“Honour” Killings, Women’s rights and Media Manipulations
The identity attributed to an individual or a community by the media is
often dictated by the underlying political motivation. It has its
inherent biased, and value judgements based on certain principles that
it upholds. Whilst the war rages on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine, another war rages for the control of the intellect. As they
say battle for the “hearts and the minds”. The media can incite the
masses by the manner in which it portrays a certain event or placate
the emotions by remaining silent. From the inception of the first Gulf
war the Kurds have been described only as Kurds rather then Muslims or
Kurdish Muslims. In contrast the recent killing by the Kurdish father
(Abdalla Yones) of his young daughter was immediately identified as an
act of a “Muslim” and later altered to “Kurdish Muslim”. Is it merely a
coincidenc! e that after a decade the media suddenly adopted the label
of “Muslim” instead of just “Kurdish” to associate with this unpleasant
and isolated incident? Similarly in the case of the Oklahoma bombing
the media ferociously painted a false picture built on prejudice and
questionable evidences, which later proved to be an outright lie. It
seems that the media has a deliberate policy of asserting Islam as an
underlying factor whenever an unpleasant incidence occurs, even if the
act was contrary to the teachings of Islam. No doubt many would simply
dismiss the above notion as a form of conspiracy theory or paranoia but
the examples are in abundance. In a recent TV documentary, it referred
to the Turkish producers of porno films not as “Turkish pornographers”
but as “Muslim Pornographers”. It is truly amazing that even the most
non-practicing, westernised liberals who are engaged in the most
un-Islamic acts are coloured with the Muslim brush. Whilst on the flip
side when the ! dedicated practicing Muslims attempt to represent a
united voice under the Islamic/Muslim banner, the media reverses its
policy by dropping the label and rushes to highlight the differences,
Arabs and Pakistanis, Turks and Kurds, Shia’s and Sunnis etc instead of
just “Muslims”.
Coming back to the issue of the killing of ones daughter, it was Islam
that abolished the ancient Arab custom of burying their daughters
alive. The Holy Quran clearly rebuked such abominable practices in the
strongest terms. In a sense such practices are also prevalent today. A
female foetus is terminated even after considerable growth, in some
cases even after birth of a child. This phenomenon is prevalent within
the Indian Hindu society, which is primarily caused by the burden of
marriage dowry. Whilst in the West such practices are not motivated by
the issue of gender but social inconvenience. A similar fate was
suffered in China as a consequence of its one child policy. In some
cases the child is simply abandoned after birth. This is rarely
witnessed even in the animal kingdom. The killing of the daughter
naturally brought universal condemnation on one hand, whilst equally
has led to over shadowing the initial crime of the daughter, who was
engaging in an illicit relationship. For sure Islam does not allow the
father taking the daughters life even if she has committed murder or
adultery. This is the duty of the judges in courts and in any case
there is no capital punishment for fornication. In the mean time the
usual debate goes on for whether it is cultural or religious factors
that led to this crime. However, few have failed to fully appreciate as
to what motivated the father to resort to such drastic measures. Every
father dearly loves his child, often more so if it is a daughter.
The media says it is “Honour”, how does a society understand honour
when it does not appreciate what is shameful. For one to appreciate
honour, one must have a sense of shame. As an example, in the liberal
West, uncovering the private part is considered to be an indecent act
and shameful, by its laws. However, we see the West argue vigorously
against the traditional modesty of Islamic garments for women and men.
In recent times, France, Canada and Germany have begun to consider the
issue of Islamic veil as a threat to their society. Amazing how a piece
cloth worn by an individual can pose such a threat to t! he most
advanced societies, perhaps they will issue similar verdicts on the
Nuns, and Monks who also exhibit similar dress codes! The rationale
seems to be that the less clothes that one wears the more liberated the
person becomes. Well, in that case why draw a line? Surely as an
example, if a woman is described as “progressive” for replacing the
veil with the mini-skirt, then by the same reasoning if she were to
move further in the same direction to complete nudity that should be
seen as the apex of the “progression”. However the action is currently
classified as an act of public indecency by law but the thought process
of the society indicates such actions to be morally acceptable. Hence
there is no sense of feeling shame in public exposure and nudity, so
they cannot appreciate the dishonouring that arises out of this
process. Therefore, Cherry Blair’s prediction that the honourable women
of Afghanistan would abandon the (Burqa) veil for the bikini after the
removal of! the Taliban has proven to be absolutely false, as she
failed to comprehend the honour of wearing the veil. Similarly in the
animal kingdom they have no concept of shame, hence they do not cover
their private parts. The absence of shame within the animal Kingdom is
also reflected by the fact that it does not regulate its sexual
relationships by the notions of marriage, adultery, fornication, and
incest.
Therefore they have no real concept of family ties other then the
establishment of the temporary relationship with the newly born for
reasons of survival. In their zeal to mimic the animal kingdom we are
witnessing the rapid demise of the traditional family structure.
Increasingly children are born without knowing the identity of their
father and in some cases even their mother. Estimates of illegitimate
children are 33% of the population in the US and similar numbers are in
some of the European countries. Sexual abuse of children is rampant and
Apart from citing isolated cases the media repeatedly demonises Islam
by raising the flag of women’s rights but how often does it ever look
at its own abysmal track record. Where did the pornographic industry
originate? Who are its largest producers and consumers? Who are the
biggest consumers of the flesh trade? Despite attaining greater Women’s
“liberation”, why have the Western orientated societies not become more
tranquil, rather then being torn apart by the rise in single parent
families, soaring divorce rates, increased dependencies on alcohol,
drugs and anti depressants? Why is it that all societies that raise the
flag of women’s rights end up only facilitating the selling of her
flesh, be it in the form of lewd pop videos, the fashion industry,
advertising or else where. The call to liberate women is basically to
eradicate moral and ethical barriers so that on the one hand they may
be legitimately exploited and sold as packages – on the other extreme
it also facilitates the freedom create a more promiscuous society, and
thereby suffering all its ills. The “liberation” in reality has failed
to create the genuine respect and honour the person of womanhood
deserves. The only form of respect that has been created for women is
through the fear of the strong arm of the law enforcement agencies,
rather then from a genuine conviction of the heart and the mind. Thus
in reality the average person in the West evaluates the opposite sex as
objects of lust and sexual gratification. Which is a natural outcome of
an ideology that has abandoned the concept of honour and dignity. Hence
Women’s rights cannot simply be equated with giving greater economic
and political independence.
Despite the demonisation, “oppressive” Islam continues to gain women
converts exceeding the conversion rate of their male counterparts.
Happily embracing the “oppressive” veil. Islam came to regulate the
relationship between men and women; as such matters have a societal
implication and cannot be simply left for the individuals to decide. An
illicit relationship outside the fold of marriage is a crime, no matter
how fashionable it may be. The relationship is regulated on the basis
of complementing and supplementing one another by honouring and
respecting rather then getting embroiled in a futile and damaging
competition to attain equality or superiority. It is high time for
people of the world to question the values that are being enforced
through the muscles of the Western controlled institutions (e.g. NGO,
UN) under the pretext of promot! ing the so-called universal values and
Human rights. Finally, hasn’t the time come for the world to stop
apeing an ideology, which has failed to provide clear definitions of
right and wrong, honour and dishonour. An ideology, whose proponents,
are too willing to violate even its own definitions of human rights by
imprisoning innocent people without trial.
Comment:
An excellent article which exposes the west and capitalism as the real violaters of womens rights in the world today