Honor killing comes to Ontario.

Pure

Fiel a Verdad
Joined
Dec 20, 2001
Posts
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Young pakistani woman (16) killed for her rebellious ways, which [are said to have] affected the family's being able to live with pride, in their community. Father and bro did it; mother had thought they only planned to break her arms and legs.

At one time, not unheard of in families which are Christian [or other religions; Hindu, for example ] , but now (in my impression) seems to come to light mostly for muslim families.


http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/824133--i-killed-my-daughter-with-my-hands
‘I killed my daughter. . . with my hands’
Domineering father and son plead guilty to strangling rebellious teenager

Published On Wed Jun 16 2010

Bob Mitchell
Noor Javed Staff Reporters

For years, Muhammad Parvez had been in absolute control of his family: he set the rules, he made the decisions and he told his eight children, including the adult ones, exactly how to live their lives.
But Aqsa Parvez, 16, the youngest in the family, dared to challenge her father’s rule.

She first refused his demands to wear the hijab and the traditional Pakistani clothing her four older sisters always wore. She hung out with girls outside her own culture and when things became intolerable at home, she opted to live in a shelter.

Even when Parvez relented, and allowed her to wear urban-style jeans and T-shirts to school, she still wanted more freedom. Her father wouldn’t allow her to go to her friend’s homes or to the mall on the weekends. Even talking on the phone at night was forbidden. Eventually, she ran away for a second time.

Her defiance was the ultimate insult in the eyes of her domineering father. It was all too much for Muhammad Parvez to take.
On the morning of Dec. 10, 2007, Aqsa was murdered in the basement bedroom of her Mississauga home. Her room was the only bedroom without a door.

She had been strangled by her assailant’s bare hands.
Her death sent shock waves through the city — and across the world — prompting heated debate on the hijab, the challenges of integration for newcomers, and whether her death was Toronto’s first crime of honour or a horrible case of domestic violence.

On Tuesday, her father, Parvez, now 60, and his son Waqas, now 29, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Brampton courtroom. Each admitted they were equally responsible for her death.
Although neither took sole blame for her death as part of their plea, Waqas told the court that he took the blame for his actions, saying in a voice barely above a whisper: “I’m responsible.” His father simply thanked the court when given his chance to speak.

Justice Bruce Durno gave each the automatic sentence of life in prison.

Durno will decide Wednesday afternoon whether to grant a joint Crown-defence request for no parole for 18 years.

Crown prosecutors Sandra Caponecchia and Mara Basso would have prosecuted the father and son for first-degree murder — a slaying committed either with planning and premeditation or under forcible confinement — had they gone to trial as planned in January 2011. By pleading guilty, they avoided the mandatory life with no parole for a minimum 25 years.

The Crown intended to prosecute the case as an honour killing, and had been prepared to bring in an expert on honour killings in Pakistan as a witness.

On Tuesday, Basso told the court the “chilling gender-based” crime was motivated by “patriarchal concepts of honour and shame,” which these defendants had chosen to adopt.
“Embarrassment to the family is enough to warrant murder,” she said.

Defence lawyers Joseph Neuberger and Stacey Nichols for Waqas, and Joseph Ciraco for Muhammad Parvez, conceded there were cultural issues at play but insisted this was essentially a tragedy of “domestic violence.”

Aqsa’s mother Anwar Jan, who collapsed into tears near the end of the day, attended the dramatic court session with Waqas’s wife Uzma and her sons Ahtisham and Muhammad Shan.

Details of the lengthy preliminary hearing before Justice George Gage that spanned more than a dozen days, over six months in 2009 had been under a publication ban until now. The testimony of her family, friends, school officials and police paint a troubled picture of the events leading up to the high school student’s death.

Aqsa was murdered around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 10, 2007 at her home on Longhorn Trail in Mississauga. At the time of her death, 12 people were in the house. Her two sisters, Irim and Shamsa slept in the bedroom across the hall from Aqsa’s bedroom but they told police they didn’t hear a sound that morning.
They said they learned about Aqsa’s death when they heard their mother crying hysterically and their father told them what he had done.

