Sweden - Opinion Along Lines: Culture is Relevant re Sexual Assaults of European Women

---------------------------------------- ARTICLE ---------------------------------------- Swedish to English Google Translation https://archive.is/7N9rm "Certain attitude to women of different cultures" The debate in Sweden amazes me, writes Turkish researcher Özge Öner. She writes that we must recognize and understand the different cultures and social systems have different views on women's rights; To deny this is not only ignorant but also insulting to the millions of women's struggle for equality. We Are Sthlm 2015th I was born and raised in Turkey, and resident researchers in Sweden over the past eight years, and is amazed at the debate that is currently implemented on refugee sexual abuse at the central station in Cologne on New Years Eve and the music festival We are Sthlm two summers in a row. I agree with those who believe that crimes against women can not be hushed up and that the law applies to all people, regardless of origin. But these voices seem to be in the minority. The debate is characterized mainly by cultural relativism, strongly colored by feminism, whose representative, for example, the DN-journalist Hanna Fahl (8/1), argues that "the common denominator for abuse are gender, not ethnicity." After living as a woman in what is considered the world's most modern Muslim society, I can not emphasize enough how wrong and screwed this approach. It is of course true that the mass sexual violence is not an issue of "ethnicity" - a word used to silence debate. The crux is that different cultures and social systems have different views on women's rights; To deny this is not only ignorant but also insulting to the millions of women's struggle for equality in these reform hostile communities. Even in an apparently secular and modern society like Turkey, are violent acts against women such as child marriage, rape within the family, forced marriage with rapists and honor, so common that it is rarely reported in the news.  In countries where Islam colors the cultural norms, is very much a consensus that it is the woman's duty to protect themselves from sexual abuse by making himself invisible in public places, both for clothing and fashion. A woman is expected to constantly think about their appearance, wherever she goes, and what time it is; to look modern, be out late and without a man by her side is to "ask for it", under this cultural approach. Even in a "European" city that Istanbul is it so inconceivable that as a woman to go out on the town on New Year's Eve that no one I know has ever suggested it.  All Turkish women I know feel that it is a constant struggle to go by public transport, because one must protect herself from groping men. It is so common that I can not remember how old I was when I learned to have eyes in the back. And then Turkey is, again, a relatively modern country in the Islamic world. I can not imagine what it must be like to live as a woman in other parts of the Middle East. But it is not just a religion and culture that are important, but also to state institutions sanction the abuse of women. "Women should not laugh loudly to the whole world without preserving her modesty," said Bulent Arinc, Turkey's former deputy prime minister and co-founder of the ruling party AKP, as late as 2014. The same year, said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, now President of Turkey, that it "does not can put women and men on the same level - it is against nature." When 17-year-old Münevver Karabulut in 2009 found in the garbage after having been raped and killed by her boyfriend with the help of his family, argued Istanbul's former police chief that "her parents should have monitored his girl better". 2013 said Omer Tugrul İnançer, a lawyer and Muslim opinion leader, the state television that "it goes against the courtesy to announce her pregnancy with a trumpet - women should not walk the streets with such tripe." But it surprised of course, not that the state media was considered to be "disgraceful" to stay outdoors as a pregnant woman. In a country like Turkey, it is not uncommon for government institutions give their tacit consent to violence against women. Culture and social institutions play a major role in determining what is acceptable or not. Needless to say, most men who have grown up in countries where the consensus is that it is women's and not men's obligation to prevent sexual abuse, a completely different view of how to behave with women than most Swedish men. Thus, it is nonsense to debate whether there are cultural characteristics that encourages events like Cologne and the Kungsträdgård [Royal Garden]. It is simply that, and we have to be frank about this if we are to be able to nip the problem in the bud. To only import and quietly tolerate unwanted cultural practices favoring least of all girls and women in Sweden. Özge Öner Honorary Doctor of Economics, Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) Swedish to English Google Translation https://archive.is/7N9rm Original http://www.svd.se/visst-handlar-kvinnosyn-om-olika-kulturer/om/overgreppen-under-we-are-sthlm ---------------------------------------- COMMENT Interesting article. However, I disagree with the notion that ethnicity has nothing to do with the matter of mob (and other) sexual assaults of European women, which has now spanned decades of being swept under a rug. Ethnicity has everything to do with it: 1)  other cultures are derived from specific ethnicities & their corresponding histories etc. 2)  furthermore, what has taken place is a by-product of the invasion of Europe by non-Europeans, so ethnicity is relevant to any debate. Putting it another way:  there would not be a debate about this were it not for European policies facilitating the invasion of Europe. Turkey is an Asian nation, its culture is shaped by its religion and its culture is, in turn, modelled on the Arabic culture of the prevailing religion. Svenska Dagbladet ('Swedish Daily Newspaper') publishing this article is at least giving an alternative to the prevailing views a hearing. ---------------------------------------- Europa-Evropa ᛞ ᛞ