Canada's Finest
If we're really being serious, that characterization belongs to the Canadian troops currently deployed in Afghanistan as part of the United Nations-NATO alliance, fighting a rear-guard war if attrition against resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. Another of whom died today, victim of an IED. Just as those determined and courageous soldiers fighting in a foreign country stationed among a population whose culture is completely alien to them deserve better, so too does the population of Afghanistan.
But they live in a heightened atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety at the best of times. Thanks to their particular geographical and foreign-intrusion history and their placement in an area of the world continually wracked with unrest, political intrigues and religious strife. The uneasiness and downright animosity that attends political relationships between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pakistan and India, and Iran and its neighbours threatens not only their own stability but that of the world at large.
These intransigent religious sectarian, cultural, societal, traditional divides between countries and factions within those countries where the population seems wedded to traditions belonging in the Medieval era, fractionate peoples' loyalties, and willingness to accept one another. Fears and divisions that are all too often encouraged and stimulated by their leaders, jealous of their political hegemony.
And then there are the purely social constructs, some of which diminish the importance of women, in strictured societies accustomed to the male domination of women. Customs that are inimical to the general health of the society, and whose perpetuation prey on the vulnerability of women in those societies. Where marriages are arranged and where families of eligible young women are expected to provide dowries to the prospective grooms and the spear-side of the family.
Outlawed by the government, perhaps, but engaged in nonetheless. The practise of dowry, an evil institution leading to the worst excesses of abuse of women - including murder and suicide, ostracizing and victimization by the bridegroom's family - continues in societies that have traditionally celebrated the rights of men and tolerated the presence of women as hidden necessities.
Police in India have revealed the arrest of four men, one of whom is from British Columbia - whose apprehended purpose was a conspiracy to murder the father of a young woman promised in marriage to a man living in British Columbia, Veerharinder Singh, a Surrey businessman. When the promised dowry of $75,000 did not materialize, the husband and his cousin - now among those arrested in India - conspired to hire contract killers.
This may not represent anything remarkable as an instance of social malfunction and criminal intent in India, where police in that country react to an average of one case each hour of brides suffering violence at the hands of in-laws for failure to delivery an anticipated dowry, but it is unique and a true horror story in Canada, a country where such transparent human rights abuses are not to be tolerated.
The young woman, Pawanjot Kaur, was informed she could not expect to travel to Canada to be united with her husband until the dowry was settled, despite the marriage that took place in 2004. She decided to travel to Canada regardless, to be with her grandfather, who lives in Edmonton. The four conspirators were arrested en route to the small village in an industrial area of the Punjab, where the bride's family was living.
Police were alerted to the plot by a man who had overheard the suspects planning the murder, while at a roadside restaurant. When the four men were arrested their car was seized and along with it, two guns, ammunition, Canadian, American and Indian currency, along with a photograph of the bride. Indian police plan to seek extradition from Canada of the husband and another of his involved cousins.
It doesn't do to cause umbrage among tradition-minded men who, though seeking wives, choose to accept those whose parents can arrange for suitable dowries. And when those dowries are not forthcoming it is the women who suffer. In this particular instance, Indian-born immigrants to Canada decided this very woman's father should also suffer.
Should justice run its course they will perhaps have learned a lesson in morality, but we shouldn't hold our breath. Meanwhile, there's cause for thought about the irreconcilability of social customs accepted as norms in some societies that victimize a huge percentage of any population, being imported wholesale to another country for whom such practises represent anathema.
And there's the rub: Canadians travelling to far-off countries to assist them in their travails, paying a dreadful price for their humanitarian impulses. The opposite side of the ledger is immigrants arriving in a foreign country accepting the benefits accruing to residence there, but betraying the values of the adopted country by pursuing ages-old customs of human rights violations.
But they live in a heightened atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety at the best of times. Thanks to their particular geographical and foreign-intrusion history and their placement in an area of the world continually wracked with unrest, political intrigues and religious strife. The uneasiness and downright animosity that attends political relationships between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pakistan and India, and Iran and its neighbours threatens not only their own stability but that of the world at large.
These intransigent religious sectarian, cultural, societal, traditional divides between countries and factions within those countries where the population seems wedded to traditions belonging in the Medieval era, fractionate peoples' loyalties, and willingness to accept one another. Fears and divisions that are all too often encouraged and stimulated by their leaders, jealous of their political hegemony.
And then there are the purely social constructs, some of which diminish the importance of women, in strictured societies accustomed to the male domination of women. Customs that are inimical to the general health of the society, and whose perpetuation prey on the vulnerability of women in those societies. Where marriages are arranged and where families of eligible young women are expected to provide dowries to the prospective grooms and the spear-side of the family.
Outlawed by the government, perhaps, but engaged in nonetheless. The practise of dowry, an evil institution leading to the worst excesses of abuse of women - including murder and suicide, ostracizing and victimization by the bridegroom's family - continues in societies that have traditionally celebrated the rights of men and tolerated the presence of women as hidden necessities.
Police in India have revealed the arrest of four men, one of whom is from British Columbia - whose apprehended purpose was a conspiracy to murder the father of a young woman promised in marriage to a man living in British Columbia, Veerharinder Singh, a Surrey businessman. When the promised dowry of $75,000 did not materialize, the husband and his cousin - now among those arrested in India - conspired to hire contract killers.
This may not represent anything remarkable as an instance of social malfunction and criminal intent in India, where police in that country react to an average of one case each hour of brides suffering violence at the hands of in-laws for failure to delivery an anticipated dowry, but it is unique and a true horror story in Canada, a country where such transparent human rights abuses are not to be tolerated.
The young woman, Pawanjot Kaur, was informed she could not expect to travel to Canada to be united with her husband until the dowry was settled, despite the marriage that took place in 2004. She decided to travel to Canada regardless, to be with her grandfather, who lives in Edmonton. The four conspirators were arrested en route to the small village in an industrial area of the Punjab, where the bride's family was living.
Police were alerted to the plot by a man who had overheard the suspects planning the murder, while at a roadside restaurant. When the four men were arrested their car was seized and along with it, two guns, ammunition, Canadian, American and Indian currency, along with a photograph of the bride. Indian police plan to seek extradition from Canada of the husband and another of his involved cousins.
It doesn't do to cause umbrage among tradition-minded men who, though seeking wives, choose to accept those whose parents can arrange for suitable dowries. And when those dowries are not forthcoming it is the women who suffer. In this particular instance, Indian-born immigrants to Canada decided this very woman's father should also suffer.
Should justice run its course they will perhaps have learned a lesson in morality, but we shouldn't hold our breath. Meanwhile, there's cause for thought about the irreconcilability of social customs accepted as norms in some societies that victimize a huge percentage of any population, being imported wholesale to another country for whom such practises represent anathema.
And there's the rub: Canadians travelling to far-off countries to assist them in their travails, paying a dreadful price for their humanitarian impulses. The opposite side of the ledger is immigrants arriving in a foreign country accepting the benefits accruing to residence there, but betraying the values of the adopted country by pursuing ages-old customs of human rights violations.
posted by Pieface | 5:14 PM
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