You know that saying "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the world blind and toothless?" I generally agree; all it does is perpetuate the very crime you're trying to cease. Kind of like capital punishment or telling your kid "I told you not to fucking cuss!"
Anyway, a court in Iran has ordered that a man be blinded. I was intrigued. Even though the article's title "Court orders Iranian man blinded" left little to the imagination, I didn't think it would so closely follow the saying. Turns out, that's exactly the case. A man threw acid onto a woman's face for refusing his marriage proposal. She needed reconstructive surgery to repair her face, but surgeons were unable to save her sight. (Sidebar: a general rule of thumb is that blinding and disfiguring your intended paramour is not the way to get her to say yes.) For this horrific crime, the courts have ruled that he, too, shall be blinded by acid.
Under normal circumstances, I'd think this was an ineffective ruling, but something about this seems just. I don't know what punishment would suit the crime more, and I'm tired of reading story after story about women abused and treated like so much chattel. This still isn't right, but some how, some way, it kind of is, ya know?
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Comments for An eye for an eye
Well...I tend to agree more often than not with the old eye for an eye. We really just need to do away with the humans. We are not the best breed going.
- Posted at 11/29/2008 12:53 PM | By
While in this specific case I hope they do it verrrrry slowly, one tiny drop of acid at a time, the more effective solution would be to stop fostering abusive theocratic paternalism and oppression of women as cornerstones of their culture.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
- Posted at 11/30/2008 4:19 PM | By
Sara
A woman's former husband was stalking and threatening her. He followed her to her place of employment and when she came out of work, he doused her with gasoline and set her on fire (this was in the USA). By the same token, should he be doused and set ablaze? See where this is going? The circumstances are heinous but recreating the crime does not solve the problem.
- Posted at 12/01/2008 7:23 PM | By
Anonymous-
I never said it was completely right, but if you look up "just," one definition is "given or awarded rightly; deserved." In this case, in my mind, the guy *deserves* to have acid thrown at him.
The case of the immolator shares three similarities: 1) the crime is heinous, 2) it's against a woman and 3) the men in both cases felt that their rejection warranted this ridiculously disproportionate response. Recreating the crime does not solve the problem, but on a small scale, this problem's wheels are already set in motion.
If not recreating the crime upon the criminal, what would you suggest as just punishment?
I never said it was completely right, but if you look up "just," one definition is "given or awarded rightly; deserved." In this case, in my mind, the guy *deserves* to have acid thrown at him.
The case of the immolator shares three similarities: 1) the crime is heinous, 2) it's against a woman and 3) the men in both cases felt that their rejection warranted this ridiculously disproportionate response. Recreating the crime does not solve the problem, but on a small scale, this problem's wheels are already set in motion.
If not recreating the crime upon the criminal, what would you suggest as just punishment?
- Posted at 12/02/2008 10:51 AM | By KarenSeeta
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