I suspect one of the prime reasons her parents were convicted was that her sister who witnessed the murder testified that Shafilea was suffocated by having a plastic bag stuffed down her throat. It’s not the sort of thing you make-up really. I mean it is unusual.
Mr and Mrs Ahmed both received life sentences with a minimum tariff of 25 years. Good.
They murdered their daughter horrifically and then dumped the body because Shafilea was basically westernized. She hung with boys and listened to pop music and wore lip-stick. If I had a teenage daughter it’s kinda what I’d expect. Some of the boys and almost all of the pop music I might harrumph about behind from a newspaper. Actually I pay myself a disservice here. When I think of some of the folks I hung out with as a teenager and the terrible rubbish I listened to I’d have to conclude it was a learning curve. Making good judgments on either requires experience. It’s like criticizing a kid who is good at algebra for not knowing the tensor analysis required for General Relativity. Unless they are Doogie Howser and then moider most horrid is to be generally applauded.
The print copy of the Manchester Evening News (this is not 100% accurate - I merely glanced at it in a shop) had this quote from the judge, “You cared more about your honour than you loved your daughter”. Now if you put scare quotes around “honour” (for there is nothing honourable about gagging to death your daughter with a plastic bag) and maybe the judge did that vocally in the actual delivery that hits the nail on the head. Almost. There is another aspect here Shafilea was “Westernized”. What we had was a clash of cultures. I once seriously dated an American woman. Now if I had moved to the USA and say we got married, had kids and lived in the States would I expect those children to speak with my accent or be interested in Newcastle United in the FA Cup quarter finals? Of course not! And if we’d wound up in Blighty I doubt they’d give a tinker’s cuss for the fortunes of the Atlanta Braves either. It is utterly barking mad to expect otherwise.
You move to another country you move to another culture. You have to accept that. You may bring aspects of your culture (not exceeding 23kg) and that is cool but fundamentally you are going to have a miserable time of it if you don’t just jump in and swim - and hey you might even find stuff you really enjoy! And your kids will have a truly grim time of it if you enforce the “old country” on them because they weren’t pandering just around the pool and deciding whether or not to go in. They were born in the deep end.
One of the nicest guys I ever met (we were on the same team at BT) was J and he was a gen 2 Bangladeshi immigrant. He kept the Islamic faith, spoke with a Geordie accent and we “bonded” because we were both computer geeks and the training was interminable and largely incorrect on that score. He went with us on nights out (ultimate designated driver and his motor was a big ol’ Peugeot). He taught at a mosque in Elswick but was perfectly happy to drive me after a few jars and some of the lasses (these are Geordie lasses) wearing very little (one of them had as her primary “career” having sex with footballers). Apparently, at the time, she rated Wayne Bridge highest. Odd, because I always thought him fairly mediocre. Obviously I was judging on very different criteria. She knew sod all about footie and I knew nothing about shagging Wayne Bridge.
So it is possible to integrate (though hopefully not with a pretty dreadful left-back) and retain the essence of your culture but some baggage has to be checked. And some has to be left completely. And your children, and their children will naturally be much more of the adoptive culture. Otherwise why bother moving in the first place? Hell, I even saw this in a small way with my US girlf. She’d spent two years in England and folks back in Atlanta would comment on her accent. My great aunt was a ten pound immigrant to Australia. She is alas now dead but her sons and their kids are still with us. Not even she regarded herself after decades living in Melbourne as British - and why should she - Australia was where she made her career (nursing), raised her children, bought a house… What do you think the grandchildren think of themselves as? Well who do they follow in the cricket?
So it’s fine to bring your culture here (I was once finely treated to Mexican meal cooked by a Mexican… in Leeds) but there is also barbarism up with which we shall not put. So if “honour” killings or female genital mutilation or forced marriages are your schtick then consider another country - like Yemen. If the freedom to worship as you please (or not) or cook delicious Mexican food for astrophysics post-grads (and also being a mind-blowingly brilliant mathematical logician, having gorgeous green eyes speaking perfect English, knowing a lot about Borges and, alas, also have a boyfriend in Manchester - feck!) is your schtick then come one, come all!
