[RACooper]

Best article or commentary on the tragedy and attendant debate I have seen - or at least the best one I think in hitting the right points:

Aqsa's legacy is sassy Facebook photo

In the end, she had complete control over how we'll remember her

Dec 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Antonia Zerbisias
Living columnist

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

You don't have to venture far into the good book – Genesis 3:16 in my old King James – to get the Judeo-Christian word on the role of the little woman.

We hath not come a long way baby.

This week, we learned that one of the leading contenders for the Oval Office, the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, signed a full-page ad in USA Today way back in, oh, 1998 AD, endorsing the notion that "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."

Then there's ChristianDomestic Discipline.com for your Bible-thumping wife-beaters.

And let's not forget Purity Balls, those queasy-making cotillions that have dad and daughter dating and dancing while mom stays home. There, fathers pledge, hand over heart, to "choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will ... lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home."

Which brings us to the shocking death of Aqsa "Axa'' Parvez, whose father Muhammad stands charged with murder. According to her friends, the Mississauga teen would not submit to his idea of Muslim purity.

You get where I am going with this?

Now obviously, anybody who kills their child has issues, to say the very least. But violent disagreements between parents and kids happen irrespective of race, religion or culture.

Growing up, I knew many girls who would sneak around with their non-ethnically approved boyfriends or hike up their skirts as soon as they left the overly watchful eye of their "this is the way it was in my backwoods village in 1953" macho dads. I have no doubt their fathers raised their hands to them.

Was that a cultural, generational or gender clash?

Does it matter? Aqsa Parvez is dead, period, full stop. But, if some people have their hate-filled way, there will be hateful calls to limit immigration from Muslim countries and to boycott Muslim business.

Oh, wait, that's already happening. I'd print the web address but it doesn't deserve the exposure.

It's a patriarchal world. Parvez was victimized in and by it.

Patriarchy crosses virtually all religions, at least those invented since men figured out their role in making babies. That's when we went from the Mother Goddess to Our Father, who art Da Boss.

Even now, too many controlling men beat or kill their women because they think it's their God-given right.

-- the rest at:
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/285396

Like the article points out it was more the backwards patriarchal cultural crap that led to this than religion, it's just that many seem over eager to point the finger at religion in this case

PS> For the political watchers down south: did Huckabee really say that? Because wow