Horrified by the recent murder of Kawthar al-Husayjawi, one of her female relatives describes what happened – and her fears for other women and girls forced into early marriage in Iraq
I sort of feel like if you choose to dance to celebrate the death of your innocent teenage relative, then you, along with whatever culture spawned you, don’t really deserve to exist.
Yeah it’s easy to think that but I’d be wary of embracing that level of extremism. Colonial powers used similar arguments to justify the extermination of peoples around the world for centuries ie. “the civilizing mission”. Your framing is also indistinguishable from core frameworks within facism.
I agree with your anger but not with your worldview. People and cultures adapt over time, and I’d sooner do what I can to influence change in a culture for the better, before questioning whether one “deserves” human rights. But… that’s just my culture. Let’s hope it deserves to exist 🤞.
The framing of whether a culture “deserves” to exist was a justification to pursue the extermination of Jewish and Roma people in fascist Germany, as one example. From that and other similar acts of destruction in the name of cleansing or purity came a new world order with the concept of inalienable human rights.
When you speak on the erasure of a culture, which is often an abstract set of ideas around which clear boundaries can rarely be drawn, you justify a collective punishment that is antithetical to this foundational idea.
Individuals should be held accountable for their actions according to the rule of law.
Saying that a culture doesn’t deserve to exist undermines the idea of inalienable human rights, normalizes ethnic cleansing and ultimately takes us back to a much darker period of human history.
I may not have lived through world war 2, but I am not keen on unlearning the lessons that were learned from it.
I can see why you said “framing” and “frameworks”, because that sort of vague criteria is really where any similarities end, but you went too far by saying that it’s “indistinguishable”.
I was talking about not just murder of a completely innocent child of their own blood, but of an entire clan’s celebration of the event by dancing. It’s the culture that birthed that reaction that is at fault. And all of those people dancing in the streets enabled that murder. There is no chance that the murderer didn’t know they’d get such a positive reaction.
The culture is wrong. It doesn’t deserve to exist. If they want to change their culture to get rid of the murder of and the celebrating of the murder of innocent children, then the previous culture which condoned those murders will have ceased to exist.
Just because fascists criticize cultures with harsh language doesn’t mean that any criticism of a culture using similar language needs to be shot down as having similarity to fascism. You can actually look at the specific allegations.
Ok let’s be precise with our language. What culture are you referring to? Do you have a name for it?
It simply is indistinguishable from fascism because ultimately the fascists decided which cultures were problematic, who was a part of them and therefore who “deserved” to be exterminated.
Your criticism alone isn’t what likens your view to fascism, its the language you chose, which implies a disregard for inalienable human rights that does.
Do you, the one who apparently decides which cultures are worthy and which are not, get to decide how a culture is defined and who is a part of it?
Who is a part of it in this case? Who would you like to erase? People that look like them, speak like them, worship like them?
We punish individuals for their actions according to the rule of law.
You may want to go back to a time when we judge individuals based on the actions of those we perceive to be similar to them. I do not.
I don’t know which culture youve come from to arrive at this worldview, but as problematic and regressive as it is, I still acknowledge your personhood / humanity. I seek not to erase it (despite its flaws) nor do I deem you or anyone “spawned” from it to be unworthy of existance. People, communities and cultures are often indiscrete and in a constant state of adaptation. This type of rhetoric belongs in an era that should be left behind.
Yours is the language that seeks to enable genocide. It normalizes the idea of punishing the many for the actions of the few based on vague, perceived similarities. Criticize all you want but be mindful of the words you choose.
I feel you, but nobody can lose his right to exist because nobody should be allowed to make that decision. You are criticizing that they decided she was not allowed to exist and in the same sentence you take that right upon you top decide they should not exist.
To be frank: they need to be locked up, educated and reformed to protect society from them.
Rights apply to everybody, even people who don’t deserve them. I said they don’t deserve to exist, not that they didn’t have the right to exist. It’s an important distinction.
A person who doesn’t deserve to exist should thank their lucky stars that they were born in a time and a place when society will let them exist, anyways.
