Great article Sunny.

The left does have a problem with the issue, but I think that us white lefties do feel uncomfortable weighing into this debate as we are worried about being accused of racism and insensitivity.

Obviously we need to get over that, but it won’t be an overnight thing.

I think the first step is about reclaiming the discourse of universalism, that objecting to things like forced marriage and genital mutilation isn’t a ‘Western’ narrative. The left has been hiding behind post-modernism and cultural relatavism for too long.

Excellent article.
So often discussions about such issues get lost in finger pointing and name calling. People are either too worried of accidentally offending someone or on the other hand too quick to assume offence.
The real issues are missed infavour guilt and hand wringing.

In Britain people still commonly beat and reject their gay children because they feel they bring shame on the family. Many parents still insist on mutilating their intersex children’s genitals so they’ll be more socially acceptable. We need cultural integration, yes, but we also need to fix our own problems with ‘honour’.

It’s not “cultural integration” we need, because the culture here is not the best one we could have, it’s cultural improvement.

I think the first step is about reclaiming the discourse of universalism, that objecting to things like forced marriage and genital mutilation isn’t a ‘Western’ narrative. The left has been hiding behind post-modernism and cultural relatavism for too long.

Universalism has been the problem. That which assumes that everyone, wherever they’ve originated, shares pretty much the same beliefs and attitudes. That’s why nobody prepared for things like FGM, forced marriage, honour crimes and witch hunting – despite the introduction of millions from lands in which they’re prevalent. What’s needed is a far more rational approach to cultural differentiationism – or, in other words, looking at what people actually think and how they’re actually liable to behave.

We need to challenge not just forced marriages, but the attitudes that lead to them taking place. That is where the left is failing miserably.

Let the right sort it out then.

Good article Sunny

the thing that worries me most is when abuse or the risk of abuse is known to someone in authority and there is a failure to act until it is too late.

this has happened too often, to people from all kinds of backgrounds.

so whatever the reason, be that cultural, violence in the home or drug related issues, this reluctance to act in difficult situations has to stop.

I follow what Sunny is saying but I do wonder if a percentage of forced marriages is for money reasons, family ties and pressures or to evade immigration restrictions.

I can recall from (my relatively long) online experience two cases of American citizens with chronic health problems who have made marriages with friendly and sympathetic UK citizens in order to benefit from NHS healthcare which would probably be unavailable back home because they didn’t have or had run out of health insurance cover.

Online sources report that a disproportionate number of Pakistani marriages are between cousins.

And consider this recent report in The Guardian:

More than 50 cases of people with learning disabilities being forced to wed were reported last year. And while the main motivation was to provide a carer, relationships are often abusive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/31/forced-marriage-blights-learning-disabled?newsfeed=true

Nothing will be done about this. Or …. the culture will continue whatever is done.
You can do and say what you like … it’s very difficult to change people and culture.
I’m on holiday in Bulgaria. The people are different here. It’s in the EU, but it’s totally different to the UK. So is Greece. Here and in Greece they let young children beg in the street. Because they are Roma children the authorities turn a blind eye.
Just like they do with their feral cats and dogs, and the way people park their cars all over the footpath and don’t wear motor cycle helmets.
It’s different culture.

Here in Bulgaria there are casinos all over the place. And big SUVs. I was in a beach resort yesterday where there were loads of big flashy Russian cars.
At the casinos you have to go through metal detectors and there are signs saying ”No guns allowed inside”. And pictures of the James Bond actors on the outside wall of the casino.
They think casinos are the hight of sophistication and culture here.
It’s like a casino form of capitalism. And then you see three Roma children walking with their mother past the casino and the big cars in BARE FEET.
Because this culture doesn’t give a damn about that kind of thing. The same it doesn’t CARE about stray dogs. And the same as the communities which these honour crimes come from CAN just be in a different head space to the fussy officious culture we have developed in the UK.

Btw, I have seen NO African and Asian asylum seekers in Bulgaria yet …. while Greece is overwhelmed by them. Why won’t they come to Bulgaria? It’s on the way to Austria and Germany. It’s because they know that it has a culture that is so harsh that they can’t gain any sympathy here (I think).
Because of the culture of the people.

I haven’t been to Sofia yet. Maybe they’re all there.

@9 Eee I remember t’days when asylum seekers were alleged to be coming over here for work not handouts, so the last Government took action by banning them from being able to work while under asylum and only able to collect minimal benefits. Now the fact we give let em have that much is ‘too sympathetic’. Happy times.

British men are violent to partners and have been known to commit murder over issues of ‘shame’ too, there’s a strong gender issue here that is set apart from the ‘cultural integration’you talk about. Race, gender and culture intersect and thus patriarchy and violence against women is expressed differently as a result- but British culture is not exempt from this either. Men’s violence against women is what we need to tackle.

Well done Sunny for taking this issue on.

Representingthemambo wrote:
> we are worried about being accused of racism and insensitivity.

Spot on.

BenSix:
> What’s needed is a far more rational approach to cultural differentiationism – or, in other words, looking at what people actually think and how they’re actually liable to behave.

Absolutely 100% spot on. And what LC needs to read learn and inwardly digest !

To date, LC has not been in the vanguard of this rational approach. So often those asking these rational questions have been shot down.

Outside of LC see the wriggling in the Saturday Guardian’s editorial, where they make it clear that this murder should not be called an Honour killing – because they feel it would give too much validity to it !?

This is bizarre – the stated reason by the convicted was family honour, as Sunny says above – so why not use that phrase?

And look at the level of WhatAboutery in even this thread:

> In Britain people still commonly beat and reject their gay children because they feel they bring shame on the family….

> British men are violent to partners and have been known to commit murder over issues of ‘shame’ too…

So it’s clear that many on the left are still not ready for a rational debate.

Sunny appears to have turned over a new leaf in this thread – well done! – as you often damped down rational debate in the past.

So I’m wondering if it’s more than just Sunny who’s turned over a new leaf – but whether LC in general is at a turning point – and will now throw aside the paralysing fears of ‘being accused of racism and insensitivity’, and allow a rational debate here?

Fingers crossed.

@ 11 Liz

Or we could, y’know, just try to address all violence. You’re criticising Sunny for dividing this along cultural lines, and then you immediately go and divide it among gender lines instead.

Alternatively, “normal” domestic abuse and things like FGM and honour killings are part of the same category but might need different tactics to fix, in which case it’s valid to discuss them separately.

Glad to see you have renounced the iniquitous multiculturalism, Sunny, and that you now agree with me that the policies of diversity, as officially preached by many public bodies, are damaging. (We should not look to celebrate the differences between us when the other person’s cultural practice is barbaric).

One question. At what point does an arranged marriage become a forced marriage?

If the girl has been pressured psychologically?

If she has been browbeaten into agreement?

If she has been threatened or beaten?

The lines are often blurred.

Can we not just agree that any arrangement made by others, where an individual is not permitted to freely select their life partner, is also morally wrong?

@ 1 Representingthemambo

“The left does have a problem with the issue, but I think that us white lefties do feel uncomfortable weighing into this debate as we are worried about being accused of racism and insensitivity. ”

I don’t know about you, but I really, really don’t care if someone accuses me of racism or insensitivity because I object to things like honour killings. Why be upset about labels pinned on you by a colossal idiot?

Also, I think these people who would call you racist for such a thing are often hypothetical: they do exist but in any specific debate they’re most likely to be a windmill. You have people saying “We can’t object to these practices without being called racist!” even though nobody has actually called them racist.

Good article. I agree with Liz that male violence against women needs to be tackled in a general sense, but when this violence is excused, minimised or ignored if the women happen to belong to a particular culture, then this is a problem in itself. It is more racist to assume that women of colour somehow don’t mind being forced into marriages or undergoing genital mutilation, than to question the rules and views of the cultures in which such horrific things take place. Many people within said cultures and religions already do question things. It seems Shafilea Ahmed was doing so herself.

“My key point is that this is fundamentally about cultural integration, and forced marriages take place due to a lack of that.”

I think you mean the other way around. Forced marriages take place in order to prevent cultural integration.

[14] ‘policies of diversity, as officially preached by many public bodies, are damaging’ – such policies can only be sustained by cherry picking the nice bits and obfuscating about elements which jar with western/liberal sensibilities.
But let’s not forget such policies only became necessary because some groups faced discrimination in every sphere of life – overall such an approach was probably the lesser of the two evils.

There is also something creepy about blaming ‘the authorities’ for not protecting everybody from the excesses of certain outmoded cultural beliefs.

In this case the culprits were the parents who violently killed their daughter.
The irony is that the father had previously been married to a Danish woman yet denied his own daughter (on pain of death) the very sort of choices he was able to make for himself.

Interestingly ‘A study being conducted by a team from Dicle University in the Southeast on honor killings has so far shown that little if any social stigma is attached to the act – The team visited 44 prisons in the region and interviewed 180 perpetrators of honor killings. Of these, 100% say they do not regret their actions’ – I blame the authorities.
http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?load=detay&link=147349&bolum=101

I think to some extent this is jumping at shadows: Sunny is rightly angry at reports of people travelling to London for FGM. But it is already illegal in the UK. If people are travelling from Paris to London to commit FGM it’s because of ineffective law enforcement, *not* because there are evil liberals lurking in London claiming all other cultures are equal and so FGM must be OK.

Similarly, are social services really going easy on Asians accused of domestic violence, effectively exempting them from various laws of the land, because “it’s in their culture”? Again, as far as I can see it’s a narrative dreamed up in the Daily Mail, which through osmosis has got to the point where “everyone knows” Muslims routinely get away with domestic violence because of evil liberal social workers and/or scared social workers kowtowing to the “race relations industry”.

In reality, I’d bet there is no such policy. There may be a few misguided social workers out there who genuinely think that they can’t ever accuse a non-white person of anything, because they saw it implied in the Daily Mail that the PC brigade might have them imprisoned, but is there really a policy which amounts to “go easy on Asians, their culture’s different”? I doubt it.

So what are people really railing against here, if there is no actual policy to overturn, nearly all liberals agree anyway that all these specific things should be illegal, and as the Shafilea case demonstrates, we are sending people to jail when it happens? What are the demands?

Looking at pagar’s post above, I think this is about something much broader. This is about right wingers saying “South Asian cultures cause violence against women; therefore we need a strategy to eradicate South Asian cultures, or at the very least apply special extra rules and enforcement to people from those places”. I’m confident Sunny really doesn’t think like that, but I’m sure others do.

Is there any indication the UK has a worse problem with this sort of crime and “cultural tension” than other countries?

I ask because for all the silly nonsense about political correctness and so on being to blame – what it being discussed is a very very complicated and difficult thing to address. And I’d love to know if anyone has addressed it well.

The UK, for historic reasons, has a relatively large number of young men and women who have grown up here in this country having been born to mums and dads from rural and backwards parts of the world. And by backwards I do mean backwards. Places where electricity and media and communications and civil society are or were limited to say the least.

As such the “tradition” born of neccessity (women are weaker and spend a lot of their life pregnant) is that marriages are arranged and girls in particular are not permitted the freedoms that the pill and the second world war made normal in the western world.

This country, like America and France and Germany and so on – went through a violent and fractious change when women asserted their equality by deciding to live their own lives rather than live to serve their (often as yet unchosen) husbands.

