Tradition of Honor Killings in Pakistan

"Many communities and families insist that their misplaced sense of 'honor' is located in a woman's body and actions."

"That is also why control over a woman's actions and rights find so many colluders across the board in keeping heinous customs like this alive."

Senator Sherry Rehman, Pakistan

 

"In a country where conviction rates often fall to single digits, visibility — and the uproar it brings — has its advantages."

"It jolts a complacent state that continues to tolerate jirgas [Loya Jirgas ... 'grand councils'] in areas beyond its writ."

Constitutional lawyer Asad Rahim Khan  

The scene in Balochistan province, Pakistan, before the "honor killing" was carried out. NBC News

 

The two people involved, a man and a woman, accused of having an illicit love affair -- in a country whose strict Islamic moral codes include capital punishment for women who stray from their assigned roles as subservient to men in all matters, for whom the human rights freedom of women in other societies are severely restricted; they may not be in the company of men other than husband, father, brother, uncle or risk the ultimate punishment -- were lured to a neutral place in their village where they were informed they were condemned to death.

 

Taken to an open desert in southern Pakistan, a village crowd of both men and women backgrounded them; for the women a warning lest they ever surrender to the temptation to dishonour their family, their clan, their village; for the men a validation that women who stray from their assigned role as modest wife, daughter, sister, there will be due punishment delivered to restore the honour their disgraceful actions blemished. 

 

Bano Bibi was 35, a wife and mother of three. The man accused of being her lover, Ehsanullah Samalani, 50, a father of four, was in this instance, also punished to restore the honour he had besmirched intolerably. She was shot first, three times, by her younger brother. Her mother, also present, condemned her daughter and supported the punishment that took her life -- for the killing "was necessary to cleanse our family's honor".  

 

Particularly in rural areas of Pakistan, honor killings are rampant; bringing shame by irregular, disapproved conduct by a woman will guarantee lethal punishment. And it is usually family members closest to the woman who will carry out the death sentence. Even a child who refuses marriage to an elderly man, thus bringing dishonor to her family can present as a candidate for death, for centuries-old cultural practices do not bend to the contours of modernity or human rights.

 

The double execution took place in mid-July. Since then, public protests have broken out, causing authorities to take notice, and with that notice, action. That action was spurred by an investigation that resulted in arrests, including that of Bano Bibi's mother for her role in the death of her daughter. On average a woman dies every day for the cultural crime of dishonoring family. A video of that double execution went viral, fully six weeks after the event.  

 

Bano Bibi's mother, Gul Jan Bibi, said the killings were based on traditional Baloch traditions and were not sinful. (Reuters: Abdul Wali)

 

Pakistan, a nation of over 240 million where fundamental Islam is the law of the land  under Sharia, saw politicians and law enforcement officials spurred to take action. After all, they have time and again vowed to commit to the protection of women, and to take action against perpetrators of honor killings. But traditions die hard, even while women's lives are easily taken in punishment of carnal sins attributed to both the innocent and the 'guilty'.  Despite the government assurances of imminent action, tradition carries on. 

 

The video shows male onlookers watching in silent intensity, some of them filming the execution with their smart phones. Modernity is viewed through the lens of technology, but cultural tradition is set in the crystalline cast of a society whose moral piety is a death machine for any who dare challenge tradition through the irresistible draw of human emotions. 

 

The early June executions, thanks to the video and protests that accompanied its viewing, saw an investigation begin in July, leading to the arrest of over 15 people involved in the double killing. Last year over four hundred women were victimized by these cultural executions, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, independent of government. Pakistan does have laws to protect against gender-based violence; still such murders go unpunished; tribal code trumping civil law in rural Pakistan. 

 

Relatives most often kill women for refusing forced marriage, for seeking divorce, or for engaging in relationships that men categorize as violations of their values. Criminal convictions resulted in 0.5 percent of all reported honor killings last year. "Incidents every now and then get traction in the media, but it continues in a shameful way", stated Farah Zia, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. 

 

A video of an "honour killing" of a woman and her lover in Pakistan has sparked protests in Quetta city.  (Reuters: Rizwan Saeed)

Which Bethlehem? Or Neither?

