Revisiting

Yesterday's post concerning the apologetic tone of a certain Toronto Star writer and his horrid article still has me thinking.


How low will we set the bar for humanity in terms of morals, values, erudition, even physicality? Jim Coyle's article is just one example of that. We take lax (read: lazy attitudes) regarding sex, gluttony, drunkenness and various vices believing we are base animals incapable of handling or conquering bad habits. Human beings are extraordinarily flawed creatures but we also managed to invent the wheel, discover penicillin, sail to the New World, put a man on the moon, pen marvelous poetry and rock out to "Jet Airliner". How bad could we be? Even my pessimism and cynicism cannot ignore these achievements. With time, however, we've gone out of our way to devolve, especially culturally.


How is it that we can forgive, excuse, what have you, the barbaric practice of "honour killings"? whether one wishes to believe it or not, "honour killings" occur more in Muslim, Sikh or Hindu communities than anywhere else. Aqsa Parvez was a Muslim girl of Pakistani descent killed by father, Muhammad, and her brother, Waqas. Indeed, assaults and murders based on ridiculous notions of honour are quite common in Pakistan. Yet, if one were to speak plainly about this, one would be accused of racism and met with absurd assertion that these kinds of crimes occur in all strata of society in equal or next to equal measures.


Really?


In 2009, in Pakistan, "... 1,401 women were murdered during 2009. Out of these, 647 were murdered in the name of “honour”, while 757 were killed for other reasons."


In Kurdistan, "...there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through "family problems", and threats of honour killings."


And in Canada:

Dr. Amin Muhammad is a psychiatrist at Memorial University in St. John's, N.L., who is currently working on a report for the federal government about honour killings in Canada. He said there've been 13 such cases in the country since 2002.

Are there then enormous swaths of Japanese Christians refusing to learn English and disemboweling their daughters according to some weird interpretation of bushido? Obviously not. I wouldn't, however, be surprised if some jackanapes invented some middling and completely asinine scenario such as that. Anything would be better than pointing out the elephant in the room with the words : KILL YOUR KIDS scrawled on its gray, wrinkled side. These red herrings are essential in the topics of cultural relativism and apologetics.


Back to Jim Coyle and his reprehensible article. Surely man, in his flawed and limited psyche, possesses both common sense and a moral compass. This is why he doesn't care about Latin Masses or the influx of Thai food places. Neither of these things are harmful. In fact, they perform useful services. One feeds the soul and the other feeds the body chicken penang. How does "honour killing"- one of the biggest oxymorons ever- serve a purpose? It doesn't. It's a barbarous act and one doesn't have to have "cultural sensitivity" to see it. How forgiving would cultural apologists be if there were Japanese Christians disemboweling their daughters or Norwegian Lutherans chaining their daughters in closets? I argue not at all. Not even the sallow skin of the Japanese immigrant would deter the skin colour fetishists because the aforementioned Japanese immigrant accepts Jesus as his Saviour. Of course, Japanese Christians and Norwegian Lutherans don't do any of those things. Whatever their faults may be, they would be roundly criticised for them by people obsessed with white guilt and fear that legitimate criticism are unacceptable in a society that makes multiculturalism a virtue even though they understand their culture or others very little.


The root of this cultural apology row is not simply just race or creed but- as I said before- devolution. We've devolved. We've set the bar low for everyone. A student doesn't have to study because he'll be passed through the system, anyway. It's good for his self-esteem. A person with poor eating habits doesn't have to be reminded that his gorging is unhealthy and just gross. Let's accept his gluttony. We don't want to hurt his feelings, anyway. So, to, with the immigrants whose complete refusal to accept that killing is wrong or learning and understanding the national language and customs are integral for his life in a country he chose to enter. Forget that learning the language would be beneficial all around. Let's just assume he can't do it.


That's why it's called racism of lower expectations. Never mind that there have been immigrants that muddled through with for more difficulty and far less resources than now. Let us pat ourselves on the back and allow unthinkable things because we are either too lazy, neurotic or scared to expect what we've come to expect from ourselves and others before.


Let's push that proverbial bar back up.