We can hardly be surprised that this same revolution is at times violent and fractious when it happens within an individual home that has not been through that social change before.

@ jungle

This is about right wingers saying “South Asian cultures cause violence against women; therefore we need a strategy to eradicate South Asian cultures, or at the very least apply special extra rules and enforcement to people from those places”.

I come at this not as a right winger but as a liberal- someone who believes that everyone should be free to make their own life choices and I don’t believe we need special rules and enforcement.

The question I asked, on arranged marriages, was “can we not just agree that any arrangement made by others, where an individual is not permitted to freely select their life partner, is also morally wrong?”

You have not answered this directly but I take it, from what you say, that you believe it is acceptable for young Asian girls to allow their parents to select their husbands for them. You will presumably argue that, for cultural reasons, they acquiesce in such an arrangement but you must accept that we can never really know how true that is.

The question remains.

What kind of culture demands that people give up their free will in making such a fundamental decision?

I don’t know about you, but I really, really don’t care if someone accuses me of racism or insensitivity because I object to things like honour killings. Why be upset about labels pinned on you by a colossal idiot?

One of the affects of the internet is that the word ‘racism’ has been so over-used it has lost its ability to offend – which has advantages as well as disadvantages.

Frankly, if you haven’t been accused of racism by some nutbag you probably haven’t been supporting women properly.

[19] ‘This is about right wingers saying “South Asian cultures cause violence against women’ – some do – the 10 ‘worst places to be a woman’ are said to be;
Afghanistan (islam).
DR Congo (christian)
Iraq (islam)
Nepal (hindu)
Sudan (islam)
Guatemala (catholic)
Mali (islam)
Pakistan (islam)
Saudi Arabia (islam)
Somalia (islam)
7/10 are islamic states – and certain parts of SE Asia do indeed promote blatant chauvinism – these are straight forward facts, surely?
http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/international/Ten-Worst-Countries-for-Women.html

OK, there are similar lists such as the Daily Beast (worst places to be a woman) Rankings were given for, justice, health, education economics & politics – the worst 10 countries were said to be;
Chad (islam)
Afghanistan (islam)
Yemen (islam)
DR Congo (christian)
Mali (islam)
Solomon Islands (christian)
Niger (islam)
Pakistan (islam)
Ethiopia (christian + islam)
Sudan (islam)
7, or possibly 8/10 are islamic – is this purely coincidental?

Poverty, religion, and lack of education can, over time, be a toxic brew sufficient to provoke violent conflict between attachment to one’s cultural identity and the aspirations of one’s children.

Has anyone ever been accused of racism for saying that honour killings are bad?

@ 22 Shatterface

“Frankly, if you haven’t been accused of racism by some nutbag you probably haven’t been supporting women properly.”

Heh. Good point.

You’re criticising Sunny for dividing this along cultural lines, and then you immediately go and divide it among gender lines instead.

Given that Liz said “Race, gender and culture intersect and thus patriarchy and violence against women is expressed differently as a result“, that seems like a more than uncharitable take on her comment, which I took to be that this is not just about race and culture, this is also about gender.

And it clearly is – how many stories have you heard of British Asian young men being murdered over their “honour” compared to the number of female victims?

This isn’t an either/or situation, it’s a both/and situation, and ignoring one or the other imperils the possibility of a solution.

While I’m broadly in sympathy with the argument here, I do have to point out that a) Forcing people to get married is illegal and carries serious penalties and b) Barbara Ellen is a tit with a very silly column, in which little of value has ever been printed.

It also needs pointing out that the various right wing blogs aren’t beating themselves over their own failure to combat forced marriage, even though the issue is hardly more high-profile there than it is here. In fact, it’s rare indeed to see right wing bloggers accepting any responsibility for anything negative, ever.

Why? Well, I imagine it might be because they’re less prone to internalising decades of undisguised trolling.

All told, I think it would be a bit more useful to focus more on the “Let’s raise the profile of forced marriage as an issue and try to get more government action on it” thing and a bit less on “Let’s accept numbnuts propaganda that says that any instances of forced marriage are the fault of, like, multiculturalism, and thus you”. The first suggestion is an admirable goal. The second carries a whiff of bollocks.

(Wide acceptance of the latter proposition is precisely why Sunny wound up having to defend himself against allegations over the weekend of not caring about the issue and of betraying women, even though he’s written extensively about the issue. Even assuming he hadn’t discussed this previously, would it be fair to suggest that he didn’t care or actively favoured forced marriage? And of course, it wouldn’t. There’s a lesson there).

“Has anyone ever been accused of racism for saying that honour killings are bad?”

I don’t know but someone who is a well known “progressive” and feminist (in her opinon) did say this about FGM :

“In her recent book, The Whole Woman, Ms Greer argued that attempts to outlaw the practice amounted to “an attack on cultural identity”, adding: “One man’s beautification is another man’s mutilation.”

She said that women should have the right to undergo genital mutilation as a form of “self-decoration” and posed the question: “If an Ohio punk has the right to have her genitalia operated on, why has not the Somali woman the same right?” ”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/535488.stm

Anyway kudos to Sunny for this article, good one.

“Rather than attribute a crime like this to backwardness, we would do better to see how deeply it is woven into the fabric of migration and modernity in which all of us are implicated.”

No need to ask in which newspaper this appears.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/05/shafilea-ahmed-murder-migration-modernity

@ 26 Katherine

“Given that Liz said “Race, gender and culture intersect and thus patriarchy and violence against women is expressed differently as a result“, that seems like a more than uncharitable take on her comment, which I took to be that this is not just about race and culture, this is also about gender.

And it clearly is – how many stories have you heard of British Asian young men being murdered over their “honour” compared to the number of female victims?”

Yes, but Liz went on to say that: “Men’s violence against women is what we need to tackle.” So she’s criticised Sunny for taking a narrow approach, then arrived at her own narrow approach that (deliberately or through force of habit) excludes female perpetrators and male victims of violence from the problem. So she’s trying to have her cake and eat it.

“This isn’t an either/or situation, it’s a both/and situation, and ignoring one or the other imperils the possibility of a solution.”

No argument there. Although that doesn’t mean you should never talk about a specific sub-sector that has unique factors at work. Simply put, an initiative that is successful at reducing honour killings might not be effective at reducing “normal” domestic violence, and vice versa.

Her “recent book”, MoreMediaNonsense, was actually published in 2000, so 12 years ago.

The background to that was that original Western feminist analysis of FGM was extremely racist, in its presentation and content, and was protested as such by non-Western feminists. A small number of feminists – a la Germaine Greer – responded by going vastly in the opposite direction.

The situation and the debate has moved on considerably since then, and even in 2000, Greer’s stance was well out of step with what might be considered mainstream, progressive, or feminist.

No argument there. Although that doesn’t mean you should never talk about a specific sub-sector that has unique factors at work. Simply put, an initiative that is successful at reducing honour killings might not be effective at reducing “normal” domestic violence, and vice versa.

And there you encapsulate the Ampersand Problem in all its glory. Honour killings are not just “Culture & Gender”, they are an unholy intersection of the two, resulting in more than their constituent parts.

But I believe part of the point Liz was trying to make is there is something to be said for looking at violence against women in the round in Britain, as part of looking at honour killings. If British culture was extremely tolerant in the not too distant past of violence against women, especially in the home, and is still now to a large extent, perhaps there is some house-getting-in-order to be done. Witness for example the number of people who leapt to heap approbium on the ex-girlfriend of Ian Blakey when he shot her and her new boyfriend. Maybe not in these circles, but there were plenty of people happy to excuse Blakey on account of the terrible crime she had committed by breaking up with him and getting on with her life.

If there is cultural integration to be done, its worth making sure that the culture to be integrated into, and resulting melding, is something to aim for, rather than a milquetoast “we’re a bit better than them”.

Gah, Raoul Moat, not Ian Blakey. Don’t know where that brain fart came from.

“The background to that was that original Western feminist analysis of FGM was extremely racist, in its presentation and content, and was protested as such by non-Western feminists.”

What ?? Can you show me an example of this ? What did they say – that FGM was something that was done by black people because of a genetic flaw ?

If not, how exactly were these Western feminists “extremely racist” ?

@ 32 Katherine

I fail to see what my post has to do with what you’re calling the “ampersand problem”.

As to the rest of it… well, you’re putting words into Liz’s mouth, talking about the point you “believe she was trying to make” instead of the point she actually made. You’re backpedalling on her behalf. The simple fact of the matter is that she said what she said, and if the OP was wrong for being too narrow, Liz was equally as wrong.

Moving on, you’re absolutely right that non-Muslim Britain has its own problems with violence against women (and, as a reminder, violence against men as well). We’ve been slowly getting our house in order for many years now, but we haven’t exactly fixed the problem. However, honour slayings and so on are still worth addressing regardless of this, unless you think that a woman saved from an honour slaying will somehow inevitably perish at the hands of an abusive lover. In terms of the basic driving motive of saving people from abuse, fighting against honour slayings is obviously worthwhile.

@ 33 Katherine

“Gah, Raoul Moat, not Ian Blakey. ”

It’s cool, I knew who you meant.

However, honour slayings and so on are still worth addressing regardless of this, unless you think that a woman saved from an honour slaying will somehow inevitably perish at the hands of an abusive lover. In terms of the basic driving motive of saving people from abuse, fighting against honour slayings is obviously worthwhile.

And I said absolutely nothing that would suggest that honour killing are not worth fighting against. My point is that dealing with one thing in isolation is less likely to be effective, as well as leaving you open to (justified) criticisms of hypocrisy.

MoreMediaNonsense at #34, I could do your homework for you if you like. But I’ll just say in summary that the initial approach of white, western feminists was extremely patronising and failed entirely to include any non-white women, let alone any actual victims of FGM, for a start.

[32] Moat was applauded in some circles for being brave enough to shoot, and blind an unarmed copper, in other words hatred of the police in some people’s minds outweighs hatred of those responsible for extreme violence – I dare say this section of our society must have been quietly chuffed when David Rathband finally took his own life.

Anyway, I thought we were discussing parents who kill their kids because culture made them do it.

One of the questions, I suppose, is whether or not this sort of crime is meaningful in a wider sense not only because there is a fair bit of it around (if we take an international perspective) but also because it is implicitly endorsed by the wider community from which such crazed beliefs emerge – and if these communities do in fact endorse so called honour killings then what other wacky ideas do they have, and perhaps more to the point why on earth is anybody meant to respect them?

@ 37 Katherine

“And I said absolutely nothing that would suggest that honour killing are not worth fighting against. My point is that dealing with one thing in isolation is less likely to be effective, as well as leaving you open to (justified) criticisms of hypocrisy.”

Fair enough, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Trying to deal with everything at once has its downsides, chiefly that you have to take a one-size-fits-all approach that may be hamfisted.

Here’s my take on it. If someone wants to cover the issue as a whole, fine (although we have to decide what that issue is to begin with: domestic violence? Violence against women? Violence as a whole? Crime?). If someone wants to focus on a specific part of the issue where factors may be weighted differently, that’s also fine, as long as they have a reason for doing so.

If a commenter, newpaper or other source ALWAYS bangs on about one sub-sector while minimizing or ignoring the others, then we have reason to suspect their motives. As it happens, Liberal Conspiracy absolutely does not sideline the larger issues of domestic violence and violence against women.

