As a gun blog where more of the writers lean Right than Left, we get some flack from time to time, any time we bring up connections between Islam and gun violence. Strike that. Every time we run a story that connects the dots between Islam and gun violence, you can bet your bottom drachma that we’re gonna generate some controversy. So fasten your seatbelts, campers, because news is rolling out that the Christmas day murder/suicide in Grapevine, Texas was evidently an Islamic honor killing.
Multiple news sources report that the families involved were all Muslim, and the father went over the edge, because he did not approve of his 19-year-old daughter dating outside her faith.
Just to be clear here, TTAG does it’s best to give you the truth about guns. When we report or comment on the news, we play it straight, and take pains to separate our point of view/bias from the facts. In fact, if you’ll go back and read our first story on this tragedy, you’ll see where we did our level best not to jump to conclusions, regardless of how easy it was to connect the dots and make a cognitive leap on that motive thang. But there’s a line between trying to be fair and ignoring what’s obvious.
Believe it or not, I’m somewhat sympathetic to dads that are concerned enough with their kids social lives to make sure that those that they date are upstanding, good people. I’m far less sympathetic to those who cross the line and go from “good dad” to “controlling, manipulating, obsessive, domineering, stalker-dad.” Apparently, Aziz Yazdanpanah got his control freak on, even going so far as to nail her bedroom window shut to prevent her from sneaking out of the house to visit her boyfriend.
Yep. Nailing windows shut is crossing the line.
See, I’m of the opinion that if you raise your kids right from the get-go, you won’t have the discipline problems you fear, when they are older. If you’re permissive, indulgent, and never set limits or equate cause with effect early-on, it’s nigh-on impossible to do it when they are teens. It’s like trying to lock the barn door after the horses have skeedaddled. Useless.
My kids learned at a very early age that there were rules and consequences. Break the rules, pay the price. Parents that bend the rules for their kids, giving them the “benefit of the doubt” do them no favors in the long run. You can’t be your child’s buddy when they’re young, letting them do whatever the Hell they want, then turn around when they become teenagers and suddenly expect them to toe the line.
I suspect Aziz made this mistake. Reports indicate that he installed security cameras around the house, not to track potential criminals, but to keep an eye on the comings and goings of his family. Now there’s a healthy familial relationship. Others interviewed indicated that he controlled her wardrobe, monitored her cell phone usage, read her text messages, and demanded she date only within her race and religion.
Look, I’m as much of a hard-ass about my kid’s wardrobe as the next guy. When you take a look at what 13-year-old girls see in the media as “the norm” or “stylish,” you’ve kinda gotta wonder if everybody in the fashion world has lost their minds. Most role models for young girls look like they shop at “Ho’s-R-Us” or subscribe to the theory that the sluttier they dress, the better-off they are.
So I get where he wanted to make sure his daughter didn’t follow the rest of the lemmings off the tasteless fashion cliff. On the other hand, I don’t make my kid wear a burnoose or dress like a 17th-Century Quaker. (No offense to Quakers intended.)
According to several co-workers at a local Sam’s Club, Nona Yazdanpanah told them that her dad had purchased a gun after expressing concern that the 19-year-old’s boyfriend was stalking her. He insisted on picking up his daughter at work, ostensibly to keep the stalker from harming his daughter.
Again, if this were true, I don’t know of any dad who would let harm come to their child, especially from an abusive stalker boyfriend. But from reports, it looks like the one with the psychological problem wasn’t the boyfriend, but dad.
Part of the problem here is the clash of cultures – the Iranian/Islamic/Old World idea that the father is the absolute ruler of the family, versus the American/Secular-Humanist/New Age idea that “if it feels good do it.” But saying this is an “Old World” phenomenon is wrong. This is strictly a Muslim thing, specifically a Wahhabi Muslim ting. Trying to blame “old world values” is nothing more than an attempt to white-wash the real problem, by effectively saying “Oh yeah? Everybody does it.” But they don’t. Israel, from what I’ve been able to learn, has had NO honor killings among the Jewish population. Hmm. And they are a part of the Middle East, no?
To put it another way, take all the incidents of parents murdering their own children, in cases where they didn’t approve of the kid’s behavior/social lives. How many of those families were Muslim, and how many were Christians, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Wiccans, or believer in some other religion? I would wager that better than 95% of the families were worshipers of Mohammed and Allah.
When someone moves from a culture that believes honor killings are an acceptable part of society into a culture that has devolved into a permissive society where pretty much anything goes, something’s gotta give. Either the immigrant family loosens up and adapts to their new home’s social morés, or they have to live with the inevitable clash of cultures. It’s just that simple.
You likely won’t hear anything about this in the mainstream media. It doesn’t fit the narrative they promote where all Muslims get a pass, because to report a connection between Islam and violence would be racist and betray a bigoted attitude. So they’ll sweep this whole “honor killing” under the rug, just like they did with the Fort Hood massacre.
And just like they will again, the next time something like this happens. And when some jackwagon mayor, legislator, or Congressman proposes that Sharia Law could “peacefully co-exist” within the American system of jurisprudence, they’ll be able to ignore incidents like this, because there’s no official connection between the killing and Islam.
Do I believe that every follower of Islam is guilty-by-association with Yazdanpanah? Of course not. Nor do I believe that just because you are Muslim, that means you think it’s okay to kill your family members if they don’t behave according to your interpretation of the Koran. But I don’t see a lot of Christians killing their kids and using their religion as justification for same.
But what I am saying is that the media does us a huge injustice by covering for extremists like this insane idiot, for the result will either be that non-Muslims will eventually persecute all Muslims for the crimes of a few, or we will be asleep at the switch to the dangers of honor killings and other tenets of Sharia Law as extremists push for them to become a part of the fabric of American life.