Sticks & Stones can break my bones… but words…
But words can kill me, that is the situation that women, and to a certain extent men also have to endure in many societies… I’ve heard many stories of this happening around the world, but it only hurts when it hits close to home.
I was shocked to hear about the two girls killed by their brother. I was also shocked to read about girls being married off to their HIV positive relatives, I know love endures many things, but all I could hear in my head when I read the story was Tina turner singing “what’s love got to do with it?”
The brother killed his sisters, and as much as I am shocked… and as much as I, and many people I know are against this kind of behavior… I know that many people (probably the man’s own mother) condone that person’s actions… Just as the guy that killed the abortion doctor in the US, or the guy that shot the holocaust museum guard have their supporters and ideologies.
I know misogyny runs deep in the world, and no society is free of it, all the way from China where families abandon their female babies so they can later have boys, to the richest and most powerful countries.
My wife recently attended a self defense seminar for women here in Australia, the instructor told them that in the past they organized these seminars with the goal of increasing awareness in an effort to minimize abuse against women, now they are teaching women how to physically defend themselves, because they found that no amount of awareness can be achieved in which women will not be verbally or physically abused, either in their homes with family or out in the world.
The brother (I refuse to call him a man) had no right to kill his sisters, even the harshest Islamic ruling inflicted upon unmarried people would be 100 lashes, if the act was witnessed by four adults, that saw actual penetration, not just hugging and kissing or even two naked bodies bumping and grinding. But of course he would rather die than have his family name smeared by a couple of women.
I know of tribes that would not attend their own daughter’s wedding, the justification… “do you know what happens to her that night?”
The Jews have a prayer that goes “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who hast not made me a woman”… and in the Middle East boys want to be boys and girls want to be… er, boys, I really do not think that it’s just… or just here.
All of that, and on average, women still outlive men!
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Jul 09, 2009 @ 10:50:30
My wife is a five star general when it comes to self defense!
She promised to train me if I behave
This is an unfortunate isolated incident by a criminal who is going to get the harshest possible punishment. Capital punishment for sure. I hope he finds it in himself to regret what he did and pray for forgiveness from God.
I feel sorry for the family that lost two daughters and soon a son. May God help them cope with it, and heal their broken hearts.
Jul 09, 2009 @ 13:09:37
Off topic: Qusay–the following is the blog of an Australian woman married to a Saudi, I think it is the one you were interested in: http://culture-557.blogspot.com/
Jul 09, 2009 @ 13:42:00
SaudiAspire
Good for her (your wife), and yes this is an unfortunate isolated incident… But, it’s not… the ideology is there, a man can do whatever he wants and sleep with whomever he pleases, contract HIV and still be able to get married… yet, a woman cannot do half of that, and I am sure you’ve seen the news program in which they interview a few guys from the street, and he “they all say” they would not let thier sisters go out and see all these women with abayas on thier sholders (instead of thier head) and get corrupted and that his sister is his shame, and if something happens where can he hide from people’s words… I am sure other incidents go unheard of.
here is the video (Arabic)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joP-MwkAD0s]
thanks for the comment my friend
Chiara,
Thanks for the link
Jul 09, 2009 @ 14:21:05
Honour killings are one of the tribal practices that Westerners confuse with Islam, which is of course just one of the problems with them. The greater one is the inherent misogyny or homophobia which is another reason for killing one’s sibling, as a gay Arab man who received refugee status in Canada found out, following his brother’s attempts to murder him at home and then while in hospital in the Middle East.
I understood in this case that the family (his own) could pardon him. It read to me as if the father and brother were in it together, to kill the daughters as the father was releasing them from “Social Affairs”, and before they rejoined their community. So wouldn’t the father pardon the son?
Marrying a person with AIDS (setting aside for the moment the issue of voluntary vs arranged/coerced) is not so bad IF both are willing to practice safe sex to prevent transmission (the girls shouldn’t be sero-converting after 6 months), both are prepared to deal with possible/probable transmission from mother to infant (although prognosis for infants is better since most clear the virus within a year), to have caregivers in place for when the parents die, and prepare for a life of pill cocktails, and an early long ugly death. Otherwise, it really isn’t so bad.
The article listed excellent recommendations about simultaneous moral and medical education regarding AIDS and where to distibute it (airports, mosques, etc.) Hopefully they will follow through, and people will learn. I didn’t read anything about condom dispensers though.
