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Depending on the severity of their violation a Muslim could only be fined by the court or he could even be executed; a lot of Islamic countries don't have a proper judicial system and base off their verdicts on a simple assumption (O'Conell). I think it's weird that these barbaric punishments are still practiced in some countries even after all these declarations of human rights have been established in most parts of the world. The idea of having someone beheaded, even if that someone is a murderer, is primitive, especially when a lot of the reasons for which people are executed are pretty irrational; and even some of the ways in which they are executed are very torturous. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in which Sharia law is very radically practiced, people are publicly beheaded for committing crimes like murder or rape and when thieves are caught their hand is cut off (O'Conell).
Sharia law has a lot of specific punishments that concern a woman's conduct. For example, a woman can get punished for showing a bit too much of her face or body. Another group that is severely castigated by Sharia law are homosexuals, if someone is caught or even suspected of being homosexual they are executed (O'Conell).
One of the things I find most amusing about the practice of Sharia law is that some of the punishments they carry out are so barbaric that they demean the actual status of both the person that is being castigated as well as the people punishing this person, how can they even be considered humans after they perform these actions? When talking about the Muslim veils last week I somewhat concluded that a woman that actually wants to wear a veil because it is part of her cultural heritage shouldn't be bothered by the government, but when this conclusion is applied to the situation of punishments its illogical... what if they consider this forms of punishment their cultural heritage or that this punishments are actually imposed by God and they cannot be changed at all? Both culture and religion are very complex and controversial concepts to mess with, and a change of culture is much more difficult than any other kind of change. I believe that we can only aim at gradually reducing the radical and extreme nature of these punishments, the only other option would be to force the countries to abandon these practices, but this would probably lead to greater political problems, maybe even a World War, and we don't want that... do we?
Works Cited
O'Connell, Kelly. "Crime & Punishment in Islamic Law." Canada Free Press. 26 Sept. 2010. Web. 1 Sept. 2011. <http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/28083>.
I find very interesting what you just wrote about, and I agree with your perspective on the topic. It is a primitive and barbaric way of leading a culture, and its practices seem even verging on ignorance and blind idolatry to the already old aspects of this religious matter. One thing, though, is that while reading the description of the types of punishments that might be enforced, the whole situation kept reminding me about what we are living nowadays here in Mexico. Isn’t the cruelty level the same? And here, we don’t even have a law to use as an excuse for treating people that way. This all makes me wonder, are we, like human beings, loosing or ability to empathize with each other? Has this been that terrible since the beginning of history? Maybe one of our characteristics as humans is that we can reach a point of being insensible to other’s feelings and not caring about other’s pain, as long as it doesn’t affect us.
ResponderEliminarGoing back to what you said about the possibility of changing this situation, I also think that maybe, if well-influenced by other countries, these countries will be able to slowly come out of their own ideas and integrate the ideas and laws of freedom established, ‘respected’ and promoted by other countries, especially world’s leading powers. As you said, forcing the country to abandon these practices would turn out to be a terrible idea, since they might react to it. I guess nobody like to be told that their practices are primitive and inaccurate, and how to lead a better culture instead. Culture is already a part of each country, so trying to change it as radical as that, wouldn’t work out. And a World War is the last thing we need right now!
So, I’ll keep on checking your blog :) It’s cool, because this is a topic I didn’t know much about. (I can now say I learned something today! Yay.) ;) keep up the good work!
Hi Marce!
ResponderEliminarBoth of your entries the one of last week and this one are quite controversial because, on one side there's the point of view of our culture were these types of actions (murder, torture and make women use veils) are seen as incorrect or non-ethical, but on the other side where are we leaving our tolerance? How can we be sure that what they are doing is incorrect and our system of justice, which most of the times is quite corrupt, is right? I am not stating here that it is OK to murder people or torture them but maybe since these people are so connected with their system of laws it might be possible that they actually do respect them and have lower indices on crime.
On the veil part I am not a supporter of it since well I just try to imagine myself wearing it every day even if the weather is hot of cold or warm or you're cooking, sewing, walking etc. and I am sure I would not be able to cope with it, it would be too much. On the other hand, I don't think it was the right move from Italy's and France's part to prohibit women the use of their veils because they see that it is hard to do the right thing for their culture and now they are making it harder in those countries.
Well, that is just my opinion, keep up the good work and I'll write you later! ;)