You haven’t explained what you meant by the “ampersand problem” and how it relates to my previous post.

” But I’ll just say in summary that the initial approach of white, western feminists was extremely patronising and failed entirely to include any non-white women, let alone any actual victims of FGM, for a start.”

So that’s “extremely racist” is it ? Rubbish, if you really think like that you are a prime example of how the concept of racism has become so degraded as to be meaningless.

@ 38 Katherine

“MoreMediaNonsense at #34, I could do your homework for you if you like.”

As MoreMediaNonsense is asking you to provide evidence for YOUR claim, that would quite definitely be your homework.

What Jungle and Flying Rodent said.

A debate which focuses on what the police, social workers, and the crown prosecution service need to do about this is worth having.

Extensive hand-wringing about the left, feminism, multiculturalism, and political correctness probably isn’t.

“A debate which focuses on what the police, social workers, and the crown prosecution service need to do about this is worth having.”

One of the big ironies of this being that is the right wing who are closing women’s refuges and community services that are used predominately by minority communities. Furthermore regional equality councils have been at the forefront of tackling forced marriages and challenging negative attitudes within some communities, but they have had massive cuts and most right wingers would close them in a second if they could get away with it..

Notice how A&E twice now brings in some hard facts evidence about Honour killing – and the silence is shattering !

Most of the following posters seem keener to have an argumentabout what feminists have said in the past!

Come on LC – time to have a rational debate about Honour Killings!

A) What do YOU think about the fact that it is 7/10 islamic countries where it is most prevelant?

And the impact that has on the UK when communities from those cultures are based here.

B) What do YOU think about the fact that the Turkish ‘Dice’ study of prisoners
shows ‘little if any social stigma is attached to the act ‘ and that ‘100% say they do not regret their actions’

What impact do YOU think it has on our democracy and legal system when this cultural group will clearly not be up to assist the police or schools or doctors or social workers in trying to eradicate this specific crime ?

PS Sunny

You allowed a Muslim guest blogger to post here in June (Zahed Amanullah – “Why Geert Wilders won’t find ‘Eurabia’ in America”

It is now apparent that he lied in his article claiming he is a ‘Visiting Programme Director at Wilton Park.’

I called Wilton Park today – and they deny all knowledge of him.

His website continues to make this claim at: unitascommunications.com

I think it’s bad for LC’s reputation for it to be a carrier for such ..cough…’mis-information.’

I can’t comment on that thread any more, it’s closed.

Can you post an update there – to point out Zahed’s lying.

And maybe – protect your own and LC’s reputation by checking out the truthfulness of the bloggers you allow to post here.

@ Just Visiting

Oh, calm down. I think a lot of attitudes on honour killings go without saying: that they’re bad, that they’re linked with certain subcultures including Islamic ones, that it generally shocks the local community when it happens, that people not stigmatising and not reporting these crimes doesn’t affect our legal system or democracy (again, calm down) but obviously is bad for at-risk individuals…

We’re talking about the topic. Don’t draw melodramatic conclusions just because we don’t all go off at the same tangent as you.

Where does this stat come from: “What do YOU think about the fact that it is 7/10 islamic countries where it is most prevelant?”

Oh go on then. I love Rhetorical Questions.

“A) What do YOU think about the fact that it is 7/10 islamic countries where it is most prevelant?”

Well technically it was that 7 out of the 10 countries rated as the worst places for women were places where islam was the main religion, with 20% of them also being christian countries.

I think when poverty and deeply entrenched religious and cultural attitudes prevail then you will inevitably find these things correlated with honour killings, quack medicines, and other practices widespread in poor countries.

In the same way if we had a list of the top 10 places to be a women we would also find a correlation with provision of extensive public services, strong laws outlawing domestic violence and rape, and a whole host of anti-discriminatory policies in fields of employment law. Now remind me again – which part of the political spectrum wants anti-discrimination laws repealed in employment law? Which part of the political spectrum wants massive cuts to the provision of public services? And which part of the political spectrum thinks the best way to stop rape is to tell women not to go drinking or wear revealing clothing?

The hard facts here make uncomfortable reading for self described ‘libertarians’ really don’t they?

“And the impact that has on the UK when communities from those cultures are based here.”

It has minimal impact because the vast majority of people from those communities change their attitudes and by the time we reach the second generation the practice is virtually wiped out to the extent we get about 2 of these cases a decade. Furthermore such a generation acts a modernising force in the traditional communities, where pressure gets placed on the traditional communities to outlaw such practices. But then as the tabloids don’t tend to run stories of ‘girl from muslim family studies medicine and becomes a doctor’, we never end up discussing this.

“What do YOU think about the fact that the Turkish ‘Dice’ study of prisoners
shows ‘little if any social stigma is attached to the act ‘ and that ’100% say they do not regret their actions’”

I’ve not heard of the turkish dice study, so my to do list for this afternoon now involves a visit to wikkipedia. In the meantime what do you think about the fact that when Raoul Moat went on the rampage last year a facebook group was set up calling him a ‘legend’. What do you think about what this says about the cultural attitudes of white british people? What impact do you think having so many people from this community will have on the UK?

As you’re a fan of rhetorical questions I’m sure you will enjoy the opportunity to answer these difficult questions.

[48] ‘we get about 2 of these cases a decade’ – is that one ‘honour killing’ every 5 years?
According to one source, ‘The Metropolitan Police state that there are approximately 12 cases of honour killings a year’.

Additionally, ‘Statistics obtained by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKRWO) under the Freedom of Information Act show that a total of 2823 incidents – including threats, abduction, acid attacks, beatings, forced marriage, mutilation and murder – were reported to the 39 police forces (out of 52 in the country) that responded. IKWRO estimates that a further 500 incidents may have been reported to the 13 forces who did not respond. Moreover, in the 12 police force areas for which comparable data was available, reports detailing numbers of crimes planned and carried out by families or communities went up by 57% in just a year. However, a note of caution: no information is forthcoming as to how these statistics have been collated, so their accuracy is not certain’.
http://www.viewpointonline.net/honour-based-violence-in-the-uk-pragna-patel.html

Is t really so hard to see why multiculturalism has come under fire in the wake of the Ahmeds’ trial? The doctrine of multiculturalism tells us that no culture should be authoritative. Rather, all cultures should be recognised and accepted. Diversity in this dimension is always a gain to society. To make moral judgements on other cultures is wrong, and to discriminate against them a great evil akin to Nazism.

Unfortunately, there is no magical device that reconciles conflicting cultural claims on people in our society. Popular British culture is radically hedonistic and nihilistic. It is antithetical to traditional mores. As such, antagonism between the two spheres is a natural consequence of immigration from traditional societies and a multiculturalism that encourages immigrant cultures to flourish in our midst.

‘When it opened its helpline in April 2008, Karma Nirvana received 4,000 calls in the first year and is now taking 300 calls a month from people under threat of honour-based violence, often linked to forced marriage’ – to me that seems like a significant problem
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/25/honour-killings-victims-domestic-violence

From the same article it is claimed ‘Women aged 16-24 from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds are three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average for that age and it is impossible to tell what pressures some must have been under. And for every woman who dies, it seems certain that there are many, many more living with honour-based abuse and hidden away in shuttered communities’.

Planeshift

Thanks for posting and offering yourself as living proof of the fact that many LC folk really are uncomfortable talking about Honour Killing and the like – and will silence a debate in any way they can!

A&E has roundly proven that you’ve successfully shut out the real world for so long that you thought there were only 2 honour killings per decade!

And look how desperate you are to change the subject:

> In the meantime what do you think about the fact that when Raoul Moat went on the rampage last year …

Come on Planeshift – you wrote a long piece that seemed intended to divert attention from the issue hand. You’re in denial – you respond to hard numbers from A&E without supplying hard numbers yourself – just vagueness about ‘inevitably find these things’ and it being poverty !!

When are you going to allow others on LC to debate whether islamic cultures may be different to other ones and how as liberals we approach those differences. Please let us have a rational compare and contrast debate.

Chaise

> I think a lot of attitudes on honour killings go without saying: that they’re bad

truly obvious !

> that they’re linked with certain subcultures including Islamic ones,

But that phrase means nothing in a thread like this!

What is your own view Chaise – do you think Honour Killing is linked to Islamic communities in the same % as Islamic communities are part of the whole UK population?

Or that it occurs pro rata more often in islamic communities than others?

I’m sure like me you don’t think it happens exclusively in Islamic cultures – but I’d like to hear your view more concretely.

This thread is after all a chance to discuss the exact issue of honour killing and cultural/islamic factors – and I’m hoping that unlike Planeshift you’re up for a rational debate here on that subject and not hoping to divert discussions away to another topic!

50

Since when was woman killing part of any specific culture? For that matter do you have any evidence that comitting any crime is overlooked because the perpetrator was from a minority group.

Steveb

> Since when was woman killing part of any specific culture?

It makes you look silly Steve if your posts show that you are ignorant of even what has been posted in this thread, let alone the wider world.

Read about the Dice study in Turkey mentioned above for example.

Read wider about ‘honour shame cultures’ – like this – No 2 listed by google news just this minute:

“Lawyer shoots dead his own sister in ‘honour killing’ in packed courtroom ‘because he was opposed to her marriage’

55

My point was made specifically to the suggestion @50 and the suggestion that those who cannot accept multi-culturalism are seen as ‘Nazi’. Honour killings are illegal and those who are caught will be punished in the same way as those who kill for whatever reason, whether or not they are part of an ethnic group. What I had hoped to infer (although it seems I was too vague) was that you cannot judge the assimilation, over hundreds of years, of other cultures, based on the criminal act of a minority of Muslims.

There are a lot of people (including some on LC) who use the term ‘multiculturalism’ as a metaphor for Islam and I agree that there are cultural clashes between traditionalist Muslims and modern liberal societies. But this doesn’t invalidate multiculturalism or prove that it is unworkable or undesirable

Very good Just Visiting, now with all that in mind, any helpful suggestions as to action? Given that I’m standing by my statement @6

Cylux

Come on Cylux, it’s below your usual standard to suggest that your :

> Let the right sort it out then.

Was a meaningful reply to Sunny’s:
>> We need to challenge not just forced marriages, but the attitudes that lead to them taking place. That is where the left is failing miserably.

Cylux

LC seems to have swallowed my last response 30 mins ago, here it is again:

Why do you think that your comment:

> Let the right sort it out then.

Is a meaningful answer to Sunny’s

>> We need to challenge not just forced marriages, but the attitudes that lead to them taking place. That is where the left is failing miserably.

Steveb,

Presumably, “women killing”, like “man killing”, is common to all cultures. What is not common to all cultures is killing women, or otherwise attacking them, because they violated the family honour in some fashion, such as by refusing to take part in an arranged marriage. Neither is it common to all cultures to find significant numbers who view such an act as a morally appropriate response.

@58 Well I can’t help but notice that honour killings, forced marriages and female genital mutilation are all very much illegal, AND that there’s been plenty of leftist and liberal voices who have spoken out against all of the above from various angles, be it anti-religious, feminist, liberal principals of personal choice. That the authorities are scared into inaction from fear of being labelled as racist or whatever can’t have that much truth because it doesn’t seem to stop them pulling this sort of shit.

