Politically Correctness. Ok, ok, I know I should not be writing something titled PC as somehow this will cost me a friend or two, but after all this guff about politically correctness, somebody has to say something. And here it is: Not every culture deserves our respect. In fact a great number of them are poisonous. Now on the face of it that does not sound particularly incendiary in itself, after all in many ways that is like saying that not everyone is a wonderful fellow. However this is Canada in the early 21st century, where even a mumbled criticism of something or rather, gets you beaten to the floor by the weight of today’s new thinking.
In my case I was told off just the other day by a young woman for mentioning a dreadful example of an Honour Killing, where if I recall properly a Lebanese Canadian man, his wife and son pushed their car containing his two daughters and his ex-wife who had continued living with the family because she had no where else to go, into a canal and watched them die. He and his brood then returned to their hotel where they reported the car stolen. It turned out that the father had decided on that course of action, the demise of his female offspring because he was very displeased with their choice of boyfriends and had demanded they stop seeing them. They gave him “the bird” and the dishonour heaped upon him was too much. Solution in his culture: Death.
The young lady who took exception to my calling the above an Honour Killing, was upset because she said murder is murder period and no disrespect to a culture should be attached. Well yes and no. Yes they were murdered but murdered because they were seen through the scrim of a culture that gives no credence to a woman’s wishes and therefore no “Human Rights”. I find it ironic that this Caucasian lady who then went on to bring out the big gun of racism and accusatory language , would be so disturbed by use of the word Honour when I was simply pointing out the plight of those poor females in the back of that car all because of a supposedly dishonoured father in Canada, was displeased.
I think the word Honour does matter and does make a murder different. For one thing there was nothing spontaneous, in this case as he planned it for months, setting up the family trip in two cars. But here is the real kicker, this bastard convinced one side of his immediate family including the MOTHER to kill the other side of his immediate family, AND THEY DID KILL THEM. Hence my use of the term HONOUR KILLING. I am sorry, we are not tribes from the hills of some dreadful land living in goat tents, we are a civilized democracy where these things should be vigorously denounced and stamped out. No pussy-footing around it, no hand wringing over cultural differences, it is wrong and must be stopped. This is Canada, we protect people, even girls within a family which may upset some fathers in another culture. Sorry, but that’s it.
On another subject, if conservative Muslim women want to go around looking like a letter-box that is fine with me, but they must get their picture taken for identification like any other civilized person. The Koran only mentions modesty, and as far as I know all this other stuff seems to come from ancient tribes in a wasteland around the 6th century.
If you do not have indoor toilets don’t lecture me.
What I am really concerned about is summarized by that lady at the beginning of this “Raving”, for her attitude towards me for my saying what is true but unacceptable in “today’s speak”, in that no matter how outrageous and anti-female the culture and it’s habits may be, it is not to be chastised as this might imply disrespect of some kind. Well it is disrespect on my part, a deep disrespect, so there. As a man who has three daughters, the idea that I, my wife and my son would agree to kill them is not only unthinkable, it is impossible.
Plus we all have several photographic ID’s as do MOST Canadians.
Copyright Christopher Dalton 2014
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