Bad Man's World

Howdy,

I have done math for several hows today, so my brain is a little warped. Please pardon me if this post doesn't make much sense or if I am putting in ridiculous words, like factorial or integer.

I will go through the article piece bye piece.

First off, the title: India's Honor Killings: A Modern Killing Spree. Meh, I am not a huge fan of this, since killing "spree" implies to me people running around helter skelter, killing whomever they please. But this is hardly the case. But once again, western media tends to increase hype.

But the first sentence makes up for the alarming title: "A rash of honor killings in India has left Westerners to condemn the act as a brutal relic."

-I like what the author is implying here. First of all, she admits that westerners take on a note of superiority when dealing with this problem. The word "condemn" clearly displays this. Also, a "brutal act" reveals that westerners tend to view honor killings as a barbarous act, dating back to dinosaurs, or something. Because certainly, certainly, we don't live by any codes established a long time ago...which are antiquated....you can work this one out yourselves.

But there seems to be a twist. Instead of being an old relic of the past, the author proposes that the recent surge in honour killings is a result in a surge of modernization. Ergo, from an influence of westernization.

She begins by describing how arranged marriage surrounded her as a youngin' in India. However, honour killings were "not the norm." Instead, they have resulted from a culture clash, leading to deviance. This deviant behaviour includes marrying someone outside the caste, leading to the dishonouring or tainting of the family name. This leads to the need to eliminate the defiant family member. This used to be illegal (marrying outside the caste), but now it is perf. legal.

She describes it as the older generations being trapped in a time of "caste and creed," with the younger generation trying to break free from this model. Now, the more modernized members of urban society and media are trying to modernize these village councils. They want the practice to be eradicated. But with the increase interference of what is considered "western" thinking comes an increase in violence. This villages enjoyed considerable self-governance under colonial England. Therefore, they did not experience a substantial assault on cultural norms, like marrying outside the caste. England did not want to have to rule each village, for this cost time and money. By not bringing a communal sense of governance, England's colonial legacy has led to a power struggle between "new" and "old" India.

New India needs the cooperation of Old India, because they form a healthy majority of the population. Without their votes, many politicians would be out of luck. Unfortunately, it takes time to pass laws that can attack this crime.

This is another example of how western interference, such as colonization, has increased the occurrence of such "barbaric" practices such as honour killings. The "west" has a role of responsibility-one they need to seize.

Best,
Liz

What I'm Trying to Say

Hiya folks,

Once again, while working on the GRE, a thesis article came stumbling into my lap. At first glance, it looks a little less depressing, and more culture-centric. I will read it, I have not yet.

I am excited to find another article, because it proves to me that my thesis has relevance. Then again, if my thesis was about crazy things Mel Gibson did....I guess I would feel that way too. Whatever! I will stay optimistic.

Also, for those of you who are curious, my blog titles refer to songs.

xo,
Liz

p.s. Please send me articles you think are great for my thesis at lilliebette@gmail.com

Uh-Merica

Happy Friday!

I have escaped the GRE for a moment to consider this article. Hopefully you had a chance to read it. I am going to go over it piece by piece before providing an overarching analysis/opinion.

But first, I would like to dedicate the post to the young lady murdered by her father, Noor. "Noor" means light. Hopefully her story will shed light on the fact that these murders happen in America and need to be understand in a complicated cultural discourse. It can not be as simplified as the article creates.
Title: "An American Honor Killing"-

• First, this title implies that honour killing are, by their very definition, un-American. It suggests the creation of something new, that has not occured before. A more accurate description would be "Young Lady Killed by Family in Arizona: 'Honour' cited as motivation." I personally feel this is less inflammatory and still accurate. Women are killed due to honour in America.

"She played tennis in a T-shirt emblazoned with the school mascot — a baby demon in a diaper. She liked to watch Heroes and eat at Chipotle. Sometimes she talked in a goofy Keanu Reeves voice. She wore dark jeans, jeweled sandals, and flowy tops from Forever 21. She texted constantly and called her friends "dude." In other words, she was an American girl much like any other."

• The author feels the necessity of definition the notion of an "American" girl here by providing her definitions of freedom. This is her initially emphasis. Notice how her physical appearance, her use of technology, ect are the first things mentioned. Not her dreams, aspirations, so on. Let me emphasize, Muslim women in many countries live like this. I knew Jordanian women who wore jeans, flowy tops, ect.
  

"Having lived in the U.S. for 16 years, she held dreams of becoming a teacher, of marrying a man she loved, and, most importantly, of making her own choices."

• I think this should have been the emphasis. Because honestly, this is what the issue is about. Although the author reiterates how the father was frustrated by his daughter's appearance, it was her sexual freedom that is threatening. Also, I find the "Having lived in the U.S..." part unnecessary. In author stories of honour crimes, many women have similar aspirations. This is not uniquely American. This is critical. If we understand's Noor's lifestyle and dreams as American we see her death as an attack on America. Unfortunately, the article continues to make this error.
  

"It's a practice with deep, tenacious roots in the tribal traditions of the Middle East and Asia. (The United Nations estimates that 5,000 women die annually from such crimes.) Women are stoned, stabbed, and, in the recent case of a teenage girl in Turkey, tied up and buried alive."

• The author continues to provide various cases where women are killed--of which cases occurred in America. All these names are foreign...obviously denoting an immigrant status. Instead of taking control of the issue right here, the author has lost the reader in their emotions. It will be difficult for the average reader to understand this issue has more nuance than just American or un-American.
  

