Fundamentally Expendible
What a dilemma it presents for a free and open society, one that is based on egalitarianism and respect for others. To find in their midst cultural/social/religious groups whose values and perceptions are so ingrained in traditions that include mores foreign and repugnant to the welcoming society. A welcoming country hopes that incoming future residents and citizens will be adaptable, will be willing to learn the values of the new country, and to accept them.This is why countries like Canada give their immigration officers freedom to reject applications for immigration if they feel, through the medium of the interview process - irrespective of the point system where a candidate for immigration may score very well - that they appear to lack the necessary adaptability skills to fit comfortably and reasonably into the welcoming country. Of course, adaptability isn't an issue when you're dealing with those entering a country through the refugee process.
And that is exactly what has occurred in so many instances when embattled people flee war situations and seek refuge in countries abroad. Societies based on gender inequality, where an unprotected woman is game for predatory males, where the religion's imperatives dictate that women not mingle freely in general society, where young girls are married off to older men and where every facet of their lives from infibulation to forced marriage is dictated by men, are not an easy fit in an open society.
The second generation, the children of the immigrants look around them and note the freedoms denied them by the fundamentalist interpretation of their religion, the traditional mores, the social apartness. From time to time there is reportage of dreadful, difficult-to-understand events which remind us how diametrically opposed social structures and expectations can be, and the tragic consequences that flow from their interaction.
In South London, England, the trial now ongoing relating to a murder deemed an 'honour killing'. Which is to say, aggrieved and angry fathers, husbands, brothers, find it expedient to murder their children, wives, sisters because by their behaviour, in rejecting their societal norms of female subjugation, dishonour has been brought upon the family name. This is a difficult concept to understand; equating a wish for self-determination with dishonour, a behaviour that merits the punishment of death.
Because Banaz Mahmod had the unmitigated gall to remove herself from a forced marriage where she was raped by a fundamentalist Muslim with whom she had no interests in common, and whose values equated with those of her father and her uncle; because she found herself drawn to a romantic relationship with a young Kurdish man from Iran, not himself a strict Muslim like her family, originally Kurdish refugees from Iraq, she was sentenced to a violent death by her father and her uncle.
She understood her fate, although she didn't quite believe it would happen, until a first, failed attempt persuaded her of her imminent danger. The female police officer to whom she related her fears, shrugged them off, interested instead in charging Banaz Mahmod with property damage, as she had smashed a window in her desperate attempt to escape the original planned murder.
Soon afterward, she was nowhere to be seen. No member of her family reported her missing. The young Kurdish man whom she loved went to the police to report her disappearance. She was found two months later, stuffed into a suitcase, buried beneath mounds of trash, throttled. Family honour assuaged.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Religion
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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