Jordan is the moderate Muslim country where the Parliament declined on Islamic grounds to stiffen penalties for honor killings. From UPI, with thanks to Chris:
A Jordanian father stabbed his teenage daughter to death in the latest crime of honor in Jordan, security sources said Monday.The source said the crime occurred Sunday in the region of Marka, east of Amman, where a father stabbed his daughter 30 times before turning himself in to police....
The incident was the ninth crime committed in Jordan this year under the pretext of defending honor.
The so-called "moderate Muslim" nation of Jordan places more value on maintaining the existing family power structure (read: patriarchy, Islamic style) than it does on the right of every individual to life - a pretty basic right, most would agree.
Those committing the oh-so-badly-named "honor" killings receive light sentences - since the crime is seen as one of passion, and it is assumed that the passion must be seen as justified, since it is a socially tolerated, repeated pattern.
Does the Jordanian Parliament not consider the possibility that damage might done to the family involved by the brutal and repeated slashing of a of young female family member, hardly more than a child? Or does it regard such damage as the price to be paid for defending the Orwellian topsy-turvy concept of "honor."
After such a horrendous act as reported here, does the family still "play together, worship together"? Does the memory of the brutally murdered young daughter not interfere in the subsequent daily enjoyment of family life? When one has finished mopping up the blood, when is the next meal served? Where is the clean unbloodied bedding for the youngsters to sleep upon?
One would think that any feeling human being witnessing such an atrocity, or being in the family which experienced it, would no longer be able to function, but the light sentences handed out seem to ensure that the crazed knifings and slashings, probably by the family's most powerful member against one of the weakest members, are just a momentary blip on the otherwise peaceful Ma and Pa of the moment and their Little House on the Desert sleepy daily life. Either the family members have no human feelings whatsoever, or they are completely terrorized, intimidated, and frozen in thought and action.
This young woman deserves an outraged world to shout loudly and clearly: this is not civilized behaviour; it is cruel, desperately unjust, and oozing of male privilege over the expendable female. Her death demands justice - the deaths of every female killed for the nefarious "honor" that drives Muslim males to the slashing, knifing, burning, and strangling of their own flesh and blood, also demand justice.
Who will speak out?
And what will supper table talk be like tonight?
Mama and Papa Muslim, and their brood, dig into the evening meal, at their Little House on the Desert.
"Anyone for seconds?", Mama Muslim asks. "We have a little extra tonight."
Do people like Papa Muslim actually believe that others are unfazed by such behavior? What do Mama Muslims think? And what do their Muslim children think?