Jivha has a good post on honor killings here - Jivha - the Tongue: “Honour killings” - where is the honour?. I would answer him there, but didn’t want to take too much of his comment space. I think one of the biggest reasons for this ugly phenomenon is the balkanization of immigrant communities by nationality/religion/whatever in the name of diversity instead of assimilating all into the mainstream. Before you jump on me saying “culture-killer”, hear me out.
I don’t like the idea of having a society where everybody behaves the same and thinks the same. No way. What should happen when someone immigrates to another country though, is that even though the immigrant doesn’t have to renounce his old culture, he should embrace the new one and try to find a blend of the old and new that will work for him. If not, immigrants will tend to withdraw into their own little communities and forget that they should be a part of the whole - not a separate entity. When there is no embrace of the new culture, there isn’t a common bomd tying the immigrant to his chosen land and this leads to feelings of insecurity.
By insecurity, I mean feeling like you somehow are a representative of your culture in the foreign land (you forget you chose to leave your motherland and make a home in a foreign country)1 and that embracing the foreign culture is somehow a stab in the back of your country. These people somehow feel like they need to keep their culture going or it will just disappear into the mainstream. This leads the immigrants to be more old-cultured than the people they have left behind in their native country. Unfortunately, I feel it is the in-betweens, these immigrants’ kids who bear the brunt of this and are pestered to follow the old-fashioned ideals while being confused by the different way in which their friends and peers behave. I think diversity is a good thing when it isn’t so bone-headed as to take on the form of complete suspicion of the culture you have chosen to immigrate to.
1I am talking only about permanent immigrants here - not temporary workers or other such.
Posted by shanti at October 4, 2003 2:03 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.realwomenonline.com/scgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/2917
Perfectly true, madhoo… it is the children, the second generation which goes thru maximum angst and confusion….. feel sorry for them…
Posted by: Charu at October 5, 2003 2:35 AM
Hey what’s up? Me nothing much just sitting here bring kewl and talking to Shanna? Yeah well im going so I will talk to you later.:blush: :tongue3:
Posted by: Brittany at January 16, 2004 10:52 AM
HI
could you provide with Ritu Rupali’s address where she works. I run an Asian women’s magazine and am at present writing a paper on honor killings I would like to get in touch with to get some reported figures. Log on to www.mahilamag.com for more info. will be much obliged.
Thanks
Kavita
Posted by: at February 18, 2004 9:21 AM
Hi Kavita, I really have no way of getting in touch with Ritu Rupali or who ever might have been mentioned in the article I linked to, as I don’t know those people. I think you might want to try googling the names to see if they have any contact information online.
Posted by: Shanti at February 18, 2004 11:55 AM
too…the original setting of London as state opposed to Chicago is bound to read differently. actor Doing this would be a good exercise. That digital camera brings me around to another point: I like prom dress exercises. I don’t like that I like them, chat but that’s the way it is. I understand their video game usefulness. Often, a formalised exercise helps discount hotel me to crack a block of some kind, and often pussy
Posted by: eminem at July 2, 2004 9:13 AM