"I'm positive. I have no doubts because the whole surroundings of Jesus's life was the Galilee and the Kineret [nearby areas of northern Israel]."
"I asked myself, what are the chances that the baby would still be alive if she [Mary] rode all the way to Bethlehem in Judea [West Bank]? Zero. Whereas the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem is possible."
"Underneath the church, where the holiest of holies usually is, there was a natural cave."
"It was very convenient. Christianity claims that Jesus is the messiah -- and the messiah should come from the house of David, from Judea."
Dr. Aviram Oshri, Israel Antiquities Authority

"The story that Jesus was born [there] was to connect him to King David. Since Helena [St.Helena] hallowed it, all the Christians believe it."
"If you ask me, Jesus was born in Nazareth. At that time in the Roman period, people didn't move from place to place. All of his family is from Nazareth."
Dr. Uzi Dahari, archaeologist, Israel

A Greek Orthodox priest watches pilgrims roam around the ancient church of nativity, where many Christians believe Jesus was born.. (photo credit:DOV LIEBER)

Bethlehem in the West Bank is considered the birthplace of Jesus; a belief that ancient history of the fourth Century A.D. through St. Helena, mother of the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine, identified. As a pious Christian who persuaded her powerful son of the authenticity of Christianity as the only religion worth following, she built religious structures at Biblical holy sites she believed represented historical accuracy.

She was responsible for the construction of the Basilica of the Nativity, built over what is considered to be the place where Jesus was born, in Bethlehem located on the West Bank. The trouble is that Bethlehem is far from Jesus' family's residence in Nazareth, about 160 kilometres distance, and it would have taken three days to travel there. Whereas the Bethlehem that exists in the Galilee is a three-hour travel distance from Nazareth.

So although it might seem logical that it is the Bethlehem located close to Nazareth, about 12 kilometres distant, the seat of Christ's family's residence, is the place where he was born, it is the West Bank-located Bethlehem, far more distant, that is celebrated as the place of his birth. As Dr. Oshri explains it, there are allusions in the ancient records of a fortification wall around the Biblical Bethlehem.

Between the bell tower of the Church of Nativity and the main Christmas in Manger Square, a gaurd keeps watch on the rooftop. . (photo credit:DOV LIEBER)

No such walls or remnants of one are to be found in the West Bank Bethlehem, whereas one can be seen clearly in the area of the Galilee Bethlehem. As well, a once-grand church dating back to the Byzantine era remain in the Bethlehem in Galilee. Where, under the church ruins, is a cave, one Dr. Oshir believes is the very cave where Jesus was actually born in a manger.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her husband Joseph, lived in Nazareth; at nine months into her pregnancy it doesn't seem reasonable to these archaeologists that they would have travelled so far to the West Bank, rather than reaching instead the far closer Bethlehem located a mere 12 km from their home, in her condition.

History was twisted slightly for the purpose of connecting Jesus to the line of King David since the messiah, in Jewish tradition, was to have come from the house of David, from Judea. Human nature hasn't changed all that much in the space of several millennia; with its propensity to make events fit imagined or prophesied structure and strictures to aid in the making of a legend.

In this instance, a legend of monumental proportions whose belief and wide acceptance globally became one of the widest celebrated stories of the human-god connection to convince human beings that a spiritual creator of all that exists has high expectations of his creations with the belief that they can, if they try hard enough, meet those expectations of simple decency.

Bethlehem's Muslim majority population was well represented in Manger Square, Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.. (photo credit:DOV LIEBER)

The presence of Christians flocking to the West Bank Bethlehem where the majority Christian population has long since left as a result of persecution by Muslims, leaving Muslims now the majority population in the ancient city of the Biblical story, allows the city to capitalize on the tourism at Christmas time, and at the same time to take the opportunity to politicize Christmas: note the sign on the right of the photograph above: "All I want for Christmas is justice"....

Defiling Mecca

"We dismounted to gaze at the venerable minarets and the green dome which covers the tomb of the Prophet. The heat was dreadful, the climate dangerous, and the beasts died in numbers. Fresh carcasses strewed our way, and were covered by foul vultures. The Caravan was most picturesque. We traveled principally at night, but the camels had to perform the work of goats, and step from block to block of basalt like mountaineers, which being unnatural to them, they kept up a continual piteous moan. The simoom and pillars of sand continually threw them over."
 "Then I performed the seven circuits round the Ka'abah, called the Tawaf. I then managed to have a way pushed for me through the immense crowd to kiss it. While kissing it, and rubbing hands and forehead upon it, I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is an aerolite. It is curious that almost all agree upon one point, namely, that the stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it mineralogically a 'block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of tile-red felspath upon a dark ground like velvet or charcoal, except one of its protuberances, which is reddish'. It is also described as 'a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance'."
The Hajj, 1853, Sir Richard Burton

