There was a horrifying programme on Radio 4 last week, part of a series called The House I Grew Up In, where a woman called Jasvinder Sanghera who'd grown up in an Asian community in the UK spoke about her childhood. She'd run away from home when she was 15, after her family had locked her in a room after they'd tried to force her to marry a man from India she'd never met and she refused. Only when she finally told them she agreed did they let her out. She said her older sisters were all forced to marry men they'd never met in their mid teens. One missed nine months of school because she was in Pakistan getting used to married life with a man she'd never met; and when she came back, because it's the law here that people have to be 16 years old before they leave school, she went back to school, and they put her in the year below the one she'd been in before to catch up with all the work she'd missed. So she was a married woman still at school. She said one of her sisters divorced her husband because he was violent, but her family really weren't happy because her divorcing was thought to be bringing shame on the family. She was forced to marry another man, but he was also violent. It seems she couldn't stand the thought of what her family or community would put her through if she divorced him. Whatever the reason, instead of doing so, she set herself on fire and killed herself, at the age of only 24. The woman who'd refused to allow herself to be forced into marriage said thousands of teenage girls of about 15 from Asian communities in Britain are being forced into marriages by their families, many of them violent. She talked about what it was like growing up in the Asian community her family were part of. She gave the impression it was a stiflingly bitchy place where everyone was obsessed with being seen to follow the traditions they'd inherited, so they could pride themselves on doing so and for fear that not doing so would bring shame on their family, and there was a lot of small-minded bitching and finger-pointing about other women who they didn't think were following them as perfectly as they were. And if a woman wasn't married by 17, she was considered to be on the shelf! Shallow petty-minded spite could easily turn to outright cruelty, violence and even sometimes murder, when a girl or woman was seen to be violating the traditions, in even little ways, such as wearing make-up, learning to drive, kissing a boy and so on. They could become the victims of "honour killings". Following the traditions of the family was considered all-important, even in the tiniest detail. Jasvinder said her mother often used to scold her, for instance, because when she was helping to make chapatis, she couldn't get them round. Her mother told her she was going to bring shame on the family unless she did! She said that when she makes them now, she refuses to make them round on principle! Hers are square. When she went as far as getting a perm as a young teenager, which were in fashion when she was growing up, she tried to hide it from her mother by putting a towel over her head. But eventually her mother knocked it off her head and saw what she'd done, and beat her with the heel of a shoe, hard. Then she made her go and live in another area of the country till her hair grew out again! She said her father was more liberal-minded, but he couldn't stand up to her mother. She phoned her family a few years after she'd run away, and her mother told her that either she came back and consented to another forced marriage, or she would be disowned by the family and not allowed to see them again. She chose to be disowned; but she said it was very upsetting not being allowed to see any of the family again. She used to go and secretly watch her little nephews and nieces playing in the school playground. Yes, it seems these people have no qualms about beating their children, locking them up, forcing them to marry when they're barely more than children, and disowning them if they refuse; they obviously don't see much wrong in doing such things; ... but God forbid that any one of them should make chipatis square instead of round! Oh, the shame! The shame! It's as if these people have no independent moral sense, and no rational sense of proportion; their notion of what's right and wrong is dictated to them by what their community looks down on; and they'll do anything to make sure their families stick to those community values, even when it means turning conventional notions of right and wrong on their head, such as by murdering one of their sisters because she's learning to drive and wearing make-up and was seen holding hands with a boy from outside the community! Jasvinder Sanghera now campaigns against forced marriages, and runs a refuge where Asian women fleeing violent forced marriages can go. Here's the page on the BBC website where you can find out more about the programme and there's a link to where you can listen to it if you like. She said a son was born to her mother after she'd had several daughters, and he was treated as the star of the family, like an honoured guest. For instance, if the hot water was running out, he'd be allowed to have a bath with the last of it and the girls had to use his water after him. People in the community would lament with her mother about her having so many daughters, but say it was good she now had a son. Perhaps men from the Asian community are often treated as the superior ones as they're growing up, and they get to think they are superior to women. Jasvinder grew up in a Sikh community. But things are likely much the same in Muslim communities. Earlier this year there was a programme on Channel 4 about how a lot of Muslim children from Asian communities in Britain are being taught hatred and intolerance for the people in the surrounding communities, and a form of the same stupid legalism that blows petty things way way out of proportion while breeding a culture of violence, that Jasvinder suggested existed in the Sikh community she grew up in. From a Channel 4 web page about the programme called Lessons in Hate and Violence: Feature: This country can only be heading for trouble with thousands being taught that kind of thing.
