barbaric

I havent been paying that much attention to local political news, I've been glued to the terrible destruction in Japan... but while wandering around blogs tonight, I stumbled across several that were discussing an apparent issue with Justin Trudeau saying that he was not comfortable with the word 'barbaric' being used to describe honour killings. Now many are arguing semantics, blah blah. You can look it up for yourself, I cannot be bothered to post the links tonight.

Let's just make this a simple discussion about the word barbaric itself. If you look at various dictionaries online, the definitions slightly differ from site to site. The main gist of the word, however, seems to center around being 'savagely cruel'. That seems to fit in quite well with describing an honour killing, so what's your problem with that Justin?

However, there are also other uses for the word which contain such things as "uncultured", "uncivilized", "primitive", or even "unrestrained and crudely rich". Perhaps Justin has set his mind on those definitions and thinks it is unfair to call societies who allow honour killings "uncivilized"? Does he think it is wrong to diss countries/regions/religions who think honour killings are justified and acceptable? Perhaps that was his mindset for the comment but even that does not fly with me.

Ignatieff apparently attempted to come to Justin's aide by saying that all killings are a crime (my shortened version).. okay? So aren't other murders barbaric too? Could I not call a serial child killer barbaric? Or a person who tortures men and women before their death barbaric? I think it's pretty damned barbaric (savagely cruel) to purposefully kill another person for pretty much any reason. Self-defense aside and other extreme cases aside, it's all pretty barbaric - uncivilized, cruel, you name it.

So why set out honour killings any differently? Killing a woman because she does not want to marry who her family picked out? Or because she may have had an affair? Or because she looked directly into another man's eyes? Is that just a 'regular' killing like a gang member on the street or a domestic incident? Last time I checked, we do not tolerate murder in our country and do not condone it for 99% of reasons - yet in other places, it is allowed and/or ignored and people go about their business as usual. I would say that is pretty uncivilized. Having your brother and your father take you out and murder you because there is a rumor you defamed the family name? How is that not barbaric? Planned, purposeful, and somehow supported and accepted murder in the year 2011 IS barbaric. I don't know what Justin has been smoking, but if I was his wife, I would kick his ass. This is not a case of a gang-land shooting gone wrong, or a disgruntled employee 'going postal' on his coworkers in a fit of rage and desperation. It is PLANNED and ACCEPTED murder of women around the world while others turn a blind eye. How much more barbaric could you possibly get?

Justin, I think instead of trying to fix your booboo by spewing forth even more ridiculous words, you should just look up the word again, and start over. You could even state that almost all killings are barbaric and honor killings are not an exception to that. I'm pretty sure if someone stuffed you in a hole in the ground and stoned you to death in the village square, your family would be the first to say it was completely barbaric.