Saudi Human and Women’s Rights Activist Wajeha Al-Huwaidar Speaks Out Against Honor Killings

June 2, 2008

On April 7, 2007, a teenage Yazidi Kurdish girl named Du’a Al-Aswad was stoned to death by a lynch-mob in Iraq, because she had violated her family’s honor. A video of the stoning, filmed by the participants themselves using their mobile phones, was posted on

http://leilamagazine17.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post_6785.html .

A year after the stoning, Saudi reformist and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huweidar wrote a scathing article in which she harshly criticized the sexist character of Arab culture and particularly the phenomenon of “honor killings.”

The following are excerpts from her article, which appeared on the reformist website www.aafaq.org.

 

“This Entire Part of the World [is Full of] Defeated and Dejected Men, Whose Only Way to Feel Victorious Is by Beating Women to Death”

“Last April, a 17-year old Iraqi girl named Du’a Khalil Al-Aswad fell in love with a boy from a different [religious] sect. By this act, she violated the ‘honor’ of the men in her sect, causing them to go mad with the boiling [rage] of hellfire. Their male [egos] swelled like cancerous tumors, and their minds locked into the primitive madness of ‘honor.’

“They filled with restless madness, and in order to relive their anguish, they hurried to sentence poor Du’a to death, and then decided to carry out their sentence in the ugliest possible imaginable, i.e., by public stoning. They killed her with the utmost cruelty and depravity.

“Du’a Al-Aswad is a victim of the wild male madness called ‘honor.’ This concept is prevalent throughout the Greater Middle East [Al-Sharq Al-AwsatAl-Kabir], or perhaps I should say the Greater Filthy East [Al-Sharq Al-AwsakhAl-Kabir], since it is worthy of this label from every perspective – in particular [when it comes to] the treatment of women. From Pakistan and Afghanistan through Iran, the Middle East, and all the way to Morocco, this entire part of the world [is full of] defeated and dejected men, whose only way to gain some sort of victory is by beating their women to death.

“The depraved men who participated in the stoning of Du’a – all of them [guilty of] premeditated and deliberate murder – were raised to believe that the lives of their women are theirs to control. That is why they competed with one another at stoning Du’a, and fought to film her as she gasped out her last breaths. These horrible men conspired to kill a young girl who had committed no crime and hurt no one. Each of them picked up a boulder and hurled it at her. [Feeling] prideful and glorious, they bashed in this young [girl’s] head, and her blood pooled on the ground as she lay there dead…

“But killing her was not enough for them. After she was dead, they mutilated her young body, kicking her and piling more rocks on top of her. Then they broke out in cries of ‘Allah akbar,’ and ‘there is no god but Allah’ as though they had just won a strategic battle.

“Not one of them felt pity for her, not one of them lifted a finger to help her, and not one of them [even tries to] speak in her defense. They were like the stones they hurled at her – frozen and devoid of all compassion.”

 

In the Middle East, the Life of a Woman Is Worth Far Less than That of an Animal

“Had Du’a been an animal, someone would have [probably] taken notice and tried to rescue her from these inhuman men. But she was a woman, and in the Greater Filthy East, the life of a woman is worth far less than the life of an animal.

“According to the norms of the East, [the concept of] ‘honor’ relates only to the behavior of women. Women have become easy prey for men, who murder them in order to restore their threatened sense of honor.

“Du’a is a victim of both men and women – she is a victim of her entire society. In a region that fosters its mens’ hostility until it becomes a raging demon, [men come to] feel that the women in their family are their property, to be treated any way they want.

“[This mentality is common among all Middle Eastern] men – Muslim and non-Muslim, Arab and non-Arab, rich and poor, educated and ignorant, great and small, those living in the West and those who have remained in their homelands – as long as they were raised in this region… that is riddled with the disease of ‘honor,’ or are of [Middle Eastern] origin. [All these men] have the potential to turn into raging beasts, especially if they were raised [to believe that] a woman’s body and [her behavior] in her private life have a [direct] bearing on their honor and on the honor of their family, clan, nation, sect and all their ancestors throughout the ages.

