Do Not Lament Your Helplessness, Take EVERY Chance Afforded
12/11/2005 05:06 p.m.

Written December 7th, 2005

Today I heard a news story on NPR about “honor killings,” an act practiced my some conservative Muslim tribes. All quotes are paraphrases of what I distinctly remember being said. Today’s story comes from one of the small tribes in Iraq, where a 16-year old girl, “the light of our family” her father said, was abducted by some men. The abductors called her brother and said they wanted a ransom or else she would be raped and killed. Though the brother gave the ransom and she was returned, the male family members were set upon their task, and did not even ask her what happened. “She never expected us to do what we did,” said her father. When we picked her up “she was crying hysterically running to us, and I saw it in her eyes that she was expecting us to hold her tight in our arms and comfort her…instead she got the bullets.” Her cousin shot her because her brother and her father could not bring themselves to do so. And even though her mother protested at first, she later became silent seeing, as the cousin explains, “that it would not benefit her own situation to do so.” The young girl was killed in the name of “honor.” That her virginity may have been taken by rape or otherwise, is considered by them a disgrace upon the entire family. “If her virginity has been taken, then she is unclean, and brings a scandal upon our heads” her cousin said. These killings hardly ever reach the courts, nor do any tribe members or family members get in the way, rather, they turn a blind eye. Though her mother and siblings were all weeping, no one dared protest. Her cousin says that after he shot her he suddenly thought to himself, “what have I done?” But then he said that he would do it again if he had to, because her life would have become a hell. Her family would have had to imprison her in the house never to let her out, and her father would never again be able to raise his head in public. He said, “It is better for her that she is dead.” A conservative Shiite female gynecologist says that often men will bring in their wives to ask for a check up to see if they are still virgins. If she finds that they are not, she cannot tell the family for fear of their reaction and she avoids the question. Instead, she points them to a morgue where there are a group of people charged with determining whether or not her hymen is still intact. If it is not, then she may well end up back in that morgue for good. This Dr. believes that a woman should be punished for infidelity, but not for being a victim of rape. Meanwhile, other human rights groups are working to try and protect the rights of these women. All too often these “honor killings” become guises for domestic violence, one such organization member said. Currently, there are only one or two shelters in Iraq that house those women who are in danger. The cousin of the young girl admits that he beats his wife with a rod and says, “this too is part of our honor system, and it is ingrained in us. When a man is abducted, his safe return brings with it a cause for celebration. When a woman is safely returned she brings back with her only shame and disgrace. But nothing will change, we will continue to do these things because it is tradition, it is deeply rooted in our belief system. How can it change? How can it?” He asks defiantly.

The story speaks for itself. Obviously it is a stroke of luck and coincidence alone that places each individual in their particular set of circumstances, culture, religion, country, and family. It is because I live “here” that I do not have “those” ideals. Or perhaps, if I lived “there” I could not fight these ideals and beliefs for fear that I too might be murdered in the name of “honor” or quite simply, for my defiance of tradition. Whatever the inhumane treatment found in this world, whatever atrocities one human afflicts onto another, and for whatever reason, I feel obligated to question this most hideous and ugly nature of mankind. If I had been born there, would I too stand by idly while my daughter was killed? If I were born a man of that tribe, would I too have become so entangled in my beliefs that I could close my eyes to any form of human logic or rationale and work against nature to slaughter my own offspring? Would I too cease to question those traditions that shed the blood of those I love in order to save the so-called good name of my family? I wonder what these things we call “beliefs” really are, and why we are so adamant to create all kinds of nonsensical myths and traditions, believing them without question simply because they have been passed down from generation to generation. Believing them without consideration of their origins or the possibility and necessity of change. I wonder how it is that we can be so ugly inside as to justify the torture and murder of our own seed for the sake of some intangible concept of reputation shared by others? Is it fear that drives us to act upon the irrational traditions of the common belief system? What is it that makes us blind enough to believe that an act that is clearly against nature’s order is perfectly sensible? Is it power or pleasure? What is it that manifests within ME this hideous ugly potential? Because how can this ugliness not lie somewhere within my own potential when it can lie in the potential of all others? Indeed it does lie within me. I too am part of the mass conception of reality, the CROWD without contained many places within. This man was very right when he said, “It is tradition. How can it change?” Yes, how can it change when one is unwilling to change? How can it change when one is unwilling to break the chain for fear of repercussions, or for power’s sake, or pleasure’s sake? But well, most people are simply blind, believing what is irrational to be common sense, though unlike this fellow here who seems aware but still unwilling to rebel or change even if it is just from within without the knowledge of those who might ‘ruin him’.

The truth is that I very well could have been that man, and I very well could have been that mother, or her weeping siblings, or that girl herself. And it is only the one who’s INDIVIDUAL within remains intact who has the potential to question and to rebel against the common belief system. It is only one who has this individual within him who can SEE beyond to question the common beliefs. And an individual is only created when one is receptive to that first impression which can create it. But who has the potential to be receptive? Why is one man receptive to the impression and another not? This too is a matter of coincidence. For I, even in believing that I am open to any idea, am still subject only to my conditioning and to my genetics. Yet if to this potential reception I am lucky enough to be born, then why should I lament my helplessness in having the potential within to be an individual? I believe that beliefs should never be set in stone, nor any conviction lain to rest for good within the vault of the flawed mechanism of mind…this belief too must be malleable. I should be willing to reconsider any belief if I were to be present before a glimpse of ‘truth’ not only when it shakes the foundation of that belief, but even if it were to gently nudge it. The only shame is that this unlucky girl too could have had that potential which so few will have. She may have been one of the lucky few if not for her tragic lack of luck brought on by the chain of events, and the law of chance and all those other laws we are so helplessly tied to. Then again, if we know we cannot transcend the million natural laws that sometimes have us behaving unnaturally (or even too naturally,) then we can perhaps learn to manipulate them from within the confines of our chains, stretching them to their limits by using their weaknesses to counter their strengths. What limits we have are hardly ever percieved, let alone tested. So, if the laws so happen to coincidentally OPEN MY EYES, then I must never justify my idleness by labeling myself "helpless," but shall embrace my helplesness in order to transcend the psychological grip that confines me to defining my limits, instead of determining them...