In "My family, my killers" in the Sydney Morning Herald (thanks to JE), James Button provides a generally good overview of the phenomenon of honor killings, although he adds generous coats of PC whitewash:
[...] The issue is acutely sensitive among British Muslims, already feeling embattled since the September 11, 2001, and July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks. Reported levels of domestic violence in British Asian communities are lower than the national average, according to The Guardian. But for a small minority of families, the British judge Marilyn Mornington has said: "Honour rests with the chastity and obedience of women in the community. If that is transgressed then the woman must be punished, ultimately unto death."Britain is not alone: 47 Muslim women were killed in Germany between 2000 and 2006. The UN estimates that 5000 women and girls are victims of honour killings each year. But the British example illustrates how a culturally relativist form of multiculturalism can clash with women's rights and how honour crimes, far from disappearing as migrants settle over generations into new countries, may even be on the rise.
In 2006 one in 10 of 500 young British Asians told the BBC that honour killings could be justified. Nazir Afzal of the Crown Prosecution Service and a leading prosecutor of honour crimes says that when he began work on such cases, "I thought it was an imported practice that would die out when the elder generation [of a migrant community] died. But many of the young people tell me shocking things."
For example, a young Sikh man told Afzal: "A man is a piece of gold and a woman is a piece of silk. If you drop a piece of gold into the mud you can polish it clean. If you drop a piece of silk into mud it is stained forever." [...]
A Kurdish asylum seeker from north-west Iran, Nammi came to Britain 10 years ago. At a school for her young daughter in north London, she met Sobhia Nader, a Kurdish interpreter who Nammi remembers as bright and kind and eager to help. But Nader failed to turn up for their third appointment. Nammi heard she had gone back to her home in Iraq.
What Nammi found later, she says, was that Nader's husband had taken her back to Iraq because he suspected his wife of flirting at work. In Kurdistan Nader was shot on two separate occasions, the second time fatally. The two men who stopped her car before killing her did not harm her husband, and Nammi believes they were his relatives. No one has been prosecuted in Britain or Iraq.
At that time attitudes to forced marriages and honour killings were more negligent than they are today. Only one in five homicide cases led to a conviction for murder; the rest for manslaughter. But in 2000, a spate of high-profile forced marriage cases led the Blair government minister Mike O'Brien to say "multicultural sensitivity is no excuse for moral blindness". Then came the murder of Heshu Yones.
She was a 16-year old Kurdish girl in London, whose father hated her Western dress and Lebanese Christian boyfriend. For 15 minutes, Abdullah Yones chased his daughter from room to room with a kitchen knife, stabbing her repeatedly and finally slitting her throat over the bath.
But a dhimmi judge chose multiculturalism:
The judge sentenced Yones to a minimum 14 years but appeared to mitigate the crime's savagery by calling it "a tragic story arising out of irreconcilable cultural differences between traditional Kurdish values and the values of Western society". It was arguable, he added, that "Heshu's conduct provoked her father".Sitting in court, Nammi felt angry. "So-called cultural sensitivity is a way of letting women down," she says. "Why should any woman not have the same rights as a British woman? Murder is murder."
Yep. One would think everyone knew that. Apparently, not any more.
Afzal also cites the judge's comments and the fact that Yones was jailed for only 14 years, as evidence that reforms were needed. Now, judges are imposing terms of 25 to 27 years, he says. "In the past six years there has been a sea change in the way all of us - judges, prosecutors and investigators - approach the crime."Nammi agrees the law has improved, but says police must change more. Banaz Mahmoud approached them several times and even provided an accurate list of who would murder her. Police offered her access to a refuge but made the mistake, Nammi says, of visiting her in her home, where she could not speak.
Nammi says the women she represents "are very brave. They make a huge decision to stand against their community. They know they have brought shame on their family, but they still stand up for their rights. They have fallen in love".
A Muslim by birth but an atheist since she was young, Nammi says the rise of extremist and fundamentalist Islam has been dire for women. She points to the revival of stoning of alleged female adulterers in Iran. Another malign effect of the Iraq war, she says, is that violence against women has increased there.
