Remember Aqsa Parvez? The Canadian teen whose love for life was literally throttled by a father provoked to madness over her refusal to wear hijab at school? Because she liked to sing, dance and hang out with non-Muslims? Who was buried in a private service because her family wanted to avoid a media circus? Whose death sparked such a controversy about the status of women in some Islamic cultures?
Like such a thing still has the capacity to surprise.
Her family loved her so much that her memory is preserved at her grave site by this marker:
Even her name has been taken from her. It is as if she was not merely murdered – by her own father – but blotted out.
Some people who come here – by no means all – do not understand the value we in the West attach to human life, the value we attach to our precious daughters. But many of them claim to understand honor, which means that they must understand shame. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have started a collection to give Aqsa Pervez her name back. To honor her. And maybe – who knows? – shame into immobility the next man who thinks he can claim what he has never had by murdering his own child.
Geller and Spencer are already 75% of the way to their goal. It would be an honor to help them complete it.
Aqsa Pervez. Sarah and Amina Said. And all the others. Say their names, write them down. We must not allow them to be forgotten.
They must not be blotted out.
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
– from Ozymandius, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Once again the silence from the more “moderate” factions of the “community” in response to these most horrific and barbaric acts speaks volumes of just how far they have to come to truly have earned a seat at our nation’s table. And the lengths some go to apologize for this and seek to promote “understanding” is beyond rational comprehension. That some apologizing claim to be “feminists” betrays their self-interested focus and lays waste to whatever moral superiority they claim.
It is cold-blooded murder for God’s sake.
May the victims RIP.
Don’t know why, but you just brought tears to my eyes. Thank you, Lex.
Good and true words, Lex.
As a father of a daughter myself, for the life of me I will never, ever understand the idea that – somehow – killing your own daughter brings or restores family honor. I consider myself to be quite open-minded about other cultures and customs, but that whole idea is nothing but the product of a completely twisted mind coupled with a black heart. And I feel certain that whatever hell your particular belief system subscribes to will be your only reward for following that course of action.
Well said, Sir.
I’m no expert, but surely part of the consideration has to be contrasting a guilt culture with a shame culture.
Christendom (the ‘West’) corresponds to the former: we are moved primarily by an inner sense of right and wrong, from within. Asian and Islamic cultures correspond to the latter, they are more compelled by an outer sense of shame, how others see them. For a shame culture, honor comes by presenting (and preserving) an acceptable public image.
Living in an Asian society, I see signs of how this applies every day. If a transgression remains concealed, it doesn’t actually burden the transgressor, or even his knowing colleagues. Once it becomes public, there is a sudden stampede to confess and take the blame, often in an effort to preserve the image of the greater organization. The image gets much more consideration than the substance. The sense of ‘honor’ comes by preserving a good image.
G-d forbid my words here be interpreted as excusing the obscenity of ‘honor’ killings. Although we can understand the rational motivating them, they remain an abomination, a hideous perversion, and are entirely inexcusable. This fact must be confronted by anyone sympathetic to ‘multiculturalism’ and its attachment to moral blindness. Communication allows understanding, understanding does not always foster harmony, and for good reason. Clarity is more valuable than harmony (Dennis Prager).
I’m sure for many of this list community, these are not new insights.
Best regards, Peter Warner.