I sort of feel like if you choose to dance to celebrate the death of your innocent teenage relative, then you, along with whatever culture spawned you, don’t really deserve to exist.
Yeah it’s easy to think that but I’d be wary of embracing that level of extremism. Colonial powers used similar arguments to justify the extermination of peoples around the world for centuries ie. “the civilizing mission”. Your framing is also indistinguishable from core frameworks within facism.
I agree with your anger but not with your worldview. People and cultures adapt over time, and I’d sooner do what I can to influence change in a culture for the better, before questioning whether one “deserves” human rights. But… that’s just my culture. Let’s hope it deserves to exist 🤞.
In what ways, specifically?
The framing of whether a culture “deserves” to exist was a justification to pursue the extermination of Jewish and Roma people in fascist Germany, as one example. From that and other similar acts of destruction in the name of cleansing or purity came a new world order with the concept of inalienable human rights.
When you speak on the erasure of a culture, which is often an abstract set of ideas around which clear boundaries can rarely be drawn, you justify a collective punishment that is antithetical to this foundational idea.
Individuals should be held accountable for their actions according to the rule of law.
Saying that a culture doesn’t deserve to exist undermines the idea of inalienable human rights, normalizes ethnic cleansing and ultimately takes us back to a much darker period of human history.
I may not have lived through world war 2, but I am not keen on unlearning the lessons that were learned from it.
I can see why you said “framing” and “frameworks”, because that sort of vague criteria is really where any similarities end, but you went too far by saying that it’s “indistinguishable”.
I was talking about not just murder of a completely innocent child of their own blood, but of an entire clan’s celebration of the event by dancing. It’s the culture that birthed that reaction that is at fault. And all of those people dancing in the streets enabled that murder. There is no chance that the murderer didn’t know they’d get such a positive reaction.
The culture is wrong. It doesn’t deserve to exist. If they want to change their culture to get rid of the murder of and the celebrating of the murder of innocent children, then the previous culture which condoned those murders will have ceased to exist.
Just because fascists criticize cultures with harsh language doesn’t mean that any criticism of a culture using similar language needs to be shot down as having similarity to fascism. You can actually look at the specific allegations.
Ok let’s be precise with our language. What culture are you referring to? Do you have a name for it?
It simply is indistinguishable from fascism because ultimately the fascists decided which cultures were problematic, who was a part of them and therefore who “deserved” to be exterminated.
Your criticism alone isn’t what likens your view to fascism, its the language you chose, which implies a disregard for inalienable human rights that does.
Do you, the one who apparently decides which cultures are worthy and which are not, get to decide how a culture is defined and who is a part of it?
Who is a part of it in this case? Who would you like to erase? People that look like them, speak like them, worship like them?
We punish individuals for their actions according to the rule of law.
You may want to go back to a time when we judge individuals based on the actions of those we perceive to be similar to them. I do not.
I don’t know which culture youve come from to arrive at this worldview, but as problematic and regressive as it is, I still acknowledge your personhood / humanity. I seek not to erase it (despite its flaws) nor do I deem you or anyone “spawned” from it to be unworthy of existance. People, communities and cultures are often indiscrete and in a constant state of adaptation. This type of rhetoric belongs in an era that should be left behind.
Yours is the language that seeks to enable genocide. It normalizes the idea of punishing the many for the actions of the few based on vague, perceived similarities. Criticize all you want but be mindful of the words you choose.
I feel you, but nobody can lose his right to exist because nobody should be allowed to make that decision. You are criticizing that they decided she was not allowed to exist and in the same sentence you take that right upon you top decide they should not exist.
To be frank: they need to be locked up, educated and reformed to protect society from them.
Rights apply to everybody, even people who don’t deserve them. I said they don’t deserve to exist, not that they didn’t have the right to exist. It’s an important distinction.
A person who doesn’t deserve to exist should thank their lucky stars that they were born in a time and a place when society will let them exist, anyways.
I can agree to that. :)