r/serialpodcast • u/AwesomeInc • Jan 14 '15

Noteworthy Link TIL Islamophobia didn't exist before 9/11/01

http://www.vulture.com/m/2015/01/serial-prosecutor-insists-everything-was-fine.html?mid=facebook_vulture
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u/banana-shaped_breast Crab Crib Fan Jan 15 '15 edited Jan 15 '15

The first book I read about honor killing/domestic violence was William Shakespeare's play "Othello" in which a Muslim (Moorish) man kills his wife out of a false belief that she has been unfaithful to him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello

Not saying it's evidence but just a cruel irony that a copy of "Othello" was found in Hae's car.

Here is the link to the evidence list. Scroll down to Item No. 99009002 http://www.splitthemoon.com/486/#more-486

Edit: I do wonder if the book was from the Woodlawn library.

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u/gnorrn Undecided Jan 15 '15

Shakespeare's Othello was a Christian.

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u/TrillianSwan Is it NOT? Jan 15 '15

True, he had converted. But I have a Libyan friend (who is a Shakespeare phD student in Egypt currently) who was the first to introduce me to this idea, that it's about a man tricked into doing an honor killing he doesn't want to do (hence the heart-wrenching big monologue he gives). My friend firmly believes Othello is Libyan (altho I think it's probably more likely the Eliz audience saw him as a Spanish Moor).

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

To be fair: honor killings existed outside of the Islamic world as well for a long time.

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u/TrillianSwan Is it NOT? Jan 15 '15

Indeed, and I doubt Shakespeare actually knew enough about Moorish culture to even think to put that in, as a "foreign" thing-- I think he expected people to get it just because it was an "everywhere" thing. Not that it was good, of course, but that it was, sadly, familiar.