I’m posting this in response to the timid and mumbly question by blogger Echidne as to the possibility that the gender norms of migrants who are coming to Germany might not be entirely in tune with those of the “receiving population.”
Hmm, what a mystery. How can anybody possibly find an answer?
After reading that the father “speaks hardly any German,” I checked the original German article trying to find how long the family has been living in Germany. Since the murdered young woman was a dental technician, I thought she got education in Europe so her family has been living there for many years, most likely. Haven’t found when they immigrated, but quite a few interesting facts were revealed. Turns out that the family was very religious and that (Google translate)
// In court can Shazia K., who speaks as her husband hardly any German, because he had forbidden her learning, her lawyer Axel Kollbach read a statement.
Also this paragraph attracted my attention:
// Lareebs parents locked out when they learned of the relationship, it prohibited the use, she could no longer alone out, got even strokes. But the young woman resisted, met her lover anyway. They no longer spoke to her parents, ate hardly, became narrower, wore no headscarf. She was a good daughter until then.
The community tried to mediate, in vain.
Of course, the text is Google translation from German, but the sentence “She was a good daughter until then” stood out in a very freaky way. As if the aticle agrees with her father’s opinion that she became a bad daughter after taking headscarf off and wanting to marry somebody from her own community, but w/o their parents’ permission. (His parents were against the marriage too.)
Also, “the community tried to mediate.” At which point should police come in? Everybody around them had to know she was abused (long before the murder), and nobody reported. I suppose, it’s considered perfectly normal in their circles. What can Germany do to help women in such situations decide to leave till it becomes too late?
I became worried about Nida (14-year-old sister), and German article gave some info. The second paragraph I pasted is especially intreresting in light of mother’s claims at court of being only a helpless woman in an arranged marriage. See:
\ The youngest daughter Nida (14) is co-plaintiff, is loaded as a witness. When she comes in, her mother got up, stretched his arms out to her. Nida is not looking, continues. Then cry all three. Nida speaks perfect German, wants her parents really no longer see, living with friends, with relatives she wants nothing more to do.
She said: “My mom was not suppressed, could do what she wanted. My father has rather made what she wanted. “You have had a better relationship with his father. “Mom hit me with the stick.” With Lareeb they got on well, but by her boyfriend Raheel she knew nothing: “we were not allowed to talk about something.”
She met him after Lareebs death. “He told me that Lareeb should be forced into marriage in Pakistan.” The night before the fact, the little sister was sent to an aunt to stay.
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Just noticed,
// “He told me that Lareeb should be forced into marriage in Pakistan.”
I thought Lareeb’s parents wanted this, but the translation makes it seem that Raheel said that?!
So, he has never truly planned to marry her and thinks her family should’ve protected “her honor” better by forcing her into marriage before their relationship became sexual? It simply doesn’t seem as if her boyfriend saw her as a person either. 😦 And he is already second or third generation in Europe, I suppose.
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I suspect the original word is “would”, not should.
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As for what Germany can do. The only thing it can and will do with a million immigrants coming in just this year is imitate Brussels or Marseilles. Ghettoize the immigrants in certain areas of cities and avoid approaching those areas. And then, a few years later, witness an explosion in popularity of far right parties.
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You won’t see any legal far right, nationalist parties forming in Germany, because the post-WWII German constitution bars them (one of the consequences of eternal Nazi quilt).
But there have been isolated violent street attacks on “unwelcome foreigners” by nationalist street gangs in Germany for several decades — well before Muslims were perceived as a specific threat to society.
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I tend to agree with the Last Psychiatrist that ‘honor killings’ are basically Narcissistic Rage murders that happen to be committed by Muslims.
That said, I love the conflict between simple minded feminists (that doesn’nt include those here) and Islam where the feminists cannot bring themselves to criticise forced head covering or FGM or try to convince themselves that modern Muslims are not mostly coming from a very, very deeply patriarchal mindset. Not to mention inability to address Rotherham or many other such vile occurrences because the perpetrators are brown.
Eternally in the progressive sweepstakes Race trumps Sex.
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I will never understand why feminism has chosen to retreat into the triviality of micro aggressions and trigger warnings when there is so obviously so much real work to be done.
I talked to this feminist scholar (!) the other day, and she simply couldn’t admit that women in Latin America were in a worse situation than here in the US. She looked like she was experiencing physical suffering when I mentioned the stats on deaths of women from domestic violence and immediately shifted the conversation to ” street harassment” in the US. Anybody who knows anything about Latin America is aware that it’s so much worse than anything in the US. Yet this woman just couldn’t admit it.
There is a narcissistic injury of its own here. Such people can’t accept that FGM, violence, honor murders, etc are worse than any inane suffering from stupid micro aggressions that they think they experience.
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A couple of ideas
obsessing about microagressions and ‘street harassment’ are easier than tackling behavior patterns in deeply patriarchal cultures
they’re closer to US womens’ traditional role of facilitating social interaction so it’s comfortable
most women who call themselves feminists are cowards, western men are mostly pretty malleable and prone to follow female instructions, Latin and Middle Eastern and African men are liable to hit back (literaaly and metaphorically).
Ze downvotes, let zem rain on me like rain zat tells me I have ze reezon, non!?
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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