Long overdue to be posted — it was lost in my drafts. Part I is here.

A friend shares her observations as a Westerner living in the Middle East: Read the rest of this entry »

(Cross-posted on The Angry Mandrel lampworking board)

We had to pick up cat food and litter this afternoon, so we stopped at PetsMart. The rescue societies were out in full force — so many adorable dogs and cats, puppies and kittens…each with a story more heartwrenching than the one before. The boxer mix whose family wouldn’t give him the attention he needed; the chihuahua mix who was tied to a tree in the yard and kept breaking loose and running away; the Yorkies that had been abused by their previous owner; the teenaged mama cat and her kittens that had been abandoned — and many, many more. I started crying when we got back in the car.

In the past week at the shelter where I volunteer, we had a “door dump” abandoned because her owner could no longer care for her, a cat adopted almost four years ago returned because her owners “no longer had room for her,” and worst of all, three babies, barely three weeks old, that had been found in the wall of a house being demolished. The young woman who found them had taken them home, but her parents would have nothing to do with it — the mother very vehemently told our shelter manager that if she wouldn’t take them they would just be dumped off at the Wal-Mart up the road. So they are now in the care of one of our volunteer foster parents, one of my fellow clean & feed shift members who was supposed to be taking a break from fostering because of recent illness/death in the family. Now she has these three kittens, who must be syringe-fed every few hours.

I feel so angry and frustrated and helpless to do enough. All these animals want is food and water and shelter and someone to love, and to love them back. I would not have survived the last decade without my IrisKitty and SarahCat. It is so totally beyond my comprehension that people can be so hurtful and cruel, especially to those who look to us for care and companionship, and give so much back in return.

I am not a religious person but I pray there is a special hell for those who abuse animals and children.

Currently in Turkey, when women are determined to have “dishonored” their families, we are seeing “honor suicides” instead of the previous “honor killings.” Women and girls as young as twelve are being pressured to kill themselves to save a male relative from killing them to salvage the family honor, and thus earning a potentially lengthy prison term. The women will often do so, believing they have no alternative.

Although this and many other forms of violence against women may not be limited to Muslim societies, that is where it is by far the most prevalent. Other forms of violence, such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage, the ensuing abuse of women in such marriages, forced prostitution, “dowry beatings,” and the rape and genocide routinely practiced by terroristic groups are coming more and more to light.

Yet these acts are actually condoned by many, not only within the cultures where they are mostly seen but within Western society as well! They are spoken of as mere “cultural differences,” to be tolerated as something we cannot understand from outside the culture. Not so! No culture can be considered civilized or worthy of respect if it treats any of its people as lesser beings. Nor are those who tacitly support and condone such behavior, often because they benefit from it, any less guilty of these crimes. Evil is evil, no matter in what guise it is seen.

Appalling. Horrifying. Disgusting. Cultural differences, my ass.