Crimson Robes, Baggy Jeans and Baseball Caps: What a Time to be an Apostate Puritan

Abstract

Recent increase in reported crimes against the person such as culturally induced domestic murder or honor killings have, justifiably, alarmed western consciousness and upset the congruence of imported value systems. In some parts of the world, this phenomenon is hardly newsworthy and is a prevalent event. It is seen as part of innate cultural appendage of the countries and a necessary but sad ingredient in the preservation of honor and cleansing of the land. In the Western world, however, and the US in particular, although not given the same recognition as other main stream crimes (partly because of the demographics involved), the news is an unwelcome reminder of the clash of a progressive movement that hangs on the coattails of 21st Century Human Rights ideology and the conservative servitude of dogma based on the concept of cleansing. It has been argued that in some Islamic countries, Sharia law is being used to underpin inept and repressive governments that deny women their most basic human rights as defined by national laws and international jurisprudence. However, some Muslim scholars argue that honor killing is devoid of Islamic teachings and reverential to the concept of cultural cleansing and honor. Those involved in such crimes claim justification by an appeal to some unspoken and allegiance to a higher and intrinsic law. Their defenders make the startlingly contradictory riposte that the victim was ‘a bad Muslim’. Yet, history shows that the concept that underpins honor killing is not the exclusive domain of Islam or indeed of non-Western cultures. Both the philosophy and the act are known to exist amongst most cultures and may be antecedent to the development of a coherent legal jurisprudence – criminal and civil. In this work, I present the rise of honor killings around the world and argue that is a much more complex social phenomenon that defies the modern concept of social justice and distances itself from human rights conventions. I also argue that it is neither new nor confined to the margins of medievalist cultural or religious myopia but is far more insidious even amongst 21st Century thinker. For some, it is a totemic and episodic rejection of permissive, inclusive culture epitomized by baseball hats and baggy jeans. From studies, it would appear that honor, pride and glory are, in the main, the trio that underpins continuity and the moral fabrics of the society. The moot question is whether the US criminal law jurisprudence and the human rights movement are erudite enough to adequately address the phenomenon and stem its conflagration.