Both in Muslim countries and diasporas, as communities feel under pressure and want to protect their identities in the face of modernisation, traditional views of women are revived.
But Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, says the issue is "not about Islam but about a tribal, rural mindset that says women belong to men and men must at all costs be obeyed".
Yes, that has nothing to do with Islam. Everyone knows that. What's that? "Good women are obedient" and those that aren't should be beaten, according to Qur'an 4:34? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?
Afzal, a practising Muslim from a Pakistani family, agrees, saying nothing in the Koran supports honour crimes: "It's the exact opposite". But he says some families will use Islam to justify their authority, telling a daughter that having a boyfriend is un-Islamic.
Well, if he is a non-Muslim, then it is certainly un-Islamic, according to all traditional Islamic jurisprudence. And while nothing in the Qur'an supports honor crimes, Jordan's Parliament a few years ago rejected an attempt to stiffen penalties for honor murders -- on Islamic grounds. So evidently there are quite a few Muslims who believe the practice is thoroughly Islamic.
Britain's response to honour crimes may be evidence of a maturing multiculturalism, in which no cultural practice is tolerated or swept aside simply because it comes from a disadvantaged ethnic group. Afzal says more people are reporting crimes, extraditions of suspected perpetrators who flee the country are being pursued, some community leaders have become "champions" of change.Yet the killings go on. Just last month a coroner ruled that 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed of Cheshire had been murdered after she had defied her parents. They wanted her to marry a man in Pakistan; she wanted to study law. Just three days ago, Nammi received a text message that said: "I am an Iranian woman who needs confidential information. Please help me."
Afzal says communities must respond to such calls. "I have heard people say to me, 'Don't talk about this stuff because we are under attack. Don't wash our dirty linen in public.' But I have talked to loads of Muslim women and I can tell you that the greatest fear they have is not Islamophobia or being attacked by racists or being arrested on suspicion of terrorism. It is from within their own family."
They sound like Islamophobes themselves
Asians.....when I think of Asian, I think of oriental, I think of the far east, I don't think of Pakistanis, Afghanis, Persians, Arabs.......Muslims. They're really sticking to this "Asian" thing.
"a tragic story arising out of irreconcilable cultural differences between traditional Kurdish values and the values of Western society". It was arguable, he added, that "Heshu's conduct provoked her father"."
Okaaaaayy... Irreconcilable cultural differences? This man moved to the West. In the West, murder is illegal. This man understood that, in the West, murder is illegal. Why is his former culture a factor? Why is culture a factor, and why, even for a moment, would it be allowed to mitigate against a violation of the law?
If this murderer's culture is going to be a mitigating factor in all that he does, including those things that violate the law (and this has been shown to be the case), is he going to be let off easily again, when he kills an unrelated woman, because she is doing something that his culture doesn't condone?
As they say down here, in the south, "That dog don't hunt."
Back in the 60's there were thousands - maybe millions - of daughters who had huge cultural differences with their parents and might even be said to have brought shame upon the family: sex in the park, moving in with a man before you were married, out of wedlock children, inappropriate dress ------> GREAT shame. I never heard of a single one that was murdered by her family because of it.
So the judge believes that Heshu's conduct provoked her father, and that justifies her murder??? Good grief!!! Her "conduct" was wearing Western style clothes while living in the West - hello? Earth to Judge.
And now I read that the UK will allow welfare payments for second and third wives of Muslim males.
"But Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, says the issue is "not about Islam but about a tribal, rural mindset that says women belong to men and men must at all costs be obeyed"."
Nice try, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui. The problem is that the tribal, rural mindset you refer to is codified in the Qur'an. If you read it, and there is a good chance you haven't - only one in five Muslims have read the Qur'an, you will find suras that say "women belong to men and men must at all costs be obeyed".
Even if what you claim is true (and it isn't), why aren't you doing anything about it?