Moreover I fail to see why every single fucking social problem has to be owned and then solved by one side of the political spectrum, where’s the fucking right in all this? What’s their contribution? What steps would they like seen taken in order to prevent the mutilation and murder of women from migrant cultures?

And with impeccable timing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19153001

“The parents of a 17-year-old girl, jailed for attacking her because she was going out with a black man, have been called “disgraceful” by a judge.

David Champion, 50, from Swansea, and his wife Frances, hit daughter Jane for “bringing shame” on the family.”

I do hope lefty multi-culturalists realise what they are doing by letting white welsh people into the UK…..

Cylux

I’m finding it hard to see what you think your role here is.

> @58 Well I can’t help but notice that honour killings, forced marriages and female genital mutilation are all very much illegal, AND that there’s been plenty of leftist and liberal voices who have spoken out against all of the above from various angles

So – in your book LC can’t in general debate things that are illegal and have been discussed before ?
Of course you don’t think that.

> That the authorities are scared into inaction from fear of being labelled as racist or whatever can’t have that much truth because it doesn’t seem to stop them pulling this sort of shit.

Again I don’t think you’re being honest because you’re too much of an LC oldhand to not realise that 1 example of something proves nothing about the wider statistics of it.

> Moreover I fail to see why every single fucking social problem has to be owned and then solved by one side of the political spectrum

Now you’re getting emotional – and you seem surprised that on a leftish wing forum people tend to be asking what the left would/should not do !

> where’s the fucking right in all this? What’s their contribution? What steps would they like…

Arr – I see your objective – you also want to prevent the debate happening among liberals sharing their views. Hence you want to change topic to the Right’s views.

Let’s just have the discussion here about what liberals feel and think can we ?

This isn’t our bloody fault and don’t you dare say it is. I won’t take this rubbish from pseudo-left liberals any more. This is the fault of two people who are now being punished. They are the only people responsible and this is the way it should be handled.

I feel no responsibility.

Planeshift

Like Cylux above, you’re acting as a spoiler on this thread.

Your reference to:
> “The parents of a 17-year-old girl, jailed for attacking her because she was going out with a black man, have been called “disgraceful” by a judge.

has zero relevance to this thread. Zero.
Because as you already know, no one has argued that whites never attack their own daughters.

Your Posts here seems focused on shifting the debate away from this threads theme of forced marriages and honour killings.

You’ve already embarrased yourself above in exposing that you are totally ill-informed on these issues.

Hence I conclude with your latest post that you are conciously here as a spoiler.

You can’t bear to allow this issue to be debated can you? Can’t even bear to stay out and let others have a debate.

Sunny

well done for kicking this issue off.

I’ve often criticised your stance and treatment of Islam compared to christianity here on LC.

But this time I want to warmly support your efforts.

I guess you like me are disappointed at the lack of engagement to this issue, and the extreme quantity of off-topic interjections.

But don’t give up – keep coming back to this theme and over time we’ll get there.

Looking back to the days when I first started lurking here – I’m heartened to see that in some areas the debate has moved on.

No one anymore here claims stupid stuff such as: Mohammed and Jesus were equally violent; or that the Parable of the Talents means that christians can’t help the poor !

@63

I’m finding it hard to see what you think your role here is.

Simple. If ‘the left’ is failing at something, let ‘the right’ sort it out. Frankly on LC there’s far far too many posts blathering on about how ‘the left’ needs to do this and that, and the other, and the kitchen sink, followed by ‘oh that series of actions was counter productive, ‘the left’ needs to do this, that, the other and this kitchen sink instead, with a broom up it’s arse so it can sweep up behind itself as it goes’. All the time. Everywhere. It’s ‘the left’s’ fault. It did too much. It did too little. Even in those places where ‘the left’ has no power whatsoever, it’s still their fault for everything bad. Oh look, dancing nurses, the NHS is saved.

So. Given that ‘the left’ are apparently miserable failures who only ever make things worse, I’m quite content to let ‘the right’ get on with sorting it out instead.

@64 Agreed.

This is well put and well thought-through and sensible approach which should be promoted!

@ Planeshift

The parents of a 17-year-old girl, jailed for attacking her because she was going out with a black man, have been called “disgraceful” by a judge.

Returning to their home, the parents found a youth having sex with their daughter in the living room and reacted angrily, committing a minor assault. Normally such a matter would never have got to court however, since the boy concerned was black, the judge saw fit to impose heavy jail sentences on both parents saying

“We live in a liberal and enlightened society and these sorts of racist behaviour cannot be tolerated.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19153001

Compare the sentencing in that case with the remarkably similar case of a minor assault on his daughter by a Muslim cleric when she resisted an “arranged” marriage.

“The father-of-five was reported to have been overwhelmed by rage and insult when he found out his daughter had a boyfriend in the U.K. Hussain is alleged to have grabbed her by the throat and said: “Follow my rules or I’ll kill you” before hitting her on the head at the family home. Two days later her brothers, Nawab and Bahaud, were said to have snatched her phone in order to prevent contact to and from her boyfriend. They reportedly smacked her in the face and head.”

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/29/229024.html

The victory of a “progressive” agenda is to blame for such distortions of justice.

[62] ‘David Champion, 50, from Swansea, and his wife Frances, hit daughter Jane for “bringing shame” on the family” – how utterly ridiculous comparing this case to parents who murder their kids.

The Champions came home to find their daughter in a state of undress with a 17 year male who happened to be black – now while Champion’s response was both aggressive and racist we do have to allow some leeway for the fact some parents might find it difficult to deal the sort of scene David and Frances were presented with as soon as they walked in the door (especially older generation parents from families with a sexually conservative background).

While the parent’s outburst may have been reprehensible there is nothing to suggest that either would have murdered their own daughter (or the young man) despite both putting their immediate sexual needs ahead of any concerns of how the parent might react to what was going on, not to mention where it was taking place.

If you are arguing that some provincial oldies are racist, and find it hard to deal with their children’s evolving sexual identity then yes, I fully agree with you, but what has any of this got to suffocating your daughter then dumping her in a river?

You will know as well as I do that the UK has very rates of mixed race marriages, especially between white and black (1 in 10 children come from mixed race homes)

@ 53 Just Visiting

“truly obvious !”

Indeed. My point being that you haven’t caught people being all morally relative just because they haven’t made the blindingly obvious statement that abuse and murder are bad.

“But that phrase means nothing in a thread like this!”

Eh? What about this thread renders my statement meaningless?

“What is your own view Chaise – do you think Honour Killing is linked to Islamic communities in the same % as Islamic communities are part of the whole UK population?”

Firstly, I don’t have a “view” about factual data that I don’t have access to.

Secondly, I’m not sure what you’re asking exactly. Are you asking whether the percentage of Islamic communities (however you quantify that) in which honour killings happen is the same as the percentage of the UK that is made up of Islamic communities? If so, I don’t know and don’t see how those percentages are relevant to each other.

“Or that it occurs pro rata more often in islamic communities than others?”

That I assume to be the case, pending further evidence. HOWEVER, it does rather depend on what we’re calling “honour killings”. It currently seems to refer (vaguely) to family members being killed for “bringing shame” (or attempting to do so) on the family as a whole. It’s not clear whether a religious motivation is required (and, if so, that somewhat prejudices a Muslims vs non-Muslims comparison).

If we count ANY murder that could be put down to “honour” – a gangster killing someone who insulted him, a husband murdering the wife who cuckolded him – then the stats might change. So this is important.

If we keep it to murders where the prime motivation was “shame on the family”, I find it very likely that Muslims are a high-risk group. But while that would indicate that honour killings are something that needs to be addressed in Islamic communities more than others, it’s not a reason to condemn Muslims in general. For all I know, murder by casual violence is lower among Muslims and this more than makes up the difference in terms of overall murder.

Basically there’s an obvious risk in identifying a specific type of crime that is more common in one group and then declaring it a special type of crime that deserves extra attention and condemnation.

60

You are making the point for me, honour killings are not common, they make headlines because they are murders and are dealt with in exactly the same way as any other murder. That right wing media tend to focus on the culture of the person/s carrying-out the killings, and consequently the whole thing tends to suffer from media bias. But that doesn’t change the fact that a. honour killings are carried-out by a tiny minority of Muslims and b. you cannot assess multiculturalism on the basis of those perpetrating criminal acts. It is the equivalent of the whole of white British males being judged on the actions of Ian Brady and Fred West.

64
Spot on.

Since when was woman killing part of any specific culture?

Well, there’s a fairly famous example of this sort of multi-culturalism:

“This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

@ 72 Tim

Just occasionally, I like the British Empire.

“Your Posts here seems focused on shifting the debate away from this threads theme of forced marriages and honour killings.”
“Because as you already know, no one has argued that whites never attack their own daughters.”
“When are you going to allow others on LC to debate whether islamic cultures may be different to other ones”

I’m sorry but you specifically came here to argue that the honour killing of shafilia ahmed wasn’t an isolated incident, but intrinsically part of the culture of islamic nations, with the implication that we should adopt a zero-immigration approach to people from islamic countries, on the grounds that such people will harm british culture.

I treated your rhetorical questions with the contempt they deserved by pointing out that pretending that the ahmed’s are typical muslims and the crime is even remotely representative of british muslims is a bit like saying baby P’s mother represents the parenting style of white britons.

For every british muslim girl forced into a marriage, there are many more – by an order of magnitude – who are ‘pressured’ into obtaining a degree and career. But you never hear about the muslim family who encouraged their daughter to go to university do you?

Forced marriage is an issue in the same way as any other criminal offence. And you know what? We deal with it. The foreign office has a special rescue unit, all regional equality bodies in the UK employ outreach workers to pro-actively seek families where this may be happening, social services, the police and schools train staff to specifically identfy and deal with it, and when criminal offences occur the perpetrators are punished. And more. Perhaps there are organisational lessons that this case can teach us, perhaps not.

But we don’t use the issue to tar all muslim families with the same brush so we can win support for anti-immigration policies and restricted civil liberties for british muslims. Because that is blatantly as absurd as using the Raoul Moat case to force all white geordies to attend classes entitled ‘why it is wrong to shoot police officers’, or using any extreme case of a crime to impose draconian restrcitions on the civil liberties of others.

All you’ve managed to do was play the martyr, pretending I’ve silenced you and am not letting others debate this issue.

Did you spend the night in the cells last night?
Were you tortured for expressing your views?
Are you facing years in prison for expressing an anti-muslim view?
Did you lose your job?
Was your comment deleted?

Get a grip. All that happened was somebody disagreed with you, and expressed that disagreement in a less than polite manner. I’m sure you’ll live.

73 – worth noting that the Mughals had tried to stamp out sati a century or so earlier. They just probably weren’t quite as pithy.

“This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

While I don’t doubt for a second that British officials and officers were horrified by widow-burning, it really is worth noting that their moral outrage didn’t quite extend to questioning their own occupation of India, the violent suppression of any domestic opposition or to the Empire’s habit of stealing anything of value that wasn’t nailed down.

It’s also worth noting that eliminating Sati was one of the main planks in the Empire’s “We’re bringing civilisation to the savages” propaganda. While that propaganda was no doubt believed and even acted upon by many British officials in India, it should be pretty clear that this issue was somewhat lower on the imperial agenda than stealing anything of value that wasn’t nailed down.

