No culture experts required for ‘honour’ crimes
Summary:
– Male dominance/authoritarianism is evident in many cultures, in this article, the author addresses the cause of the risen of power of males is women’s will to silently accept their inferior position
– Muslim culture believes that family’s reputation depended on the behaviour of all its family members; thus, in order to save their honour, they restrain the family’s behaviour
– Define Honour: “associated with acts of chivalry, gallantry and a nebulous adherence to something old-world”, modern sense of honour, as said in the article, is called self-image or self-worth.
– Little can be done by judicial, correctional and educational institutions of Canada to influence their beliefs on domestic violence
– cause of honour killing can also be due to misogyny–the hatred for women
– people live in fear for being “different”, i.e. sexual orientation, sexual activity, alcohol consumption, etc
– The author concludes by saying that men like Mr. Shafia should return to where they came from because their morals conflict with the morals of other nations, and that Canada should keep a closer eye on who enters the borders
My Opinion:
The author attempted to relate the topic to the greater world by introducing ideas that are similar within other cultures, and also ideas that contrast other beliefs. For example, male authoritarianism is something we have either seen or heard of; Canada itself has had a history of mistreating women. The article suggests that the women are to be blamed for accepting their lower positions in a male authoritarian society. I disagree; I do not believe that because women are almost forced to succumb to the inferior role that they are the cause of male dominance. When someone points a gun to your head, will you not obey them and keep your mouth shut? I also believe many women do stand up against the social norm and have suffered the consequences of their rebellion. It is not because women want to obey that they remain submissive. Continuing on, on the topic of honour, I do agree with the article. Although honour had been about protecting those that you hold dear, honour now simply mean one’s image. It is ridiculous to call something so superficial honour, if honour meant killing your own flesh and blood for your own accusations of what (s)he might have done, or might not have done, then we’d probably all be dead right now. I do not believe that the Canadian government has little power on this subject matter, actually, in such a severe matter, I would think little done is a lot better than nothing. Although people fear for being judged as different in many cases, it is true that the Muslim culture is less accepting towards such matter as well. Suppression of freedom of expression and using violence as a solution are the reasons honour killing is occurring in Canada, since we are the country of freedom of expression and we are mostly against acts of violence. I do agree, more or less, that ones such as Mr. Shafia would have probably been better off not immigrating to Canada because their moral values contradict ours way too much, and if his family was in Dubai, where they came from, they might have not acted against him. However, I do not agree that people should be restricted from the right to come to Canada for a possibility that they may do something against our laws.
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