Islamic Social Services: Strangulation Not About Hijab
Islamic Social Services: Strangulation Not About Hijab
BRAMPTON, Ontario (AP) — Aqsa Parvez would leave home each morning wearing track pants and a Muslim head scarf. Once the 16-year-old got to school, she would remove the scarf and change into close-fitting jeans.
But, her friends said, her parents got wind of what she was doing. Parvez soon began showing up at school with bruises on her arms.
It was a struggle that may have led to Parvez’ death this week at the hands of her father, who was denied bail Wednesday after being charged with strangling her.
The killing has ignited a debate in Canada about the conflict between first- and second-generation immigrants who struggle to maintain traditional Muslim values and their children’s desire to fit into Western culture. Canada has about 750,000 Muslims.
I’m not sure what kind of ‘debate’ this is supposed to ignite. You don’t kill young girls, no matter what they do.
“Her parents would follow her to school or her sisters would and then go home and tell her parents what she was wearing,” said Joel Brown, 17. “They’d come to the back doors, just to spy up on her. Aqsa was always afraid of them, especially her brother who she’d sometimes see walking towards her, and she’d have to scramble to put her hijab back on.”
[...]
Selma Djukic, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, called it a case of domestic abuse.
“This is a tragedy. This another woman that has succumbed to domestic violence and we need to look at what kind of services are available to families who are immigrants and who are trying to make it in the Canadian framework,” Djukic said.
Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, also called it a domestic violence issue.
“To say it was about her not wearing the hijab, I think that’s an oversimplification. All we’ve heard is from her peers saying that,” Siddiqui said. “Many of us who have teenagers or had teenagers know this is a very difficult time. Their hormones and emotions are raging and they are trying to assert their independence.
Oh, OK. I guess if it was just raging hormones, and the girl trying to assert her independence, it was OK for her father to strangle her (previous article). What the fuck is wrong with these people? It was reported that she told friends she was afraid of her father, that she thought her father would eventually kill her.
How is it an ‘oversimplification‘ to say that her father killed her because she would not wear the headscarf? What possible extenuating circumstances could emerge to justify this atrocity? That’s like saying its an ‘oversimplification‘ that Du’a Khalil Aswad, a young Iraqi, was stoned to death because she had a boyfriend of the wrong religion. (previous article)
OVERSIMPLIFICATION. Hmm.
You hear this word a lot from religious apologists and cultural relativists. I’ve heard it used by people like Dinesh D’Souza, Terry Eagleton, or other people justifying female genital mutilation or burquas on the basis of ‘culture.’ I’ll tell you what ‘oversimplification’ means. It means “fucking bullshit.” It means “I don’t have an answer, I don’t want to deal with the ramifications of what you just said or what just happened, and I’m totally embarrassed and speechless.”
Hey, CAIR, and Islamic Social Services Association: If you want to stop being embarrassed about religious murders, then condemn them unconditionally. Stop waffling. Put your people on notice: Murder is murder and we don’t tolerate it in our free society. Especially when it’s based on the worst kind of male-dominated misogynistic practices of an anti-human and heinously backward superstition.
Oh, and you might want to consider holding some parenting classes at your local mosque.