This is not about “British values” (whatever they are) but universal values. It is utterly wrong to murder your daughter. It is utterly wrong to horrifically mutilate your daughter’s genitals (30 years and no trial) to keep her “pure” or forcing a marriage which is tantamount to holding a girl (and I mean “girl” not “woman” because it usually is) down whilst some fuckwit who can’t get “it” through wit, charm, good looks or playing left-back for Man City gets his jollies.
Culture is one thing. Evil is another.
Well said, Sir!
The ‘immigrant’ experience has, traditionally, been one of voluntary integration into the host culture - Yiddish musical theatre and German newspapers in Philadelphia notwithstanding - and the highest accolade was to be able to ‘pass’ as a natural-born member of the new host country. However, such efforts have been consistently undermined over the last 40 years by leftist-politicians seeking to foment identity politics and further their own constituency.
Add to the mix the ability to communicate instantaneously with the ‘old country’, and cheap international travel, and you have to wonder why any immigrant would want to make an effort at integration when he may avail himself of his prior cultural comforts with relative ease.
“There is another aspect here Shafilea was “Westernized”. What we had was a clash of cultures.”
And yet, strangely, the father didn’t curse out the police in Punjabi or Arabic when he was taken down to the cells, but in good old fashioned Anglo Saxon…
And the father apparently didn’t mind being a bit “westernised” when it suited him
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19119014
They say the apple never falls far from the tree. Are we going to see the two offpsring who lied to protect two murderers charged with perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice?
Lynne, I think they were terrified.
Eddie,
Skype and EasyJet are not the issue. My sister-in-law lives in Poland and she speaks Polish. She is still of course English but she has integrated into Polish culture and eats carp for Christmas.
They say the apple never falls far from the tree. Are we going to see the two offpsring who lied to protect two murderers charged with perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice?
There is always going to be a trade-off to be made in these circumstances. Alesha Ahmed, who provided the prosecution with the backbone of the case, was obviously deeply traumatised by the murder, to the extent of organizing a bizarre armed robbery of her parents house which brought the case to light.
To prosecute her and the other children of this couple for failing to turn in their parents for this crime would have been counter-productive. It would not have served the interests of justice, in that it might have prevented children in similar cases from coming forward and acting as witnesses for the prosecution.
I want similar cases to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and if this means ignoring lesser charges (such as perjury) against both the other children and witnesses, then I am sanguine about that.
Although I do not applaud the children lying to protect their parents in this case, I’m not sure I would want to live in a country that prosecutes children for lying to protect their parents.
Although I don’t subscribe to the leftist ‘victim’ mentality, it seems to me that the children of this abominable couple are also lesser victims of this horrible crime.
I won’t applaud them, but I can’t in my heart condemn them. Let them try and get on with their shattered lives as best they can, because it seems to me they have suffered enough under the tyranny of their parents and further prosecution by the state is not in anybodies interests.
John,
Top comment.
Mrs SAoT is from Iran and having seen the joys and benefits that Islam brings to a country her family* cleared off more or less en masse in the late 1980’s along with most of the middle class. Thus their slight problems in drilling for oil for a few years (everyone who knew how to do it, er, left).
Whilst she has some odd views on religion (in my view) I would not want to pry her away from a Gin & Tonic, crazy expensive handbags and dresses or indeed the Ibizan club scene. To her credit, she has agreed to let the boy (now three) make his own mind up in religous matters; I am not sure I will be so restrained.
Iranians get a bad press in general, but they do integrate in my experience. Of the wider circle I know in South Wales, not a single second generation kid has married another Iranian. Irish, American, Welsh, Aussies, Japanese an orthodox Jew (one hell of a wedding I can tell you), soon a Lebanese, but no other Iranians.
And this is really the point, if you go to a country, embrace it and for sure, know your kids will. If you prefer treating females and goods and chattels, marrying your cousin and thereby seriously risking your offspring’s genetic variation and a range of other joys that make Pakistan the popular tourist destination that it is today, perhaps its best to stay there.
