Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year.
There has been no improvement in conviction rates for these killings. So far this year, 81 women in the city have been murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their families. Only five people have been convicted.
During 2007 the Basra security committee recorded 47 'honour killings' and three convictions. One lawyer in the city described how police were actively protecting perpetrators and said that a woman in Basra could now be murdered by hired hitmen for as little as $100 (£65).
The figures come despite international outrage which followed The Observer's coverage of the death of 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader, who was murdered by her father last April in an 'honour killing' after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra. The 4,000 British troops stationed in the city since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 withdrew to the airport last September.
Rand Abdel-Qader was killed after her family discovered that she had formed a friendship with a 22-year-old infantryman whom she knew as Paul. She was suffocated by her father then hacked at with a knife. Abdel-Qader Ali was subsequently arrested and released without charge.
Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, who divorced her husband after the killing, went into hiding but was tracked down weeks later and assassinated by an unknown gunman. Her husband had told The Observer that police had congratulated him for killing his daughter.
Now I can almost feel the indignation rising as you, gentle reader, absorb the above information. And indeed that is exactly what you should feel. It is a horrific idea that ANYBODY would kill a member of their own family due to a primitive idea of dishonor.
However before picking up your stone and cocking your arm, take a moment to make sure that your own house is made of a stronger material then glass.
For if we attack this idea of honor killing based simply on the idea that the Islamic faith is a religion which both promotes and permits such things then we miss the point entirely. If we take a moment to read the Christian bible we learn that it is filled with at least 13 incidents of honor killings while perhaps surprisingly the Koran has none.
It is also important to remember that the religion on which this country is founded is rife with incidents of violence toward women (Yes I know that not ALL witches were female, but if you read the list of victims names the males were almost incidental), and the non-believers. Wars have been waged in the name of Jesus Christ and Christianity while whole cultures have been devoured in its wake.
Crushing the beliefs and cultures of other people beneath a Christian heel is as alien of a concept to the teachings of Jesus Christ as the choking of your own daughter is to the teachings contained in the Koran.
My point in all of this is that attacking this problem by attacking Islam itself is both hypocritical and will ultimately prove ineffective.
The solution?
Instead of condemning the Islamic religion Americans should condemn the actions themselves, point out that they are not supported by the teachings of Islam, and then demonstrating the alternative through the treatment of our own women. And though it pains me to say so, it looks like much has been accomplished in that regard by our past Presidents, by George W. Bush, and by the appointment of Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Not to mention the success of Hillary's Presidential bid.
These actions are guaranteed to make many of the traditional males in the Islamic world uncomfortable. But it will also serve as an inspiration to the Islamic women who will now get the opportunity to see their men having to interact with a woman as their equal rather then a mere piece of property. This will ultimately be far more impactful then simply condemning their entire religion as misanthropic and primitive.
And by the way, having a President named Barack Hussein Obama, standing hand in hand with his intelligent outspoken wife, is certainly not a bad thing either.
I predict that in the next four to eight years we will see some impressive changes coming to the Islamic community, and they will not have to be delivered at the point of a spear either.
'Honour killing' is not, as you rightly point out, in any way a custom sanctioned by Islam. It is, in fact, a disgusting Arab, Kurd, and Asian cultural tradition; and the concept of family and clan honour it defends is both patriachal, misogynist and racist. I remember reading how, amongst Palestinian Christians, honour killings are common, as well as in the majority Muslim community, in particular when a young woman of either community fell in love with a man from the other. Here is the link to the story I recalled
ReplyDeleteOf course Sunni/Shia religious differences have 'justified' honour killings as you might expect, but specifically I mention racism (admittedly usually racism directed towards anyone not of the same exact tribe, sect or ethnic group of the father) an example of which was a recent honour killing that took place in the UK, where a Kurdish father murdered his daughter for marrying a non-Kurdish fellow Sunni.
The Bedouins seem to have the most psychotic notions of dishonour of all the offending cultures I am aware of, although I am willing to bet the Pashtuns would give them a run for their money.
I will never forget the story from Jordan of a Bedouin who was late home from a hunting trip, He arrived near his home just as his concerned wife came out of the front door to see if she could see him, so he used his rifle to shoot her dead, from a distance, for 'dishonouring' him by coming out of doors while he was not home.
If it was up to me, as well as convicting the perpetrators of these crimes as murderers, I would forcibly sterilize the entire male bloodlines of the offending patriarchs. I came to this conclusion in desperation rather than anger, as the only way to demonstrate the dishonour these killing do to the human race as a whole, and believe that it would actually be an effective deterrent. Of course no government will ever enact such policies. The paradox is that where leaders in countries where honour killings are routine are enlightened (as opposed to projecting a veneer of enlightenment) they are still quite powerless to end these practices, certainly within a generation.
I am not, as you can tell, any kind of proper liberal, but I personally would always choose liberals to govern me, if I could.
I think you fall into the trap of multiculturalism if you feign an equivalence of Christianity and Islam.
ReplyDeleteIn the 7th century, when Islam was conquering with violence the most civilized regions of the Eastern Roman Empire -- areas native to 1,000 years of Greco-Roman philosophy and science and civilization, Christianity was conquering the most barbaric lands on Earth -- the northern Germanic tribes, Viking Scandanavia, clan-dominated Scotland. In a few hundred years the civilized lands conquered by Islam became the most barbaric on Earth while the barbaric lands conquered by Christianity became the most civilized. Was this only a coincidence?
In fact, if you look at the most tolerant Muslim societies -- say Morocco and Turkey -- you may notice that they adjoin the most intolerant regions of Christianty -- like Spain and the Balkans. Wouldn't this indicate that Muslim influence on neighboring Christian lands is baleful while Christian influence on nearby Muslim lands is civilizing?
More to the point, for those who claim that the oppression of women is due to tribalism, not Islam: Why do such barbarity find a more hospitable climate in Muslim lands than in Christian ones?
"A Muslim woman has two choices: To become married, or become public property."
ReplyDeleteI do not know what he meant by public property. I doubt that it is good. Nice to have choices. No wonder frustration is rampant throughout the Islamic world.