Chesler Chronicles

July 9th, 2008 12:00 pm

CNN Newspeak in Atlanta. Honor Killing=Cultural Misunderstanding; Pakistani=South Asian; Muslim=Holy Man/Victim.

Good afternoon dear people!

Well, this time, the mainstream media is actually beginning to cover the honor murder in Atlanta. I do not understand why they never covered the honor murder of the Said sisters in Dallas about which I have previously written many times at this blogsite. But–in only a matter of days, CNN not only wrote about it; they also turned to an alleged expert who says that honor murders are no different than domestic violence cases world-wide.

On July 9th, CNN posted a piece HERE about the Atlanta case in which a Pakistani man has been charged with killing his 25-year old daughter. CNN turned to Columbia University Associate Dean of multicultural affairs, Ajay Nair, who is quoted as saying:

“My immediate reaction was that this is an anomaly in the South Asian community… Most South Asian-American families enjoy wonderful relationships within their families. I think there’s ways that we can rationalize it and make sense of it, particularly in thinking about new immigrant communities in the U.S. and thinking about some of the struggles that they face and the generation gap and the cultural differences that children do face,” he said. “I think there are some issues there, but by and large, this isn’t a rampant problem within South Asian communities. What is a problem, I think, is domestic violence, and that cuts across all communities. I think more people need to recognize this as a global issue. It’s not just a U.S. issue. I think it happens across the world, and I think people need to recognize domestic violence and any kind of violence related to women as a serious, serious issue.”

Nair said he believes a “significant human rights campaign” is needed to address such killings.

Well, I agree with Nair about the campaign but about little else. I am working on an academic piece about this right now for Daniel Pipes and do not want to steal my own thunder but for example: Most (non-Muslim/non-South Asian) batterers do not kill their daughters or wives and when and if they do, they are not seen as “heroes” or “martyrs” and they are not protected by their families and communities. They are rarely prosecuted in their home countries.

What is Nair doing at Columbia? Why is CNN turning to him as opposed to a Muslim or “South Asian” feminist activist? A non-Muslim feminist activist?

Excuse me: If honor killings are a world-wide problem that is because Muslims/ South Asians live in more than 50 Muslim countries as well as in the West. Between 30-40 million new and second-, third- or fourth-generation immigrants currently live in Europe.

Read the CNN article. You will also see how careful they are to quote police officers who themselves were oh-so-careful in their remarks. God forbid that anyone would say anything that might be construed as “anti-Islamic” or as “Islamophobic.” Charges and headlines would be brought; the politically correct police would be out in full force.

I agree: Prejudice against anyone because of their skin-color, religion, country of origin, or immigrant status is unacceptable. One of the best things about America is the fact that we actually fought a Civil War on our own soil to end slavery–a practice which is still a custom in the Arab and Muslim world, especially in Saudi Arabia. SEE HERE. Americans also bravely demonstrated for abolition, then for racial equality, and then we passed additional civil rights laws. In terms of our history, it is symbolically thrilling that one of our Presidential candidates is now an African-White American.

You don’t see many Christians or Jews being elected in Saudi Arabia–not even for dogcatcher–do you? Elected? You don’t see them displaying any religious symbols on the streets or practicing their religion behind closed doors in The Kingdom. This is currently also true today on the streets of London and Paris.

So: Will somebody please help me out? Since Muslims come in all colors and hail from many geographical regions, how exactly is it “racist” to describe certain Muslim practices (such as polygamy, arranged marriage, temporary marriage, veiling, purdah, or honor murders) accurately? How will it help the police and the judiciary in the West to defend society against what we view as legal crimes if newspapers describe crimes committed by Muslims–especially in the name of Islam, including acts of torture and terrorism–as having been committed by “youths,” “South Asians,” “militants,” “immigrants,” and by “the oppressed?”

Please send me your thoughts.