“All those who believe that honor [resides] in the woman’s body are potential murderers, and [could] someday murder a woman when their false sense of honor is aroused. All those who agree that a man has the right to murder a woman, or to cause her physical harm [for the sake of preserving] his honor, are potential killers.”

 

The Women of the Middle East Raise Their Own Executioners

“Those who believe that men have more rights than women, and raise their children to believe the same, are raising [more] men who will kill another Du’a in some other place. All those who believe that they have the right to hit a woman in order to ‘educate’ her or ‘correct her ways’ might be involved in the murder or harming of a woman.

“Any legislator who passes a law dealing leniently with ‘honor killings’ is just as culpable as those who actively participated in the murder of the victims – [just as culpable as] the murderers who have the blood of Du’a and of other women on their hands.

“All governments that discriminate between men and women in rights and duties, that shelter the perpetrators of ‘honor killings,’ and that give men either partial or complete control over women’s lives… collaborate with the perpetrators of these despicable crimes…

“On the anniversary of the death of the innocent Iraqi girl Du’a Khalil Al-Aswad, murdered in cold blood and in heinous male ferocity in front of eye witnesses, I say to the women of the Greater Filthy East: ‘Good for you for managing to raise beasts who delight in harming you and in shedding your blood and the blood of your daughters.’ [And] good for the countries and governments that attribute more importance to the lives of animals than to your lives and the lives of your daughters.

“Good for you for defending your beastly men and supporting them on political [issues]. Good for you for supporting their failing movements and wars, and their hostile thinking that allows [them] to humiliate and beat you.

“Good for you for creating your own executioners, and for supporting and aiding them. You know full well that many of them regard you as worthless beings existing [solely] for their pleasure.

“Good for you for [tolerating] these inhuman men, many of whom yearn to drink your blood and the blood of your daughters whenever the drums of revenge and ‘honor’ start beating in their rotting and petrified brains.”

MEMRI.org

A few toon’s courtesy, a friend

I want to beat this smug prick so bad…Just in case, Secret Service…I want this smug prick beaten so bad. I want him to lose…Ahhhh, now I feel better.

‘I Don’t Think My Ears Would Fit’: Obama Explains Why He Won’t Be on Mt. Rushmore

What Bullshit Category…Obama’s Ex-Church Has Won $15M in Federal Grant Money

Bits:

Across America seven days a week, parents drop their kids at day care centers, which are supported by funding from the federal government.

But what makes one facility noteworthy in inner city Chicago is that it’s run by Trinity United Church of Christ. It’s the same church whose former head pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, drew widespread scrutiny after he cursed the U.S. government for its treatment of African-Americans.

FOX News has learned that over the last 15 years, Trinity has received at least $15 million in grants from the federal government — in other words, taxpayer money.

DePaul University journalism professor Laura Washington, who specializes in race and politics, said Wright is a hypocrite for taking money from the government.

“On the one hand, he says, ‘God damn America’ and he says America is responsible for all the ills in the black community. On the other hand, he’s taking money from the same community he’s crucifying,” Washington said.

But another scholar who specializes in religion and politics says Wright never swore off government funding like ultra-nationalist Black Muslims have.

Andrew Walsh, associate director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life with Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., said Wright’s practices fall in line with his preaching.

“Wright believes things like the government-funded programs are a necessary compensation for the legacy of white racism, part of what’s necessary to heal the wounds inflicted over four centuries on blacks. His niche is even more specialized– he does this sort of work in the context of white denominational mainline Protestantism, which, on the whole has welcomed both him and his message.”

Yet, he said there’s no way to know exactly how Trinity spent its millions in taxpayer money, since grant awards usually afford some latitude for discretionary use. He stressed that it’s clear the grants have helped Wright grow his once tiny ministry into a massive empire.

