An Honourably, Worthy Judgement
A culture and a tradition, seeking its guidance from religious precepts that had their origins in a male-dominating, tribal honour system that glorified violence - against other tribes, other ideologies, other religions, other social systems - is one badly in need of a close look at itself. With a view to entering the modern world where the genders are seen to be of equal value, worthy of equal respect and opportunities. Crimes against women, seen as sanctified 'honour' redemptions of tribe and family, are viewed otherwise in Western societies.
And while, in their countries of origin, Muslim men's habits of oppressing women and dictating to them what they may and may not do - expressing without expectation of challenge what is expected of them, and what they may assume will be their fate should they chose the folly of challenging those expectations - are accepted as valid and just, they are simply recognized as crimes in the face of humanity, in the West.
There have been more than enough horror stories of women and girls being murdered by their fathers, brothers and uncles, in response to their womenfolk determining that they have the right to choose their own destiny. That this abhorrent retrieval of a family's honour from the shame of a woman's choosing to defy male authority still finds respect among too many Muslim societies confounds reason. No less the fundamental sentences meted out to women deemed to have transgressed stringent social parameters.
But then, there is nothing particularly reasonable about envisioning a woman's place as that of a virtual slave to the wishes of a husband, a father, a brother; any male relative whatever. So that when a most respectable man, a pillar of his society, a very public community leader such as Yusef Al Mezel, of Ottawa, stands before the Canadian justice system, and is held to account for his behaviour, this is just by the yardstick of acceptable Western expectations expressed by civil law.
Mr. Al Mezel threatened his daughter, 23 years of age, and wishing to be accepted as a fully independent adult, capable of selecting for herself her own passage through life, to discover her own identity in Canadian society, and to make her own decisions with respect to where and how she would like to be comfortable. He repeatedly invoked as cultural law the unappeasable reality that his daughter must submit to tradition.
Independence such as his daughter sought and claimed to be her right as a human being was out of the question for a daughter of Islam. He harassed her unmercifully, threatening violence, and not ruling out the ultimate honour-retrieval mechanism: death. Mr. Al Mezel, 44 years of age, not too old to adopt a more tolerable version of Islam, is president of the Canadian Autoworkers Local 1688, and he also had ambitions to run for a seat on Ottawa city council.
He is not totally unaware of this society's greater culture, nor of the values held dear by Canadians at large. He had, despite the civilizing effect of re-locating to Canada and taking up citizenship here with his family, violently abused his daughter Eman, shoving her into a flight of stairs, threatening to break her legs and ultimately to kill her; in his rage, smashing her computer - an acceptable example of the modern age in which they live.
Eman Al Mezel removed herself from her family home in response to her father's arrangements for her to marry a young Syrian man. Her father experienced internal pressure, anguished by the thought of the regard lost to him by his extended family, aware of the problems he was facing with a daughter refusing to be controlled by her father. She had shamed him, and she was shaming his family by her unwarranted insistence on sovereignty.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny sentenced Mr. Al Mezel to a year in jail for threatening his daughter in response to her resistance to his archaic, patriarchal demands. Mr. Al Mezel's lawyer claims it to be a "tragedy when you have a really decent person who has been a contributing member of the community ... going to jail". And she is quite correct; this does reflect a personal tragedy.
Which, however, is the real tragedy, represents the greater assault on human rights - that Eman Al Mezel chose to leave her family home, set aside her hijab and the Muslim traditions that strangled her view of her future, or that her father threatened to kill her to redeem the family's honour?
And while, in their countries of origin, Muslim men's habits of oppressing women and dictating to them what they may and may not do - expressing without expectation of challenge what is expected of them, and what they may assume will be their fate should they chose the folly of challenging those expectations - are accepted as valid and just, they are simply recognized as crimes in the face of humanity, in the West.
There have been more than enough horror stories of women and girls being murdered by their fathers, brothers and uncles, in response to their womenfolk determining that they have the right to choose their own destiny. That this abhorrent retrieval of a family's honour from the shame of a woman's choosing to defy male authority still finds respect among too many Muslim societies confounds reason. No less the fundamental sentences meted out to women deemed to have transgressed stringent social parameters.
But then, there is nothing particularly reasonable about envisioning a woman's place as that of a virtual slave to the wishes of a husband, a father, a brother; any male relative whatever. So that when a most respectable man, a pillar of his society, a very public community leader such as Yusef Al Mezel, of Ottawa, stands before the Canadian justice system, and is held to account for his behaviour, this is just by the yardstick of acceptable Western expectations expressed by civil law.
Mr. Al Mezel threatened his daughter, 23 years of age, and wishing to be accepted as a fully independent adult, capable of selecting for herself her own passage through life, to discover her own identity in Canadian society, and to make her own decisions with respect to where and how she would like to be comfortable. He repeatedly invoked as cultural law the unappeasable reality that his daughter must submit to tradition.
Independence such as his daughter sought and claimed to be her right as a human being was out of the question for a daughter of Islam. He harassed her unmercifully, threatening violence, and not ruling out the ultimate honour-retrieval mechanism: death. Mr. Al Mezel, 44 years of age, not too old to adopt a more tolerable version of Islam, is president of the Canadian Autoworkers Local 1688, and he also had ambitions to run for a seat on Ottawa city council.
He is not totally unaware of this society's greater culture, nor of the values held dear by Canadians at large. He had, despite the civilizing effect of re-locating to Canada and taking up citizenship here with his family, violently abused his daughter Eman, shoving her into a flight of stairs, threatening to break her legs and ultimately to kill her; in his rage, smashing her computer - an acceptable example of the modern age in which they live.
Eman Al Mezel removed herself from her family home in response to her father's arrangements for her to marry a young Syrian man. Her father experienced internal pressure, anguished by the thought of the regard lost to him by his extended family, aware of the problems he was facing with a daughter refusing to be controlled by her father. She had shamed him, and she was shaming his family by her unwarranted insistence on sovereignty.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny sentenced Mr. Al Mezel to a year in jail for threatening his daughter in response to her resistance to his archaic, patriarchal demands. Mr. Al Mezel's lawyer claims it to be a "tragedy when you have a really decent person who has been a contributing member of the community ... going to jail". And she is quite correct; this does reflect a personal tragedy.
Which, however, is the real tragedy, represents the greater assault on human rights - that Eman Al Mezel chose to leave her family home, set aside her hijab and the Muslim traditions that strangled her view of her future, or that her father threatened to kill her to redeem the family's honour?
Labels: Canada, Conflict, Human Relations, Justice
posted by Pieface | 12:42 PM
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