule realise that as with all religions, it all comes down to how one interprets what they are reading.

While I'm outraged that this kind of activity still exists in the world and believe me it wouldn't just be in Saudi Arabia alone because the mistreatment of women occurs everywhere around the world, so long as they control much of the world's export of oil no government in the world is going to speak out about it no matter how against it they are. As sad as it is due to economical and political agendas governments around the world will virtually turn a blind eye to what occurs.

Aside from this like I said before, not every Muslim approves of this behaviour. I remember reading an interview with Queen Rania of Jordan who does not approve of any of these activities she is of course a Muslim. However, like I said before until governments speak out against it this activity will continue to occur.

I am in complete agreement with Crazy_Babe's post.
I hope nobody actually does think that ALL Muslims condone this kind of punishment, or that they are all misogynistic! I have Muslim friends from countries like Oman and the Maldives as well Sri Lanka who are feminists and are equally adored and indulged, be they male or female.

This is not about people being Islamic, it's about a social structure being allowed to become isolationist and reign unchallenged and unevaluated by outside influences. Like any system closed off from interacting with its environs, the societal practices of these cultures become warped and toxic to the very society it tries to preserve.

The first time I read this, I wondered what this girl's family must be feeling. Does her father feel that his daughter brought shame and dishonour upon the family, but still want to spare her the punishment? Or does his love for his little girl prevail over the judgement of his society? Does she have an elder brother who feels like he let his little sister down? Or does she have a small brother who doesn't understand why they are taking away his big sister? Do the dictums of society prevail over human attachment, or is human attachment dictated by the edicts of society?

In some parts of rural India, the birth of a girl is considered such a misfortune that they decorate the home in funeral colors and some fathers drown their little daughters at birth. In the infamous case of the Sathi Pooja, the widow must either hurl herself on her husband's funeral pyre willingly or be killed by her relatives for the shame of outliving her husband. I know that there are families in the East, educated and Westernized, who will not hesitate to disown and drive out a daughter who bears a child out of wedlock. The concept of family honour is the currency of security in these societies, where no man will marry the sister of a woman considered tainted, illegitimate children carry the stigma of their mothers' perceived promiscuity and scandal is the deadliest social sin known to man.

In short, what you're witnessing here are the evils of EXTREME collectivism. All major religions have always been born in and tailor-made for collectivist social structures - without the tampering influence of cultural revolutions brought on by contesting philosophies and movements, we end up with a tyrannical self-operating social system that takes into account the 'good of the many' and the happiness of none.

PS: Queen Rania of Jordan has been one of my feminist role models ever since I was fifteen. *is proud*

Actually she was sentenced to 90 lashes for this 'charge'. This was later increased to 200 by a court of appeal. Why? Because some appeal judges were ticked that she and her lawyer 'were using the media to support her claims that the first sentence was unjust'.



What I love about this kind of story is the twisted logic of the misogynists who make up these laws to protect their own control over the women in their societies. The rules against riding in a car with a man not their relative is to 'protect' women from just this kind of rape attack, they say. It's similar to an argument I once heard from a Saudi prince interviewed on TV in explaining why women in his country were not allowed to go out to work. Because if they worked in an office, say, then they might inflame their male colleagues who might rape them. So...safer all round to just make sure they stayed in their homes, yes? Nice and safe and...protected.

Of course, it would never occur to these men that the problem there - in both instances - are the men not the women. Why should the freedoms of the women be curtailed simply because some men can't control their libidos? If the men can't behave in a civilised manner in public when they encounter a woman - lock the men up. That seems a much more logical and just solution to their problem. It would only be logical to keep the women off the streets if it was them going around raping men.

But then expecting logic from misogyny - just as from any other form of irrational bias - is a bit of a non-starter really.

LabRat

I absolutely agree with you, Hasini. Personally I know the Bible relatively well, and I know its views on women very well, because I read it from cover to cover specifically to find out what it says about women. I can assure you that I didn't miss much.

And this much is certain - if we hadn't had the Renaissance, we might still be burning witches at the stake here in the West. Did you know that the Bible commands us(?) to kill witches? This is what Exodus says:

22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Also, according to Deuteronomy 22, a just-married young woman who is found not to have been a virgin on her wedding night shall be stoned to death:

20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21 then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die; because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

Why don't we do these things to women in the West, even though we can read in the Bible that we are obliged to kill witches and young women who were not virgins when they were married? There are many reasons, but the main one is that in the West, the Bible is not the law. Renaissance demoted the Bible from being the law (explained by the Pope) into being something that was up for debate.

This, however, is an argument I can never buy:

I'm certainly not saying that sharia isn't trying to protect women. But I am saying that if it is trying to protect women by creating a system of apartheid of the sexes - which, by the way, will always mean that it is the women who get their freedom severely circumscribed - then we are not talking about protection, but about a system of more or less severe imprisonment of women. For their own good.

But I absolutely agree with you that Saudi Arabia is not a "typical" Muslim country at all. There are few Muslim countries that treat their women as badly as Saudi Arabia does - in fact I'm not sure that there is even one more Muslim country whose laws against women are as terrifying as the laws they have in Saudi Arabia. And of course, not every Saudi man or woman agrees with the laws of their country - but considering the kind of punishment you risk if you don't toe the line, it's no wonder that few or no people dare to protest.

Ann

I think this Iranian girl would disagree with you.



Edit:
some more about this case here

Oh, I know. I'm not saying that I myself didn't have a big problem with how the sharia went about doing it. But then, I am a liberalist and an individualist who subscribes to the Western cultural mind-set. For me, what's most important is a person's own freedom and happiness. But in half the cultures of the world, those things barely take priority. The objective of most collectivist cultures is the collective social security.

We can't judge whether their priorities are right or wrong from our own culturally-specified standpoint. We just can't. I think it's impossible for somebody from the West to imagine anyone whose primary objective isn't personal happiness. Yet, if you asked a Chinese or an average Indian "are you happy?", they wouldn't be quite sure what you meant. Happiness has always come such an unimportant second to social security and stability that personal gratification is equated with a destructive selfishness in these countries.

Is that wrong? How are we to tell? Collectivism is the glue that holds together societies who are either too poor to afford to subscribe to individualism, or are simply not conditioned for it. To illustrate what I mean, let's take a look at my own home turf, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan society has always maintained a culture full of collectivist values and ethics. I should know. When I was growing up, I was never told, "Follow your dreams", "Stand up for your rights" or "Speak your mind". It was implied that wanting something for yourself at the expense of tradition was a sin that would bring ruin on my extended family. I was told how to be a good daughter, (take care of your parents, uphold the honour of the family, never let your parents do the housework if you can help it) a good wife, (always uphold your husband's honour, take care of his parents as though they were your own, never eat or sleep before your husband, be a good mother to his children) a good mother (raise your children to be a credit to their family, and so they may contribute to the good of society). The whole time we were in school, we never questioned the future that was laid out for us.

I honestly don't know how it happened (my mother says it was through watching too much American TV and hanging on the internet too long ) but one day, when my mother was going on one of her usual spiels ("If you stay so bone-lazy all the time your in-laws will get up and drive you out of the house one fine day. And how do you expect to live with a man if with that kind of temper?") I told her that if my husband found me too hot to handle, I'd just divorce him. My mother acted like I'd said something profane. She completely flipped out, saying that, dear gods, she'd raised a girl who'd become a forty-year-old divorcee with no prospects, who'd raise dogs instead of children. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have asked her what was wrong with that. (Actually, what I meant was what was wrong with raising dogs, but that didn't stop her from grounding me.)

I know that you, like me back then, would say that my mother was being stupid, and she should care more about my happiness and not what society wanted of me. But she really wasn't. In Sri Lanka, it's very difficult to make a distinction between conforming to what society expects of you and personal satisfaction. It's not only expected that one will follow the other; it's also true that they do. I am very lucky. I have a father who will accompany me all over the country on whatever job I choose to do, who would shell out the cash to send me to an overseas university if I didn't wanted a profession other than what I was offered here, who would help me migrate if I decided that I couldn't live in this kind of social clime. I am able practise my individualistic ideals because my parents will shell out the cash for me to do so. If I had been of a poorer family, or even had a more conservative father, my unconventional ideals could have ruined me and my family. I would have become a socially-stigmatized, divorced or unmarried woman (don't ask me about the dogs) growing old in her parents house (because it's simply not safe for a woman to live alone in SL) with an expensive, useless degree and a low-paying job, who would be unable to take care of her parents in their old age. And my family would have had to bear my existence as a burden on them, because the extended family is obligated to take care of ALL their members.