“Before he embarrassed himself on national television with his rantings, he was a very, very sophisticated guy in terms of growing organizations. He knew how the game was played and he played it very well. But he’s not unique,” he said.

Obama says…I dunno nuthin’..Fox News

Number of the Month

If no one objects, I’ll start linking to John Brignell’s Number of the Month item which closes each month-by-month account of all those misleading, biased, skewed or just plain wrong numbers we are constantly being invited to swallow by the MSM and, regrettably, sometimes popular science journals (you won’t find copies of New Scientist in my waiting room, put it that way).

For May 2008, we have 1,162 – the total number of QANGOs in the UK, costing that country 64 billion pounds a year, which works out to over 2 and a half thousand pounds per household (say a cool five grand in Australian or US dollars, which are virtually equivalent now).

Brignell’s NumberWatch site focuses much on the UK and Europe, but rarely would an item bear no relevance or warning to one’s own situation. I think global warming (Brignell’s list is still growing, by the way) has been supplanted by exposing the machinations of unelected EU officials as his number one crusade. Glad I live here.

PS: how do you type the ‘pounds’ symbol?

McCain…and other stuff (technical word for bullshit)

McCain Blasts the Messiah and Persia

Also you may see, something on Teddy “no brain as they removed whatever was, which wasn’t much” Kennedy. Additionally other horseshit, concerning the Left in this country.

For all golfers

El Cid

Alexey…Got another “comment” from you. Why if you are Russian, does your I.P. Address trace to….

203.162.2.135

ON….

ARIN WhoIS Queensland, AU?

AND on GeoBytes Vietnam??

OK…The GeoBytes Link is screwed…SOOOO…

IP Address to locate:

Country Code Country Distance to Nearby Cities

Region Code Region km, mi, City, Region, Country

City Code City 0 0 Ho Chi Minh City, HC, VN
28 17 Bien Hoa, DN, VN

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Click here to find out why our data can differ from the WHOIS data.

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Tried Local Search yet?
If you are researching someone in Ho Chi Minh City, then try entering their name here:

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bo Diddley Dies at 79…Hat Tip Yojimbo

Rest In Peace, Bo

I owe many, if not all of you hat tips…To numerous to list (CODE for Fucking Lazy, also being Sicilian…A closed mouth, is a good mouth)

🙂

UN food chief seeks tenfold rise in aid…HEY if Hussein wins…Shit, he’ll toss in his Global Poverty Act…Relax UN.

Obama bill: $845 billion more for global poverty

Obama’s U.S. Senate Website

Wonder if the UN…Will help us, after this BOZO spends all of our money…That will include (all of our money) monies received from selling ALL military hardware)…You dopey Messiah-Mesmerized assholes.

Since E-Blogger won’t let me in, El Cid, God Damn It! Escaped Caterpillar On Rampage Through City

COLUMBUS, OH—A ravenous caterpillar escaped from captivity today, wreaking havoc as it devoured everything in its sight and carved a half-centimeter path of destruction across the city, horrified sources reported.

Confined to a glass viewing chamber since late May, the savage creature reportedly broke free from its bedside enclosure before slithering out of an open window and charging wildly toward the city’s unsuspecting commercial district.
“I came back home and it was gone,” said 8-year-old resident Daniel Bogen, whose hubris and reckless abandon has unleashed a terror of immeasurable proportions onto the community. “I thought I twisted the lid on the jar real tight. Where did it go?”

Stretching out to a monstrous 75 millimeters, the beast’s segmented body left behind a swath of devastation as it uprooted entire blades of grass, snapped whole clover stems in half with a single bite from its jaws, and marauded past residential structures helpless against its larval fury.

At press time, authorities remained no closer to locating the caterpillar.

