what price honour?

A few weeks ago, there was a bizarre news item telling of the drowning deaths of 4 women, three sisters and their aunt, who were found in their car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal, near Kingston Ontario. It seemed especially odd since there were no signs of how they could have gotten there, past various barriers, without leaving so much as a skid mark.

Today, the papers are full of the arrest of the girls' parents & brother, supposedly while attempting to leave the country:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/family-members-charged-with-murder-in-submerged-car-case/article1228868/

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Family+members+charged+with+first+degree+murder+Kingston+canal+deaths/1820277/story.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/23/canal-arrests023.html

While the reports vary a little, it appears that the "aunt" was in fact the father's first wife, unable to have children & so supplanted by the second wife.

This is the kind of incident that makes many average Canadian citizens scratch their heads over immigration policies that foster a very broad interpretation of multiculturalism, in that this enables extremist views that would have been well left in the country of origin when emigrating to a country with clearly different mores & standards. Some of our own more extreme elements would have immigrants attest that they will abide by Canadian laws & social customs when living here, & given the above I'm sure there will be more calls for such. Tolerance can, after all, only go so far.

We don't tolerate polygamy, purdah, so-called honour killing or suttee. What makes some people think that they can bring such traditions here, or worse yet, start cults that do such things? This is not exclusive to Islamic extremists, although this particular case is illustrative of the reasons why sharia law will never be adopted here and there is so much resentment about the attempts to do so.

Canadians would, on the whole, are pleased to embrace most multicultural novelties. Food, literature, art, music, philosophy, & certain aspects of dress come to mind as crossing cultural borders. However, when it comes to systematic marginalization of women by extremist groups, whatever their origin, we draw the line. We tolerate headscarves, but not burqas. One may be a fashion statement, the other is clearly not. Adult women have a right to self-determination & independence. Children have a right not to be molested or otherwise abused by their families or others in the community. These are the compromises that OUR culture demands of immigrants. These are the things that should be left at the border of the country of origin.

Sadly, these 3 girls and their aunt/step-mother will never have the opportunity to benefit from Canadian culture, because the culture of their parents' homeland was applied to abrogate their rights.

As for the supposed honour, does the classification of one of the girls as "willful & rebellious" in any way justify her death? Not here. We have no room for such distorted conceptions of honour.