Why Did the Shafia Women Die? Blame It on the Ignorance/Cowardice of Quebec's Social Workers

While others were watching Niki Minaj doing--what was she doing?--on the Grammys, I was watching the Ceeb's first rate probe into the family Shafia. As per Tolstoy's observation that "all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way," the Shafia family was unhappy in a very specific, very Islamic, way. While the details of the horror were all too familiar--the collision between beautiful daughters and an "honour"-obsessed patriarch--what most struck me was the interview with the chick who heads up the province of Quebec's social services, the folks that were alerted time and time again to the severe dysfunction in this family, but who chose--chose!--to ignore it, hoping it would all go away. Why couldn't these social workers see what was happening, and intervene to stop it? As the head social worker explained, it was because none of them had any familiarity with the concept of "honour killing," so they could not even conceive of the possibility of young women ending up dead because of a family's distorted and demented notion of "honour." Which rather begs the question: what planet were these social workers living on? Obviously, it was the planet Multiculti, the planet Moral Relativism, the planet Kumbaya. Because had they been inhabitants of this planet, they would have had at least a glancing  acquaintance with "honour" crimes, and might have been able to step in and save four lives.

That said, I have a hard time believing the foolish woman who claimed that prior to these deaths, the social workers involved in the case were clueless about what was happening; yes, a very hard time, indeed. Fortunately, I'm not the one who has to live with the cluelessness/cravenness/feigned ignorance which allowed the "honour" crime scenario to unfold to its horrific but all too predictable conclusion.