While many Columbus residents avoided peril by staying indoors, the multi-legged creature continued to quench its insatiable hunger for the flesh of foliage. In fact, the rapacious insect was said to only momentarily pause its mindless pursuit of nutrients when it climbed atop a branch and coldly surveyed the city with its unfeeling eyelets. One terrified onlooker said he watched the creature use its razor-sharp mandibles to tear through the leaf of a 100-foot-tall oak tree as though it were paper.

read more at The Onion

Structures of beauty you say…Well thanks to Pajamas Media, got one for ya’.

The NY Times Hearts Nazi Architecture

NY Times art critic Michael Kimmelmann is mourning the demise of an acknowledged specimen of Hitler’s meglomaniac building style — Berlin’s Tempelhof airport.

The Tempelhof Airport in Berlin is to be closed and New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman – who for some reason is based in the German capital – is sad.

The decision follows a public referendum on “saving” Tempelhof for which only 22% of Berlin’s eligible voters bothered to turn out. “On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the historic, American-led airlift to supply the besieged capital, the mayor is going ahead with plans to close the airport by year’s end,” Kimmelman writes in a panegyric to Tempelhof that appeared in the paper last week, “How sad.”

The Times headline stylizes Tempelhof into “the airport that saved Berlin.” But it is not the airport’s well-known role in the Berlin airlift that inspires Kimmelman’s nostalgia. It is rather the prospect of “losing” the building itself: a somewhat metaphysical concern, since, as Kimmelman himself acknowledges in passing, it is by no means clear that the decision to close the airport will lead to its being razed in any case. Tempelhof, Kimmelman declares, is Europe’s “most beautiful” airport. “Certain places, like certain works of music and love affairs, inspire bonds of affection that transcend logic and can’t be expressed in profit and loss,” he writes giving full rein to his emotions, “It doesn’t matter whether they’re great cultural monuments or civic symbols. Tempelhof also happens to be those things.” It is also, Kimmelman says, a “glorious time capsule of mid-century.”

Mid-century? The description of Tempelhof as a “time capsule” is surely appropriate, though Kimmelman’s qualification of it as a “glorious” one should give serious cause to pause. For the time that has been captured in the stern, monumental contours of the edifice happens to be none other than the darkest period in Germany’s and Europe’s history: namely, that of the Third Reich. With its bunker-like solidity, imposing limestone facades, and grimly repetitive neo-classical forms, the object of Kimmelman’s affections – the “great cultural monument” and “civic symbol” – is in fact one of the most unmistakable specimens of Nazi architecture remaining in Berlin today.

The other two major examples are Werner March’s Olympic Stadium, which was built for the infamous 1936 Nazi Olympic Games, and the Reich Air Transport Ministry, which currently houses the German Ministry of Finance. The latter was designed by the same Nazi architect, Ernst Sagebiel, who would likewise design Tempelhof. Sagebiel, incidentally, was not only a Nazi architect in the sense of having been one of the major contributors – along with the likes of March and Hitler’s chief architectural advisor Albert Speer – to the development of the characteristically Nazi architectural style. He was also, of course, a Nazi party member and, for good measure, a member of the paramilitary SA as well.

But the primary source of Nazi architectural ideas was, of course, the “Führer,” Adolf Hitler, himself. As is well known – though seemingly not to Michael Kimmelman – Hitler fancied himself something of an amateur architect in his own right and considered architecture to be the most important form of artistic expression for the would-be political “ideals” and, above all, the power of the new German Reich.

Pajamas Media

The Ariel Atom

Deleted previous post because the old youtube link died.

This should help, though.

Sorry if it’s old news but this car rocks.

And I think we’ve gotten away without infringeing copyright, either!

Told ya I was an asshole. Despite the car sporting Yankee flags, it’s actually British.

500 BHP.

0-100km/h in 2.8 seconds.

Cheap as chips compared to the competition.

Criticizing Michelle Obama: Fair or Foul?

It’s too late in the game for Barack Obama to warn us to lay off his wife.

