Eastern Glow

Wow. I mean wow. It has been too long of a time! Do forgive me for the time a part. I have been busy studying for theyouknowwhat. Today is my last class and then I am off to LA to see my brother William. Speaking of which, you should watch this video here and help his group win a contest.

In this long-delayed post, I will return to the book "Honour" Crimes, Paradigms, and Violence Against Women. The article in of focus will be "Crimes of honour, value and meaning" by Purna Sen. So, lets get to it!

Sen ellaborates in the beginning of her article that the increasing focus on honour killings in the last ten years illustrates a "cooperation on the international level." She continues to expatiate on the disadvantages of this interaction as well. These short-comings include:

"identifying Islamic culture as deeply imbued with backward approaches to gender relations, associating Islam intriniscally with honour killings, and highlighting Islamic cultures as therefore inherently problematic, have left a tangle of anger, moral superiority, urgency to act and defensiveness that complicate both conceptualizing and acting against honour crimes."

I am sure you are all rolling your eyes, saying "Liz, I understand this by now." But! Sen goes on to create parallels between this attitude, anti-terrorism and colonial encounters. This idea of barbaric and violent Arabs who hate freedom (and by freedom, I mean America) is parallel to the anti-terror dialog we hear almost daily. This means Islamophobia can quickly become mired in this already catastrophic issue.

Furthermore, the tone of colonial powers is seen through new reports, magazine articles (like the one I presented), and newspapers. She writes, "colonial encounters cemented both the assumed moral supperiority of the West over the rest and the existence of an intense eye upon 'other' cultures." This ultimately makes indigenous voices stiffled, for how can the judged fix their own culture? They are assumed to be inferior and therefore, not allowed to participate. This critical eye is certainly seen in Nora Khouri's book. She acts as a colonial power, judging another culture, which claims as her own. She flees to a western nation to save herself from the insatiable barbarity of the East.

But hold on a minute! Surely we have standards for honour as well. Anyone who has read Jane Austen can see how lives of the aristocrat revolved around concepts of honour and pride. Sen notes that Europe's medieval codes of chivalry revolve around honour. Also, this notion hasn't died off. A neo-Nazi group in the UK holds onto a code of honour that "to live by honour one is prepared to die rather than be dishonoured."

Yet in colonial or western language, this honour is completely different. It is the highest order of civility. It indicates culture and pride. It is when honour is applied to the "other" that it becomes a mark of barbarity. Honour leads men to kill in backwards, savage way. Sen notes the historical trend:

"This gaze also has a history, with colonial advances setting the standards of judgment of native gender relations by the colonial power and of claims to moral superiority among the colonizers too." Colonial/orientalist views want to take this honour and mold it into their standard of gender relations. Honour killings have become the new campaign, whereas the veil, child marriage and widow burning were campaigns of the colonial periods.

If you ever have seen Wife Swap, you know someone who walks into your house and tells you your ways of life are wrong usually leads to a bit of conflict. So the West telling the East what to do is a messy situation. The East feels like it is under attack, so it strikes back, becoming more extreme, committing more honour crimes, and suppressing women more. The West has created the image that the East IS how it treats its women. Therefore, the East takes the image they have been given and runs with it to the extreme instead of falling 'victim' to Westernization.

This means that the state feels that it is in its interest to protect this crimes against women under law. Thus, murderers are exonerated because the legal code allows leniency. The state is trying to preserve its identity in direct defiance of the west. Thus, books like Norma Khouri's provoke a stronger reaction in states like Jordan, where reform is stiffed.

Sen goes on to define honour crimes, but I will skip over this section and go straight to her "Common Frameworks" section. She proposes several alternative approaches to battle honour crimes.
-Expand the concept of honour to incorporate practices in the west. We suffer from rape, unequal pay, domestic abuse, etc. Usually, these are justified through concepts of honour.
-Further, the link between Islam and honour killings needs to be eradicated. It simple is not there. Honour killings came long before Islam.
-Adopt a human rights framework in order to tackle these issues

These approaches also problematize western culture and eastern culture does not suffer alone. A continuing spectrum on which to define honour killings is essential.

The best method to attack this problem is still being adopted...but for now, that's all she wrote!

-Liz