So you see, we honestly can't be smug about being liberal and individualist. We are only allowed to put personal happiness first because we are more privileged than we know.

I haven't read the article or the thread that carefully, but I did want to say, brilliant point, Hasini.

I'm always wary of the facile critique of different cultures precisely because of

Because it's so easy as someone within a Western thought system to live life taking Western principles as rigidly universalist--everyone should be "free" to pursue their own "happiness" yada yada yada, not noticing that "freedom" and "happiness" are not defined similarly in other cultures. This can all too easily become it's own brand of cultural chauvenism and lead to a simplistic view of societies different from our own.

Now I'm not saying that some deplorable behaviors should be condoned (as the argument against relativism goes), but that we should always be aware of the position where we speak from and understand how little we really know about systems outside of ours before we pass judgement on those that live under them.

If anyone cares, there is a ridiculously brilliant book about the relationship between women and Islam in a particular Islamic grassroots movement in Egypt. It's called, "Politics of Piety:
The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject" and it's by Saba Mahmood. One of the most wonderful parts of the book is a discussion of the liberal "repugnance" that blocks attempts to understand "socially conservative" movements by reducing them to just being backward and barbaric.

It's really hard to kick off that repugance Mahmood talks about, but it seems to me that the knee-jerk finger pointing in the media gets us nowhere. More harmfully, it adds more fuel to the fire of misunderstanding that runs rampagnt in Western views of non Western societies--especially with regards to the hot topic of "freedom."

alcyone

But then that earlier story was old, here\'s a more recent incident.

Sometimes "collectivism" can be used as a euphemism for sexism, I think. Since I'm fifty-two years old myself, I'm old enough to be able to see that Sweden has changed enormously since I was born in 1955. In the fifties and the early sixties, Sweden was very, very collectivist, too. But not in the same way as many other collectivist societies.

In the fifties and sixties - and also in the forties and much of the thirties - Swedes in general were loyal to the idea of Sweden as a collective home for the Swedish people. I can really say that the collective loyalty was a loyalty to the idea of doing your part to make Sweden an ideal home for its people. Therefore people's loyalty was not primarily to their family, or at the very least, not to their extended family. One's loyalty was to the larger society, and you proved that loyalty by doing your best to be a good member of this society. That entailed many responsibilities. For example, you should provide for yourself and not expect others to do it for you. On the other hand, you should be neighbourly and generally willing to help those less fortunate than yourself. And you should, of course, do so with a smile on your face.

Let me show you a few examples of what I mean:



This is a picture of Barbro Alving, one of Sweden's most beloved and respected reporters during the twentieth century. Born in 1909, she became a houshold name in 1936, when she reported from the civil war in Spain and from the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany.

Barbro Alving was a lesbian - not openly, of course! - who was deeply shocked to discover that Hitler and Nazi Germany wanted to kill all homosexuals. So in 1937, she tried to live like a heterosexual woman. She became pregnant. Although she really and truly liked the father of her child, and he liked her, too, marriage was out of the question. He was already married. So what should Barbro Alving do?

At first, she considered an abortion. That wouldn't have been easy to come by, but it would have been possible. But, faced with the stark choice, she couldn't face the idea of killing the life that was growing inside her. She also didn't want to keep herself hidden while she waited for the birth of her child, and then let somebody else adopt it.

There was only one thing to do. In 1938, Barbro Alving became Sweden's first officially unmarried mother. She was a sufficiently successful career woman that she could provide for herself and her child. She was able to buy a small but nice apartment for herself, her baby and a nanny. Then she kept working, writing many more articles, and, with the help of the nanny, raising her daughter at the same time.

This created a minor stir in Sweden in 1938, but there was never a scandal. Why? Because Barbro Alving's pregnancy and single motherhood didn't hurt anybody else. She was not being disloyal to the idea of Sweden as an ideal home for its people. Certainly children must be allowed to be born in such a country even if their parents aren't married? But certainly they must be raised well even if they don't officially have both a mother and a father? Barbro Alving made sure that her daughter was well provided for, and thereby she took care of her own mess, as it were. Why should anyone condemn her?

I want to say something more about the collectivism in Sweden. In the 1950s, this man was enormously influential in Sweden (unfortunately the picture is from 1970):



His name was Lennart Hyland. In the 1950s he was a radio host in Sweden, and I'm probably not exaggerating if I say that 70% of all Swedes listened every time he was on the air. Every Sunday he gave his listeners a task or a mission they had to perform. Once he told all men in Sweden to go to the nearest square or public meeting-place in their town and city and bring one of their favorite ties. When they came to the meeting-place, they had to give away their tie to another man who was waiting there. In return, they had to accept a tie from this other man. That Sunday 70% of all men in Sweden came home with a new, but used, tie.

(And of course... the man who had given away his tie to a man he met down at the square might not at all be able to get his own tie back if he managed to track the man he had given it to. Because that man might have given it away to yet another man, who in turn might have given it away to yet another one... Actually almost any man in Sweden might now be the owner of the first man's tie! I guess you could say that this "tie game" was almost a ritual of "tieing" all the men in Sweden together.)

On another occasion Lennart Hyland declared that all men in Sweden had to give their wives a day off. All married men were supposed to cook dinner for their wives and families. They had to go to the grocery store and buy the necessary ingredients, and then they had to come home and fix the food. It was going to be meat loaf. Lennart Hyland explained carefully how meat loaf was made, step by step. Of course the men also had to peel and boil the potatoes and cook the sauce. The men had to lay the table, serve the dinner, and finally wash up. And probably at least 50% of all men in Sweden did so on this special day.

Collectivism doesn't have to be about sexism, but often it is. This is Fadime Sahindal, a young Kurdish woman who had come to Sweden with her family:



In Sweden she fell in love with a Swedish man, who her parents couldn't accept. They threatened to kill her because she had shamed her family by seeing a man that they had not accepted. Fadime asked for and got some protection from Swedish police, but eventually she longed so much for her mother that she risked visiting her parents' home in Uppsala, Sweden. When she got there, her father killed her to avenge the shame that his daughter had brought upon his family's name.

Honour killings almost always happen because male members of a family feel dishonoured because they have not been able to fully control the sexuality of a female member of the same family: a daughter, a sister, a female cousin. This is what it is always about: Men's right to control the sexuality of any female who belongs to their family. It is an incredibly, incredibly sexist system.

The idea that men have the right to control women is found in almost every society all over the world. In some cases this right is so absolute that men are considered obliged to kill, rape or torture women who won't let themselves be controlled. In other societies men are officially forbidden to use force or violence to punish or control women, but the supremacy of the men is there anyway.

Where does this universal sexism come from? In my opinion, it stems from the fact that men are physically stronger than women. Imagine that you were to line up all the men of a society on one side, and all the women of the same society on the other side. Now ask the two sides to fight. Who will win? The way I see it, the men will always win, because they can physically dominate the women.

The fact that men really can control women if they co-operate is important. It means that men have something to gain if they stick together: they gain supremacy over their own women. In a sexist society, a woman will not only be punished by her own husband if she disobeys him. She will be punished by the rest of society too, by all the other men in this society. Because all these men stand to lose something if they allow even one woman to get away with being disobedient. Who knows if their own wives will obey these men if they allow just one recalcitrant woman in this society to get away with being disobedient and disrespectful?

No, Hasini. I would never say that a mother who teaches her children to obey and respect the rules and mores of a society is being stupid. Sometimes, indeed, the price of not obeying is too awful to consider. What mother wants her child to be ostracized? Or, in extreme cases, jailed, executed, honour-killed or given two hundred lashes?

Trying to teach your children the kind of behavior that gives them the best chances to succeed in a society is not stupid. But that doesn't mean we all have to like the rules that shape the lives of people in that society.