Media in Toronto and around the world immediately reported and continues to report that Aqsa was killed because she refused to wear the hijab. But it was much more complicated than that.
Parvez felt like he was losing control of a daughter who was failing most of her Grade 11 subjects at Applewood Heights Secondary School. He believed she would be better off attending an Islamic high school.

But at a meeting with her father and school officials on Sept. 17, 2007, she told them she wanted to stay where she was.

A day after the school meeting, Aqsa ran away from home for the first time. Her clandestine exit from her school was orchestrated by school officials and a social worker from Indian Rainbow, a non-profit agency for immigrants. They arranged for her to stay in a shelter.
The familial problems had been obvious a year earlier, when the local Children’s Aid Society (CAS) had been brought into speak with her father, once school officials became aware of growing cultural clash between Aqsa and her father, a taxi driver. Life after they had moved to Canada in 2001 was much different than the small village of Pur Miana in the Punjab area of Pakistan.

She told officials she feared she would be beaten, perhaps even killed, if she told her father she didn’t want to wear traditional clothing anymore to school, especially her hijab.

Now, after spending several days in a Mississauga shelter, she returned home after receiving a letter from Irim, telling her that her father would give her whatever she wanted so long as she returned home.

For a few weeks, things worked out. But the trouble started again.
[...]
In a chilling police interview on the day Aqsa was killed, her mother crying and talking out loud to herself, was recorded as saying she thought her husband was only going to “break legs and arms,” but instead “killed her straight away.”

“Oh God, Oh God. . . Oh my Aqsa, you should have listened,” Anwar Jan said in a police interview room. “Everyone tried to make you understand. Everyone begged you, but you did not listen. . .”
When she asked her husband why he killed her, he told her: “This is my insult. My community will say you have not been able to control your daughter. This is my insult. She is making me naked.”
She told police that in her Pakistani culture, if a daughter doesn’t listen to her parents, she is punished. “Either they kill the girl or turn her out of the house,” she said.

Parvez was also worried about Aqsa’s future. All of his children had married their first cousins through arranged marriages. And the plan was for Aqsa to be married in the same way when she was old enough, to a boy in her brother’s wife’s family.
On the morning of Dec. 10, 2007, Aqsa walked with her friend Amal Tahir to catch their school bus when they spotted Parvez’s green Dodge Caravan waiting at a nearby stop sign. It was just before 7:20 a.m. and Waqas was in the driver’s seat.

Less than 20 minutes later, Parvez dialled 911. He explained in broken English what he had done. “I killed my daughter. . . with my hands,” he told the operator. “She wanted to take her stuff out.”
Police found Aqsa lying face up on top of the covers, fully dressed and wearing blue jeans. Paramedics found a faint pulse but she died that night.


Forensic pathologist Dr. Toby Rose concluded Aqsa died from a neck compression. A forensic examination revealed Aqsa’s blood was found on the palms of Parvez’s hands. Aqsa’s DNA was also found under Waqas’s fingernails and on the shoulder of his black leather jacket.
[...]
====
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/cri...-son-get-life-terms-for-murdering-aqsa-parvez
Father and son get life terms for murdering Aqsa Parvez
Murder was ‘twisted, chilling and repugnant,’ judge says


Published On Wed Jun 16 2010
Bob Mitchell Staff Reporter

Aqsa Parvez’s father and brother had a mindset that was “chilling, twisted and repugnant,” Justice Bruce Durno told a Brampton court Wednesday.

Muhammad Parvez, 60, and his son Waqas, 29, deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison, he said, and it will be up to the National Parole Board if they will ever be released. Durno agreed their parole ineligibility should be set at 18 years.
“It is not the date when the prison doors will open for one or both,” Durno said.
They will also have the chance to ask a jury to decide after 15 years under the so-called “faint hope clause” if they can get paroled at that point, Durno said.

On Tuesday, the father and son pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, admitting they strangled the 16-year-old Grade 11 student in her bedroom in the family’s home on Longhorn Trail in Mississauga. Her room was the only one in the home without a door.
Based on their admissions and Aqsa’s mother’s words that were recorded in a police interview room, Durno seemed to agree with Crown prosecutors Sandra Caponecchia and Mara Basso that they killed her to uphold the family honour in their community.

