Honor Killings and Fatwas

Murdered to restore family honor

Say, what?

Two stories:  One about a woman, Qaundeel Baloch, whose brother strangled her in her own home because she had made videos which suggested sexual appetite, thus dishonored her family.  And the reporter, from Pakistan remarks casually, oh there are thousands of such "honor killings" every year in Pakistan, mostly by male relatives, fathers, brothers who feel their female relatives, daughters mostly, have disgraced them. This is what you would call, in anthropological terms, a culture more, or a group value which helps define what that culture is like, that is a value which may not be shared by every member of the group, but is embraced by enough members of the group to be considered a characteristic of that group.

The other story, on NPR about someone who had abandoned his Muslim faith and so a fatwa had been issued to kill him.  NPR got a professor of Muslim studies at some Washington think tank to explain this action, and the professor explained, as if this were all very reasonable, that not any "Tom, Dick or Harry" could issue the Fatwa--it had to come from an Islamic state and a "group of scholars" had to review the case, but if it were found that a Muslim had abandoned his faith, well then, yes, he can be legally and rightfully killed. 

And all this is said in tones of great reasonableness. 

I'm not at all sure all Muslims find this death penalty for blasphemy or apostasy to be reasonable and just, but the fact is, at least some Muslims, and Muslims in a position of power, apparently, think this is just fine.  This would be, from my point of view at least, a real problem.  

Now consider an immigrant population which arrives in a country seeking a better life, but when they arrive they proclaim they do not accept the idea of tolerance of the opinions of others.  That is simply not one of their values, because their religion tells them they should kill their sisters for offending the honor of the family or they should kill their neighbor because he has strayed from the Islamic fold. What do we do with this group? 

Has this woman disgraced her family's honor?

"Cultural relativism" may suggest no one culture should pass judgment on another, but what do you do when one culture does just that and decides to annihilate a host culture or a neighboring culture?

I'm not suggesting we ban Muslims at the borders, but is it not reasonable to require as the price of citizenship from every member of our society, the basic agreement to tolerance of different values? 

And if we have a group which speaks as a group, either by voice or by action, in a violent way, do we not have the right to condemn that group as a group?