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| Middle East |
| On honor homicides |
| 2003-09-22 |
| EFL I’m so pissed by this I’m almost at a loss for words. Tracking a story about the persistence of honor killings in Jordan involves preliminary negotiations over tiny glasses of sugary tea overwhelmed with fresh mint leaves. It involves tacit and mutual acknowledgment of the sensitivity of the issue, between sips and polite conversation. And it involves discreet assurances that introducing a foreign reporter into a segment of Jordanian society that approves of the murder of girls and women accused of dishonoring their families will not result in a small-scale clash of civilizations. Only after being satisfied on these points does Inam Asha, a driven Amman social worker and women’s rights advocate, fix a time and location -- on the other side of town, in a rundown neighborhood that has probably never seen better days. Unlike its more upscale, Westernized counterpart, east Amman -- a mixed neighborhood populated by both East Bankers and Palestinian refugees -- resembles another planet: poor, resentful and conservative. Traffic is heavy in the narrow streets of Jebal Manara as the late afternoon sun beats down and pollution from the line of cars snaking down the street gathers into an ethereal haze. Brightly colored Arabic signs dot the main streets, but the stores emit an air of defeat, as if tired from staving off deepening poverty. Upon closer inspection, the commercial heart of Jebal Manara reveals little in the way of social activities. There are no movie theaters and few restaurants. Only men frequent the few shabby coffee shops, smoking flavored tobacco through water pipes as they watch the latest setbacks in the Arab world on satellite television. The women who walk the streets are al-most invariably covered, the only thing dis-tinguishing them is to what extent. Some wear headscarves, tightly pinned under their chins so not a stray hair falls out of place. Most wear a loose, long-sleeved jilbab reaching from the neck to the feet. A few wear head-to-toe black, with a black mesh veil completely covering their faces and gloves on their hands. Worn-out sandals peek out from under the black gowns with each step. In the industrial area, car garages and spare parts shops line one of the side streets. As the men work to bring their cus-tomers’ sputtering vehicles back to life, a narrow steel door between two garages opens to the small indoor courtyard of the home of Um Khalid. A group of eight local women ranging from 20 to 70 years old, assembled by Inam Asha to meet me, sit on mattresses lining the threadbare but spotless living room beyond. The cement walls are devoid of ornamentation, with the exception of a few pieces of framed embroidery. One hand-stitched piece reads "God bless our home" in English. The women, meanwhile, talk in rough Palestinian dialects about the conservative social code by which they continue to live. By Western standards, at least one aspect of the code is difficult to fathom -- that girls and women should be killed for shaming their families. Perhaps most surprising, though, is how many women of precisely the social stratum most affected by the phenomenon sanction honor killings. Grass-roots campaigning by women’s rights activists and the few men on the far liberal side of the political spectrum has brought the issue of honor killings to the foreground, but the effort lacks widespread popular or government support. What’s more, temporary laws aimed at improving women’s rights and pertaining to honor killings in particular, enacted by King Abdullah and approved by his cabinet over the past two years while parliament was dissolved, have been rejected twice in the space of a few weeks by the newly elected Lower House. In a country where tribal laws can carry more weight than those of the government, change has been slow in coming. The women of Jebal Manara, clad in traditional Palestinian embroidered dresses harking back to their native Jaffa, sheer headscarves wrapped loosely around their faces, cluck disapprovingly of a local honor killing a few years back when a teenage girl’s mother and brother shot her to death for running away from extreme physical and emotional abuse. But a girl who elopes? Or gets pregnant out of wedlock? "She deserves it," says Um Khalid, an older woman with crackling brown eyes and a bright yellow jalabiya, without pausing to consider otherwise. "Her behavior affects the entire family. In this case, she has to die," says another woman in her 30s, leaning against a pillow. In the eyes of this traditional, close-knit and socially conservative society, bringing shame on the family could lead to ostracism. That in itself is a virtual death sentence for the generations remaining in the same houses within the same social circles. "Women are harsher than men on this issue," explains Asha, the social worker. They have to distance themselves publicly from the shameful behavior "to avoid being associated with it." Otherwise "no one would marry any girls in the family," says one girl, as she serves more sweet tea laden with mint. Killing the deviant, the women argue, redeems the family’s honor, allowing it to return to the social circle, reputation intact or even enhanced. Not in God’s eyes it doesn’t. Um Khalid, the most vocal of the group, is quick to point out that a girl’s scandalous behavior does not necessarily merit death. The problem arises, she says, when other people begin to find out. "If the immediate family knows about an affair, maybe they can cover it up and marry her off. But if others start to talk, they may feel they have no alternative but to kill her." Officially, around 25 girls and women die every year in Jordan at the hands of their relatives in the name of family honor, or sharaf. That figure does not include unreported incidents; Asha also points to tens of so-called suicides that include an unknown number of honor killings being covered up. In 75 per cent of the cases the killer is the woman’s brother. So much for applied family loyalty. In theory, but not in practice. More at article |
| Posted by:Katz |
| #7 "This looks less like a problem of Islam and more like a backward practice of a tribal culture." Except the areas where it is practiced coincide with the areas that Islam is practiced, and not with any particular culture. I've read reports of "honor" killing from Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, and the Arab nations; there's no "tribe" in common in those areas. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-9-23 8:47:24 AM |
| #6 This looks less like a problem of Islam and more like a backward practice of a tribal culture. Wait, I sorry. My kids keep telling me that at school they have learned that tribal cultures are to be accepted.. no honored. That's right, the real brutality is in Western Society as epitomized by America where a homeless person has to travel all the way to Frisco to get a cool $400 of unregulated spending money. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-22 8:01:50 PM |
| #5 It is what they have been taught since he cradle, reinforced by the cultural dependence on personal good-will to get anything done. I think it was a Jesuit who said basically "give me a child until the age of six, and that child is ours forever." Still, it would be nice to see a variation of Lord William Bentinck's stance on suttee [sati=faithful wife]. Acknowledge that 'honor killing' may occur, but that participants will face murder charges, preferably in a court no less than twenty miles from the family home. |
| Posted by: John Anderson 2003-9-22 6:41:42 PM |
| #4 Frank G--maybe it's sort of a Stockholm Syndrome kind of thing going on in addition to all the above. That's why you see females who get the living sh** beaten out of them getting irate when the cops arrest their husbands/boyfriends. (The worst I ever heard of was a female [can't call them women....that implies maturity, and don't give me all that PC crap 'cause I don't wanna hear it] going down to the jail after being released from the hospital with a broken leg and dislocated shoulder demanding that her boyfriend be released in time for their trip to Disneyland the next day. May bees pee upon those who think this "honor killing" crap is a good thing. |
| Posted by: Baba Yaga 2003-9-22 6:06:41 PM |
| #3 Just more of that progressive thinking from the Religion of Peace™ (assholes!). |
| Posted by: Flaming Sword 2003-9-22 4:30:25 PM |
| #2 what about the Arab women supporting the honor killings? What's their excuse? cultural and religious brainwashing? Too frigging stupid to understand they're perpetuating their own miserable station in life? Jeebus! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-9-22 4:25:42 PM |
| #1 My what a LOVELY culture! |
| Posted by: Craig 2003-9-22 3:48:19 PM |