Ann

And TEEEEEJ, I've certainly never said that you don't run the risk of being horribly punished if you are a woman in Iran. My point was just that women in general are given much more respect in Iran than in Saudi Arabia. About ten years ago Swedish television showed some Iranian films. I saw only one of them, which was about an Iranian family in an Iranian town. I was astounded to see how prominently the women figured in the film. They were shown in the film as if they were interesting and as if their lives mattered - one of them was a doctor, for example. I can't imagine a Saudi film treating Saudi women with that much interest and respect.

My general impression is that, despite the fact that their lives are certainly circumscribed and that they do risk horrible punishment if they break the sharia law of Iran, women in Iran are nevertheless treated as people, as human beings. I'm not too sure that that is very often the case in Saudi Arabia. After all, that woman who had lived in Saudi Arabia and had written a book about it described Saudi women as human pets.

Ann

LOL! You're joking right? Hanging...jail time...for speaking their minds??? No really, I believe that 16 year old didn't get any human respect at all. Did you read the article? She was lifted off the ground by a crane. Not even the mercy of a quick broken neck. Just having her windpipe squeezed until her eyeballs hemoraged and her bowels released. Yeah, she was treated humanely.... :rolleyes:

I'd bet she'd much rather be living in the United States where some others just take their hard won freedom for granted and are so willing to dump on the nation that gives them that right...but then she doesn't have a choice since she's dead from a slow strangling torture.

Ann, regarding your post about the nature of collectivism in Sweden: it occurs to me that what you're describing is not exactly collectivism. Yes, the core concepts are collectivist, but their practice seems to have been carried out in a very open-minded fashion.

This was what really gave it away:
If the people of Sweden actually thought this way, then the society you describe is more liberal than you give it credit for. There is no such thing as "none of our business" in the machinations of a collectivist system.

Collectivism is all about making each member of society conform rigidly to a set pattern of thought and behaviour. It's not just about saying, "these are our mutual goals, we must strive towards them". It's about saying, "these are our goals and this is HOW we must strive towards them, and these are the only ways we must strive towards them and anyone who tries to break these patterns will be seen as immediate or potential threats to the system and shall be eliminated". If Babro Alving had really lived in a collectivist society, her unmarried status would have been said to incite promiscuity in other women and her very success as a single mother would have guaranteed persecution by proponents of the traditional family module.

So no, you can't quite hold up Sweden on the mid-1900s as being representative of pure collectivism. The reason Barbro Alving was able to live her life the way she chose in the midst of a collectivist atmosphere was that her society's ideology was also tempered by a measure of liberalism.

That's the point I was trying to make earlier - that the best social models always lie between liberal individualism and conservative collectivism.

Well done, Sweden!

:rolleyes:

Also one other (related) point to pointlessly ramble about:

Was Sweden ever in a position where it was threatened by imperialism? I'm not a specialist in the history of the Middle East, but I do know that generally the non West's highly sexist nationalism tends to have a lot to do with the threat of Western imperialism (and I don't mean explicit colonization here, but the institution of policies, etc that mark off what is West and non West).

No doubt Saudi Arabia has been in a priviledged position with regards to its financial advantages. I wonder though, if the influx of Western culture that success brought has generated anxiety that expresses itself in a rampagnt sexist nationalism that imagines itself to be "pure" by being cemented in "traditional" religious beliefs. This is just a hazy thought here, but it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened.

With this in mind, it seems to me that comparing Swedish society and Saudi Arabian society is a bit like comparing apples and oranges even under the generic banner of collectivism.

And again, I feel the need to disclaim that I'm in no way saying that it's okay for these terrible things to happen to women (or anyone in any minoritarian group). But it's incredibly important (in my opinion anyway) to try to understand _why_ something is happening and we can't escape that there are particular histories and entirely different world views involved.

If we disregard that, we can fall into the trap of repeating paternalistic attitudes that reduce others to children that need to be "saved" and be taken care of.

alcyone

Wel, Alcyone, I do get the impression that these women (or the 16-year-old girl that was hanged) need to be saved and taken care of. But *not* the way the men in their countries are doing it.

Well, of course what they're doing is atrocious, Mellie. And we do need to find a way to help them. But as alcyone says, we can't appoint ourselves judge, jury and executioners of entire cultures and communities. Judging their social mores and customs without fully understanding how and why they came to be, finding them wanting against our own so-called universalist ideology and trying to readjust their way of life to fit ours would negate an entire history's worth of post-colonial moral and socio-economic lessons. We can't allow ourselves to become cultural imperialists, even for a good cause, because that would be a) racist and b) bring us down to the level of those very cultural extremists that we try to protect these people from.

Hasini explained what I meant. One of my favorite thinkers calls it the "white men saving brown women from brown men" syndrome. Like the protests that American women have held against the veil, not knowing the diverse meanings that the veil can have and which can cross into making those women who choose to wear them feel unwelcome.

Clearly this is a different situation, but to me, it boils down to the fact that measures imposed from the outside never work. You can't come to these places as an outsider with a gun and say "You can't do this to your women." That will only make a bad situation worse--especially for these women. You can't stay there and impose this on them forever. What will happen to these women once you leave? My guess is that it will be much worse than this.

alcyone

Alcyone, Hasini, I sure get your point. But regardless, a culture that degrades half of its population to mere pets is not good, no matter which point of view you're taking.

To emphasize my point:
A culture that keeps a big part of its populace in slavery because of their skin color is bad. I think we can all agree on that. Or are you racist?

A culture that oppresses and, ultimately kills a big part of its populace because of its faith is bad. I think we can all agree on that, too. Or are you a nazi?

A culture that eliminates/imprisons everybody who disagrees with the acceptable dogma is bad. I think we can agree on that, too. Or do you happen to be a communist?

A culture that keeps large parts of its populace in poverty just because they're born to the wrong parents is bad. I hope we can agree on that. Or would you like to live in pre-renaissance Europe (as a poor farmer, not a noble)?

A culture that keeps half of its populace as mere breeding stock is bad. At least I think so. Why can't we agree on that?

Don't get me wrong. I'm tolerant, although sometimes I have to admit that I do have prejudices. But I constantly work on getting rid of them. I don't mind women who choose to wear a veil. To me, they're people like you and me.

I don't mind people who believe that sexual relations shouldn't occur before marriage, quite the contrary. Although I didn't live by that maxime, I can see the wisdom in it.

I don't mind if people believe in different things than me. I even find it fascinating to discuss different points of view, at least as long as I can respect the other point.

But here, we're not talking about races, beliefs or anything like that. We're talking about a very extreme case of culturally accomplished sexism. We're talking about people who may not choose anything in their life. People who are forbidden to go out of the house unless they're accompanied by a related male. We're talking about people who get punished severely for trespassing. About people who are not given any choices in life. And that is something I can't and won't respect nor tolerate, even if so-called open-minded people tell me that my point of view is that of a racist and extremist.

Don't get me wrong, I don't propagate a war to free the women of Saudi-Arabia. Or Irania. But I still think that their way of life it not right. In my mind, a culture that denies part of its people the very basic human rights is not acceptable. And I'm not going to change my mind about that.

Hasini and I are NOT arguing that human rights abuses are right.

Let's get that out there first off, because your argument insinuates we are when in fact, both of us frequently state that we do disagree with the treatment of women.

What I am arguing for is actually a consideration of _why_ those things happen instead of blind fingerpointing, which is unproductive and leads to more negativity. Isn't understanding the _why_ the first step to solving a problem? To me, that's better than demonizing the Saudi government.

I really do hope this last isn't aimed at Hasini or myself.

Seriously, I find it difficult to even imagine who would call you racist or extremist for disagreeing with basic violations of human rights. What I have tried to bring up is that there are many ways to approach a problem and some actually do more harm than good.

alcyone

Of course I understand that, let's say, invading Saudi Arabia and make the Saudis free their women under threat of execution (or some such extreme measure) wouldn't do much good. Maybe your assumption that it would be, ultimately, worse for the women there when the troops return back home, but still there is the fact that *our* invasion wouldn't be much better than their suppression of women.

But just asking _why_ things are the way they are and going all sympathetic with the poor males of Saudi Arabia who don't know any better doesn't even begin to solve any problems, either.

The abolishment of misogyny in Saudi Arabia (or anywhere else) can't be accomplished within a day or even a year, it is a long process that may well take several decades. And that's not only because of the men, but also because of the women. There, they don't even know what freedom is, they don't know about making their own choices. As far as I have heard (though I don't know for sure) they don't even get properly educated. And education is a very important step on the long way to freedom.