Seems the sacred can be defiled, after all. Muslims, particularly the gatekeepers of Mecca and Medina, feel that the presence of a non-Muslim in those heritage sites would be sacrilegious, so it is forbidden for foreigners who are not Muslim to even think of approaching these places sacred to Islam. Sir Richard Burton famously, in the 19th Century as an incurable romantic and Islamophile ventured to camouflage himself as a Muslim pilgrim, travelling from Egypt, first to Medina then to Mecca.
Sir Richard Burton, intrepid 19th Century British adventurer-traveller

Sir Burton embarked on his exploit knowing full well it was forbidden, and knowing as well the danger inherent in his adventure. He lived to tell the tale, and tell it he did.

Saudi Arabia, the gatekeepers and responsible for the upkeep of the most venerable and sacred sites in Islam, as the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed and from where the Prophet received directly from the Almighty the precepts of Islam and the direction from above to promulgate its primacy as God's final word, are sworn to protect and enshrine forever that holy place in the minds of believers, acting as hosts to the annual Hajj, an obligation of all pious Muslims to make the pilgrimage at least once in their lives.

Mecca from Jabal Nur

The government of Saudi Arabia has dedicated itself as the keeper of these holy sites to their venerated preservation. What a noble undertaking. And what a responsibility. One gladly taken on as it confers to the Saudis the honour of hosting those sacred sites and being honoured in turn to have that responsibility. It is also an onerous task to ensure the safety and security both of the sacred sites and that of the millions of Muslims who travel there from all over the world. Some two million Muslims from many countries of the world are converging on Mecca this month.

Abraj-al-Bait Towers/Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel

The Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is situated at the Sacred Mosque. And towering over that historic site of immeasurable heritage value is, alas, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, listed among the world's tallest buildings at 1,972 feet in height, its shadow thrown directly over the mosque, minuscule in comparative height, its sublime presence dwarfed by -- a commercial hotel, of all things. And the operative word here is - commerce.

The hotel is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers and among them are luxury shopping malls and other hotels whose purpose is to cater to the whims and delights of the wealthy. No longer is the skyline dominated by the surrounding peaks; the ancient mountains have been effectively levelled, the city surrounded now by the steel and concrete of immensely tall buildings whose presence and what they represent are prized by the guardians of the Holy City.

They bespeak wealth, modernity, commerce. Numerous ancient buildings inclusive of a mosque dating from the time of Prophet had been bulldozed by Saudi Arabia in the 1970s to make way for the transformation of the city into a "modern" one with multi-lane highways, junctions, hotels and shopping malls. The old Ottoman-designed houses and their elaborately hand-carved doors and latticework windows were considered unattractive relics of the past, to be dispensed with.

The Makkah Royal Clock Tower itself, completed in 2012, was built over the graves of 400 sites of cultural and historical significance. Torn down were the city's millennium-old buildings. Families that had lived in the area for centuries were displaced, as bulldozers destroyed all that was familiar to them. The home of Abu Bakr, the first caliph after the death of Mohammad who was also his uncle, was destroyed. Of the inner core of the Sacred Mosque not much reflecting history remains but the Kaaba.




The intricately carved marble columns inscribed in calligraphy with the names of the prophet's companions, dating from the early 16th Century are all that remains of the Sacred Mosque's inner core, but for the Kaaba itself. The mosque too is slated for demolition, to be replaced with an ultramodern building. Under the Saudis, with their strict Salafist interpretation of fundamental Islam, literal interpretation of Islam is the norm, all other sects are regarded as false.

The historical hajj has become a packaged tour, where pilgrims move from hotel to hotel in groups; neutralized of history and religious and cultural plurality. The sacred transforming, once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience has been altered to a mundane rituals-and-shopping extravaganza.

Are "Integrated Muslims" Integrated?

by Douglas Murray
August 13, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4589/integration-muslims

Most noticeable was that the protests across Western European cities have overwhelmingly been led by Muslims — not Islamists — just normal, "integrated" Muslims, who stay at home when any other war occurs. (Where were their protests against Qatar for funding Hamas?)
What is harder for people to address is the lies that feed this violence.
These otherwise "integrated" people hate Israel and Jews because they have been taught to. A whole generation — perhaps several — has been taught to hate. That is a lot of hate, but it needs to be tackled.
The best place to start might be by tackling the lies and defamations that are allowed to go on underneath everyone's noses, such as the frivolous — and false — accusations of Israeli "genocide," "war-crimes" and the like. The problem is worse than anyone had thought.

