Posts Tagged ‘honor killings’

Michael Mandaville

Stoning: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?

by Michael Mandaville

And I don’t mean the movie. “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is a remarkable feature film about harsh Sharia law twisted by a husband against his wife. The film is brutal, honest and unflinching. Based upon Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1994 novel, the film straddles the world between fact and fiction, present and future.

“Soraya” epitomizes a woman’s plight in the Islamic world and reaches across the globe into communities which welcomed Muslim immigrants into their secular societies.  But the question left unasked by these societies – face to face – is this:  Will you accept the strictures of our society based upon Freedom and mutual respect?

Some Muslim immigrants (not all) refuse to embrace their adopted country’s mores and behaviors. They choose isolated communities.  In France, a friend told me that many third-generation Algerians still don’t speak French.  News reports about “disaffected youth” riots veil the source of burning cars in Paris – radicalized Islamist youth.  Herein lies the question about enforced societal acceptance of multiculturalism and freedom.

Freedom is a tough concept to sell. You know it when you have it. You can see when it’s absent, i.e., Iran, Zimbabwe, socialist left-wing dictatorships like China, etc.,  But it’s taken for granted in America.   Unfortunately in our ADD, media-centric world of flash, celebrity and shock, the world’s impression of freedom is excessive violence, sexuality and degradation. Freedom is confused with approval. The best definition I ever heard for Freedom was “The right to do what you want and the responsibility to take the right course of action.” (more…)

Pam Meister

‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’ – A Powerful, Must-See Film

by Pam Meister

As the world watches and waits for the political uprising in Iran to either succeed in toppling the brutal Khomeinist regime or be crushed by it, a movie by the name of The Stoning of Soraya M.  opens in limited release today. Far from being your typical summer fun film fare, Soraya depicts the ugliest, most brutal side of human nature and one woman’s crusade to keep it from being swept under the rug.

Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (The Path to 9/11) and written by Nowrasteh and his wife Besy Giffen-Nowrasteh, Soraya is based on the 1995 non-fiction book of the same name by Freidoune Sahebjam. Soraya takes place after the Islamic revolution in Iran and centers around Soraya (played by Mozhan Marnò), a woman whose husband, Ali (played by Navid Negahban), has tired of her after 20 years of marriage and wishes to discard her for a younger woman. Actually, “younger” is an understatement, as Ali lusts after a 14-year-old girl. Soraya knows about Ali’s plans, but won’t agree to a divorce because she knows she will be unable to provide for her two young daughters (the two sons will stay with Ali, of course). Ali must then come up with another scheme for getting rid of his uncooperative wife, and he uses guile, cunning and good old-fashioned blackmail to get the key players in place for what is passed off as a religious cleansing rite. (more…)