So, imagine a woman who doesn't know anything but the boundaries of her home to be left free. She can go wherever she wants. But where does she want to go? She doesn't know any places to go - apart from the places she already knows from being led there.

Imagine the men there deciding that they wouldn't care for their women any more because they are free, and thus, none of their business any more. Unfortunately, these women are dependent on the men in their lives for money. Even if this is not strictly the way it has to turn out, I see a strong probability.

So, yes, changes have to take place slowly. But they have to start. The sooner, the better.

Understanding is not sympathy. I can _understand_ if someone doesn't want do their work--that they were tired, that they had "better" things to do. But that doesn't mean I necessarily sympathize and will give them a pat on the head. So I'm a bit troubled that the two are equated in the quote above. Understanding is a rational activity, sympathy is more about emotional response.

Back to the topic on actual practice--I can only speak for myself and the way I approach complex social problems (especially those far from home). I feel uncomfortable asking for others to get educated, before trying to educate myself first on their circumstances.

And, of course, learning is an ongoing process, but thus far, what I have come to believe in (given what I know) is seeking out grassroots feminist organizations in the area and supporting them. This all stems precisely because I'm aware of how ignorant I really am of how fighting against misoginy works in these countries on the ground. I believe very, very strongly in transnational feminism and that influences my views on these issues, but I won't go into it here.

Obviously, while Saudi Arabia is a special case (having no organizations last time I checked, I hope I'm wrong now, but its been a while since I last looked--drop me a line someone if you know), it isn't a unique one. As the other countries (such as Iran and Afganistan) with equally misoginist regimes gradually change, I feel it will too. This will take a long, long time, but for me what is important that it come organically, from within the society, because that way it will stick. I don't feel the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There IS more than misoginism in these cultures and I feel that while the misoginism shouldn't be condoned, these cultures are deserving of our respect just as any other.

This is what works for me (I am refering to my approach to the problem of practice, what I feel, actually "helps" to bring about change albeit gradually), what I can sleep easily with and not feel hypocritical. It might not work for everyone. Again, I'm privileged by even having access to the resources both financial and in terms of time (part of my job demands I know a little of this) to learn about these things. I am also very much a product of my environment.

But again, what's most important is being conscious of any position of privilege from which one speaks and the dangers of it.

alcyone

There is only so much respect I can give to societies that are just out-of-control sexist. One of the most horrible cases I have ever heard of was a young Pakistani woman who was sentenced to be gang-raped as a way of punishing her family because her brother had spent some time alone with a woman from another, richer family. Just try to imagine it, please. Imagine that your brother dates a woman, and the woman's family disapproves of him. They decide to punish him, and the punishment will be that you are legally sentenced to be gang-raped in public to atone for what your brother did.

The woman in question, Mukhtaran Bibi, had the arrogance of not committing suicide after the rape, as any nice girl is supposed to do in those parts of Pakistan. Instead, when the case became internationally known thanks to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, there was a trial where the rapists were sentenced to be executed. (But very soon they were pardoned and set free. Where sharia rules, by the way, a murderer does not have to be executed, but can be pardoned and set free instead. However, a woman who has had illegal sex must, according to sharia, always be killed. Sharia, anyone?)

In that same trial where the rapists where sentenced and then pardoned, Mukhtaran Bibi was awarded a sum of settlement money because of what had happened to her. She took the money and opened a center of refuge and education for other women in rural Pakistan. To many people around where she lives, her continued existence - the fact that she is alive and has not committed suicide - is an insult to the entire society, and she and her family live under constant death threats.

Wikipedia on Mukhtaran Bibi

In the late 1980s, The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. I was angry at that, so I started giving a sum of money to a Swedish organisation which was providing help to the people in Afghanistan. But once I attended a meeting where a man told us about the situation in Afghanistan, and among other things he informed us that many Soviet soldiers rape young Afghan girls. And that is so tragic, he said, because when an Afghan girl has been raped, she commits suicide.

I have to tell you I was unbelievably outraged at that. Of course I thought it was horrible that Soviet soldiers raped Afghan girls, but honestly that is the sort of thing that happens in most wars. So many women are raped during wars, so I was saddened and angered but not shocked to hear that. But I was absolutely shocked to hear that all the raped girls committed suicide afterwards. If they did that, it could only mean that their families and society couldn't accept them afterwards - that their families and society actually told these girls that they had no right to live after they had been raped. I was extremely shocked when I realized this, and I stopped giving money to Afghanistan. Arguably that was not an appropriate reaction at all - maybe I should have given even more money to that organisation which helped Afghanistan, because it could be that more money and more help might be the best way to make the people of Afghanistan change some of their most cruel customs. But frankly, I just couldn't stomach the idea of giving money to Afghanistan any more.

Not just Muslim societies treat women unspeakably. In the early 1980s, I saw a documentary about a Christian village in Egypt. The TV reporter asked the "mayor" of the village if there were many crimes committed in his village. "Not at all," the mayor replied, "the people here are very law-abiding."

"But I'm sure you told me earlier that there have been several murders committed here?"

"Ah, that," said the mayor. "That was only some men who killed their wives."

"They killed their wives? Why did they do that?"

"That was because some strangers had come to the village. They stopped at some houses where women were sitting outside, doing housework. The strangers asked the women questions, and then the women answered."

That was all. The strangers asked the women some questions, and the women answered. And because of that, the women were killed by their husbands, and the "mayor" of the village condoned the killings, thinking that they didn't count as crimes at all.

I can say that no women were interviewed in this documentary about the Egyptian village. Some women were filmed, and they looked fearfully into the camera. No wonder they didn't dare to say anything and thus commit the horrible crime of speaking to male strangers!

I understand that there are all sorts of historical, economic, religious etcetera etectera reasons for the fact that women are treated like this in some societies. But don't ask me to respect those rules and customs. Don't ask me not to condemn them!

Mellie, you are right that women, too, help uphold those customs in the countries where women are treated so awfully. The truth is that we all play with the cards we were given. If the rules of your society say that people are going to kill you if you speak to male strangers, then you don't speak to male strangers. And you teach your daughters not to speak to male strangers. And you probably don't protest if men in your society kill their wives for speaking to male strangers.

But I do think that we in the west should speak up for those women. I do think we should protest, and loudly. But just so that you don't misunderstand me: no, I don't think that the west should wage war on those countries and bomb them to save their women.

Ann

That's exactly the point we disagree on. I simply cannot respect such a culture, a culture that, in turn, wouldn't respect me at all, if only because I am female.

Sad, but true. But, given the fact that I'm a very rebellious person when I feel treated badly, I might try to escape that system. I don't know if I would get that chance, but I would sure be looking for it.

Alcyone, I don't think that severely misogynist cultures deserve our respect just like any others. Yes, I'm sure that there are some things that these cultures deserve respect for, but not for their views on women.

But I do agree with you that real change has to come from within, and it can't be imposed from outside. But to me that doesn't mean that I have to respect their misogyny, or pretend that I do.

Ann

None of us are condoning human rights violations or misogyny. None of us are saying that we should not do anything about them, or that we should not take a stand against them.

Ann, your example about Afghanistan quite proved the point I was trying to make. You had such a severe reaction to the notion of sexually assaulted Afghan girls being driven to commit suicide that you decided to condemn the whole of Afghan society. Moreover, you then stopped contributing to a fund that was supposed to help that society. This is exactly the kind of reaction that Alycone and I are trying to caution against.

I don't know all that much about Afghan culture, so let's shift focus to a culture I do know about. In India, which is equal parts Hindu and Muslim, this same thing happens to girls who are victims of sexual assault. They are driven from their homes so that they shall not taint their families, or they are asked to commit suicide. Under the law in some parts of India, if the rapist is convicted, the rapist is given the option of marrying the girl they raped in exchange for a pardon. This is because the girl's marriage prospects would have been ruined by the notoriety she had gained from the crime, and no man would marry a woman 'sullied' by another man's touch.