He said the motivation behind this “senseless” tragedy was a “most significant” factor in deciding the parole ineligibility of 18 years.
“It’s profoundly disturbing that a 16-year-old woman facing significant challenges adjusting to life in a very different society than her parents lived in could be murdered for the purpose of saving the family pride and avoid the community embarrassment of not being able to control what they perceived to be a rebellious daughter.
“This chilling, twisted and repugnant mindset could imply that two grown men would overpower and kill a vulnerable young daughter . . . and be willing to go to jail,” Durno said.
 
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This wasn't an 'honor' killing. It was, as all domestic murders are, a control killing.

"Woman is my property. Woman is controlled by me. Without control I have nothing." is the mindset. It's not indigenous to Islam.
 
This 'honour' killing has happened a time or two in England as well. Last time, I think the Judge went out of his way to point out that if they wanted to stay in the UK, they can leave their repugnant views back in their village.
 
note to rg

This wasn't an 'honor' killing. It was, as all domestic murders are, a control killing.

"Woman is my property. Woman is controlled by me. Without control I have nothing." is the mindset. It's not indigenous to Islam


Yes, I think control, fear of its loss *was* quite important. The father could not control his daughter's running away, nor her going to live elsewhere. This is quite consistent with the so called "family honor" motive. Her running away is equated to besmirching the family's honor. The murder is thought to bring that danger under control.

Hindu 'honor killing' is discussed at

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1991195,00.html

Poor rural areas with strongly authoritarian family structure seem to be a key background factor. Applies to the present case.
 
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This wasn't an 'honor' killing. It was, as all domestic murders are, a control killing.

"Woman is my property. Woman is controlled by me. Without control I have nothing." is the mindset. It's not indigenous to Islam.

Thank you Sir.:kiss::heart:

It is not an honor killing at all. Just DV in it's darkest hour as usual. *sigh*
 
This wasn't an 'honor' killing. It was, as all domestic murders are, a control killing.

"Woman is my property. Woman is controlled by me. Without control I have nothing." is the mindset. It's not indigenous to Islam.

This is exactly right.

What honor is there in being a child murderer.
 
This is exactly right.

What honor is there in being a child murderer.

None, in the real world, but in the reality of a cultural world view, it is, unfortunately, everything.

I'm an anthropologist, and cultural relativity is of import to me, but for understanding what people do, not for condoning it. It is human to have values, and the value system that degrades women to property, to no more than a reflection of the men who "own" them, is antithetical to Canadian values.

I regret that the Crown accepted a plea bargain of second-degree murder; it was planned and deliberate. A life sentence with no possibility of parole would be appropriate for father and son. And mother and sisters should be charged as well for their complicity in allowing it. We welcome others in Canada, but it should not be at the cost of the freedoms we hold dear. And we must make that clear to everyone.
 
This wasn't an 'honor' killing. It was, as all domestic murders are, a control killing.

This is quite consistent with the so called "family honor" motive. Her running away is equated to besmirching the family's honor. The murder is thought to bring that danger under control.

.


Unless it's different elsewhere, the 'honour' is not quite as simple as that. It's question of whether a man is in charge of his family. How can he have honour if he is so lacking as to not be able to keep his kids in (a traditional) line.

Does not excuse his killing the child, though.
I'd be interested to know why her Mum (or any other family member) did not protest much.
 
What kind of man can murder his child and say he cares about being a parent....disturbing cultural practice than needs to end.
 
Unless it's different elsewhere, the 'honour' is not quite as simple as that. It's question of whether a man is in charge of his family. How can he have honour if he is so lacking as to not be able to keep his kids in (a traditional) line.

Does not excuse his killing the child, though.
I'd be interested to know why her Mum (or any other family member) did not protest much.
Because they would be next.
 
Exactly. This is exactly the issue being raised in what have been up till very tolerant European countries. People are beginning to rebel against the government's willingness to condone almost any activity so long as it's labeled "ethnic tradition". Immigrants need to know that when they head for a new country, the new country's rules are the ones to play by.
 