I draw no direct analogies to our modern propaganda campaigns on our various wars, but I do think that taking the statements of an extremely violent imperial power at face value, without questioning their intent, is overly generous. And that’s putting it mildly.

it really is worth noting that their moral outrage didn’t quite extend to questioning their own occupation of India

Why on earth would it? The British occupation of India was about the fifth successive imperial occupation of India. Unless your point is that Britain was an imperial power in the nineteenth century,and therefore has no claim to moral standing in any matter whatsoever, in which case I’m not sure that’s terribly profound.

I don’t suppose the fact they were going to let the widow get burned alive, then do something, counts for anything?

@ 78 Cylux

“I don’t suppose the fact they were going to let the widow get burned alive, then do something, counts for anything?”

As opposed to arresting people on a charge of Being Someone Who Might Burn A Widow At Some Point? You’ve just described how we deal with crime in general – first crime, then punishment. More generally, putting out the message that people who burn widows will be executed (and then following through on it) counts as “doing something”.

@79 We’ve also just described in a roundabout fashion the sequence of events that took place regarding Shafilea Ahmed’s murder. Which the op regards as a massive failure of the left…
Seems its also a failure of imperialism.

The British occupation of India was about the fifth successive imperial occupation of India.

Well, I guess that’s okay, then.

Unless your point is that Britain was an imperial power in the nineteenth century,and therefore has no claim to moral standing in any matter whatsoever.

There’s a substantial distance between saying Britain had “No claim to moral standing in any matter whatsoever”, which I’m certainly not implying…

….And saying that the pronouncements and actions of British officials shouldn’t be taken at “face value, without questioning their intent”, which I am.

So on the one hand, we have an abhorrent practice, rightly suppressed… And on the other, we have a violent, exploitative and greedy occupying military power suppressing the practice out of genuine outrage while also using that suppression as an excuse to justify its own theft and tyranny.

Ignoring the theft and the murder, in order to highlight the widow-burning, seems every bit as dense to me as ignoring the widow-burning, in order to highlight the theft and the murder.

@ 80 Cylux

“We’ve also just described in a roundabout fashion the sequence of events that took place regarding Shafilea Ahmed’s murder. Which the op regards as a massive failure of the left…
Seems its also a failure of imperialism.”

Well, I disagree with the OP on that point. Any event like this is arguably a failure of the powers that be, whether said powers are a democratic government or an imperial dictatorship. I say “arguably” because it’s hard to say how these events could have been prevented without unreasonable government action or 20:20 foresight.

[80] ‘We’ve also just described in a roundabout fashion the sequence of events that took place regarding Shafilea Ahmed’s murder. Which the op regards as a massive failure of the left… ‘ – no, that’s not my reading of it.

The question being posed is what should be done about imported cultural practices that rise above a certain threshold of acceptability when set against the aspirations of a liberal democracy – in the main we are talking about things like forced marriage, and other forms of imposed relationships that can have dire consequences for those young women (or children) who do not play the game.

The first problem is that forced marriage is not against the law (yet) – research carried out by the then Department for Children, Schools and Families estimated that the national prevalence of reported cases of forced marriage in England was between 5000 and 8000 (p5).
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/consultations/forced-marriage/forced-marriage-consultation?view=Binary

Internationally around 10 million females under the age of 18 (or 19 every minute) are forced into marriage.

The 12, or so, honour killings in the UK each year are part of this wider issue, and liberals should not be afraid to point out that the practice itself, not to mention the rationalisations that exist for it in some communities, are plain wrong.

To my mind this is a completely separate issue to blustering welsh parents who find their 17 year old daughter in flagrante delicto

[82] we can’t do much about our murdering forefathers but we can do something about shipping terrified teenagers off to some remote village so that Mummy & Daddy can get a slap on the back from the extended family.

Sorry @84 was aimed at cylux, not chaise.

Ignoring the theft and the murder, in order to highlight the widow-burning, seems every bit as dense to me as ignoring the widow-burning, in order to highlight the theft and the murder.

And reducing the 18th/19th century history of India to “theft and murder” seems to be so reductive as to be pointless. All government systems can be reduced to “theft and murder” on the same basis. For that matter, the entire history of India, from the beginning of recorded time to the present day, could be reduced to “theft and murder”.

It gives a nice little emotive punch, but it doesn’t get anyone anywhere.

Steveb,

You are making the point for me, honour killings are not common, they make headlines because they are murders and are dealt with in exactly the same way as any other murder.

This is equivocation. Honour killings might not be common to certain cultures in the sense of frequent practices there (though relative to what you leave unsaid), but they are common to certain cultures in the sense that they are found there and not in other places.

What is also obvious, or should be, is that if you interview “the whole of white British males” about the actions of Fred West, you will not find that significant numbers regard them as morally appropriate.

We are not asking why evil people commit evil acts, though there is surely nothing wrong with such a question, and the answer may not reflect well on us as a society, but why some parents kill their children in the name of what is good.

…reducing the 18th/19th century history of India to “theft and murder” seems to be so reductive as to be pointless.

Really? I hate to boil it down so far, but this is a comment box and not a 60,000 page historical novel. It seems a fair characterisation of both the base motives and the methods involved, if you ask me.

Well, it does take us off-topic a bit. I was trying to make the point that Imperial Britain’s attitude towards Sati is perhaps not the best comparison for honour killings, for a variety of reasons.

It seems a fair characterisation of both the base motives and the methods involved, if you ask me.

Serves equally well for the vast majority of history.

I was trying to make the point that Imperial Britain’s attitude towards Sati is perhaps not the best comparison for honour killings, for a variety of reasons.

Oh. Well, I suppose if anyone had been comparing Imperial Britain’s attitude towards sati to honour killings it might have been a valid point. I wasn’t though, I was responding to “Since when was woman killing part of any specific culture?”

it should be pretty clear that this issue was somewhat lower on the imperial agenda than stealing anything of value that wasn’t nailed down.

The East India Company was profitable, until it wasn’t, when it was nationalised (cue RBS jokes). The Imperial occupation of India was never profitable.

The White Man’s Burden stuff of the Anglo-Indian Service, although risible and incorrect when we look at it now, wasn’t a clever cover story for a brilliant thieving scam. People believed it.

Well-meaning people forced India into an economic system that kept it poor, out of the belief that its inhabitants were culturally incapable of undergoing the changes that had made Britain rich.

In general, it’s unwise to ascribe terrible harm that occurs in the world to people with malign intent. The reformers and the progressives and the well-meaning people do far more harm than the dudes who are in it for themselves.

The reformers and the progressives and the well-meaning people do far more harm than the dudes who are in it for themselves.

Unless the latter are Belgian…

Gettign back to the topic – what do people think about A&E’s comment

> The question being posed is what should be done about imported cultural practices that rise above a certain threshold of acceptability when set against the aspirations of a liberal democracy – in the main we are talking about things like forced marriage, and other forms of imposed relationships that can have dire consequences for those young women (or children) who do not play the game.

@84

The 12, or so, honour killings in the UK each year are part of this wider issue, and liberals should not be afraid to point out that the practice itself, not to mention the rationalisations that exist for it in some communities, are plain wrong.

Yet as Jungle said all the way back up @19

So what are people really railing against here, if there is no actual policy to overturn, nearly all liberals agree anyway that all these specific things should be illegal, and as the Shafilea case demonstrates, we are sending people to jail when it happens? What are the demands?

It’s not like lefties or liberals are shying away from the issue, and well, what else can we do? Hell I even asked Just Visiting @57

Very good Just Visiting, now with all that in mind, any helpful suggestions as to action?

To which I’m still waiting for an answer. As for others seeing it in the wider context of violence directed at women in order to control them, it’s not like they don’t have a point, even if you do believe different action will be required to stamp it out.

So, 3 days into this thread, and no one seems to picked up and run with Sunny’s post.

A&E tried valiantly to get the issue on the table, including his focused question:
> what should be done about imported cultural practices that rise above a certain threshold of acceptability when set against the aspirations of a liberal democracy

The most common argument was to try to close down the debate by suggesting that killing is illegal anyway !

QED – Most LCers are not ready yet for this debate.

Even the usually reasoned voice of Chaise skirted the issue ;

> honour killings are something that needs to be addressed in Islamic communities more than others, it’s not a reason to condemn Muslims in general.

You touched on the issue there Chaise but immediately argued against a condemnation that no had made!

> Basically there’s an obvious risk in identifying a specific type of crime that is more common in one group and then declaring it a special type of crime that deserves extra attention and condemnation.

Ahh, so maybe Chaise has hit the nail on the head – LCers can’t bear the thought that honour killings, or forced marriages be classified as ‘special types’ of anything – that they might require ‘extra attention’.

Chaise, are you therefore miffed that for example the Police often have a special Forced Marriage Unit ?

Chaise – you argued yourself in this very thread earlier, that specific violent crimes and behaviours should be looked at specifically and not only as part of a ‘wider’ problem!! (when you disagreed with the feminists who said honour killings should only be considered as part of the wider VAW issue).

The police report 2,823 honour crimes in 2011 – knowing the way that these communities treat honour situations and don’t cooperate with the police maybe the real number is higher – it certainly cannot be lower.

So there are thousands of future victims – one day LC will be ready to debate what if anything could/should be done (legally, educationally, by the communities themselves, etc etc).

And maybe one day, the liberal left will lead on this issue and we will see changes -and maybe the number of victims will then fall year on year.

But right now – to steal half a phrase, it seems that LC and the left are not part of the solution.

Very good Just Visiting, now with all that in mind, any helpful suggestions as to action?

I’ll bite.

1. The encouragement of greater knowledge within the police and education systems of the symptoms of existing and potential honour crime so it can be responded to appropriately.

2. Better channels of communication between the education, health and social services and the police so signs of honour crime can be relayed more effectively.

3. Investigation of the networks within ethnic communities that, according to local activists, rat out girls who are at risk of or are fleeing honour crimes.

4. Public opposition to the clerics who, while not actively supporting honour crime, demonise the expression of peoples’ and especially females’ individuality and affirm the “right” of the patriarchs to determine their futures.

5. An approach to family migration policies that recognises, among other things, the fact that they’re exploited as a means of establishing forced marriages. (Which, when girls aren’t keen to meekly accept their role, are often a cause of honour crimes.)

I’m no expert but this would represent a decent start.

@ 95/96 Just Visiting

“You touched on the issue there Chaise but immediately argued against a condemnation that no had made!”

In this thread maybe. But a lot of people do tar all Muslims with the extremist brush, and certain people (e.g. you) don’t do that directly but do leap enthusiastically on any example of crime by Muslims, demanding to know what it means for society in general etc. etc. I was addressing all that.

“Ahh, so maybe Chaise has hit the nail on the head – LCers can’t bear the thought that honour killings, or forced marriages be classified as ‘special types’ of anything – that they might require ‘extra attention’.”

Firstly, stop with this stupid “LCers are this, LCers are that” crap. You are an LCer as much as everyone else here, so presumably you think you’re guilty of this stuff as well?

Secondly, you’re creatively misinterpreting me. My point is if you define “special”, as in “extra bad”, crime as any crime disproportionately committed by Muslims, then obviously you’re going to end up with data saying that Muslims commit most of the extra specially bad crimes because you’ve set up the categories that way to begin with.

