Horrifying Headlines
evawhite on June 26th, 2008
Recently I seem to have come across an inordinate amount of horrifying headlines, which I thought I would share with you; not because I have some ghoulish interest in all things horrible but because when you read something that horrifies you, it makes you think and speaking personally, it always makes me resolve to be a better person and to manage my anger more effectively.
This one I first read over at the gin blog, and that got me thinking about honor killings: “17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for becoming infatuated with a British soldier serving in southern Iraq.” The father, reportedly stamped on, suffocated and stabbed his daughter. Not only is he unrepentant about his heinous act, he is still a free man and was supposedly congratulated by the police for his act instead of being arrested! Then a few years ago, a Pakistani father killed his daughter for marrying against his wishes; the father then proceeded to kill his other three daughters aged 12, 8 and 4 so that they may not dishonor him and his family by doing the same as their sister!
Apparently honor killings claim some 5000 lives a year according to a UN report and honor killings apply mostly to the women in the poorer countries where they are the most impoverished and the least empowered.
Now this one seems to be one that appears all too often in the Western Media, rather than honor killings, it is serial or other psychopathic killings: “a 15-year-old girl wearing her school uniform was found in the lift of Matheson Lang House on Baylis Road in Lambeth with at least 10 knife wounds to her front, neck and back.”
Another malaise the seems to stalk western society, perhaps because of breakup of the traditional family structure and the lack of support that is therefore available to young mothers, is characterized by this horrifying headline: Mother of Quadruplets charged with beating! “She was arrested on fourteen counts of child abuse. One son was hospitalized in a near-vegetative state. The other three children suffered skull fractures and broken bones. They were placed in foster care.” Apparently she was a single mother, who already had a six year old suffering from Downs when the quads were born.
Are these horrifying stories signs of a sick society or are they just aberrations that will help you and I check our own behavior and perhaps make us strive to be better people? Your thoughts?
