- Bill Maher

‘‘Things Just Haven’t Been the Same Between My Muslim Girlfriend and Me Since Her Honor Killing’’

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Created on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 00:21

    Cross-cultural love can be a tricky thing. It can be torrid, steamy, passion-filled extravaganza between two people whose ethnic and cultural differences strangely beckon them to know each other in the most intimate ways.   They also can be quite frustrating and in the end, can fail as simply and sadly as any other relationship.

     So I, on this day, must forlornly report that things between my Muslim girlfriend and I just haven’t been the same since her family stoned her to death two weeks ago.

    Yes, Fatimah and I just haven’t been the same since then.   I’ve tried taking her out to the movies and restaurants, even came over her college dorm room to make her some hummus-flavored Ramen.  But since last month when her father, mother and older brother (originally from Saudi Arabia) found out she was seeing me, an Irish Catholic, and not the Saudi Wahhabist they wanted her with, and came over to her college dorm room and “talked some sense” into her with a couple bricks and aluminum pipe, I think she and I may be in a bit of some trouble.

     I came over to make her dinner, and she was so distant. Fatimah just laid there, sprawled out, pretty quiet, not smelling too good, a blood-caked brick and pipe next to her matted head… Man, I tell ya’, I just knew things were going sour for us then.  

     Oh, America, can there be a day when young lovers of different cultures and faiths can come together without offending their parents to the point they perform an honor killing on them?   I don’t know if things between Fatimah and me will ever be the same, but they’re not looking good right about now, that’s for sure. 

   Not only am I now left to patch things up between me and a lifeless girlfriend, but also must go about asking her parents what I must have done to offend them so much.   Was it something I said?   Did?   Didn’t do?   Dear Mr. and Mrs. Al-Siddiqui, if I did something to offend you to the point you had to bludgeon your daughter to death in her college dorm room, please let me know.   Should I have converted to Islam before meeting Fatimah in chemistry class last semester?   No wait, it was the Catholic church’s molestation scandals, wasn’t it?   My apologies for being raised in such a scandal-plagued religion, unlike yours.   I wished I would have known sooner.

     All I know is that it’s certainly not a problem with their culture or religion was to why Fatimah’s family beat her to death.   It’s just something we in the narrow-minded West can’t understand, I guess.   I tried calling campus police when I discovered Fatimah’s battered corpse, but was told, “That’s just their culture,” by the dispatcher, who hung up after that.   I’ve asked a few of my professors what I should do, and was told to respect other peoples’ differences.   I mean, hey, I’m not about to have kids, but if I did I know there are a few people on this campus I wouldn’t want them dating either. But when I am a parent one day I’ll have to respect the differences in whomever my child brings home.

   I just hope Fatimah and I can get over this whole honor-killing-misunderstanding-thing and get back to normal soon.   With it being Valentine’s Day, I hope a nice romantic Italian dinner or should do the trick.   Hopefully the restaurant will let us in despite Fatimah being in the throes of decomposition.   I mean, hey, they didn’t make Febreze for nothing.

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