I just read about the lastest cases of so-called «honour» crimes in Jordan. It just scares me out my mind that the human being can become so vile, so in-human. And how laws in that country aren't changed when they're obviously totally stupid, and so contrary to any culture's logic ...
What frightens me too is that when it come to arab countries, the vast majority of people think this sort of horror is inherent and part of the arab culture (most westerners think that way, but some arabs too - when the western soft-power have done a good job of brain-washing). It's as stupid as the said laws : if violence, rape and discrimination against women were part of the arab culture, then how come you find violence, rape and discrimination against women about everywhere on the damned planet ? And more often than not, in incredible high proportions ? It's a bit like saying genocide is part of the german mind ... Stupid, and it certainly doesn't help the women concerned by that violence.
We should first stop thinking in this way, and help all the people who want to help these women, whether these people are arab or not, religious or atheist or whatever ... It's not a matter of culture, it's a matter of letting the human being become inhumane. «You're not born human, you become one» said Erasmus. And the despicable men comitting these crimes obvisously never learned how to become one. We should focus on children's education and law reform, instead of stupidly dismissing it as a «cultural norm» in any given society. Even though a good education and good enough laws in France don't prevent the killing of one women by her husband/boyfriend every two days ... But it helps. So I hope some people in Jordan, men and women, will have the courage to stand up and suppress some of these insane laws ... And as the original article says, the biggest problem right now is the silence.
This defeaning silence you find everywhere : for example we heard of a case a few weeks back, in France, of a mother who had to kill her husband in self-defense because after years of violence and forced prostitution imposed on her by him, and after having gone to the police a great many times to file a complaint and getting nothing more than a "oh well, go back to your house and talk to him and you'll see, things will get better", she had no choice left but kill him or getting killed ... Mentalities are hard to change, and the silence is killing every effort. She had to kill him to be heard. And yet, some people thought she should be put in prison for life because of this act of self defense ! And that's in a country supposedly advanced on women issues.
PS : I just learned that one week ago, the law against sexual harassment has been purely and simply suppressed. You can't go and file a complaint against a sexual agressor anymore ( unless you're actually "properly" raped ). And that's in France too. The only argument they found to justify that measure is "the texts are not clear enough, so we'll suppress the law for now, we'll see later".
The next person I hear telling me that we french are a civilized people as compared to the rest of the world, I might just punch him/her.
PS : I just learned that one week ago, the law against sexual harassment has been purely and simply suppressed. You can't go and file a complaint against a sexual agressor anymore ( unless you're actually "properly" raped ). And that's in France too. The only argument they found to justify that measure is "the texts are not clear enough, so we'll suppress the law for now, we'll see later".
The next person I hear telling me that we french are a civilized people as compared to the rest of the world, I might just punch him/her.
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