This is what gets reported by the news, and this is the aspect of Indian culture that the world will instantly identify it by. Indian culture will instantly become synonymous with misogyny and MISOGYNY ONLY. They don't get to see the respect of the young towards their elders, they don't see a society who treats their teachers with respect bordering on reverence, they don't see families who hold their matriarchs in worship, they don't see siblings have been taught to "cut an olive in eight pieces, and share it equally amongst themselves, setting aside a share for their parents". They don't know that once upon a time, 'a woman could travel safely alone and from one end of the country to the other with a ruby on her open palm'. All the richness and the worthwhile values it has been imbued with over a period of five thousand years, the nuances and the traditions that make up these people's daily lives - they will all be waved aside and demeaned because of one warped aspect of their society.

Let's compare and contrast these two situations, shall we? On one hand, we have a society who's girls have been "sullied" and "dishonoured". Dishonour is the thing above all else that they have been conditioned to avoid. Threat of dishonour is the thing which provokes the most visceral of reactions in an Afghan family. Do they push their emotional reaction aside to examine whether the girl has truly behaved badly? No. Do they set their all-encompassing fear of society aside to try and help and heal these poor girls? No. Do they try and see past the notoriety these girls have unwittingly gained, and see that there is still worth and value left in them? No. So they disown them, wash their hands of them and will them to destroy themselves.

And so these poor girls end their lives in droves, preferring to do it themselves rather than face the long-drawn out death that an uncaring society will surely afford them. And the rapists, the ones that are truly to blame, will continue to ruin other young lives, unchecked and unpunished.

On the other hand, we have you, Ann. You hear reports of young girls being driven to suicide. Misogyny is the one thing above all that life has conditioned you not to tolerate. It is the thing that evokes the most visceral reaction from you, the most extreme emotional response. Do you push your emotional reaction aside to examine whether the all the values, ethics and practices of Afghan society really do conspire together to drive girls to suicide? No. And even if the culture is really misogynist, do you research and review this society to see whether there is anything of worth inherent in its traditions worth salvaging? No. Do you set your all-encompassing hatred of societal misogyny aside to try and help and heal this society? No. So you wash their hands of the entire country, because a society who makes their girls kill themselves deserves to be left unaided by the right-thinking world to go to hell in their own way, right?

So a little Afghan child freezes to death for the lack of an extra blanket, or woman doesn't have enough food rations to feed her baby or, most ironically, an outcast Afghan girl is driven to die in the street because the women's organizations that might have helped her don't have enough sponsors or financial aid to accommodate her. And Afghan society sneers at the values of the West, who will condemn their people and is content to see them destroyed. And they will continue to treat their daughters as badly as ever.

I'm not EQUATING their ACTIONS with yours, Ann. That would be criminally stupid of me. I'm drawing paralells between their REACTIONS and yours. Both are emotional rather than intellectual judgments which end up punishing the innocent unjustly. THIS is what Alycone and I are warning against.

Of course, the cases aren't exactly the same. At most, you might be guilty of negligence while Afghan society is certainly directly culpable of active persecution of those girls. You had the right to withdraw your own monetary contributions (as opposed to the rightness of doing it, mind). They had no right to harass those poor girls to commit suicide. Whatever wrong you did was certainly not at all on the same level as the one they committed.

But ultimately, (from my point of view) you'd still have made a wrong decision because of a knee-jerk emotional reaction and someone innocent would still be punished unjustly because of it.

Cultures aren't made up of just one aspect. There are a myriad of factors in the make-up of a society, different aspects, different values and ethics, different customs and traditions. Some are good, some are bad, some are admirable and some are tragically warped, tragic or downright insane. They're just like people. Condemning the people and customs of an entire country, lock, stock and barrel, because of ONE aspect that it is most notorious for, makes you quite as bad as the ones you are condemning.

Help these people. Take a stand. But make sure that you really ARE helping them first.

Excellent point! We shouldn't condemn an entire society for a certain groups beliefs. In much the same way that some people assume that people who are Muslim are terrorist. Of all the things that are wrong to assume that is the worst of all because that kind of assumption is extremely discriminate. I've heard of people who are very educated and yet still are racist and believe in an all white society.

By all means stand up for what you believe in because that's what I do too, but also respect the beliefs of other and that society.

it's so imprtant to be careful how we word things. I've got into so much trouble because of people interpreting things in a way that was the furthest thing from my intent.

So while we're being critical of how Ann has phrased her comments, let's not forget that the incident did happen, and that it was not an isolated one. We can't overlook the horror of such incidents in an attempt to remind people of that fact that 'most people' don't act that way.

To downplay the incident itself comes perilously close to condoning it.

c.

Unfortunately I have to agree with several of your points, Hasini. The reason I gave money to that organisation in the first place was that I was so upset that the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan at all. Giving money to Afghanistan was, to me, a symbolic gesture which proved that I wanted the Soviet Union to lose in Afghanistan and not even think of invading other countries. And because I wanted the Soviet Union to lose, I also wanted Afghanistan to win.

But when I realized how women were viewed and treated in Afghanistan, I suddenly wasn't at all sure that I wanted Afghanistan to win. Perhaps the Afghan women would actually be better off if the Soviet Union won and took over their country? To my knowledge, the Soviet Union wasn't known to be extremely sexist.

I felt as if I was defending the Afghan system against the Soviet system if I gave money to Afghanistan in an ongoing conflict. And after I had been told about the mass suicides of raped Afghan girls, I just felt that I didn't want to do that. Bottom line, I felt that it had to do with me. I asked myself, what would have been most horrible to me? To be raped, or to have to feel that my parents, my friends, my entire society wanted me to die, to kill myself, because I had been raped? I knew the answer. I couldn't root for a system that would have demanded my death if I had been raped over a system that wouldn't have minded my continued existence.

Ann

I find this discussion interesting for several reasons. The one that keeps popping up, however, is an unstated apparent "knowledge" among all the participants that the punishing of women for mild "offenses" such as riding in a car with a man she she's not married to or killing a woman for talking to a strange man is absolutely wrong.

Don't misunderstand me: I agree that these horrible acts perpetrated against defenseless women are completely wrong. And I agree that a culture which not only allows such practices but promotes them is deeply flawed.

But I have read a number of people from different viewpoints (Hindu, atheist, humanist, feminist) agreeing on a moral issue. Please add Christian to the list. I am a Christian, and I deplore the practices outlined in this thread.

What strikes me is the thought that we're all taking a moral stance without appealing to a common moral code. We all seem to agree that there is an overriding moral code which states that certain practices and customs are wrong, irrespective of the culture in which they occur.

How can any of us state authoritatively that the practice of honor killing is wrong? We must do so on some absolute moral basis, but what is that basis? Is it common custom among all people? No, because there are societies today in which this honor killing is practiced regularly. Is it the laws of one or more countries? No, because laws differ between nations. Is it our personal preferences? No, because people all over the world have different preferences. Is it common agreement? Within the L&C community the answer would be "yes," but our community does not encompass the entire world.

Most of us seem to be appealing to a higher moral law than that of men (or women) or of nations or of community standards. The basis for the legal code of most of the Western world is the Bible, which states both in the Old and New Testament that the deliberate taking of human life is wrong. England and America both derive our legal roots from Scripture, and the similarity between English common law and that of other European nations leads me to believe that the Bible was also instrumental in the establishment of the legal codes there.

Ann, you quoted the law of Moses in an earlier post in an attempt to discredit the Bible. If you really knew the Bible well, you'd know that the law of Moses was given to the ancient nation of Israel and not to the entire world, nor was it intended to be the exact code by which people were to live today. We, today, are not commanded to kill witches, nor are we commanded to kill non-virgin girls at their weddings. To write as if we were so instructed betrays a lack of understanding on your part.

Once again, let me insist that I condemn the deliberate enslavement or persecution or murder of any part of humanity in any way, whether men or women or boys or girls or unborn infants. My point is that if we are appealing to a higher moral standard to support our views, should we not admit that a higher moral standard must therefore exist, and that it transcends our human reason and preference? I think so. In fact, I think we must do so.

Interesting point, Terry. I don't have time to properly reply right now but this especially caught my attention

Having a strong deja vu flash here of the works of John Locke and T.H. Green. Think we often 'reinterpret' our personal religious beliefs with more modern belief systems - in this case liberalism (hope I haven't offended mbs Americans with this word). We overlay the old beliefs with newer ideas.