Sneakyzionistcrusader wrote:
"Asians.....when I think of Asian, I think of oriental, I think of the far east, I don't think of Pakistanis, Afghanis, Persians, Arabs.......Muslims. They're really sticking to this "Asian" thing."
It is my understanding, when reading the British press (and possibly Australian press), that "South Asian" specifically refers to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and perhaps Afghanistan.
The above story emphasises "Kurdish" more than "Muslim" identity. The term "Asian" does not imply Kurdish to me but I know that Turkey is considered "Asia Minor". It's a good example of the PC smokescreen in the press.
They are just trying to confuse the issue when referring to muslims as Asians. This is not a phenomenon only to UK and Europe but the USA too. the saudis have had a say in how criminal perps in the media are portrayed - and they are to not use 'muslim' as much as possible.
The muslims refer to themselves as muslim first and anything else second - but we are told we should not because we are the racists, etc. It is just more expectations of muslims to us 'dhimmi' to know our places.
I write 'muslim' all the time - I do not write 'islamic' or any of that nonsense - it just muddies the waters and muslims, our lefties, are doing a good enough job of muddying the waters.
I also have a hard time feeling sorry for muslim women. Yeah, I know they are born into it, brainwashed, and such - but if they didn't 'fall in love with a non-muslim - they would be right there touting the muslim line just like so many other muslim women do in free nations. They don't care about those who are in muslim countries that are abused, let alone those in muslim communities that are abused. Look at who does the clitorectomies?! muslim women!
If the Muslimas of the world ever came to their senses Islamania would be finished.
In Asia, honor killings are found to have pre-dated Islam. The practice persisted only in less-civilized nations. In China, the communist put the practice to a complete stop. It is not an accepted practice in Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Albania, Malaysia, XingQiang and Chechnya today or in Iran under the Shah of Iran. The Indonesians’ champion Feminist, Ibu Putri, is still highly honored in their History, and her name is still in every family’s vocabulary.
The Middle East had begun to value the women’s rights, but Hasan Al-Bana turned the clock back. In the case of Iran, Khomeini turned the clock back.
Correction:
The Indonesians’ champion Feminist, Ibu Kartini...
Do these women want out of islam? I know one became an athiest, but what about the rest of them? Do they say that it's cultural or that they got a bad husband, or do they admit that it's islam? I feel sorry for these women, especially the young women, because they had their whole lives ahead of them.
"Remember Amina and Sarah"
Islamic violence toward their women is telling us what weapon they fear most: cultural dilution.
Western cultural influence is far more invidious than acquired tastes like free speech, freedom of religion and rule of law. The Taliban knows this, that's why they outlaw music and fashion.
We can combat these Dark Age minds by plying their youth with Hollywood, Levis and Rap. The more they try to ban it, the more their kids will seek it out.
We'll know we've won when Santa Claus smiles down from the billboards in Tehran, Jeddah and Karachi.
Where are the pro-abortion, bra-burning, Christian bashing feminists? Oh? What's that you say? They are not anywhere in sight? How "weird"!
I thought they were all about defending women, but I guess that even THEY, like Muslim men, consider Muslim women not worth defending.
The first victims of Islam are the Muslims themselves. (Anyone saw Naseem?)
What's the Islamic 'rulings' behind the rape and torture before killing her? It does have significance, doesn't it?
galloping granny -
agreed. I recall a young woman from an Irish-Australian Catholic bluecollar family that I knew. She was about my age. Aged about 14 or 15, she was seduced by a worthless loser and got pregnant. Her dad, her uncle, and my dad, teamed up and told the loser that for his own good he'd better make tracks. They must have been awfully convincing, for he was last heard heading for West Australia in a cloud of dust. The girl remained in the bosom of the family and had her baby, which was reared right alongside her youngest brother (born around the same time).
In the 'western world', the basic principle seems to have been that for many families, christian or secular, the family tie, and life/love, trumps 'the rules'; your daughter is your daughter, and a grandchild is a grandchild is a grandchild! I have an openly lesbian cousin who has just had a baby by AI - her mother though, I think, thoroughly disconcerted by her daughter's choices, is still over the moon about the first grandchild!