The Gaza War has had disturbing fallout in Europe. The Gaza War has produced flagrantly anti-Semitic protests, attacks on Jews and the burning down of Jewish buildings. Those protests have come as a surprise to parts of the European public – nowhere more so than in Germany, where a hatred thought to have been disgraced for all time has found its way back onto European streets under a new guise.

As well as being a time for outrage, this also ought to be a time for re-thinking. And some of that rethinking will have to be done by those who assumed they best understood these outbursts. Certainly calls to "kill the Jews" in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy are a part of the problem, but these, as well as the outbreaks of violence against Jews across Europe, are condemned by politicians and journalists alike. To some extent it is too easy for them to do so. There is not yet any real political or other price to pay for saying that you think people should beat up rabbis in the street, send "Jews to the gas" or call openly for genocide. What is harder for people to do is address the lies that feed this violence, and the underlying hatred that the Gaza War revealed. These need attention.

Groups in Europe that monitor anti-Semitic hate crimes have, for many years, been ahead of the public curve in understanding that these attacks are no longer carried out by white, neo-Nazi, skinhead thugs. Although such people do exist, they are small in number and shunned by the wider society. The discovery that anti-Semitism today is spurred by Muslims and (to a lesser extent) misinformed fellow-travellers has been recognized by people who work in the field, but has taken a long time to trickle down to public awareness.

This latest round of events in the Gaza, however, and the response to it on European streets, have thrown some of those experts. It turns out that a very major part of their analysis might be wrong. It seems to have been the assumption of many involved in trying to prevent anti-Semitism in Europe that the problem of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activism could be put down, among the Muslim communities, to a minority of radicalized people called "Islamists." These were recognized to be the sort involved in extremist groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir or similar groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and its various Western front-groups. They were expected to be individuals who are highly politically and religiously motivated -- very possibly the same people who attend protests against American or any other Western military engagements in the world. But now, since Gaza, a terrible realization has begun to strike: that analysts may have been focussing on the tip of the iceberg while ignoring the vast immensities beneath.

Most noticeable was that the protests across Western European cities have overwhelmingly been led by Muslims. Not Islamists or Islamist groups in particular, but by extremely angry Muslims – especially young Muslims – who stay at home when any other war occurs anywhere in the world, but who seem spurred to anger whenever Israel is involved in any conflict with any of its neighbors. The crowds appear deaf to the reasonable charge that they are singling Israel out for special treatment. They are unwilling to consider that they are perpetrating a grotesque double-standard (where were their protests against Qatar for funding Hamas? ). But they otherwise seem like normal, "integrated", Muslims.

There are examples that might, at first, even seem frivolous. The British boy band, One Direction, for instance, has five members. One of its members, Zayn Malik, happens to be a Muslim. When the Gaza war began, it was Zayn Malik alone, out of all five members of One Direction, who started tweeting hashtags to do with "FreePalestine." They caused a media storm. The singers in One Direction are not generally known for their interest in geo-strategic issues. Is it coincidence that it was Malik and not any of his bandmates who felt compelled to weigh in on the side of the government in Gaza, led by the terrorist group Hamas, rather than on the side of the open, democratic nation-state of Israel? Whatever the cause, it has an effect. Malik has 13 million Twitter followers. That is more followers than there are people in Belgium, and twice as many as live in Switzerland. Malik's tweet has been re-tweeted and favorited over 300,000 times to date.

The "FreePalestine" tweet from Zayn Malik, of the boy-band One Direction, caused a media storm. (Image source: Mailk - DeviantART/pawa24)

Or consider the only Muslim in the British cabinet. Just as Israeli ground forces were withdrawing from Gaza, Sayeeda Warsi resigned in protest, stating that the British government has been too "uncritical" of the Israeli government. She claimed that the British government had shown an unwillingness to condemn Israel for defending its citizens. That this UK cabinet "support" included accusations (albeit, under international law, inaccurate accusations) of "disproportionality" as well as an official call to reconsider all arms sales contracts to Israel, is something Warsi seems to have overlooked. She simply claimed that her "conscience" prevented her from remaining silent on the situation in Gaza any longer, and that she believed that the Israelis should be investigated for "war crimes" -- also, under international law, no more than Hamas's double war crime of both shooting at civilians and hiding behind civilians. And that does not even include mentioning that the civilians Hamas hid behind were their own Palestinian subjects.