So, for example, we have changed what we mean by being "human" - *who* is fully human. For example, It's only in that last century or so that western societies have, in law, defined women as 'persons' rather than as chattel. (Notoriously, in Canada, the first woman to be appointed to our Senate was disqualified by the Courts on the grounds that, as a woman, she was not a "person" and so was ineligible.

Okay to bring this back to Terry's example. I'm not sure that religious beliefs are completely behind our acceptance of some kind of higher moral order. Nor am I sure that an evolving moral code is the consequence of religious beliefs.

The 10 Cs is similar to other behavioural codes that originated in the Middle East - that of the ancient Babylonians for example.
Some of the tenets are similar to codes in other societies that represent attempts to impose some sort of 'order' on an unruly community - thou shalt not steal, etc or lust after your neighbour's wife (spouse? ) or his *** ( i do not take that as an anti-gay exhortation but rather don't be lusting after his sports car.)

edit: just noted that the actual word in the King James version of the bible has been bleeped out.


c.

Terry, I know very well that the law of Moses was given to the ancient nation of Israel. I'm very well aware that you can very easily argue that the law of Moses doesn't apply to us at all. In his letter to the Romans, Paul passionately argued that people gain salvation not by obeying the law of Moses, but by accepting Christ as their personal saviour. However, those words of Paul's didn't stop people in Europe from using that particular part of Scripture and the law of Moses to legitimate witch hunts in Europe in the 16th and 17th century. Back in those days, in spite of the Renaissance and in spite of Paul's letter to the Romans, Europe was still more than willing to use the law of Moses to justify the killing of presumed witches. (And sometimes the law of Moses was used to justify the killing of young women who were not virgins on their wedding nights, too.)

That's why I'll keep insisting that the reason why we don't burn witches in Europe today is not because we have all read Paul's letter to the Romans. No, it's because it just isn't possible to equate the Bible with the law in our part of the world any more. It has become impossible in most of Western civilization to use the Bible to legitimate any sort of killings. Indeed, in much of Europe it has become impossible to use the Bible to legitimate any sort of harsh measures against people.

Terry, you are absolutely right that the Bible has been extremely important for the development in Western civilization of concepts like right and wrong. However, it is also true that certainly since the eighteenth century and the Age of Enlightenment, the Bible has been questioned and criticized in our part of the world. I would say that our concepts of right and wrong have been created because we have read the Bible and agreed as well as disagreed with it.

In Sweden, we generally say that it is the UN Declaration of Human Rights from December 10, 1948 that is the foundation for our sense of morality and of right and wrong. I know one thing: according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it must be unquestionably wrong to commit honour killings, or to sentence a woman to 200 lashes because she has been in the company of an unrelated male, or to sentence a woman to public gang-rape because someone disapproves of her brother's behaviour, or to try to force victims of rape to kill themselves. All that is absolutely wrong according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Whether it is absolutely wrong according to the Bible is something I really can't say.

Ann

Your post caught my eye too, Terry.

My question would be-- why? I approach the above point with hesitation because while we can all agree that the murder of innocents is wrong from whatever vantage point you take, it can quickly become much more complicated. For instance, is it okay to commit murder if you were wronged badly enough? The answers don't necessarily line up so easily then for everyone across beliefs and cultures. This makes me wonder what use it is to talk about universal moral standards outside such clear cut examples (like that of an innocent victim).

Personally, I follow the UN human rights for these situations as that "higher moral standard" if you will--I have my own religious beliefs of course, but I feel these are deeply personal. They are a metric for myself that I don't feel comfortable imposing on others, but the statutes of human rights more or less mirror my own general moral outlook. I think for these situations the framework of human rights is the best we can do to try to cross cultural and national borders, given the participation of truly diverse groups. But even as that "higher moral standard," what's important to me is that I consider work on human rights a work in progress (I mean women's rights didn't even get added to it until relatively recently) that is constantly subject to revision and healthy critique. Not a perfect rigid system, but what is?

alcyone

PS And I would absolutely love not to have to constantly disclaim what seems self-evident in here, but there are people on this thread who (persistently) are quick to misread my arguments (and that of others) into a defense of something abominable.

Now if we could only see all the members of the UN Human Rights Commission applying the UN Charter to each of the signatory nations.

One step at a time, I guess.

c.

I've been waiting for someone to respond with a couple of obvious questions and some historical notes, but it hasn't happened yet. So I'll jump in.

Carol Malo wrote:

The Ten Commandments (and the additional 600-plus civil and religious laws included) are indeed similar to those from other cultures, like the code of Hammurabi. But even that code prescribed different punishments crimes committed against different levels of society. For example, if a commoner killed a high-ranking noble, the commoner's life was forfeit, but if that same noble killed that same commoner, the noble was fined or had to pay reparations to the commoner's survivors.

This wasn't because human life was equated to money and the commoner obviously lacked the funds to repay the noble's family. It was because justice wasn't applied evenly throughout their society. The law of Moses prescribed the same punishment for a particular crime without regard to the social standing or the personal fortune of the lawbreaker.

It also limited the punishment to fit the crime. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is often viewed by today's society as violent and cruel, but it is instead a limiting factor. If you started a fight with another person and knocked out that other person's tooth, the punishment could not be altered by taking into account the social position or wealth or political influence of the loser of the tooth. It was a fixed penalty unalterable by anyone. In this regard, it was unique among the ancient legal codes.

I do not object in the slightest to using the UN Declaration of Human Rights as a basis for an ethical position or even a moral position. But I have two questions for you.

First, if this declaration is the basis for a moral system, what was the basis of morality before this declaration was published? Second, if this is a firm and basic declaration of morality, where did the concepts contained in it come from?

Let me address the second question first. In reading over the thirty articles contained in the declaration, they strongly resemble both the Constitution of the United States (especially in the bill of rights) and New Testament principles enumerated by Jesus in the book of Matthew chapters four through seven (often called the "Sermon On the Mount"). It also resembles in part documents produced by the 1789 French revolution and sections of the English Magna Carta of 1215.

I'm sure that's not an exhaustive list, just what came to mind while I was writing this. So the UN declaration isn't original. It was based on (and modeled after) other historical documents from other nations. It isn't a direct copy of any of them, of course, but its heritage is easily traced.

Therefore, the first question is answered by the second. A basis of morality existed prior to the publishing of the UN declaration, both in religious writings and in the founding legal documents of many nations. It is a distillation of a number of important documents with some modern updating. In fact, let me quote one section for you.

With this entry, I am manifesting my religion and my belief in teaching and practice. I also realize that this same section gives others the right to disagree with me and to believe differently. No problem, at least not for me. My purpose is not to offend anyone, but to state my views and the reasons behind them. I hope that this thread contains more reasonable discussion of these issues as we go forward. Thank you for reading.

You are absolutely right about this, Terry. The UN declaration isn't original. It is a distillation of thousands of years of thoughts and discussions about morality.

To me, the idea that the UN declaration isn't original isn't a problem at all. In some parts of the world, particularly in some - not all!!! - Muslim countries, there has been an attempt to return to the laws of the Koran, which were written in the 7th century. There is nothing wrong about the 7th century as such, but haven't we learnt anything since then?

Imagine that we were to do the same thing with science. Imagine that we suddenly had to get back to the scientific ideas that were accepted back then and accept them as the "gospel truth" today. I can imagine just the kind of strange ideas we would have to accept about astronomy.



And consider medicine. For a long time it was believed that illnesses were caused by an "imbalance of the bodily fluids", and one such fluid was mercury. People were sometimes made to ingest mercury, which is incredibly toxic, in order to cure their illnesses.

We know more about science now than we did hundreds or thousands of years ago. What reason do we have to believe that our understanding of morality was perfect in the year 4,000 B.C., or, say, 670 A.D., and that it has since declined? What reason do we have to believe that we have learnt nothing since those times hundreds or thousands of years ago, and that we must return to the roots, to the beginning, to know what is right and wrong again?

Discussing the roots of morality is a great idea, if you ask me. Studying old laws and documents can only be a good thing.

But when a Swedish king of the 17th century - that would have been Charles X, I imagine - decided that he would copy the words from the Bible about not suffering a witch to live, and then insert those words into Swedish law, making witch hunts legal, I don't think the level of morality was raised in seventeenth century Sweden.