12th Century mind set arrives via immigrants in 21st Century Canada, then the authorities plea bargain...what a travesty of justice.
 
Exactly. This is exactly the issue being raised in what have been up till very tolerant European countries. People are beginning to rebel against the government's willingness to condone almost any activity so long as it's labeled "ethnic tradition". Immigrants need to know that when they head for a new country, the new country's rules are the ones to play by.

That wind has been blowing round here for a year or three - I'm pleased to report.
 
That wind has been blowing round here for a year or three - I'm pleased to report.

When they can make jokes like this:

I'm not certain what this subject has to do with the book business, but you did ask for more examples, so here's mine. I saw it a few years ago on a builder's van in Southall (a predominantly Sikh district): "Mohan Brothers, Builders. You've tried the Cowboys, now try the Indians".

...you know that they are integrated.

While walking around Bournemouth last weekend I saw several Asian families with their small children wearing England strips, red and white face paint and waving Cross of St George flags, while chanting Engerland! Engerland!. The contrast with their parents, the women wearing saris, salwar kameez or other ethnic dress, was startling, as was a sari-wearing mother with an England flag as a shawl and England deely-boppers on her head. A young Chinese woman was wearing a cheongsam, with the England flag on its back and front. The side slit showed that she had the England flag in face paint on her thigh.

Og
 
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When they can make jokes like this:

I'm not certain what this subject has to do with the book business, but you did ask for more examples, so here's mine. I saw it a few years ago on a builder's van in Southall (a predominantly Sikh district): "Mohan Brothers, Builders. You've tried the Cowboys, now try the Indians".

...you know that they are integrated.

While walking around Bournemouth last weekend I saw several Asian families with their small children wearing England strips, red and white face paint and waving Cross of St George flags, while chanting Engerland! Engerland!. The contrast with their parents, the women wearing saris, salwar kameez or other ethnic dress, was startling, as was a sari-wearing mother with an England flag as a shawl and England deely-boppers on her head. A young Chinese woman was wearing a cheongsam, with the England flag on its back and front. The side slit showed that she had the England flag in face paint on her thigh.

Og

Yes, and let's not forget that they can add to the host country's culture as well; food, music, clothing, language, and new ways of seeing contribute to positive change for all...
 
When they can make jokes like this:

I'm not certain what this subject has to do with the book business, but you did ask for more examples, so here's mine. I saw it a few years ago on a builder's van in Southall (a predominantly Sikh district): "Mohan Brothers, Builders. You've tried the Cowboys, now try the Indians".

...you know that they are integrated.

While walking around Bournemouth last weekend I saw several Asian families with their small children wearing England strips, red and white face paint and waving Cross of St George flags, while chanting Engerland! Engerland!. The contrast with their parents, the women wearing saris, salwar kameez or other ethnic dress, was startling, as was a sari-wearing mother with an England flag as a shawl and England deely-boppers on her head. A young Chinese woman was wearing a cheongsam, with the England flag on its back and front. The side slit showed that she had the England flag in face paint on her thigh.

Og

Og, this is the usual bollocks as seen through your rose tinted glasses. For every 'integrated' person you wish to see there are 100 who make no attempt to integrate and neither does the average white Anglo want them to.

England is a racist, sexist, homophobic, country and religiously prejudiced and no different to anywhere else. That comment includes whites, blacks, browns and any combination you care to imagine.

Multi-culturalism does not, has not, and never will exist, the natural process is for cultures to be in conflict until one comes out on top.
 
Og, this is the usual bollocks as seen through your rose tinted glasses. For every 'integrated' person you wish to see there are 100 who make no attempt to integrate and neither does the average white Anglo want them to.

England is a racist, sexist, homophobic, country and religiously prejudiced and no different to anywhere else. That comment includes whites, blacks, browns and any combination you care to imagine.

Multi-culturalism does not, has not, and never will exist, the natural process is for cultures to be in conflict until one comes out on top.

are you sure it's not something changed that emerges from the conflict? I take it your shed has no windows; it is hard to see in the dark.
 