Similarly if you only pay attention to crimes committed by Muslims. There you don’t have to be using exact figures or specifically labelling any crimes as “special”, but if the only crimes you want to talk about are crimes such as those, you can quickly build up a vague impression that Muslims are terrible people. As certain newspapers tend to do by preferring to report crimes with white Christian victims and non-white/Muslim perps. This is about statistics, JV, and honest arguments. So stop with the patronising psychobabble.

“Chaise, are you therefore miffed that for example the Police often have a special Forced Marriage Unit ?”

Eh? No.

“Chaise – you argued yourself in this very thread earlier, that specific violent crimes and behaviours should be looked at specifically and not only as part of a ‘wider’ problem!! (when you disagreed with the feminists who said honour killings should only be considered as part of the wider VAW issue).”

And I stand by that. I’m not saying we shouldn’t ever focus on anything, I’m simply warning of the risk of extrapolating that focus out too far and ending up with a skewed view of society – whether deliberately, due to bias, or innocently, due to the representiveness heuristic.

I haven’t bothered with the rest of your post as it’s more of your sanctimonious, baseless brush-tarring. If you really want an honest debate, as you claim to do, perhaps you should attempt to engage in one yourself instead of being a patronising arse? Just a suggestion.

@ 97 BenSix

Seems sensible. I’ll add that schools should teach children about abuse and their legal rights – i.e. make sure they know that there are limits to parental authority and that there is a system in place to help them if their parents overstep those limits. They probably do this already, actually, but perhaps it needs more focus.

It seems to me that in broad terms there are only two really distinct options, ignoring somewhat question begging propositions like making the authorities better at preventing honour crimes, and they are,

1, Make them more like us, i.e., force the relevant immigrant communities to abandon their traditional standards and moral codes and adopt our own, changing what sort of behaviour they expect of their children and what they think of as the family unit and so on; and,

2, Make us more like them, i.e., force native communities to abandon their own standards and moral codes and adopt ones closer to those of the relevant immigrant communities, changing what sort of behaviour we expect of our children and what we think of as the family unit and so on.

Or, of course, a bit of both.

You’d have to wonder why so many British girls of Pakistani origin would chose to marry a cousin from Pakistan.
For young men there might be the ”attraction” of having a subservant ”traditional” wife untainted by western ideas, but what’s in it for British young women?
A guy who hardly speaks English .. or does so with a heavy accent … and has very conservative ideas of what a wife should be and what his wife should be allowed to do.

It has to be a form of coercion …. or at leat conditioning from a young age.
”You’re promised to your cousin Bilal in Pakistan” the partents might have been telling their English daughter since she was seven years old.
So ten years later it seems hard to resist going through with the plans which both families have planned on for so long.

But if people not from those communities raise this issue, it gets rejected as outside interference.

The tradition of marrying a cousin is becoming more entrenched among British-born Pakistanis living in Bradford than it was a generation ago, writes Winifred Robinson.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9714000/9714582.stm

@ 100 vimothy

“Make them more like us, i.e., force the relevant immigrant communities to abandon their traditional standards and moral codes and adopt our own, changing what sort of behaviour they expect of their children and what they think of as the family unit and so on”

Alternatively: encourage them to become more like us, bearing in mind that this will probably happen slowly of its own accord anyway as families naturalise, and remembering that not all traditional standards and moral codes are unwanted, only those that are incompatible with the law.

95

‘The common argument was to close down the debate by suggesting that killing is illegal anyway’

You have missed the point, whether or not it is deliberate I cannot tell, but let me spell it out for you;-.

Honour killings (crimes) cannot be used to make a judgement about the wider subject of multiculturalism, only about the problems within a minority of traditional Muslim families. Domestic violence against the entire female population of the UK is far more widespread and happens because women enter into a sexual relationship with men (and often other women) This has also attracted special policies such as domestic violence units in police stations, education for police officers and womens’ refuges, which can be accessed by Muslim women suffering from family violence.

@100 has made two suggestions, and if we drop the words relating to ethnic culture and use words which signpost domestic violence, it still makes sense and reflects a much wider problem that is prevalent in society.

I doubt if anyone of us posting on LC would want our own culture to be judged by those who perpetrate domestic violence.

@97
Totally agree

I suppose if anyone had been comparing Imperial Britain’s attitude towards sati to honour killings it might have been a valid point. I wasn’t though, I was responding to “Since when was woman killing part of any specific culture?”

Fair enough, I must have got the wrong end of the stick.

It might happen of its own accord. In which case, the proposed solution is: do nothing and wait for the honour crimes to stop, whereas I was interested in exploring active solutions.

The problem with the do nothing proposal is two-fold. Firstly, it does nothing for those that are at risk of victimisation in the meantime. Secondly, while it might happen of its own accord, there’s no particular reason to expect that it will. For one thing, if we take the fact that we attempt to change nothing as given, the tensions that drive honour crimes may well increase. By this I mean that the two groups could become increasingly divergent, but also increasingly exposed to one another and confident and assertive in their distinctiveness.

It seems to me that this is much more likely. After all, the whole point of multiculturalism is to allow migrant communities the space to develop in this fashion, so it would be strange and counter-intuitive if they did not. It’s also the case that Britain didn’t arrive at its current state by accident. People went out and forced (or, if you prefer, “encouraged”) the change they wanted in the face of resistance from people with no particular desire to see that change come about.

Many modern liberals think that everybody, unless they are crazy or evil, ultimately wants the same things, so that, over time, everyone is on a long-run convergence to the liberal ideal, i.e., to their ideal, and substantive disagreements over the nature of the good and how society should be orientated towards it are impossible. But this is not realistic. If it was, then, for example, progressive movements like the Suffragettes and the Labour movement would have been unnecessary.

@ Damon

You’d have to wonder why so many British girls of Pakistani origin would chose to marry a cousin from Pakistan.

You are quite correct that it is not honour killing or even forced marriage that is the main issue here.

“Arranged” marriage is the elephant in this particular room- I tried to raise it early in the thread @14&@21 but the silence has been absolutely deafening…………

@ 105 vimothy

“It might happen of its own accord. In which case, the proposed solution is: do nothing and wait for the honour crimes to stop, whereas I was interested in exploring active solutions. ”

Uh, whose proposed solution are we talking about? Because I specifically said we should encourage change, rather than saying we should do nothing. *Observing* the fact that change happens without active political input is not the same as saying that no active input is required.

So the rest of your post is a rebuttal to a point I didn’t make. But I’ll call it up on a couple of points anyway:

1) “while it might happen of its own accord, there’s no particular reason to expect that it will”

Yes there is: historical precedent. Children of immigrants tend to be a lot better integrated than their parents. By the time the third or fourth generation is reached, there’s often very little difference between the descendents of immigrants and their “native” counterparts except for a few minor cultural quirks, perhaps the most obvious one being the place of worship that they don’t bother attending.

I also suspect that a large, naturalised cohort of people with religion X or descended from immigrants from country Y will make it easier for new immigrants of religion X or country Y to adapt – although I admit this one is conjecture.

2) “went out and forced (or, if you prefer, “encouraged”) the change they wanted ”

I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s ridiculous to pretend that “force” and “encourage” are the same thing minus some hairsplitting. For example, people get annoyed when they’re encouraged not to drink, but it will be a whole different order of problem if they were forced to be teetotal.

@ 106 pagar

““Arranged” marriage is the elephant in this particular room”

You said earlier: “Can we not just agree that any arrangement made by others, where an individual is not permitted to freely select their life partner, is also morally wrong?”

We can agree that. The problem is mainly one of enforcement as a) we may not know about these marriages and b) they may take place outside of our jurisdiction.

Chaise,

What you wrote was,

“Alternatively: encourage them to become more like us, bearing in mind that this will probably happen slowly of its own accord anyway as families naturalise”.

It was this that I addressed. I do not think that there is any process that will make “them” become more like “us” naturally and “of its own accord”, for the reasons I gave.

@ vimothy

“What you wrote was,

“Alternatively: encourage them to become more like us, bearing in mind that this will probably happen slowly of its own accord anyway as families naturalise”.

It was this that I addressed.”

No, what you addressed was a non-existent claim by me that we should sit back and do nothing. You extrapolated unreasonably from my post and then addressed that extrapolation. Note the word “slowly” in the above. I think it would happen on its own but that’s no reason we can’t hurry up the process and thus help people who would be harmed by these attitudes in the interim.

“I do not think that there is any process that will make “them” become more like “us” naturally and “of its own accord”, for the reasons I gave.”

Well, I guess it comes down to whether your “tensions may rise” wins out over my “later generations of immigrants tend to be naturalised”. I do feel that history is my side here, but ultimately we’re both talking about “what if?” scenarios.

Chaise –

Yes there is: historical precedent. Children of immigrants tend to be a lot better integrated than their parents. By the time the third or fourth generation is reached, there’s often very little difference between the descendents of immigrants and their “native” counterparts except for a few minor cultural quirks, perhaps the most obvious one being the place of worship that they don’t bother attending.

What are you actually drawing on here?

@ 111 BenSix

“What are you actually drawing on here?”

Well, personal experience. Unfortunately the last time I saw solid data for this sort of thing, it was about Latinos in the US, which might give us general indications but would obviously be superseded by data about British Muslims.

But seriously, every second-gen-plus immigrant I’ve met has spoken English fluently, tended not to wear religious clothes or come across as particularly devout, partaken in Western pastimes that would offend or not interest their parents (drinking etc.), had politics (if any) that were pretty much in line with their “native” peers. I guess I could have a look for studies showing that later-gen immigrants tend to be more naturalized but TBH I feel it’s roughly of the order of claiming that the sky is blue or that the capital of France is Paris. How many people whose family came over here in 1066 still identify as Norman? 🙂

Chaise,

If what you say is true, then there should be no honour crime phenomenon, since the younger generations are now fully integrated into native British culture, bar some minor cultural quirks, like thinking that honour killings are acceptable. [*]

But if the “Born in Bradford” report that Damon cites is correct, then not only does honour crime still occur, but its frequency is increasing over time.

Personally, I do not find this surprising, since we have encouraged (not forced) precisely the sort of situation likely to lead to it.

* http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5311244.stm

Just in case I’m not making myself clear, the problem is that the process of integration is one of the causal factors leading to honour crimes. As this process increases, unless other things give, such as rates of immigration, cultural space afforded to migrant communities, rates of consanguineous marriages and marriages to foreign partners, we will likely see more honour crimes, not less.

Or our own culture could give. But unfortunately, the way that it is likely to give is the opposite to the way that it would be needed to ameliorate the problem.

Instead, our culture will probably become more hedonistic, more decadent and more appealing to the young, and more shocking, more repellent and more alienating to especially those in the older generations who are trying to maintain a distinctive culture and set of values in the face of this.

115

The hedonistic, self-interested and me first culture was the result of a white woman called Thatcher, if you want to see fast cultural change and alienation, you need to visit South Yorkshire.

For left-liberals, Thatcher really is a kind of bogey-woman, isn’t she? The font of all badness, who turned our idyllic socialist paradise into a neoliberal hell.

Thatcher is a symptom of our me-first culture, certainly, but it’s roots go much further back–all the way back to the Enlightenment and the birth of liberalism.

