A 17-year old girl named Du'a Khalil Aswad was stoned to death last month in Northern Iraq. While there are conflicting reports over many of the details, it seems clear that the girl, from an area populated by Yezidi (adherents of Yazidism, a minority religion) had a relationship with a Muslim boy/man. In a society where marrying outside of one's religion is blasphemy, you can imagine that this didn't go over well with her fellow Yezidi. She was given shelter by someone and it's reported that either A) the house was stormed and she was dragged out onto the street or B) her family mislead her into thinking that she had been forgiven and that it was safe to return home. Either way, she ended up like this:
The stoning, which purportedly lasted 30 minutes, was captured in-part by at least 1 cell phone and you can see the grisly footage yourself at this page at Wallyworld. Eight or nine barbaric fucks are generally thought to have done the deed while up to 1,000 others stood around watching and/or photographing it with a cell phone, including the police(!). At a couple points, someone in the crowd steps up to throw the girl's skirt back over her so that she is not exposed. As if the most horrific thing there was the sight of women's underwear.
Part of me wants to say that we should just nuke the area from orbit because it's the only way to be sure while another wants to rant about religion and patriarchy. But mostly I am just so incredibly appalled that I can't say too much at all.
"nuke the area from orbit because it's the only way to be sure"? Of what? Violence against women is happening on every corner of the planet as I type - and yes, most of it is not as shocking as this (the 'reasons', the size of the crowd, etc). But it is happening.
ReplyDeleteBeing willing to destroy an entire people and place because of the actions of a few (even a thousand) is what many of the people you disagree with seem to be willing to do. I'm glad that you see and can acknowledge the different feelings this brings up, but that idea that "nuking" a place can solve anything is very scary* to me.
The D.
*And I mean this not as in "I'm scared by that", but in the "WTF - has the world gone mad?" sense of scared.
One more thought - it's like this - her life meant less to them than their lives - their lives mean less to you (or some other person) than your life, your live means less to someone else.
ReplyDeleteIt's got to stop somewhere.
I have struggled with my pacisfism only because I keep hearing that it will never work - and I get that it won't be a solution in and of itself, but I can't help but think that there are more than two ways for us to think about this and move forward. Killing or not killing doesn't even seem like the right thing to discuss *first*, like there is more. Where do we begin?
D
A link to a feministing post which says some of what I wanted to say better than I could say it:
ReplyDeletehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Feministing/~3/115081608/006991.html
The D.