Og, this is the usual bollocks as seen through your rose tinted glasses. For every 'integrated' person you wish to see there are 100 who make no attempt to integrate and neither does the average white Anglo want them to.

England is a racist, sexist, homophobic, country and religiously prejudiced and no different to anywhere else. That comment includes whites, blacks, browns and any combination you care to imagine.

Multi-culturalism does not, has not, and never will exist, the natural process is for cultures to be in conflict until one comes out on top.

I can walk around any large town in the UK and hear more languages than I would have ever encountered when I was young.

The conflict between cultures is between the younger generation born or brought up in the UK and the first generation parents some of whom still want to practise the patriarchal customs of their rural past.

England, except for some nutcases, is not racist. How could it be? The English are mongrels bred from successive waves of immigrants. Attitudes have changed dramatically from the 1950s when landlords used to display signs "No Irish, no blacks". We are far more tolerant now.

Multiculturalism has a very long history with high spots such as the Roman Empire and Andalusia under the Moors. In both, anyone could rise to the top despite race or religion.

Of course there are areas of the UK where there are problems. There are self-created ghettos where immigrants cluster together. But they are minute compared with the areas where differences of race, religion, colour and sexual orientation are accepted.

Og
 
And not just in the UK. Except for the occasional nut case, immigrants make wonderful citizens. All I want is that they come by the rules and play by the rules. The vast majority, especially those from overseas, do just exactly that. You never hear of them because they play by the rules and good news doesn't sell papers. For every 12th Century mindset ignoramus, there are a thousand or ten thousand who meld as best can, whose children are even better fitted and whose grandchildren marry into the mainstream. The U.S. is famous for it, the UK does a great job of it as does Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Continental Europe is having a bumpy time of it right now because the ruling class bent over too far backwards to 'accommodate'. This is changing, as it must.
 
For Tio's clarification in particular, just because I can observe prejudiced behavior in all societies and see it as the norm does not mean I condone it. On the contrary I don't see how you can deal with a problem if you do not acknowledge its existence in the first place.

Og always insists on seeing the sunny side of everything even if it is demonstrably untrue. He lives in one of the wealthiest prettiest corners of South East England . Og hasn't got a clue what is going on in the impoverished North west of England, or the West Midlands for examples. Take a walk down Lumb lane in Bradford Og or through City Road St Paul's in Bristol or any other of 50 different Ghettos.

Og does these problems no service by insisting they are only minor, they are not and you cannot fix any problem by wishing it to go away.

VM I hope you can see the irony in your own observation that the good societies are all predominantly white anglo saxon cultures. Firstly that indicates the dominance of that culture and secondly implies that cultures from a different background may not be as good.:)
 
For Tio's clarification in particular, just because I can observe prejudiced behavior in all societies and see it as the norm does not mean I condone it. On the contrary I don't see how you can deal with a problem if you do not acknowledge its existence in the first place.

Og always insists on seeing the sunny side of everything even if it is demonstrably untrue. He lives in one of the wealthiest prettiest corners of South East England . Og hasn't got a clue what is going on in the impoverished North west of England, or the West Midlands for examples. Take a walk down Lumb lane in Bradford Og or through City Road St Paul's in Bristol or any other of 50 different Ghettos.

Og does these problems no service by insisting they are only minor, they are not and you cannot fix any problem by wishing it to go away.

VM I hope you can see the irony in your own observation that the good societies are all predominantly white anglo saxon cultures. Firstly that indicates the dominance of that culture and secondly implies that cultures from a different background may not be as good.:)

I may live in SE England but I do travel the country and abroad. I have seen some of the rougher parts of Bradford, Birmingham and Manchester. I know that these ghettos exist but they are the exception in the UK. The worst of them is nothing like the slums of Mumbai, or even Chicago.

As for not knowing the problem? My eldest daughter has been a teacher in London schools where a white skin is unusual, where some of the parents have to be banned from the premises for trying to re-fight ethnic wars, and yes, I've visited her schools. But the majority of the parents are in the UK to try to improve the future for their children. There may be friction between communities but it is nothing like the friction in the Balkans, in the Middle East, in Afghanistan.

