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The Islamic Threat

The Islamic Golden Age

You Don't Have to be Ahmad

Islam and Women

Respect for Islam

They Sikh Him Here...

Why is Religion Special?

Theocracy? No thanks.

Why do so many men see that their honour lives between their daughters' legs?

Beating honour and respect into children is not admirable, it is despicable. Keeping children so afraid of upsetting their parents that they live in fear of their lives is something families should be ashamed of. If you love your children let them live their own lives.

Having grown up children who make their own decisions is not something to be ashamed of, it is something to be proud of, even if you don't agree with their choices.

Looking away while barbaric practices go on is not being liberal, it is not politically correct respect for a different culture, it is moral cowardice.

There is no reason to forbid arranged marriage. The fact that parents arrange a marriage is not in itself objectionable. What is objectionable is using arranged marriage to marry off teenage girls raised in a western country to much older men they have never seen straight from the old village back in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. Not only is this an abuse of immigration laws it is an abuse of parental power, it has the same status to me as putting your daughter on the game.

It should not surprise you to learn that I am against forced marriage. Everybody should have the right to choose whether to marry. It is absurd to say that everybody has the right to marry who they want, life can never work that way but everybody of legal age should have the right to propose marriage to any other person of legal age and a right to say yes or no to any proposal or arrangement of marriage. What surprises me is how many liberal minded people turn a blind eye to forced marriage as if it was a valuable part of a culture deserving respect. It is an abuse of power, parents abusing the power they have over their children, their power to pauperize or ostracize or hurt. And not just the power to hurt emotionally, many families literally terrorize their children, leaving them with a fear that they will be murdered. That fear is justified. There have been several prosecutions for murder, other unlawful killings and suspicious deaths: how many young women use self-immolation as a form of suicide without making clear their motives? What honour is there in pressuring your son to murder his sister and the whole family to lie to the police? What shame is there is raising children who have their own opinions and want to live their own life?

Religion is no excuse for such acts. Even if a religion seemed to make such calls that would not make them lawful just as it is not lawful to stone to death your children for disrespecting you despite what it might say in the Bible.

Respecting barbaric practices and traditions has nothing to do with respecting a distinct culture. If people want to live in a backward traditional society which does not respect "man made laws" they should go and find some backward cesspit that has such a culture and legal structure not come to live in a modern, tolerant, secular democracy and drag it down to their level. No European country, not even Turkey, is a haven for unbridled Islam and long may that continue to be the case. Militant and intolerant Islam is not welcome. The oppression of women is not welcome. The oppression of dissent is not welcome. Theocracy of any kind is not welcome.

People should stop bowing to self-appointed “community leaders”, stop giving them priviledged access to political decision making. That should be even-handed and colour­blind. If the vicar wants to speak for a parish he should stand for election.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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