(*Who I really admire for trading a comfortable middle class life, to come to the UK with pennies (exchange rate issues) and at the time, limited English for the daughters futures. They have since worked pretty hard, paid taxes and now enjoy another comfortable middle class life, and the old man and I often enjoy a Stella together).
Makes you wonder, if “the old country and its ways” are so damn good they want to relive them here, why the Hel did they leave in the first place?
Furor - “why the Hel did they leave in the first place?”
Why do you think? Free money, housing, helathcare, pretty straight law enforcement, and a labour party committed to pandering to them - I’d have thought?
British ex-pats in Spain tend to behave in exactly the same way - enclaves looking down their noses at the natives.
enclaves looking down their noses at the natives.
But they don’t force their children to marry their first cousins from Virginia Water do they Ian?
Yes, Ian (nto) B. I’ve been to the Costa del Sol and there were “faces” who’d been there 20 years and couldn’t speak a fucking word of Spanish. They were obnoxious. The British ex-pats on Malta are if anything worse mind. Tutting over pints of bitter into their Daily Mails.
But what I utterly fail to understand is in places like Krakow and Prague with all the sites the capacity of the British tourist to not see a damn thing apart from the inside of a bar.
Oh cummon Nick, the pattern of British immigration, in the Costa Del Sol, as in Cyprus, north and south, is completely different to immigration to Britain. Brits tend to go to retire and grab a bit of sun and Sangria before the lights go out on them, usually with a decent wedge in the back pocket. Generally they don’t go there to work or suck up benefits.
As to Malta, we’ve both been there right? The place speaks English, nobody learns Maltese. It has a Marks and Spencer and red post boxes for fuck’s sake. The Maltese are very much like us. Even down to the food. I had the best Cottage pie I ever tasted when I was there. The island almost became a county of England with MPs back in the fifties, but it didn’t pan out, more’s the pity.
One of the advantages of living in Penang, Malaysia is that the vast majority of the people speak English (at least to some degree), so it is pretty easy to get by with groceries and stuff. I also speak a bit of Bahasa Malaysia to get by with the street hawkers to buy the great food that is available here (especially Dim Sum and oyster omelette).
The nearest tourist resort is Batu Ferringhi / Georgetown, about 14km North of me, so I tend to be the only white guy in town most of the time. This also means that I don’t get dragged into the ‘expat Brit’ scene which exists around Batu Ferringhi, except for the bi-monthly beer-and-a-meal.
Strangely enough, one of the expats has just moved to Batu Ferringhi from sunny Valletta, Malta and matched your description perfectly. Although it is known as “The Pub”, it’s also known as “Ollies Last Stand” as Oliver Reed famously died after a final drinking session in the pub. Graham the barman was described as “Having the personality of Jack Dee on Valium”.
Rab’s point about Brits having a last few beers in the sun in an entirely English speaking enclave before pegging out is pretty accurate.
Here in Malaysia, expats seeking long term residence have to purchase comprehensive medical insurance, obtain a UK Police Certificate and maintain a fixed deposit & lien of 300,000 MYR (about £61,000) in exchange for a rolling 10-year residence permit with no right to work here.
If these sorts of entry conditions applied for entry to the UK I suspect there would be almost no interest from the Indian sub-continent. However, too many IT firms are dependent upon importing cheap labour from India to let this happen at the present time.
Sadly, Expect more “Honour Killings” to continue as the UK police and political establishment is too riddled with Political Correctness to take effective action.
Nick and John G - yep, when put like that you make a lot of sense.
The difference between multi-racialism and multi-culturalism. The former is good, the later bad.
You can have multiple races but one culture. Blacks playing Cricket, Chinese morris dancers, etc. And when everyone is on the same wavelength peace and harmony exists.
When you have multiple cultures but one race, then you are heading for disaster. Can’t remember it was I read it (prob reason.com) there are Japanese who have lived in Brazil and integrated into Brazilian culture. When they go to the “homeland” they find they are rejected by the local Japanese because of their different background.
And then we get the opposite.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184351/Parents-jailed-beating-daughter-17-having-black-boyfriend.html
Just as bad no matter what race the parents are.