From Mark Steyn:
October 31, 2009
‘Cultural Values’
Another attempted “honor” killing, this time in Arizona. Two women in hospital, one with life-threatening injuries. Their crime? According to the younger girl’s father, she was becoming too “westernized.”
I was struck by this passage:
Peter-Ali Almaleki said he loves his sister and that should she not have to be suffering her injuries. But he added that the family lives by different cultural values.
“One thing to one culture doesn’t make sense to another culture,” he added.
This would be a less ludicrous argument if Mr. Almaleki hadn’t run down his daughter in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s all a bit culture à la carte, isn’t it? Infidel motor vehicles, fine. Infidel guarantees on individual rights, no way. Maybe when you’re such a sorry excuse of a believer that you’re incapable of pulling off your lousy “honor killing” without resorting to a Grand Cherokee, you’re the one who’s becoming “too westernized.”
Steyn again:
November 3, 2009
Noor Ignored
Noor Almaleki, whom I wrote about over the weekend, has died, the latest Western victim of a Muslim honor killing. If there were a Matthew Shepard murder every few months, Frank Rich et al would be going bananas about the “climate of hate” in our society, but you can run over your daughter, decapitate your wife, drown three teenage girls and a polygamous spouse, and progressive opinion and the press couldn’t give a hoot. Indeed, as The Atlantic notes, it’s merely an obsession of us right-wing kooks.
During the IRA’s long campaign against Her Majesty’s Government, British officials had a cynical phrase about containing Northern Ireland to “an acceptable level of violence.” I wonder what the silent U.S. media will settle on as the “acceptable level of violence” against Muslim women. Ten honor killings a year? A couple dozen? A hundred?