I must confess I got a chuckle out of Barack Obama’s warning us all to lay off his wife. Sorry, pal, but it’s too late in the game for that. If you didn’t want her to be a legitimate target, you should have told her to stay home with the kids.

The days when the little woman remained at home while the menfolk went off to run for president ended a long time ago, back in the days of Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower. Ever since, we voters have been encouraged to take an interest in the wives, trying to determine whether we wanted them to represent America as the First Lady. *Frankly, I’ve always suspected that Teresa Heinz-Kerry had more to do with costing her hubby the election than Kathleen Harris, hanging chads and the Supreme Court, put together — for which, I, for one, will be forever grateful.

Many years ago, another prominent Democrat came to the defense of a family member. Some Republicans had accused FDR of wasting millions of tax dollars by sending a U.S. destroyer to the Aleutian Islands to retrieve his little Scotch terrier, Fala. But at least Roosevelt had the good grace to say that he, his wife and his children, all expected to come under attack from his political opponents, but that his dog, being a thrifty Scot, would have been the first to object if the accusation had been true.

I agree that there are times when the honorable thing is to keep women out of harm’s way. That’s the way the Mafia conducts its business. You don’t go after the other guy’s wife, mother and children, because you don’t want his goombahs coming after yours. But the difference is that the dons don’t arm their women with Uzis and tell them to go out and earn their keep. Of course nobody in his right mind ever suggested that politicians were as honor-bound as Mafiosos.

Politicians tend to turn campaigns into family endeavors. Hillary sends Chelsea out on the hustings, but being the candidate’s daughter, she’s supposed to be spared not only critical comment, but even hard questions.

Barack sends Michelle out to make speeches and give interviews, but when her words suggest a certain note of bitterness, racism and disaffection for America, Mr. Obama tells us we’re not supposed to take her to task.

Well, Senator, if I recall correctly, you also think your spiritual advisor and your good friends, a corrupt lobbyist and an unrepentant terrorist, should be left out of the equation. So, on exactly what basis would you have us consider your qualifications to be our president? I’m sure you wouldn’t think it cricket if we judged you by your books, filled, as they are, with smoldering hostility towards white people and the capitalist system. Or perhaps you’d have us consider your record as the great conciliator, the man who’ll unite us all, when you have the most partisan, most socialistic, voting record in the U.S. Senate. Or perhaps you’d prefer to be judged on the basis of your vast experience in foreign affairs? No, I didn’t think so.

The fact is, these political spouses serve a very real, very positive, purpose. Not only do Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton serve as lightning rods for their respective spouses, taking hits that would otherwise be directed at the candidates, but they serve to remind the rest of us that maybe our own husbands and wives aren’t so bad, after all.

Television writer Burt Prelutsky is the author of Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco (101 Reasons Why I’m Happy I Left the Left).

Pajamas Media

* This is opinion…The error here is of course…Twas AL BORE ME…that lost the election, in that manner…NOT Hero Cambodia Kerry.

I’m Sicilian, as I’ve noted on several occasions…What is a “MAFIA Don”?

The rest I do agree with…Notice that we haven’t heard much lately, from Michelle…BUT wait, WE WILL!

When the King of Smartassery…meets a lesser and stupid one

Yesterday at Bent Creek (my home golf course) a group a fellows, seven to be exact who had never played our course…dropped by for a game.

Tiz called Bent Creek for a reason….Bent Creek.

Anyway…one of the fellows thinking himself a great smart ass…when as a courtesy I began to explain what the group would find when playing said….

“Oh great NOW we get to hear The Rules of Golf” (bad move on his part) of course all of HIS buds thought what he said was just absolutely hilarious.

I turned toward this “gentleman” pointing a finger at him…”No SIR, The Rules of Golf…One would hope you knew prior to getting here, what I’m going to explain is THE Golf Course. We will know where you’ve been, by the number of golf balls you’ve left in the creek“.

The laughter stopped…as I said this looking him dead in the eyes…NO blinking, on my part.