Examples such as these seem to demonstrate what many people had already begun to observe on the streets among the anti-Israel crowds: that the protestors, who turn out in their thousands to spend weekend after weekend screaming hatred against Israel and Jews, are perhaps not, in fact, Islamists. Certainly, some of them are, but many are simply enraged Muslims. Some – just like Zayn Malik of One Direction – are people whom you would ordinarily have described as models of integration. Yet if it comes to any action of Israel's, they behave in a way no ordinary British person does or would.
This of course makes the challenge vastly bigger than many people may have thought. The problem is that a whole generation -- perhaps several -- has been taught to hate. What is notable, though, is that in a country such as Britain, most Muslims are descended from the Indian sub-continent. What is "Palestine" to them? It should have been nothing, or at least no more concern of theirs than anywhere else. But they do care differently about it. Perhaps it is part of the anti-Semitism that one British Muslim recently admitted to being "rife" and "the dirty little secret" among British Muslims.

What seems clear is that these otherwise "integrated" people hate Israel and Jews because they have been taught to. They have been trained to carry over a bigotry and a bias that they may not even be aware of. It is a lot of hate to tackle, but it needs to be tackled, and it is important to start. The best place might be by tackling the lies and defamations that are allowed to go on underneath everyone's noses, such as the wholly frivolous -- and false -- accusations of Israeli "genocide," "war-crimes" and the like. It is going to require a lot of work, leadership, and the realization that the problem is worse than anyone had thought.

Related Topics:  Douglas Murray

Anne Frank's Diary vandalised in Japan libraries

BBC News online -- 21 February 2014

Kotaro Fujimaki, director of Shinjuku City's Chuo Library in Tokyo, explains how the vandalism may have taken place

More than 100 copies of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl have been vandalised in public libraries in Japan's capital Tokyo, officials say.

Pages have been ripped from at least 265 copies of the diary and other related books, they added.
It is not clear who is behind the vandalism. A US Jewish rights group has called for a police investigation.

Anne Frank's diary was written during World War Two, while the teenager hid from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, there were competitions in which Japanese teenagers had to reflect on the experience of Anne Frank - thousands of teenagers sent submissions ”

Professor Rotem Kowner University of Haifa

The book made her a symbol of the suffering of Jews during the war.

For many Japanese the book forms the basis of their knowledge about the Jewish holocaust, the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo reports.

But what might have motivated the attacks remains a mystery. Japan has no history of Jewish settlement and no real history of anti-Semitism, our correspondent adds.

Toshihiro Obayashi, a library official in West Tokyo's Suginsami area, said: "Each and every book which comes up under the index of Anne Frank has been damaged at our library."

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a global Jewish human rights organisation, said in a statement that it was shocked and concerned by the incidents, and called for the authorities to investigate.

"The geographic scope of these incidents strongly suggest an organised effort to denigrate the memory of the most famous of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in the World War Two Holocaust," associate dean Abraham Cooper said.

     It is not clear who is behind the vandalism or what their motives were

 

"Anne Frank is studied and revered by millions of Japanese," Mr Cooper added. "Only people imbued with bigotry and hatred would seek to destroy Anne's historic words of courage, hope and love in the face of impending doom."

The book was added to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's Memory of the World Register in 2009.

Anne Frank's diary was translated into Japanese in December 1952 and topped the bestseller lists in 1953.

Professor Rotem Kowner, an expert in Japanese history and culture at Israel's University of Haifa, told the BBC that the book has been exceptionally popular and successful in Japan.

He says that in terms of absolute numbers of copies of the book sold, Japan is second only to the US, and adds that for Japanese readers the story transcended its Jewish identity to symbolise more powerfully the struggle of youth for survival.

"In the 1950s and the 1960s, there were competitions in which Japanese teenagers had to reflect on the experience of Anne Frank. Thousands of teenagers sent their submissions to such competitions," Professor Kowner says.

"It was a book about a war tragedy and the way youth experienced war... For many Japanese they would view this as a tragic development," he adds.