Liberalism is the political programme that puts what men want at the centre of everything. A hedonistic ethics is the natural consequence of this.

@97

I’m no expert but this would represent a decent start.

It would at that.

Instead, our culture will probably become more hedonistic, more decadent and more appealing to the young, and more shocking, more repellent and more alienating to especially those in the older generations who are trying to maintain a distinctive culture and set of values in the face of this…
Thatcher is a symptom of our me-first culture, certainly, but it’s roots go much further back–all the way back to the Enlightenment and the birth of liberalism.

Liberalism is the political programme that puts what men want at the centre of everything. A hedonistic ethics is the natural consequence of this.

Sex sells, championing yoof culture sells, being vulgar and risqué sells, encouraging vapidity and desire for disposable goods we don’t need creates good little consumers and thus sells. Liberalism? or Capitalism?

@ vimothy

“If what you say is true, then there should be no honour crime phenomenon, since the younger generations are now fully integrated into native British culture, bar some minor cultural quirks, like thinking that honour killings are acceptable.”

Vimothy, you’re a smart guy. Do I really have to explain that “people in group X tend to do Y” does not mean “everyone in group X does Y”? Or point out that we still have first-gen immigrants?

“But if the “Born in Bradford” report that Damon cites is correct, then not only does honour crime still occur, but its frequency is increasing over time. ”

I’ll have to take a look at that.

“Just in case I’m not making myself clear, the problem is that the process of integration is one of the causal factors leading to honour crimes. As this process increases, unless other things give, such as rates of immigration, cultural space afforded to migrant communities, rates of consanguineous marriages and marriages to foreign partners, we will likely see more honour crimes, not less.”

A fair point. I agree this could be a factor.

“Instead, our culture will probably become more hedonistic, more decadent and more appealing to the young, and more shocking, more repellent and more alienating to especially those in the older generations who are trying to maintain a distinctive culture and set of values in the face of this.”

On the other hand, a more “shocking” UK culture could actually make young women safer because her parents will think “OK, we found alcohol in her room, but at least she’s not as bad as those British whores”. I mean, time was that a girl having sex out of wedlock would make her a pariah in most communities. Or it could dissuade people who might commit honour crimes from moving here in the first place. I honestly wouldn’t want to guess whether higher rates of hedonism in general would raise or lower honour crime.

117

Don’t be daft, the pre-Thatcher period was hardly socialist, we had a welfare state and the NHS but that’s not socialism.

Can’t disagree that unfettered liberalism or laissez-faire, if you like, emerged in the enlightenment but socialism was much later, social democracy was even later but for many communities, liberalism never even entered into the equation, it was Thatcher who breathed life into neo-liberalism. But staying within the framework of this debate, our culture has undergone many changes, particularly in the post-industrial period, and, it has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with capitalism.

Chaise

BenSix has already deflated your view that followers of islam over time will naturaly becme become more liberal.

Your statement has a second factor in revealing just how groundless that aspect of your worldview is:

Because whatever is said about previous immigrants to the UK and how well they have integrated…

… the situation is different now – because Islam as it is practised today is different to the culture of earlier immigrant waves in the UK.

Islam has a mechanism that makes it resistance to change from within (death for apostates), and it sits on an honour/shame culture not a christian ‘guilt’ one: which again acts as a brake on any public expression of disquiet about Islamic practise today that any Muslim may feel – and indeed values human life less than being free of ‘shame’.

Chaise

Your unrealistic optimism in this regard seems to fly in the face of psychological studies – read for example the rather good PysBlog, eg

Have you ever wondered why society hardly ever changes?
…
People feel safer with the established order in the face of potential change.
….
Most disturbing of all: the more unequal the society, the more people try to rationalise the system. For example in countries in which men hold more sexist values, women are more likely to support the system.

Phew – read that last line again!

http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/07/why-society-doesnt-change-the-system-justification-bias.php

Don’t be daft–I was being glib. The point is that you can’t blame everything on Thatcher.

“Political correctness” is right-wing Newspeak by the way. It’s not a real thing.

Forced marriage /Arranged marriage

As Pagar points again above – no one here seems to want to address what a liberal plan of campaign would be concerning Arranged marriages.

Maybe we can take a step closer to this –

No one on this thread so far has explored the possibilty of making Forced Marriage a crime in it’s own right.

Advocacy groups for south east asian women in the UK have in the past called for this very thing.

They say it would send a clear message that potential victims of forced marriage would be able to use against their parents, and prevent abusers arguing ‘it’s not against the law at all’.

Question 1 – would folks support such a law?

I would.
I feel it would bring clarity and focus. And presumably would help the special police Forced marrages Units get better traction too.

But here’s the angle that would address Pagar’s question

So question 2:
Do we need a law for Arranged Marriages too – to constrain what they are and what they are not: and including a 2nd clause to allow prosecution of Imams et al who preach on arranged marriage outside the framework of this legal framework ?

Kind of an ‘inciting race hatred’ law – but ‘inciting illegal arranged marriages’ ?

@ 122 Just Visiting

“BenSix has already deflated your view that followers of islam over time will naturaly becme become more liberal.”

Um, no. If Ben or you can provide solid data showing that relevant non-Western attitudes and behaviours stay the same or harden into third- and fourth-gen immigrants, then that would deflate my view. In the absence of data on either side, I will go with the best evidence I have – personal experience, which has overwhelmingly shown me that later-gen immigrants are almost identical in these respects to “natives”: the only difference might be that they avoid going to Mosque instead of avoiding going to church.

“Your statement has a second factor in revealing just how groundless that aspect of your worldview is:”

Pointing out a possible counterpoint is not the same as showing the original point to be groundless.

“Because whatever is said about previous immigrants to the UK and how well they have integrated…

… the situation is different now – because Islam as it is practised today is different to the culture of earlier immigrant waves in the UK.”

Sure, it’s a possible factor. And if you’ve got data I’ll look at it. Otherwise, all being equal, I’ll assume that British culture has a draw on Muslim immigrants just as American culture has on Latino immigrants.

“Islam has a mechanism that makes it resistance to change from within (death for apostates), and it sits on an honour/shame culture not a christian ‘guilt’ one: which again acts as a brake on any public expression of disquiet about Islamic practise today that any Muslim may feel – and indeed values human life less than being free of ‘shame’.”

Firstly, it’s not so long ago that the same could have been said about Christianity, and look how liberal its followers tend to be now by comparison.

Secondly, there is such a thing as change from *without*. In this context I mean the effect of living alongside a more liberal culture.

Finally, and most importantly, your musings on what *should* come to pass based on your understanding of Islam flies in the face of everything I’ve seen. So again I’d prefer data.

“Your unrealistic optimism in this regard seems to fly in the face of psychological studies – read for example the rather good PysBlog,”

How so? That doesn’t appear to say that people never change, and if it does it’s demonstrably wrong. I notice that the quote starts with a leading question about how society hardly ever really changes. Except that it changes all the time, and has changed hugely over recent decades. Whoops!

So at a guess, your quotee is laying on the implications of their study rather thick in an attempt to get a good article out of it.

Chaise

I’ve had some great debates with you here on LC (and often disagreed of course)- but in this thread something is bringing your game down.

You’re now doing exactly what you have often told others on LC not to do – which is ask BenSix, vimothy etc for ‘solid data’ when the issue is YOUR statement for which you have offered no evidence !

And then you write:

> Otherwise, all being equal, I’ll assume that British culture has a draw on Muslim immigrants just as American culture has on Latino immigrants.

What a huge assumption!

Either you’ve researched Islam and Latino religous systems and are satisfied they are highly equivalent…. (have you?) …

Or else there is something in your worldview, which makes it more comfortable to make sweeping assumptions, and place stricter evidence rules on others than yourself – than to address Sunny’s issue: ‘We need to challenge not just forced marriages, but the attitudes that lead to them taking place”

Look how readily you brush aside this statement on islam’s honour/shame basis:

> “it sits on an honour/shame culture not a christian ‘guilt’ one: which again acts as a brake on any public expression of disquiet about Islamic practise today that any Muslim may feel – and indeed values human life less than being free of ‘shame’.”

With response that is clearly ignoring what was written:
> Firstly, it’s not so long ago that the same could have been said about Christianity, and look how liberal its followers tend to be now by comparison.

So – It would be good to hear your view on whether there should be laws about forced marriages, arranged marriages – what role you think education could play – what role you think the south-east-asian communities themselves could be doing etc.

This “it will all change in time” is probably true – but over quite a few dead bodies, not to mention broken and fearful lives. Honour crimes function like the Ku Klux Klan in the southern states of the USA. Not that many actual casualties, but keeping part of the population in fear, and always having to show deference, and watch their step.

People say, “well of course women were bound to get the vote” but what seems a natural order of things was won by a lot of suffering by very brave women whose health and lives were broken.

The other thing people say is “it’s against the law” as if that was that. So is rape – but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth holding Reclaim the Night marches. So are racist attacks – but that doesn’t stop the UAF getting out on the streets.

@ 122 JV

“You’re now doing exactly what you have often told others on LC not to do – which is ask BenSix, vimothy etc for ‘solid data’ when the issue is YOUR statement for which you have offered no evidence !”

No, the issue is BOTH statements for which little evidence has been offered. My view doesn’t become true just because vimothy can’t disprove it; likewise, vimothy’s view doesn’t become true just because I can’t disprove it.

Put it like this. I don’t expect you or anyone else to be convinced based on my anecdotal experience. However, when both my experience AND logic suggest that later-gen immigrants tend to be more naturalised, I will personally assume (with a low weight of confidence) that this is the case in the absence of more solid evidence either way.

This isn’t a situation where burden of proof is on one side or another. Neither of us needs to prove a negative. So the solid evidence thus far on this thread is sod-all either way. This puts us “officially”, as it were, in a position where we just don’t know. For reasons explained above, I’m leaning in one direction.

“What a huge assumption!”

Um, no, because I specifically said “all else being equal”. In other words, any evidence telling me I shouldn’t work on this assumption will prevent me from working on that assumption. For now, it’s weak evidence towards my proposition, and hence is overrideable by more compelling evidence in the other direction. This is the *correct* way to deal with evidence.

“Either you’ve researched Islam and Latino religous systems and are satisfied they are highly equivalent…. (have you?) …”

No. The Latino thing suggests a vague trend that immigrants tend to naturalize more over each generation. Weak evidence, as I said above.

“Or else there is something in your worldview, which makes it more comfortable to make sweeping assumptions, and place stricter evidence rules on others than yourself – than to address Sunny’s issue: ‘We need to challenge not just forced marriages, but the attitudes that lead to them taking place””

Firstly, I’m not placing stricter evidence rules on anybody. I have in fact been asking people for evidence that FALSIFIES my viewpoint, which is what any good rationalist should do. Secondly, this is a false dichotomy. I have been addressing those issues on this thread already: for example, I agreed with BenSix’s suggestions @97 and added one of my own.

“Look how readily you brush aside this statement on islam’s honour/shame basis:

> “it sits on an honour/shame culture not a christian ‘guilt’ one: which again acts as a brake on any public expression of disquiet about Islamic practise today that any Muslim may feel – and indeed values human life less than being free of ‘shame’.”