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13 Comments

1. Tom:

The Media chooses the Experts they do because 90% of the Media are leftists/liberals and they will only interview experts that agree with their own world view which is in itself a result of years of PC indoctrination in government/left controlled schools and universities.
Words like “Cultural misunderstanding” they understand because it is part of the Religion of Liberalism, that if you be nice, they’ll be nice, just like Mommy taught us. This really does work in 9 out of 10 times, IF you are dealing with people of good will with similar western Judeo/Christian values.
BUT…BUT…1 out of 10 times you are dealing with psychopaths, killers, evil people that LIKE it when they hurt YOU. Yes, they LIKE it. They WON’T stop until you physically stop them or hurt them or…yes…KILL THEM to save your own life. When this happens on a mass scale it’s called WAR.
This reality of life terrifies those who never matured into full, confident, independent adults. They can’t face the reality we are now faced. They are in denial about the reality of Islamic Supremecism and it’s cultural, legal, educational, media and terror Jihad.
That’s what the West is faced with. Our immature, childlike citizens vs. hundreds of millions of brainwashed cult killers. Will we awaken
in time?

Jul 9, 2008 - 12:34 pm 2. Tom:

We are all sick of biased media. Shouldn’t everytime we see these instances, we should get the name, email, phone, address of the offending newspaper or TV station and let them know the facts and how we feel about it?
If these reporters each got 200 emails, letters and calls educating them about these things and politiely pointing them in the direction of better information…MAYBE they’d start to open up a bit.
But as it is now, if they get no feedback, or only a letter or two whcih they can dismiss as cranks, weirdos or Repbublicans, they won’t learn until it’s too late.
There are millions of pages written every day on these subjects…does it ever get to the journalists?

Jul 9, 2008 - 12:39 pm 3. A. Nonymous:

Hi–
You asked, how exactly is it “racist” to describe certain Muslim practices…accurately? The answer is simple: In Europe, the Semites are considered a separate race, as are the Celts, Nordics, etc! And racism is the belief that one group is inherently superior to another! So unfortunately, they have us on that issue…

Jul 9, 2008 - 12:45 pm 4. Chip:

The worst Muslims are the traitors like Gadahn or Walker, both suburban white boys. But I try to equally hate all Islamic supremacist jihadis trying to subjugate us under sharia law.

Jul 9, 2008 - 2:56 pm 5. Mark Rogers:

Nothing surprises me. Just the other day in the UK a young Muslim teenager who had with two peers beaten up an Anglican priest in his churchyard was released by a judge, the latter having accepted that the assault was not religiously motivated. Excuse me? So assault and battery resulting in grievous bodily harm is ok if the assailant says he did it, what, for fun? The recent revelations about the al-Dura scam have caused not a ripple of interest or contrition on the part of the media. There is an appeasement afoot that is taking place at every intimate level of our society. The Lord Chief Justice recently added his authority to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s assertion that Sharia law was inevitable. Just as with the appeasement of Khomeini before he returned to Iran, these people do not seem to realise that it is to the most reactionary elements that they are lending their very vocal support. As we know repeatedly from history, it only takes a determined, violent few to subvert and cow an entire nation.

Jul 10, 2008 - 2:12 am 6. Suzanna:

The world is in an upside down state
Right is wrong and wrong is right and voices speaking truth hampered by well stated commentary by “Tom”.

So how is the veil of darkness pierced?
How to manifest light amidst all this darkness?

Define light first – as in speaking truth
And sharing in community on a daily basis what needs saying as by Dr. Phyllis Chesler and others whose gifts indeed are the essential weapon – means – that with the help of God – can reverse the insanity that has “normalized” in the world we now live.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:10 am 7. Nancy Kobrin, Ph.D.:

Excellent blog Phyllis. My two cents worth of thoughts. We shouldn’t let us be frightened by the idea that there IS a link and commonality to domestic violence. However there are important differences. In honor murder as you have written and repeatedly stressed bad behavior is culturally normalized. This normalization threatens our awareness and legal process that domestic violence is not acceptable nor to be tolerated; it is to be prosecuted.

