In a prison interview with the Associated Press — with interrogators nearby — she said that she helped to organise the rapes of young women and then stepped in to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame.Actually, now that I think of it, maybe it really is despair. If you're a woman in a culture that fiercely condemns women who have been raped, maybe killing lots of other innocents makes sense.
Though I think not.
2 comments:
There still has to be a fundamental hatred, immorality and sick twisted religious-political ideology that makes someone facing a potential death sentence (by honor killing, in this case) decide that they should take the lives of many other innocent people.
Hardly anyone outside the Muslim world would think that they would achieve greater glory or automatic entrance to paradise if they killed as many people as possible on their way out.
Anonymous,
I agree with you, but I want to add some words for thought.
The radicalization of Islamic society is more what you're talking about than it is so much about individuals. There are plenty of societies where revenge and retaliation for crimes committed or imagined is permitted, even against innocent people.
Violence lies deeply within mankind's roots and it is a deep, complex subject. I think that this quote provides a good understanding: "An awareness of man’s capacity for cruelty and violence is an important tool for living in the world wisely and with compassion, but the same knowledge, acquired too brutally, too intimately or too soon, is pure poison."
Understand, too, that these raped women have violated one of the gravest taboos in their society. For the so-called intelligent, educated, enlightened of the western world, it is very difficult for us to understand the psychological effect of taboos. We may not like the thought, but in this world there are things worse than death, and when inherent values - whether these values are correct or not - are violated, then an individual's sense of self and the individual is destroyed.
In the case of these 'raped women', their being violated made them vulnerable to being manipulated and used. Take away the predatory, manipulative beast, and quite possibly none of these women would have done anything. We must also be aware that if these women were construed within their families as having violated societal codes, then they would face social justice, i.e. death disguised as a code of honor. It's as tragic as it is sad, but it is also recognition of [hopefully] what we are all struggling against.
I make this last comment because of this thought. How many of the 'so-called intelligent, educated, enlightened of the western world' rationalize. For example: an IRA attack is fighting British oppression, PLO/Hamas violence is fight Zionism, 9/11 is fighting American Imperialism, etc.
You see, we don't really have to look too far from home. Humanity, when we lose sight of it, is always the victim .
Dnako
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