Ann

Interesting. Love these discussions

My comments were specific to the 10 Commandmets only and not to Mosaic law as it evolved over the centuries. But I do want to add that the 10 C's was limited by the social and cultural context in which it was applied.

So for example 'Thou shalt not commit adultery" did not mean the same thing for everyone equally. Men were polygynous and also had concubines - commiting adultery was not so limiting. But for a woman it would have be really tough - since she might be getting only a fraction of a man she's condemned by that stricture as are the single men who've been cut out of the wife accumulation game by the wealthy males.

Think about the commandment "Thou shall not covert thy neighbour's wife'. That tells us that the 10 C's were focused more on men than on women, too. (this is the King James version of the Old Testament. I should add)

But all these codes are a start. Like the Magna Carta - it would not accept the testimony of a woman witness in a court of law, but nevertheless it did spell out in writing what common law practise had been for centuries, and that's a step forward.

IMO, anyway, although I know a lot of historians have criticised the Magna Carta for being a tad reactionary. For example, the guarantee to a "jury of one's peers" meant nobles only in some cases.

As for the UN Charter of Rights - I see that as a new kid on the block - put into the UN Charter by the creators of that organization - so it reflects the historical experiences of the Europeans and Americans at the end of WW2. They put together a liberal document that could be as acceptable to the Americans with their Bill of Rights, the British with theirs, and the French with Their Declarations of the Rights of Man, etc.

As for the anti-witch laws, those laws were on the books in many European countries at that time. And even spread to the New World. Salem

Although to be fair to the Europeans in this regard, many cultures have had strictures against witches.

I'd better stop now.

c.

Ann wrote:

It's not a problem for me either, and I apologize for leaving the impression that it was. I had no intention of denigrating the UN declaration, only to point out that the ideas contained in it had historical precedent. The American Constitution has historical precedents, too; the ideas and concepts in it were not at all original. What was original, however, was the way it was put together and the way it was to be put into practice. At the time, no other nation had ever tried something like that.

Carol wrote:

Carol, I think you're referring to what is often called Pharisaical law instead of the law of Moses. Over the centuries, practices and customs and restrictions not in the original commandments came to be enforced by the Jewish religious leaders as strictly as the original code. And the Ten Commandments were never intended to stand alone in Israel, but were only the introduction to the entire code. To refer to the first 10 and not to the other 600-plus commandments is to make an artificial separation between the two. All of them comprise the law of Moses.

To return to the original post in this thread: I deplore the excessive and uneven legal punishment of women over men. The law must apply to all persons equally, or it becomes an instrument of oppression and not an instrument of justice. A culture or a society which deliberately uses laws to separate a portion of its population from the rest simply because of skin color or gender or height or religious affiliation any other measure may have many redeeming qualities but is still fundamentally flawed.

I say this because I believe that there is a higher law, a higher morality which transcends anything man can assemble or enforce. There is an absolute standard of right and wrong which cannot be changed, no matter what our personal preferences or societal customs. Deliberate murder of another human being is wrong. Excessive punishment of a young woman for speaking to a stranger and giving him directions is wrong. Torturing another person only because of that person's stated beliefs is wrong.

Standing up for the rights of others is right. Stopping such outrages as described in other posts in this thread is right. Protecting the innocent and restraining evildoers is right. Saving lives which are threatened by evil people is right.

Do you agree?

Thanks, Terry for the clarification on Mosaic Law. But I do want to add that my first comments were specific to the 10 Commandments.

carol

First a disclaimer: Please don't misread my arguments as a defense of clear human rights violations.


But was this "higher universal moral" code was always in place? This seems to be implied by stating the historical precedent for the UN Declaration, for instance. But this evidence can easily go the other way. The UN Declaration's history also makes it an object of imperialism. As someone said (forgot who, sorry ), reflects the experiences of the Europeans that first sat down to write it, not necessarily the experiences of most of the world.

So the document's history itself makes it not-so-universal, what draws me to it, personally is its openness (again the opportunity for critique and revision) and the wide participation in it, and of course we still have a ways to go.

What this indicates to me however, is that there's been some development over what we consider "right" and "wrong" over time--I think Ann said something along these lines. Was it simply that the world at large lived in complete ignorance of this higher code? I don't think so, the people living in those times where atrocities where commited and sanctioned by the law probably wouldn't think so either.

I am not arguing that witch hunts are "right" (before someone jumps the gun and disregards my disclaimer). My point here is that I'm not sure we have any solid basis to make such a universal argument of what is "right" and "wrong." Again, don't get me wrong I personally agree with what Terry names as "right" and "wrong" , but I know it's easy to say that here and in most of the West. If this morality standard truly "transcends anything man can assemble or enforce," then what do we do with it other than say it exists in a crowd of likeminded people?

More concretely, if the argument is pushed forward to enforcement, the problem then lies in the instances such as as the article Ann reacted to. In this article, we see what Saudi law dictates as "wrong." Period. Clearly, they do not--at least in the law. On what basis do we persuade them to change their minds?

Of course I do--but you don't have to convince me or anyone else on the thread about that, for that matter. If this argument crosses over to enforcement however (and I think it does for several people on this thread), then I strongly believe all of these horrible things will still continue. You just can't walk up to people and say, "X is wrong." They'll inevitably ask, "Why?" The universal morality argument says, "It just is." I'm not sure that's helpful.

Ultimately, it's easy to argue for a particular absolute in an audience that subscribes and supports a certain worldview, but how do we reach those who do not?

That, to me, is the most important question and I don't think the answer lies in universals.

alcyone

This , I hope, shows the thinking I'm coming from.

Yes, Terry, I can agree with what you said in your last post.

As I have read through this thread, however, I can see that Hasini and Alcyone have made important points when they say that it is altogether too easy to condemn an entire society because of one shortcoming of the society in question. It is also too easy to assume a position of superiority just because you have been born in a country that fortune and circumstances have smiled on. That's true... that's absolutely true. And yet, and yet... I'm not backing down from my position that a society does not deserve the same respect as any other if it is severely misogynist. It also does not deserve the same respect as any other if it is extremely racist, or if it openly accepts a system of slavery, or if it allows people to be executed for criticizing the government, etcetera.

Let me try to explain what I mean by offering yet another example from the Old Testament (which is an incredibly fascinating document, by the way). Anyway, my example is from the book of Judges, which according to many scholars contains the oldest descriptions of the life and society of the people whose land would eventually be known as Israel. What sort of life did these people live? It is very interesting to look at the terms on which God and the children of Israel entered into their Covenant, when the Israelites were given the law of Moses. The Israelites had to keep this law, but what would they receive from God in return?

Sorry about the long quote, but I think it is important. What God promises Moses and the Israelites if they keep his law is not that they will get to spend eternity in heaven. No, instead God promises the Israelites that they will be successful here on earth. Specifically, God promises that the Israelites will be able to defeat their enemies, they will control the land, they will have enough to eat, they will not suffer from sicknesses, and people, livestock and the land will all be fertile.

To me, this suggests that the people who get such a promise from God know all too much about being harassed by enemies, about not having enough to eat, about suffering from diseases, and about barely being able to make new life survive on the hard and barren soil that they hoped to claim as their own.

In short: This was a people that was literally fighting for its very existence. The people were fighting to succeed as a nation, and they were fighting to survive as individuals in spite of diseases and starvation.

When life is very hard, it is probable that the people become hard, too, in order to survive. One thing that the people in the Old Testament do all the time is sacrifice animals to God. By ritually killing and burning animals the Israelites were hoping to please and appease God, so that he would bless the Israelites in return. Because in this barren land, they so desperately needed God's blessing.

In a nation where it is absolutely natural, indeed mandatory, to sacrifice animals, it must become tempting to give God an even grander gift - by sacrificing humans, too. The custom of sacrificing people to the gods is one that has existed in huge parts of the world.



This is the so-called man from Tollund, a man who was ritually sacrificed in Denmark about 2,400 years ago.

What does the Bible say about sacrificing people to God? It forbids it. This, for example, is what Deuteronomy 18 says:

Here the Bible says that other nations in that area practised child sacrifice (that is almost certainly what is implied by the words about making one's son or daughter "pass through the fire). So killing one's child and sacrificing him or her to God was not acceptable according to the law of Moses. Even so, the custom of child sacrifice existed and was apparently practised among many nations and peoples of that area and at that time.

