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Protecting Indigenous Culture: Honor Killings versus Globalization

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by

mwkruse
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Nova Scotia Scott has a post today, Turkey: Family jailed for life in honour killing:

A Turkish court has ordered five members of the same family imprisoned for life in the murder of a 16-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped.

The original news report is posted at CyberPresse.ca. What follows is my (literal but somewhat stilted) translation of most of the story: …

Every time I read horrific stories like the one Scott has translated here, an interesting question comes to mind.

Few of us living outside this honor-shame-oriented culture do not recoil at this stuff. We support efforts to end it. We want to change the indigenous culture. However, one of the most fervent arguments made against economic globalization is that it destroys indigenous cultures. This is frequently made on behalf of societies where economic and governmental practices do not sustain the inhabitants' lives or do so at levels far below what we in developed nations would consider befitting human dignity. Why is it that indigenous culture is held up something to be preserved in these cases?

Mind you, I'm not saying that Western living models are the model for the rest of the world. There are likely many models cultures could adopt and still integrate with the global economy. I suspect that contrary to the stated desire to protect local cultures, the driving motivator of anti-globalization folks is opposition to market economies.

Comments

7 responses to “Protecting Indigenous Culture: Honor Killings versus Globalization”

  1. vanskaamper Avatar
    vanskaamper

    Anti-capitalist mentalities married with a politically expedient moral relativism that has successfully made most Westerners squeamish about defending the positive aspects of their own culture, as well as equally unwilling to condemn things like honor killings, female circumcision and other horrors in other cultures.

    Reply
  2. ZZMike Avatar
    ZZMike

    The point is, preserve what’s good, discard what’s bad.
    Not every “indigenous culture” is worthy of preserving. Let’s hope that cannibalism is not respected, for example.
    Use of the term “honor killing” is reprehensible in these cases.

    Reply
  3. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    “…preserve what’s good, discard what’s bad.”
    I think that is true of own culture as well as others but therein lies the great challenge. Which are the good things and which are the bad?

    Reply
  4. vanskaamper Avatar
    vanskaamper

    Well, that’s what the culture war is all about, isn’t it?
    The old cannard that you “can’t legislate morality” is, to me, obviously false if you actually think about the statement for any length of time. Any and all laws regulate behavior in the name of some social “good” or affirm some sort of value judgment.
    This country has, historically, been morally informed by the Judeo/Christian tradition and Scriptures.
    As our culture distances itself from that anchor in the name of diversity and secularism, good and bad become much more fuzzy and subjective notions.
    Honor killings are still so far over the line that most Westerners can condemn them without much angst (many bio-ethicists excepted, of course), but the question of identifying what’s good and what’s bad is rapidly becoming a question that our culture wants to avoid or obfuscate.

    Reply
  5. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    But I think it is also true that even with our Judeo/Christian traditions we had little problems with slavery, dehumanization of native people in America, and many now regret many of the methods that were used by missionaries during the greate foriegn missions movement. In what way are we blowing it today that we will reflect on 100 years from now and wander what we were thinking?
    I sympathize with your observation but even our good intentions can be destructive.

    Reply
  6. vanskaamper Avatar
    vanskaamper

    Well, I’d disagree with your comment about slavery–was it not devout Christians who ultimately drove the political movement to abolish it?
    I agree, however, with your observation about the cultural imperialism that accompanied and to a large extent perverted past missionary movements
    But, I think the larger point is that even our criticisms of our own actions are based ultimately on Judeo/Christian notions of right and wrong as an objective standard that enables us to see the errors of our own ways and try to correct them.

    Reply
  7. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    I guess the point I’m making is that, with regard to any given issue, are we the Christians of the late 18th Century embracing slavery or the late 19th Century rejecting it?
    The Judeo/Christian heritage has indeed led to self-correction but it still begs the question of what things we are doing today that our descendants will one day have rejected based on Judeo/Christian values. Simply intending to live by Judeo/Christian values, and doing so to the best of our ability, doesn’t mean we will have made the right decision.

    Reply

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