Og
 
A thank you to ColdDiesel for adding some rationality to the overall liberal, everyone is equal, multi cultural concept that progressives in general so like to tout.

Western commentary, sanctimoniious at mest, ignores the overall and specific notice given by the Muslim world at large, that Western society is Satanic in nature and must be destroyed wherever it exists.

Someone as well versed in history as Oggbashan, chooses to remain blind to the conflict of the Crusades between Christian and Muslim that is evident and violent to this very day.

By definition, there can be no comprose between the fundamental beliefs and political systems of Western and Eastern culturals as they are mutually exclusive. One, the West, to one degree or another, respects the individual rights of both men and women, and two, the theological governments of Muslim Nations will never peacefully absord western values concerning idividual rights and freedoms.

That is not a cynical perception of past, present or future history, it is a rational, realistic and supportable observation and conclusion that is also founded upon the natural attributes of men throughout time to impose their will, their culture, on all within their polticial control.

As in all things natural, it is the competion of opposing culltures that cannot exist in harmony alongside each other, and the conflict will continue until one culture overcomes or absorbs the other.

It is this silly civil rights philosophy which basically insists that the Lion can lay with the Lamb in peace, which totally contradicts the natural impetus of nature's insistence on a predator/prey competition to survive.

I have read reports of Sharia Law, Muslim law, beng accepted for Islamic peoples in European nations, Canada and some attempts to establish Sharia is some heavily Muslim areas in America.

It is not that a rational point of view that includes a realistic assessment of the past and a close scrutiny of the fundamental confict between Christian and Muslim, East and West, is a refusal to accept the cultural differences of others, for indeed, as Oggbashan offered, there are limited examples that one can point to, but they remain a minority and always will because of the polar opposite nature of the cultures in question.

What is not understood or is ignored by the progressive liberal left, is the basically competitive nature of human life and the ongoing pursuit of methods to acquire the means to survive on a competitive or mertiorious system.

It is political, psychological, sociological and economic spectrum in which the West acts to acqure and maintain individual means of endeavor as opposed to the theological and political systems that impose a culture or a system upon those under its control.

The continual and continuing conflict between Northern Ireland and British rule should provide an irrefutable foundation for Oggbashan and others to acquiesce to the true nature of conflict between peoples and cultures and religions, and realize that competition and the innate drive to secure ones existence is fundamental to all men at all times.

Free and open competition between cultures will inevitably result in the superiority of one over the other.

Amicus Veritas
 
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ami on conflict of cultures

ami, those are some good points (see below); but the consequences may be different from what you expect.

Starting at the end:
ami Free and open competition between cultures will inevitably result in the superiority of one over the other.

pure:

The main problem of what you say is that yes, there will be conflict and yes, in one sense the 'superior' will survive; but in what form? Yes, the Allies, the 'good guys,' won WWII, yet winners are not always the good guys.

Who will 'win' in today's Europe? The Muslims are at least 5 % in several European countries, and over 10% in France. As those number move up, Muslim cultural influence does, also. Will they reach 20%? 50% (as one scare video on Youtube suggests). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Europe

wiki : Don Melvin writes that, excluding Russia, Europe's Muslim population will double by 2020. He also says that almost 85% of Europe's total population growth in 2005 was due to immigration in general.[19][21] Omer Taspinar predicts that the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim will shrink by 3.5%, due to the higher Muslim birth rate.[22] Esther Pan predicts that, by 2050, one in five Europeans will likely be Muslim.[22][23]

==

pure: So to use your very own principle, we might expect a conflict of customs: the Muslim way may have stronger force. And by your principle, IF sharia law comes to prominence, in part, that's because of its superiority. As it was proposed in Ontario, in divorce law, it weakens the 'hand' of the wife; IOW sharia law will, as you surely would approve, limit the efforts of divorcing Muslim women.

