Honor Trumps Life

Yesterday, I linked to an article which reported on the honor killing in Berlin. This was the sixth such killing in four months in Berlin. The Muslim children in a nearby school don't see what's wrong with such honor killings:

"This type of thinking is latent in their minds," said the head of another predominantly Turkish immigrant school in the district, who asked not to be identified. Their remarks, he said, reminded him of the spontaneous "victory dances" which immigrant pupils at his school had staged after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Celebrations didn't just take place in Gaza and the West Bank on September 11.

"We have silently allowed a parallel society to develop because of fears that we would sow hatred by talking openly about its injustices. The women have paid the price for this," he said. Serap Cileli, a German-born Turkish woman who finds homes for women threatened by "honour murders", said: "If I criticise the Islamic community over these problems, I find that the Germans criticise me for being anti-foreigner. At the same time, many Turks say I am fouling my own nest.

What an honorable and miserable position to hold; rhetorically and physically defend women from psychotic family members and be scorned by both the immigrant Muslims and native Germans. Questions to the Germans: what kind of an idiot does one have to be to criticize a woman for saving innocent lives? Haven't you learned one of the most important lessons from the Nazi era? Confront and defeat evil rather than ignoring or appeasing it.