Barbaric cultural (= religious = Muslim) practices

In the last session of Canada's 41st Parliament, the Conservative government of Steve "Call me Stephen" Harper passed the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, a law which proscribes, inter alia [That's enough Latin. Ed.] things like honour killings, forced marriage, and polygamy. Genital mutilation (aka female -- only -- circumcision) and sex-selective abortion were omitted because the neocon Tories were afraid to go there.

The barbaric cultural practices enumerated are more common in the Great Not-so-white North than you might think, largely because of the massive influx of immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers etc from the Middle East and South Asia, parts of the world where non-Christian religions, particular Islam hold sway.

Since culture and religion are inextricably conjoined, we're really talking about barbaric religious customs that Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs cling to even after they find refuge in the nominally Christian West. The old saw "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," has no meaning for those who bring their religious and cultural baggage with them. That's why laws like the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act are sadly necessary.

But you can't tell that to the bleeding-heart liberals, "progressive thinkers" and the hordes of lawyers and social workers getting rich forcing us to celebrate diversity. The ink was barely dry on the ZTBCPA [Got tired of writing it in full, eh? Ed.] before the chattering classes started denouncing it as Eurocentric, discriminatory, racist, yada yada yada.

The ZTBCPA is Islamophobic too, they tell us. Muslims aren't really barbaric, they tell us. As evidence to the contrary, Walt passes on a horror story from today's Guardian. Here's a photo of Sonia Bibi, a young Pakistani woman who died yesterday after a rejected suitor set her ablaze for refusing his marriage proposal.

Ms Bibi is ethnically Punjabi, a resident of the village of Multan, in the central Punjab district of Pakistan. She is, or was, a Muslim. So is Latif Ahmed, the former lover now accused of murdering her. She was admitted to hospital, where this picture was taken, last month.

Ms Bibi told police that she had fallen out of love with Mr. Ahmed, and preliminary investigations suggested he had set her on fire after she refused to marry him. Medical staff originally thought she would recover, but doctors told AFP yesterday that she had died after her injuries became infected.

What's disturbing about this case is that it's not unusual, at least not in Pakistan where hundreds of women are murdered every year in cases of domestic violence or on the grounds of defending family "honour". The Aurat Foundation, a campaign group that works to improve the lives of women in Pakistan's conservative and patriarchal society, says more than 3000 women have been killed in such attacks since 2008.

Such killings will doubtless continue, until Pakistan gets a Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act of its own. Chances of that happening? Slim and none! (Lifetime pct .989.)