With response that is clearly ignoring what was written:
> Firstly, it’s not so long ago that the same could have been said about Christianity, and look how liberal its followers tend to be now by comparison.”

I love the way you claim I “clearly ignored” what was written but are for some reason incapable of explaining WHAT I ignored. Old-school Christianity had an honour/shame culture, oppressed criticism, and valued avoidance of shame/sin above human rights. So I think everything’s covered there.

“So – It would be good to hear your view on whether there should be laws about forced marriages, arranged marriages – what role you think education could play – what role you think the south-east-asian communities themselves could be doing etc.”

I’ve covered this already. Shorthand: there should be and are laws against forced marriage; there should not be and are not laws against arranged marriages that aren’t forced; education could probably help a great deal; those communities could probably help even more, but we can’t order them to, so it’s tricky to see how this could be part of state policy.

Incidentally, I have been looking for evidence. Have you? It’s just that my google-fu isn’t up to it. Every study I find is about native views of immigrants, not immigrant acceptance of native culture.

Oh, and Just Visiting, on the subject of sweeping statements for which no evidence is offered:

“To date, LC has not been in the vanguard of this rational approach. So often those asking these rational questions have been shot down.”

“LCers can’t bear the thought that honour killings, or forced marriages be classified as ‘special types’ of anything – that they might require ‘extra attention’”

“Islam as it is practised today is different to the culture of earlier immigrant waves in the UK”

“Islam […] sits on an honour/shame culture not a christian ‘guilt’ one” […] and indeed values human life less than being free of ‘shame’.”

And one statement based on a total misreading of the evidence:

“What do YOU think about the fact that it is 7/10 islamic countries where it is most prevelant?””

Note that I’m not saying that all the above are definitely false. I’m just saying you’ve presented them as fact without producing evidence to back them.

Put your own house in order. I at least admit when the evidence available is patchy and therefore very open to change.

@ Just Visiting

Ah-ha! My search-fu is better this mornining. Sources suggest that later generations of Muslims adapt better:

http://www.viennareview.net/news/austria/young-muslims-less-devout

…but that the effect is slower than I hoped (the main points seeming to be that second-gen attitudes are very similar to first-gen, and that Muslims don’t integrate as fast as many other groups):

https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2012/05/21/children-of-muslim-immigrants-likely-to-keep-their-faith

http://ftp.iza.org/dp3006.pdf

http://www.voxeu.org/article/muslim-immigrants-integration-uk

Of course, confirmation bias, so you should check too.

Incidentally, something just occurred to me that could seriously affect the results of studies like these. If a third/fourth-gen Muslim assimilated to the point of renouncing their faith, they might get excluded from the survey (as non-Muslims), giving us an accurate picture of Islam in the UK, but not of Islamic immigration into the UK. Thoughts?

Sorr Chaise but what you’ve written is just stuffed with ‘assumption’ ‘weak evidence’ and the like.

Fact one – you first made that claim that naturalisation will happen over time. But have not given any evidence to support that view.

So you are misleading when you say both sides of the debate need evidence.

(and that Austrian study is so week – what does it mean if the young are less likely to ‘submit to religious authorities’ ? Seems to have no bearing on whether they would kill their own daughters due to their shame culture!

“However, when both my experience AND logic suggest that later-gen immigrants tend to be more naturalised”

So what is this Logic you speak of?

When there is no track record in the UK of sizeable immigration of a faith community with the attributes of Islam.

Is your Logic the same logic folks on LC had that things would get better with the Arab Spring? That the mere fact of overthrowing a dictator would be ‘bound to make it better’ ?

Well, if you read the Interwebs you’ll know that around the world christians are the faith discriminated against in more countries than any other.

And you’ll know that in Egypt and Libya and Iraq it’s looking very bad – daily levels of church destruction, killings and forced conversions. And communities of all the minorities are dwindling

So sorry Chaise – I don’t find your ‘logic’ anything more than wishful thinking

And Chaise, proof that, in this one area of the clash between liberal values and Islamic / honour-shame ones -that you are weariung very rosy spectacles:

You said

> there should be and are laws against forced marriage

And yet there are several groups wanting laws on forced marriage! There is no crime of forced marriage!

As the Guardian headline made obvious:
“Forced marriage has always been a crime in spirit” !!

@ Just Visiting

“Sorr Chaise but what you’ve written is just stuffed with ‘assumption’ ‘weak evidence’ and the like.

Fact one – you first made that claim that naturalisation will happen over time. But have not given any evidence to support that view.”

So, I stuff a post full of linked sources and you ignore most of them, then accuse me of not providing evidence.

I really don’t think the ball’s in my court there.

“So you are misleading when you say both sides of the debate need evidence.”

JV, if you can’t accept that your claims need evidence as well as mine, there’s nothing I can do for you. While you’re at it, you may as well take up astrology, Tarot and homeopathy.

“(and that Austrian study is so week – what does it mean if the young are less likely to ‘submit to religious authorities’ ? Seems to have no bearing on whether they would kill their own daughters due to their shame culture!”

It indicates that they are less devout. I presume that religiousness is part of Muslim culture? To avoid further goalpost-shifting, I would like you to define exactly what you’re looking for in terms of integration: what factors count?

“So what is this Logic you speak of?”

People of culture X who are constantly exposed to culture Y are more likely to adopt culture Y than people of culture X who hardly ever come across culture Y.

“When there is no track record in the UK of sizeable immigration of a faith community with the attributes of Islam.”

I don’t even know what this means.

“Is your Logic the same logic folks on LC had that things would get better with the Arab Spring? That the mere fact of overthrowing a dictator would be ‘bound to make it better’ ?”

No. Are you a chicken from the state of Wyoming?

“Well, if you read the Interwebs you’ll know that around the world christians are the faith discriminated against in more countries than any other.”

I don’t see how this is relevant. I do note, however, that it’s another of your sweeping statements provided sans evidence. You seriously need to remove the beam in thine eye on that score.

“And you’ll know that in Egypt and Libya and Iraq it’s looking very bad – daily levels of church destruction, killings and forced conversions. And communities of all the minorities are dwindling

So sorry Chaise – I don’t find your ‘logic’ anything more than wishful thinking”

Is the second sentence supposed to follow from the first? Because this is a total non-sequitur. I’m talking about whether immigrants naturalise by choice, not whether the majority kill them. I assume that this is not on the cards in the UK.

“And Chaise, proof that, in this one area of the clash between liberal values and Islamic / honour-shame ones -that you are weariung very rosy spectacles:”

Do you know, your definition of “proof”, at least when applied to your own statements, seems to roughly translate as “vague claim”?

“You said

> there should be and are laws against forced marriage

And yet there are several groups wanting laws on forced marriage!”

Cocaine is illegal! Some people want it to be legalised! THIS LOGICAL PARADOX HAS BROKEN MY ROBOT BRAIN!!!

Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Are you so desperate to share your dislike of Muslims that you’ll conflate a pressure group with the law of the land? When you find yourself using such ridiculous excuses to support your beliefs, perhaps you should re-examine said beliefs.

“There is no crime of forced marriage!”

There is also no crime of “taking someone’s Maltesers while they’re not looking”, but it’s still illegal because it’s covered under the general crime of theft.

“As the Guardian headline made obvious:
“Forced marriage has always been a crime in spirit” !!””

That doesn’t even make sense.

Oh, I see. People want laws BANNING false marriage. That’s just clarification, though. Forced marriages are illegal because the force component is illegal under existing law, whether it’s done via threats, kidnap, blackmail, whatever. The only grey area that I can think of is when girls are taken to Pakistan or wherever on what they’re told is a holiday, then married off. And it’s unclear what we could do about that as the part of the operation that we would call criminal happens in another jurisdiction.

Incidentally, I notice you’ve gone rather quiet on the following: the alleged relevance of Psyblog to my argument; why my point about about old-school Christianity was “ignoring what was written”; and the possible data-skewing effect of Muslims renouncing Islam. Am I to take it that you withdraw the first two and accept the third? Also, I asked if you’d been looking for evidence: you neither answered me nor provided any. From which I take it that either you’re too good for evidence, or the evidence you found didn’t fit your theory so you ignored it.

Chaise

> Forced marriages are illegal because the force component is illegal under existing law,

Well if you’re happy with that statement good luck to you.

Looks like, among others on this thread, the UK based ‘The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation ‘ disagree with you

Yet under the current law, forced marriage is not a crime. Since 2006, IKWRO has been campaigning to persuade the government to make forced marriage a criminal offence.

I’m out Chaise – there’s no point continuing in a thread on forced marriages when your view of reality differs so much from everyone elses.

@ Just Visiting

“Well if you’re happy with that statement good luck to you.

Looks like, among others on this thread, the UK based ‘The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation ‘ disagree with you”

Their statement really, really does not contradict me. You need to read posts before replying. I agree it’s not a specific crime. I said that all the things that should make it criminal are already criminal. Keep up.

Where’s all that evidence I keep asking for, by the way?

“I’m out Chaise – there’s no point continuing in a thread on forced marriages when your view of reality differs so much from everyone elses.”

“Everyone elses” means “Just Visiting’s” I assume? But if you’re faced with a long couple of posts and asked for evidence, and then you can’t find any evidence and end up relying on a non-sequitur that reveals that you didn’t read the posts you’re claiming to reply to… yeah, I can see why you’d try to throw one last snarky comment and bow out. Godspeed and all that.

Oh, and while there are many “views on reality”, there is only one actual reality, and it doesn’t care what either of us think. Bear that in mind next time you make clumsy appeals to alleged majorities. You’re welcome.

Chaise:

> I agree it’s not a specific crime.

Ok. In your view should it be?

@ 139 JV

“Ok. In your view should it be?”

I’m not sure. Are there cases where people are forced into marriage in the UK but the perpatrators can’t be prosecuted under existing law? Or do some of the methods of forcing someone into marriage carry very minor sentences that don’t reflect the gravity of the action? If so, then a specific law would probably be a good idea. If not, it sounds a bit redundant, like creating a specific crime of stealing Mars Bars when that’s already covered under theft. My guess is that the groups calling for it to be “banned” are concerned about the message, not the legal reality.

As I mentioned before, one grey area is when teenagers are taken abroad on what they’re told is a holiday, then forced into marriage in a country where that’s legal or not policed. Obviously there are issues around jurisdiction, and I’m not sure whether, if the parents return to the UK, there is any crime under which they could be prosecuted. So if it doesn’t exist already, maybe we should criminalise tricking someone into travelling to force them into a marriage in a fashion that would be illegal in the UK.

Chaise

(I’ve been away – apologies for the delay).

>>> I agree it’s not a specific crime.
>> Ok. In your view should it be?
> I’m not sure. Are there cases where ……? Or do some of the …. ? If so, then ….. If not, it sounds ….. My guess is that …….

You’re not sure? Your guess? You havent any idea what the issues on the ground may be?

I wonder why you’ve said so many words in this thread then?
Why you’ve been so keen to labour the point that ‘forced marriage is illegal’ but ‘not a crime’ – did that help the discussion in any way ?

Why you’re unable to fall in line with the ‘The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation’ – who are likely to be much closer to the issue than we two are day to day:

Yet under the current law, forced marriage is not a crime. Since 2006, IKWRO has been campaigning to persuade the government to make forced marriage a criminal offence.