Non-negotiable Cultural Difference

I pride myself on being a tolerant person; somebody who may disagree with your point of view passionately, but will respect your views and your right to hold them.

I am not a religous person, if I think about it and I'm honest, then I'm an aetheist. I respect Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and any other religious grouping, so long as they do not try to impose their belief on others or me. Live and let live has much to be said as a general philospophy for the 21st century. The world is a better and more interesting place for having a multitude of cultures and traditions and the individual can learn something from all of them whilst holding to his own faith, beliefs and values. I have really enjoyed travelling to other countries and cultures and learning from what they have to offer me - even if this has just been "thanks, but not for me!"

I was shocked to read on the BBC website of the case of a young woman in Somalia who was burried up to her neck in the ground and stoned to death for an alleged breach of Sharia law. It was claimed that she had indulged in sex before marriage, a crime in the eyes of Islam. It was suggested that she was a woman of twenty three years, but others put her at ten years younger. Her family claim that she had gone to the authroities with an allegation of rape. I believe that Islam holds this crime in just as much revulsion as is the case in western society. No matter what the truth of the situation, this young woman or child was put in a hole in the ground and stoned. If that was not bad enough, her semiconscious body was removed from the ground and checked for signs of life by, so the article suggests, qualified medical staff. They concluded that the girl was still alive and so she was re-buried and the barbarity started again. This time, the young woman died. A righteous act, perhaps.

To me and to my set of values, nothing can justify this evil. To me, consensual sex is a basic human right (providing that the participants are of age) and does not require the blessing of any religion, or the state. That is my belief. To me, subjecting a woman to the terror, degradation and humiliation of rape is a severe crime, meriting an appropriate sentence. I respect the right of (part of) the Somali people to carry out a punishment that they believe to be just (and I'm quite sure many Somailis would be as outraged by this as I am). But let me say this: I believe that western society should refuse to offer any financial or development aid to a country where such an act is legally sanctioned. Simple as that. Such an act is abhorrent to all that I believe in and whilst I cannot, in all conscience, set my values above those of any other people, that does not mean that I should condone it by agreeing to supply them with aid. I think that most of western civilisation would be as horrified and disgusted by this as I am, so I call on our politicians to make a stand over this issue, Such acts have no place in the twenty first century - period.