The Reductio Ad Absurdum of Multiculturalism--Let 'Em Get Away With Murder Because They're "Other"

The Toronto Star's Rosie DiMano (who I like to think of as the paper's token non-loon) has unveiled the defense strategy in the Shafia trial, and it's what you might call a revoltingly multicultural one. That is: don't blame the murders on the defendants; blame it on their "culture":

The drowning deaths have been called an honour killing. More on that grotesque phenomenon will be heard Monday when an expert academic witness takes the stand.

What’s been startling thus far, however, is how the most stringent interpretation of Afghan Muslim culture has seemingly been accepted and exploited as a defence leitmotif, as if a given, and shame on those who failed to observe proper etiquette.

Now, defence lawyers will throw anything at the wall to see what sticks with a jury. That’s their job. But there’s been an undercurrent of presumed exceptionalism about the individuals they’re representing, because of their faith, because of their ethnicity, a kind of inherently buffering otherness...

Sigh. Where's General Sir Charles James Napier (to let the "other" know about our customs) when you need him?