What culture will 'win' in the US? There, the Hispanic persons are about 15%, and the annual growth rate (from all sources) was 3%. The White anglo rate is down. Will this top off at 30% or 50% Hispanic? In any case, ami, it's Catholic. Catholic values will likely have more prominence, e.g. on abortion; same position as yours. Perhaps the official Catholic position against contraception will also come to the fore; pregnancy and live birth would be the more frequent outcome of sexual relations; which you would surely approve of. Again according to your principle, whatever comes ( *wins*), is superior. The possible predominance of Catholic values in the US will be because of its superiority.

===
ami By definition, there can be no comprose between the fundamental beliefs and political systems of Western and Eastern culturals as they are mutually exclusive. One, the West, to one degree or another, respects the individual rights of both men and women, and two, the theological governments of Muslim Nations will never peacefully absord western values concerning idividual rights and freedoms.

[...]As in all things natural, it is the competion of opposing culltures than cannot exist in harmony alongside each other, and the conflict will continue until one culture overcomes or absorbs the other.

It is this silly civil rights philosophy which basically insists that the Lion can lay with the Lamb in peace, which totally contradicts the natural impetus of natures insistence on a predator/prey competition to survive.

[...]

What is not understood or is ignored by the progressive liberal left, is the basically competitive nature of human life and the ongoing pursuit of methods to acquire the means to survive on a competitive or mertiorious system.

It is political, psychological, sociological and economic spetrum in which the West acts to acqure and maintain individual means of endeavor as opposed to the theological and political systems that impose a culture or a system upon those under its control.

The continual and continuing conflict between Northern Ireland and British rule should provide an irrefutable foundation for Oggbashan and others to acquiesce to the true nature of conflict between peoples and cultures and religions, and realize that competition and the innate drive to secure ones existence is fundamental to all men at all times.

Free and open competition between cultures will inevitably result in the superiority of one over the other.
 
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I can walk around any large town in the UK and hear more languages than I would have ever encountered when I was young.

The conflict between cultures is between the younger generation born or brought up in the UK and the first generation parents some of whom still want to practise the patriarchal customs of their rural past.

England, except for some nutcases, is not racist. How could it be? The English are mongrels bred from successive waves of immigrants. Attitudes have changed dramatically from the 1950s when landlords used to display signs "No Irish, no blacks". We are far more tolerant now.

Multiculturalism has a very long history with high spots such as the Roman Empire and Andalusia under the Moors. In both, anyone could rise to the top despite race or religion.

Of course there are areas of the UK where there are problems. There are self-created ghettos where immigrants cluster together. But they are minute compared with the areas where differences of race, religion, colour and sexual orientation are accepted.

Og

Sorry, but I have relatives in England and have been witness to some very casual, folksy, very British racism. Not nutcases, just average people with some typically ignorant views. There's a definite prejudice against anyone who wears religious garb, especially the niqab (which most of the Western folks who protest it but know nothing about it refer to as the burqa).

I recently watched a rerun of an old Wife Swap episode out of the UK, and what really tickled my funny bone was that as much as the white chick complained about the Muslim family being closed-minded and disdainful of British culture (which was true - they were) she was equally closed-minded and disdainful of their culture as she tried to shove hers down their necks.

Please don't get me wrong - I'm not claiming my country is some haven of tolerance. Canadians sometimes disappoint me quite a bit. I've had to stop reading the comments section on CBC news stories that cover anything to do with Muslims or Natives because there's just a totally accepted, casual racism against them.

Colddiesel pretty much hit the nail on the head. Western societies are full of racists - pretty much every thread that comes up about Muslims ends up serving as evidence of that - but we delude ourselves into thinking we're these wonderful, open societies who respect all equally.

Oh, and these "self-created ghettos" you referred to are call immigrant enclave communities. I did an anthropology paper on them, and they're just as reenforced from the outside as they are from within. As much as there are laws allowing immigrants to retain their cultures, the overwhelming majority of locals have an attitude of annoyance and suspicion of anyone who doesn't fling off the mantle of the old country and embrace their new land's culture, language and traditions. Not to mention the long-standing myth that immigration increases crime rates which results in some pretty deplorable behaviour on the part of those who buy in. Somehow, these things combine to result in some immigrants preferring to hang around their own people, people who aren't hostile to them. Go figure.
 
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