Wow. Now Islamists think they can behave towards the people of this country just as they might behave in the wilds of Pakistan! Student-organised talk on Sharia law at the University of London cancelled following threats of violence This is what happens when people with the mentality of primitive warlike tribesmen get hold of modern technology! At least it was only a camera phone this time; in some countries, such people could very easily get control of the nukes. Perhaps these people simply don't feel capable of using their minds to debate the issues and to put their side of the case. Perhaps they're simply not confident enough in the strength of their case to do anything but try to stop an opposing view being put forward! What does it say about the strength of the arguments they could put forward when they don't put any forward at all but just threaten violence? And they don't even understand how bad that makes their reputation look! Far more damage has been done to the reputation of Islam by this incident than would have been if the meeting had gone ahead and some uncomplimentary things were said about Mohammed that went no further than the dozens in the room, were disputed in any case by Muslims in the room who were up for the challenge of a civilised debate, and were soon forgotten by most people, as would almost certainly have happened if these extremists hadn't tried to intimidate people into silence. Now far more people will be wondering what objectionable things Mohammed said than they ever would have done if the meeting hadn't been disrupted so violently! How can these Islamists possibly think they've done their cause any good?! Don't they realise what this kind of thing does to their image, making them look like barbaric savages incapable of using their minds? Don't they mind making themselves look like primitive thugs? Is saying a word against Mohammed really a far worse offence than murder? Just why is that, I wonder. We've put up with violent semi-brained extremists in our country for far too long. It's time we did something about it! Unfortunately though, the situation's just going to get worse. Muslim children are actually being trained to become extremists in our very country! See the quote in post 1. Meanwhile, some woolly-brained fools in ivory towers somewhere in Europe have decided we need to be merciful to a Muslim extremist preacher of hate who's in prison in the UK because of all the evidence that's mounted up against him that he's a dangerous hatemonger who incites terrorism and was probably inspirational to those plotting the 9/11 attacks; Britain wants to deport him to his native Jordan, but those Europeans shudder at the idea that such a thing could happen to this poor victim; they worry that when he's tried there for the car bombings he helped cause, part of the evidence brought up will be evidence obtained years and years ago when someone else was tortured. Note that they're not worried that this man might actually be tortured if he's sent back; they're merely concerned that part of the evidence against him might be tainted because it was obtained through the torture of someone else years ago. Never mind all the other evidence against him! European Court Rules Britain Cannot Deport Terrorism Suspect
Do you sell weapons to the military? Is your company closing down since Obama withdrew troops? Are you trying to instigate a reaction?
Really PN, if a band of Muslim extremists reads this thread and decides to start a war over it, it obviously wouldn't take much provocation for them to start a war, so if it hadn't been this thread, it would have been something else. It won't be on my conscience. If you start posting other things in this thread in the way you've been posting offensively in my Pakistani Child Gang Rapists in the UK thread, I'm going to stop responding to you here as I've said I will in the other thread and instead reply to you in my thread about you that's designed for the purpose: A poem: You. It might spare this thread from being messed up more than it will be.
I care not about your responses, silly egotist its for the public good that your points need to be countered. Put your head in the sand and ignore me, go on I dare you, no no I DOUBLE DARE YOU keep ignorance as your chief weapon of argument! ooooo she aint gonna read what i say ohhh noooo how will i ever survive dumbitch
Nuisance posts responded to here in my thread about Poseidon: A poem: You. But it is actually rather amusing that he thinks Yawn might be trying to start a war by posting one single link.
