Cultural differences: 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

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This story echos many others from the middle east as well as several recent stories from Germany and Texas.  While it isn’t wise to fall into the trap of painting our actions in the context of holy war, it seems a bit naive, given such extreme examples of cultural difference, to argue that there is not a clash of cultures going on, brought on by globalization, that undergirds the conflicts we’re struggling with.

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. ‘If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,’ he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city’s Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said.

Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.

She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her ‘relationship’ with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.

It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand’s two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.

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  • Ceecee

    To give someone the death penalty because they were seen “talking” to the wrong person, then to call such sickness “honor,” that is the ultimate in scumminess. If this is what Islam stands for, there is no way I will ever be a Moslem. Have Moslem friends, yes, they can be friends. Be one? No way. Too much violence in Islam for my taste. I’d rather be dead. Jesus, please give me the courage to die for you if the Moslems (or anyone else) calls on me to do it.

    I hear they honor kill women for being raped too. They don’t even care that the woman couldn’t help it or that she had no choice. Nothing is done to the man who does the raping. He gets off scott free. Where is the justice? There isn’t any in Islamic law, although they like to talk about justice as if Islam stood for it. To see how much justice Islam really stands for you have to look at the practices in Islamic societies, especially their practices towards women. It is unjust from start to finish.

    That they honor kill for petty reasons just goes to show that the people doing these things don’t value human life very much.

    Then there was the case in Saudi Arabia where a girl’s school caught fire and the religious police were there making sure that the fire men didn’t rescue the girls. The reason: The girls didn’t have their heads covered. The fire men were male. We can’t have males seeing girl’s uncovered heads now can we. That wouldn’t be decent. So the girl burned to death. But that was just A-OK with the religious police, as long as the men didn’t see their uncovered heads.

    And Muslims wonder why so many people have a negative view of Islam. I will tell you why. Well, it’s two reasons really.

    One: The most important reason is that human life is of very low priority is Islamic cultures. (See above examples)
    Two: Women are considered dirt and treated accordingly. The very gender that gives and nurtures life is disdained and hated in their culture. That hints of an anti-life orientation.

    The more violence and cruelty I see coming from Islamic cultures, the less respect I have for Islam.

  • Hotspur

    Be careful with the broad brush.

    Putting my kippah on: Most muslims I personally know would be very obliged to help one of our unmanned predator aircraft fire a couple of old zuni missles at this guy’s car. Their only concerns would be making sure none of the females/kids were in the vicinity of the strike and who would take care of the family afterwards.

    When we paint the Islamic faith in a bad light with a broad brush – we automatically disregard anyone who silently (for now…) want to embrace a more humanistic reform of the faith. Quite a few of those folks now live in the Americas. A small majority are probably female.

    Can you imagine what female teachers could do for the Islamic faith? Let’s put it like this: we probably have folks up in Langley, Virginia trying to help make that happen over the long term…

    Let’s be honest here: How many Germans really were Nazis? How many probably went along with the programme because either they were winning or they were too intimidated to speak out? Not everyone was Mr. Bonhoffer…and look what happened to him. As my late father would say: “sometimes it takes a squadron of Sherman tanks to make things right, but boy that’s costly and messy!”

    “Justice you shall pursue…” and all that. Blame the individuals and not necessarily the faith. There’s lots of very old former members of Hitler Youth organizations who are very grateful that the world gave them a second chance after we defeated evil the first time.

  • http://adamantius.net Jody+

    Hotspur,

    You’re right about painting with a broad brush–it is to be avoided. It is important for folks to realize, for instance, that many of the practices labeled as Islamic that are most abhorrent to western sensibilities (and counter to human rights) such as honor killings, are in fact cultural and aren’t dictated by the Qur’an itself–which is one reason it is unwise to paint our current conflict as a Holy war… it is not, but it is most definitely a clash of cultures. Actually a clash of many smaller cultures, whether it be between Sunnis and Shias, between Kurds and Arabs or Turks, between Arabs (especially Wahabists) and Chechen’s and other Muslims from the Caucases who follow Sufi influenced forms of Islam etc…