Now for the story from Judges. In chapter eleven of that book, we are told the story of Jephthah from Gilead, a great warrior. He is going to lead an attack on a people called the Ammonites. But to ensure God's help in the battle against the Ammonites, Jephthah promised God that he would sacrifice "whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites" (Judges 11:31). In other words: Jephthah promised God that he would kill the first member of his household who came out to meet him when he returned home victorious from his battle.

So who was it who came to meet Jephthah, then? It was his daughter. His only child. Jephthah is stricken when he sees his daughter, because he really didn't want to kill her. But she was the first person who came to meet him, and he had promised God that he would kill that person.

How does his daughter react? She knows that a vow that a man makes when speaking to God is unbreakable. Her father made a vow which, due to extremely unfortunate circumstances, means that he must kill her. He must kill her and sacrifice her to God. Should she try to talk him out of it?

No. The daughter knows how extremely important her father's faith in God is, and she knows what the law of Moses says about vows. The daughter concludes that neither she nor her father has a choice. He must kill her, and they must both accept it.

All she asks for is a reprieve of two months.

But after two months, her time was up.

He did with her according to his vow what he had vowed; in other words, he killed her.

Can I respect this society, where a father can ritually kill and sacrifice his circa fourteen-year-old daughter because of a vow he has made? I can give no short and simple answer. I feel an incredible sympathy for the daughter, and for her maturity and unbelievable courage. I sympathize with the father's anguish, when he realizes that his religious belief forces him kill his daughter according to the vow he has made.

I also feel a general sense of sympathy and respect for the fight for survival that this people, the Israelites of ancient Israel, had to fight all the time. And I can understand that they would sacrifice animals to make the mighty God help them, and I can understand that they were tempted to sacrifice people, too.

But, bottom line: I can't respect Jephthah's decision to promise God that he would kill the first member of his household that came out to meet him when he returned victorious from his battle. Bottom line, I can't respect a society that gives the head of a household the right to kill any other member of that household and sacrifice him or her to God.

And just picturing a father taking a knife in one hand, and grabbing his daughter with his other hand, and then plunging the knife into his daughter's heart... no, I can't respect it. I can't respect a society or a father that allows such a thing to happen. Or at the very, very least, I can't respect that society the way I would respect a society that wouldn't allow such a thing. And Jephthah's society apparently did allow it. Because even though the law of Moses forbids child sacrifices, there is no condemnation of Jephthah's behaviour in the book of Judges.

There are reasons for why it happened. And that kind of thing happened in Scandinavia, too.

We should try to understand. There are always reasons for why things are the way they are. And being lucky yourself doesn't give you the right to condemn others who are less fortunate.

But that doesn't mean we should have to say that one society is always just as good and just as worthy of respect as any other.

Let me just say that in the case of Jephthah's daughter, some people did remember, and mourn. They remembered and mourned year after year. The people who mourned were young women:

The daughters of Israel mourned Jephthah's daughter. They did not not allow her death to be forgotten. And thereby, they did not allow other young women to be sacrificed so easily because their fathers had uttered a hasty vow to God.

The young women of Israel did not allow themselves to be that victimized any more. Now that is something I can so fully and completely respect.

Ann

I realize this is an old topic, and it kind of got diverted a little, but here's a new one! A 16 year old girl is strangled to death by her dad for not wearing a hajib. This one happened in Canada, so I guess the US shouldn't be allied with Canada anymore if they can't stop this kind of stuff from happening. Gotta wonder why there's no human's rights groups, or women's rights groups voicing their outrage on this yet

Canada is not responsible for the fact that this man murdered his daughter. Canada is only responsible for the punishment it metes out when it puts this man on trial. Will the Canadian court rule that this man's Muslim faith gives him the right to kill his daughter? No, we can be sure that the court will not come to such a decision. Will it rule that the man's Muslim faith should be seen as extenuating circumstances, so that he should be given a lighter sentence than if he had been a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu or an atheist? No, the court will reject any such claims. The court will find the man guilty of murder, and the fact that he killed his daughter in order to protect his family's honour will, if anything, be seen as aggravating circumstances.

So there is no need to blame or boycott Canada!

Ann

Ann, I wish I could be as confident about the judicial system as you undoubtedly are. Speaking from the experience of several cases in Germany about honor killings, it's quite possible that the perpetrator (the father in this case) can get a lower sentence because he believed e was doing the right thing or had acted according to tradition. I know it has happened in Germany, and it caused quite a scandal for a few weeks. But then, everybody seemed to have forgotten about it again.

Well, we Canadians still have crimes happening here, sadly.

This Toronto story is tragic, as are all murders. We do not, however, have the death penalty - the maximum sentence for first degree and second degree murder is life imprisonment which is 25 years. In some cases, in second degree murder, the convicted killer is eligible for parole much sooner.

Very recently a man convicted of 2nd degree murder for the euthanasia killing of his severely disabled daughter who was in a great deal of pain that could not be alleviated was refused parole.

In the Missassauga case cited above, I doubt our courts will treat the killer more leniently. In fact, I suspect that Moslem-Canadians are horrified by the crime this man committed.

carol

Then they need to stand up and say so, because right now it's guys like this that are representing their ideals.

Hope this links works. This article is from one of our leading newspapers this morning

National Post

carol

About twenty-five years ago, we had a case in Sweden where a Muslim man beat up his girlfriend, not hurting her seriously, but according to Swedish law he was not allowed to beat her at all. His lawyer argued that because this man was a Muslim, he was used to thinking that he had a right to beat up his girlfriends, and Swedish courts should take this into account and not give the man any punishment. The court bought this argument and ruled that the man had committed a crime, but he would not be punished for it because he couldn't know that he was not allowed to do what he had done.

Understandably, this caused an uproar among feminists. "Do we have to accept that a man can beat us up and get away with it because he is a Muslim?" they asked. The case was appealed to a higher court, and the higher court overturned the earlier sentence. It ruled that anyone who is within the borders of Sweden has to obey Swedish law, regardless of what preferences or beliefs this person may have. What is forbidden in Sweden is forbidden, and not knowing or approving of the law is not an excuse for breaking it.

Ever since then, it has not been seen as extenuating circumstances to have a different religious or cultural background when you commit a crime in Sweden. Or at least, not when you use violence against another person.

Ann

What right does any man have to deat up his wife or girlfriend or any woman for that matter? We hear this thing time and time again across all culture. The only difference is in western countries we all take a stand against it. In fact in Australia, the government has been running an ad campaign stating that 'To violence against women Australia says NO.' Not only that the government has established a confidential helpline for those in need of it.

At the end of the day though it is US who have make the choice whether to seek help or not. In cases such as honour killings I have heard that most people don't get away with it and personally if they do somehow evade a prison term or have a reduced sentence because of their religion we should close that loop hole because at the end of the day it is still murder and well don't one of the Ten Commandments say 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'?

The problem with honor killings in Germany is that they're usually well-planned. Quite often, they're executed by a younger, obviously male member of the family, making use of the fact that young people between 14 and 18 years can't get more than 10 years of prison for any sort of murder. And when such a young boy is put to trial, the lawyer makes sure to tell the jury how deluded the poor fellow is, that he was badly influenced by his father's strict Muslim beliefs. Often, the killer doesn't get even the full 10 years, and the sentence even gets reduced afterwards for good conduct in prison. It's one of the terrible loopholes in our judicial system, I'm afraid.

As a matter of fact, it's rather misogynic. In Germany, tax fraud and theft are often punished harsher than rape, even when the victim is still a child! And, what adds insult to injury, it's usually the rapist that gets paid a therapy, not the victim. Here in Germany, the top priority seems to be to re-integrate prisoners into "normal" society, even if they have been sentenced for rape on more than one occasion. After all, what is another ruined life of a woman compared to the life of an acknowledged rapist?

There were several cases of repeat offenders, mostly child molesters which made one change to our system possible: By now, dangerous individuals can be kept in prison for safe-keeping even after their sentence expired. Unfortunately, there are too many psychiatrists around that attest that these monsters are "completely healed" and "unlikely to repeat their crime".

It's one of the reasons my daughter will start learning karate as soon as she turns five.