'Allah Gave Israel to The Jews, There's No Palestine'

Muslim scholar in Jordan attacks 'Palestinians' for distorting Koran, Jews given Israel 'until Day of Judgement.'

By Ari Yashar

First Publish: 2/6/2014, 11:00 PM

Koran (file)

Flash 90

 

Allah has promised Israel to the Jews -- so says Sheikh Ahmad Adwan, a Muslim scholar living in Jordan, who declared on his Facebook page recently that "Palestine" doesn't exist.

Blogger Elder of Ziyon translated Arab news sources that this Saturday reported on Adwan's statements, in which he quotes the Koran saying Allah assigned Israel to the Jews until the Day of Judgement (Sura 5 Verse 21), and that Jews are the inheritors of Israel (Sura 26 Verse 59).

"I say to those who distort...the Koran: from where did you bring the name Palestine, you liars, you accursed, when Allah has already named it 'The Holy Land' and bequeathed it to the Children of Israel until the Day of Judgment," argued Adwan. "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in the Koran."
"Your demand for the Land of Israel is a falsehood and it constitutes an attack on the Koran, on the Jews and their land. Therefore you won’t succeed, and Allah will fail you and humiliate you, because Allah is the one who will protect them (i.e. the Jews)," warns Adwan.

The sheikh had more harsh words for the "Palestinians," calling them "the killers of children, the elderly and women" in using them as human shields in order to falsely accuse the Jews of targeting them. He reports having seen the same tactic used by "Palestinians" against the Jordanian army in the 1970s.

"This is their habit and custom, their viciousness, their having hearts of stones towards their children, and their lying to public opinion, in order to get its support," declared Adwan.

Adwan has previously said his support for the Jewish people "comes from my acknowledgment of their sovereignty on their land and my belief in the Koran, which told us and emphasized this in many places, like His (Allah’s) saying ”Oh People (i.e the Children of Israel), enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned unto you'" (Sura 5, Verse 21).

The Jews are a peaceful people according to Adwan, who says "if they are attacked, they defend themselves while causing as little damage to the attackers as possible. It is an honor for them that Allah has chosen them over the worlds – meaning over the people and the Jinns (spiritual creatures) until the Day of Judgment. ...When Allah chose them, He didn’t do so out of politeness, and He wasn’t unjust other peoples, it is just that they (the Jews) deserved this.”

Video (mostly in Hebrew) from Orot TV shows Adwan's 2012 visit to Tzfat, where he met with the city's Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and expressed his support for Israel:

Tags: Islam, PA Arabs, Koran, Rabbi Shmuel ELiyahu, Israel, Allah, Elder of Ziyon, Sheikh Ahmad Adwan, Ahmad Adwan

Richard Dawkins Perplexed by High Number of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners

October 29, 2013 2:30 pm

Author:

Zach Pontz

Tags:

Atheist Jewish Jewish Nobel Jewish Virtual Library muslims New Republic Nobel Peace Prize Richard Dawkins Trinity College tweet

Richard Dawkins. Photo: Wikipedia.

 

The usually self-assured biologist, author and atheist Richard Dawkins expressed his bewilderment at the disproportionate amount of Nobel prizes won by Jews in a recent interview with the New Republic, saying he is “intrigued by” the  “phenomenally high” number of Jewish laureates.

Addressing the controversy surrounding a Tweet he wrote during the conferment of Nobel prizes earlier this month, Dawkins offered up something of a mea culpa, stating: “That was unfortunate. I should have compared religion with religion and compared Islam not with Trinity College but with Jews, because the number of Jews who have won Nobel Prizes is phenomenally high.”

Continuing, he said: “Race does not come into it. It is pure religion and culture. Something about the cultural tradition of Jews is way, way more sympathetic to science and learning and intellectual pursuits than Islam. That would have been a fair comparison. Ironically, I originally wrote the tweet with Jews and thought, That might give offense. And so I thought I better change it.”

Asked why he thought it is that Jews have won so many Nobel Prizes, Dawkins was forthright with his uncertainty.

“I haven’t thought it through. I don’t know. But I don’t think it is a minor thing; it is colossal. I think more than 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews.”

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, since the Nobel was first awarded in 1901 approximately 193 of the 855 honorees have been Jewish (22%). Jews make up less than 0.2% of the global population.

This year 6 of 12 laureates were Jewish. The 13th laureate, for the Nobel Peace Prize, was awarded to an organization and not an individual.