In the English version of the same issue there was an article about advances in developing sperm from stem cells by researchers in England. So far male embryonic stem cells are necessary, but it is expected that in future it will be possible to do so from female stem cells. Hmmm. Takes the fun right out of conception.
An end to male misogyny? 
Jul 09, 2009 @ 14:44:44
Chiara,
If Magic Johnson, can live this long being HIV positive, and healthy (I saw him at the MJ memorial) I am sure many people can live with that, but that is not the case… most of the girls according to the article have contracted the virus within 6 months.
Jul 09, 2009 @ 20:39:37
Qusay–Yes, the most disturbing thing about the article for me was that, knowing the men were HIV positive, there was no prevention in place (safer sex) to prevent sero-conversion, becoming HIV positive, in 6 months. Since 6 months is the time it takes for a reliable blood test result to detect the presence of the virus after initial contact, presumably they got it on their wedding nights, honeymoon, or close to that. Since certain types of sexual activity are more likely to transmit HIV, I also wonder what they were doing. Definitely they weren’t using condoms, which is another part not addressed by the article even elliptically. They seem to be behaving as if their lives were normal, which means HIV positive babies, and often grandparents eventually raising their orphaned grandchildren.
The sicknesses that go along with AIDS are often incapacitating, recurrent, disfiguring, and preclude the ability to work, even if there were no job discrimination. That leads to other social and financial problems. Family support is crucial. Often it is not present. Treatment of AIDs in Saudi often involves a type of quarantine in hospital (before expulsion for expats). What kind of a family life is that?
Magic Johnson is to be commended for his openness about his HIV status (some people never actually get AIDS), and his efforts to support education about heterosexual transmission (the most common type in Saudi), safe sex, particularly in the African American community (where the risks are higher because of earlier and more sexual activity, and drug use) and to support research. He was uniquely physically fit, and endowed with good health genes prior to contracting HIV and has been able to take care of himself well, which usually costs a fair bit of money. In his case he also endorses the pharmaceutical companies. He was highly responsible in being open about HIV at a time when it would be assumed he was secretly gay or a drug abuser.
(The Michael Jackson Memorial was wonderful (though the occasion sad), and Magic Johnson gave a great speech. Kobe Bryant was also a decent speaker.)
About the honour killing–is the father likely to pardon the son in this case?
Jul 10, 2009 @ 10:22:14
Qusay–It seems the genetic protection is real and highest in North Eastern Europe but not related to the European plague (which in fact affected China, the Middle East and North Africa, with as high mortality rates or higher mortality rates). The plague hypothesis was developped in the 1990′s by historians, but further examination of scientific evidence shows the gene mutation has been present for 2000-5000 years. Also, the historians seemed to have got their 19th century and Middle Ages “Yersinia pestis” plagues confused.
A good reference:
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/8/497
As far as I know the increased transission in Africa has to do with multiple heterosexual partners of men who bring HIV home to their wives who birth HIV babies that impoverished grandparents raise. Some African governments have been incredibly and willfully ignorant, denying the existence of HIV and recommending herbal therapies. Access to health care is generally poor, and until recently medication was prohibitively expensive. Condoms are rejected as reducing pleasure, being unnatural, inconvenient, and expensive, or are not used correctly.
African Americans start having sex younger, have more heterosexual partners, and worse access to health care than whites. Heterosexuals, unlike homosexuals, often think they are “immune” from HIV.
Condoms and circumcision are the good news. Even without a condom, circumcision significantly reduces (by about 1/2) the chance of gettin HIV, as shown by excellently designed research studies by the NIH and WHO. Adult African men are willing to undergo circumcision, because as I have written elsewhere, they want to have sex and they don’t want to die–if only to keep having sex (but of course like all people they generally want to live, and for a variety of reasons).
Bottom line: circumcision + condom + careful choice of sex partners.
Thanks for the inspiration to review this.
And do a little circumcision preaching to the Muslim choir. LOL
Jul 23, 2009 @ 23:55:56
yeah its a depressing state of affairs. lol want to hear another fact? the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discriminatinon Against Women has the highest number of reservations out of all other conventions..night gut!
Jul 10, 2009 @ 08:52:48
Chiara, I heard a on TED talks, that AIDS in spreading in Africa faster than it is in Europe because of the plague in which only those with a certain mutation in the genes survived. Africa did not go through that.
Jul 10, 2009 @ 11:48:55
Thanks for the info… so TED is not accurate?
Jul 10, 2009 @ 13:34:08
You are welcome. TED gets part marks! LOL