Justification

[rowyn]

Everyone has a story they tell themselves. A story that explains it all, that justifies it. Why it was the right thing to do. Why it made sense at the time. Why you are a good person.

"It was just a little white lie." "I didn't want to hurt his feelings." "She wanted it." "They've got so much, they'll never miss it." "He was asking for it." "It wasn't part of the contract." "Insurance will cover it." "I didn't know."

Everyone is the protagonist in their own story.

And I just want to know, what is yours?

Comments

[rowyn]

It's the last paragraph that gets me. It's hard to imagine the 'we'll murder your young children' philosophy attracting a lot of willing adherents. :(

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Sadly, they've even been successful at "we'll convince you to murder your OWN children for the sake of honor and purity."

Such "honor killings" run several thousand a year. Westerners think of this as being a sexual purity/marriage related thing, but the most common honor killings are for dress code violations.

The problem grows larger, but our focus on it has reduced because of political considerations. A decade ago there was less political squeamishness, and that's when this Human Rights Watch report was prepared:
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/pakistan/

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[level-head.livejournal.com]

Here's a Muslim's thoughtful take on honor killings (with grim details):
http://www.islam-watch.org/SyedKamranMirza/honor_killing.htm

===|==============/ Level Head