Second, honor killing and domestic violence mask an obsession generally for the female which is DELUSIONal. But in honor murder it is an incestuous obsession and delusion of the tiniest and most vulnerable female. This preprograms the female to expect unconsciously abusive behavior so that when they marry the male abuses them and they don’t realize it is abnormal. In domestic violence for example to take Shakespeare’s Othello who was a Muslim military Moor vs. Desdemona the daughter of an Italian senator – the relationship was not incestuous but Othello was delusional and in his culture abuse of women was normal. What people don’t realize is that delusional jealousy in domestic violence is a known precursor of homicide.

Third, the problem with the media – mainstream colludes and
also play off of the hype the pornography of abuse which is at the heart of the matter. Could we even call it a kind of yellow journalism snuff film?? – I don’t know how to put it
exactly but the sadomasochism of it is huge and unacknowledged.

It spreads into the west b/c it taps into this unspoken universal
sadomasochistic bondage. We know in domestic violence that there is a traumatic bonding between abuser-victim that dates back to early childhood Dutton has written on this extensively and I believe that is why early childhood rearing practices occurring in Arab Muslim cultures and other shame-honor cultures must be put on the table for discussion to better understand the ramifications of its violence — not to excuse it.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:46 am 8. Nancy Kobrin, Ph.D.:

PS The Brits did geomapping of communities where honor murder was found and where jihadis were found. Lo and behold — they overlapped. This means that where one occurs you can bet that the other occurs as well. I would also add FGM as Honor Soul Murder because the Somalis generally don’t do honor killings but they do do FGM. The exception is Ayaan Hirsi Ali whose uncle put a bounty on her head.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:49 am 9. Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog » Blog Archive » “CNN Newspeak in Atlanta. Honor Killing=Cultural Misunderstanding; Pakistani=South Asian; Muslim=Holy Man/Victim.” by Dr. Phyllis Chesler:

[...] Read the Rest Here. [...]

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:52 am 10. George Jochnowitz:

Although it would make sense for Othello to have been a Muslim, one must assume he was a Christian. Consider his last words, near the end of Act V:

And I say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced his state,
I took by the throat the circumcized dog
And smote him, thus. (Stabs himself)

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:42 am 11. tanstaafl:

Nair sounds like (reads like) dissembler and wordsmith.

I find his writing (carefully using “South Asian” as opposed to “Muslim”) repugnant.

Nor do I think a “significant human rights campaign” will do the trick.

Look into this assassin’s face, a man who strangled his 25 year old daughter with a bungee cord after she filed to be divorced from her arranged marriage. Look directly at this man who is currently making a big deal of only having properly prepared Islamic food in jail and who has told the judge he has done “nothing wrong”.

Then you can circumvent all the explanatory verbiage, as well as for parallel father slaughtering daughter stories in Britain, in Canada, in Italy… (In Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia… but some of those may not make “the news”)

Jul 10, 2008 - 7:57 am 12. Suzanna:

I ask what are we in the West seeking to change? Shed light and towards what purpose? As we get more and more instructed in the cultural abominations endemic under Islam as represented in the practice of “honor killings” – murdering of women at the hand of their closest and nearest – their own kin – the quest must be too to preserve the values by which democracy defines itself and advise how impact from alien practices erodes and sets in place a design of conquest – if you will – of own lands by the practitioner of this abomination. What indoctrination tools indeed have effected the allowed presence of “honor killings” on our shores? What troubles is not only that a culture of such practices exists – but that securing our values in the face of it has in large measure been abrogated.

Jul 10, 2008 - 9:29 pm 13. Mike:

I would like to bring to your attention the recent apparent “honor” attack in Henrietta, New York and the press coverage thereof. From the possible “stress inflicted” mental disorder excuse to the “this is not Islam” disclaimer, the press seem eager to not take the assailant at his own word as to his motivation in the attack.
See:http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807170360

Jul 23, 2008 - 8:33 am