Never Ever, try to out smartass the King of Smartassery…The answer you receive, will make your Dick shrivel.

Opinions Needed

At work we have a bunch of Americans coming over to visit our Melbourne office. I’m in charge of the catering.

So after I heartlessly serve them Fosters and vegemite sandwiches, what should I feed them then?

Fun with Photoshop

Found a funny p-shop gallery. These were my faves.

 

I like how everybody’s mouth is larger than life… except for Hillary, whose is smaller than it actually is.

Oh, and Scarlett Johansson has great tits, regardless of how large her mouth is.  Mmmmmmm…

A Strategic Retreat?

We wrote here about Barack Obama’s Iraq dilemma. He has ridden the Democratic Party’s defeatism to a virtual lock on the Presidential nomination, even as events in Iraq have proved his defeatism wrong. So what is he to do in anticipation of the general election, in which defeatism, on the most optimistic assumptions, will not be as popular as in the Democratic primaries?

This morning, the editorial board of the Washington Post, in my view the most respectable voice of the Democratic Party, acknowledged the surge’s success and urged Obama to re-think his Iraq policy:

If the positive trends continue, proponents of withdrawing most U.S. troops, such as Mr. Obama, might be able to responsibly carry out further pullouts next year. Still, the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable; Iraq’s 2009 elections will be crucial. It also should mean providing enough troops and air power to continue backing up Iraqi army operations such as those in Basra and Sadr City. When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success.
The Post’s advice coincides with what looks like an attempt by Obama to walk back his pessimism, at least partially. His senior strategist, David Axelrod, denied that Obama had ever asserted that the surge would produce no good results. That denial was plainly false, as this video shows:

But consistency is not the cardinal virtue in a Presidential candidate. It may be that Obama is coming around to the view that he needs to “plan for success,” as the Post put it. If so, it can only be a good thing–which doesn’t mean that Republicans should forget that Obama was entirely wrong on the most important foreign policy issue that has arisen during his brief Senate tenure.

Power Line

via

Instapundit

How is it said? Snatch defeat, from the jaws of victory?

Report: U.S. Accused of Holding Terror Suspects On Floating Prisons

A human rights group alleges the U.S. has operated detention facilities for terror suspects aboard Naval vessels, according to a published report in a European newspaper Monday.

A study compiled by Reprieve says the U.S. may have used as many as 17 vessels as ‘prison ships’ where terror detainees were subjected to interrogation as part of the acknowledged rendition program operated since 2001, The Guardian reported.

Information from the study was reportedly compiled through a number of sources, including statements from the U.S. military, several European government bodies and interviews with terror suspects.

Among the alleged ‘prison ships’ were the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu and an additional 15 vessels suspected of having operated around U.S. and UK military officials in the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s legal director, said “They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers.”

“By its own admission, the U.S. government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001,” Smith told The Guardian.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a U.S. Navy spokesman, denied the presence of secret prisons on American ships and told the Guardian it was a matter of record that some ships were used to transport suspects ‘ for a few days’ as part of dentention process.

Gordon refused to comment on reports that U.S. navy vessels stationed near Diego Garcia had been used as “prison ships.”

Click here to read more on this story from The Guardian newspaper

Ahhh yes The Guardian. Cute little lefty news outlet.

Fox News

 

Should’ve Walked Before They Made Him Run

Just One Minute

Obama finally resigns from Trinity Church.

Check Karl at Team Protein.

Here is Trinity as described in Obama’s race speech:

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

I continue to doubt his church is (now, was) all that typical.

So, when does the racial reconciliation begin – Obama promises to sprinkle his pixie dust and bring this nation together while taking his kids to a church where they are taught to hate whitey. And the two angriest, most unreconciled people we have met in this campaign are Obama’s wife and minister. Maybe he could spare some pixie dust for them.

So, when does the racial reconciliation begin?

Ask Michelle