Islam, on the other hand, commits murder to preserve the illusion of perfection; it is obsessed with achieving total control.
M Scott Peck, in the second chapter of his 'People of the Lie', has the following thought-provoking discussion (inspired by Erich Fromm), of evil and goodness, as a contrast between that which denies, and that which preserves, life:
"Evil is in opposition to life. It is that which opposes the life force. It has to do, in short, with killing. Specifically, it has to do with murder - namely, unnecessary killing, killing that is not required for biological survival...
"When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to/ restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is also that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life - particularly human life - such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may 'break' a horse or even a child without harming a hair of its head.
"Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others - to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to diminish their unpredictability and originality, to keep them in line.
"Distinguishing it from a 'biophilic' person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a 'necrophiliac' character type, WHOSE AIM IS TO AVOID THE INCONVENIENCE OF LIFE BY TRANSFORMING OTHERS INTO OBEDIENT AUTOMATONS, ROBBING THEM OF THEIR HUMANITY".
"Evil, then, for the moment, is that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness".
Compare the passage I highlighted, from Peck, with this passage from Tawfiq Hamid's account of his first steps into the world of Jemaah Islamiya:
"During my first year of medical school, a Jamaah member named Muchtar Muchtar invited me to join the organization. Muchtar was in his fourth year, and Jamaah had given him the title amir (prince or caliph) - a designation taken from early Islamic writings that is associated with the Islamic caliphate or amir almomenin (prince of the believers). I accepted his invitation, and we walked together to Jamaah's mosque for noon prayers.
"On the way there Muchtar emphasized the central importance in Islam of the concept of al-fikr kufr, the idea that the very act of thinking (fikr) makes one become an infidel (kufr). (In Arabic both words are derived from the same three root letters but have different meanings.)
"He told me, "Your brain is just like a donkey [a symbol of inferiority in the Arab culture] that can get you only to the palace door of the king [Allah]. To enter the palace once you have reached the door, you should leave the donkey [your inferior mind] outside." By this parable, Muchtar meant that a truly dedicated Muslim no longer thinks but automatically obeys the teachings of Islam."
See the similarity between the ideal articulated in that final sentence - to actually stop thinking, to become a sort of Quran/Hadith/Sira-programmed robot - and the pattern that Peck, following Fromm, identifies as 'necrophiliac'?
I suspect that Islam's oppression of women (its toleration/ perpetuation of customs like FGM and 'honor' killing, its prescription of 'covering', purdah, wife-beating, stoning and flogging of 'immoral' women, child marriage, and almost total 'blaming of the victim' in cases of rape), springs from the same source as its obsessive, violent hatred of Israel and of the Jews.
That is: Islam, at bottom, is an over-controlling 'necrophiliac' ideology, and thus is driven to destroy women, and Israel, because they embody Life.
England...Great Britain...birthright...kufir..sad..
I had a very interesting chat with a middle-aged Muslim Egyptian male.He has lived/worked in the U.S. for 15 years.
He really 100% believed that there were "extremists and radical fundamentalists" in many religions. He didn't accept that there directives in the qu'aran which inherently referred to killing non-believers.
He has me convinced that he is either convienantly in denial or blissfully niave. Maybe both.
He was well-read, open-minded, emotionally well-balanced and an excellent conversationalist. He said that his ex-wife was raised Catholic but willingly converted to Muslim on her own because the religion seemed to be more decisive, less arbitrary regarding Biblical doctrines, than Christianity (??!!)
He kept saying that there is "one God" and that all the fighting is ridiculous. I think he was referring to the INTERFAITH concept.
Anyway, it was an experience I wanted to share with all of you because I think that in many ways this man is typical of the immigrant muslims who have assimilated into Western life.
These are the people many of us work with, do business with, are doctored by, etc.
Would I have him as a friend? Maybe. Would I want my daughter to marry him? H-m-m-m...