• Furthermore, to say they have been "amazingly" ignored because they fall under the role of domestic abuse should raise a few eyebrows. Domestic crimes don't make headlines, she says. Isn't this our societies own fault then? That is why domestic abuse continues to be an extreme and dangerous issue. Noor largely stayed quiet about her abuse. How often is this the story in American abuse cases?
  

"Since the murderer is a member of the woman's family, there's no extended investigation to capture the public's attention. Also, the family of the perpetrator rarely advocates for the victim, due to either fear or a belief that the woman got what she deserved."

• Does this sound familiar? It should. It is often the case in domestic abuse cases. Instead of creating a connection here, the author leaves it at that. There is a culture of fear in domestic abuse cases. The woman often feels she has done something wrong, the abuser often believes he is in the right. And the family may stay entirely ignorant of the entire issue.
  

"Appalled by his friend's fate and determined that no other American girl should face the same situation, he and others have established a Facebook group devoted to Noor, with nearly 4,000 members."

• Key word: "Determined that no other American girl"....this may not be the friends wording, but it is for sure the authors. You can understand the issue I have with this. This is a global crises.
  

• Most of her friends won't talk to the reporter. This is not surprising. For in the news, it inevitably becomes a issue of Islam.

• The marrying off story has occurred before in America and other western countries.

Fortunately, Noor was able to get police involvement. Unfortunately, the restraining order did not go through.

What is unfortunate is that the author does not look at the sadness of this type of crime that is created within the family. She quotes the father and mother in a matter where they look cold and unfeeling. This author does not look at the household, even though the brother is quoted in the article as saying the portrayal of the crime is inaccurate. Questions she should be asking:

• What in society made the father feel like this crime was justified?
  
• Is it truly an honor crime in the cultural sense of the term? Or is this a murder? (She hardly addresses the cultural, societal, and sociological aspects of an honor killing)
  
• Is she calling it an honor crime because they are Muslims?
• Why have Americans not been paying attention to this issue? Did that play a role in this murder in particular?

I would encourage you to read the comments below the article. Yes, we should be angry. Yes, this is a tragedy. Do not think I do not want justice to be served. But I have read countless stories about the murderers and perpetrators. They are victims. They are not innocent, they deserve justice. But they deserve our understanding. They are not sociopaths.

What I want to avoid is attacks like this:

"This is a tragic story. The father should go to prison for the rest of his life and the rest of the family should be sent back to Iraq, where their "values" would be far better served. I can only wonder why they came here in the first place." How does this approach the problem in a constructive way?

and

"May her murdering bastard of a "father" be convicted of first degree murder and may he spend the rest of his pathetic, disgusting, bestial life in prison finding out what a piece of trash he is. Amen."

This is very very dangerous in the current climate regarding American-Arab relations. Instead or revealing that both America and the Middle East have a real problem, the abuse of women, the author made this a backwards, tribal, Arab issue.

We can not solve this crises through making enemies.

Best,
Liz

What How When Where (Why Who)

Hello friends!

I found a Marie-Claire article which is relevant to my thesis. Today I was mostly buried in doing math homework for my GRE prep-course, so thesis work was not on my mind. I found this article while reading the news and I hope you will take a look. My thesis seems to come to me when I am neglecting it.

Unfortunately, I need to buzz off soon to my class (GRE math preparation, gah). But please look at the link by clinking on the blue link above. I will comment on it either later tonight or tomorrow. Pay particular attention to the language the author uses.

*Please don't understand my 'excitement' as being happy for this type of tragedy. Every story is upsetting for me, especially having to read them every day. I bring this article for you to read because it engages in the "us" vs "them" dialogue that occurs when talking about this issue. It is a very dangerous dialogue. I encourage you to feel whatever emotions you do whilst reading and assess how the author's language contributed to that.*

-Liz

Past in Present

Hello folks,

I will be using British spelling, I decided. That is how every academic journal, book, etc, writes honour.

It is another ominous day in Iowa-the clouds are hanging low and the siren earlier today went off. Since it isn't a day for frolicking or reading by the pool, I decided to blog! There will be two this week, God willing.

The subject of this post is an introduction to the book 'Honour' Crimes, Paradigms, and Violence Against Women, edited by Lynn Welchmann and Sara Hossain. It is a collection of articles on this particular issue. I will be presenting several of those articles and will be including them in my thesis.

The preface is by Radhika Coomaraswamy, United Nations Special Rapporteur. Her reports noticed that violence against women is largely a function of societies desire to control woman's sexuality. The "framework" of honour is created to regulate their behaviour. Furthermore, it is accepted as a cultural phenomenon and is often not touched. This creates a "cultural relativism." The right to life and freedom are made irrelevant in the eyes of culture.

However, CEDAW in 1979 created the terms of the "Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women" to shift the focus away from cultural relativism to a human rights issue.

Radhika's ideas include:
-the need to invoke international standards and laws to hold states responsible for these crimes...and dismiss the crutch of cultural relativism
-the development of national penal, civil, and administrative sanctions to protect families and women
-stronger criminal laws
-recognition that law-based strategies are insufficient in addressing this issue
-protection of woman's identities

If you recall, many of these ideas are parallel to the issues raised in Husseini's book.

The introduction is by Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain. The volume is a result of a honour killing in Pakistan. This reveals that this incidences of violence are impetuses for change. This is an unfortunate fact of most cases of violence.

They introduce a Coomarswamy's traditional "definition of crimes of honour...accepts the fact that structures that perpetuate violence against women are socially constructed and that such violence is a product of a historical process and is not essential or time bound in its manifestation."

We will see how this def. applies in my next post. The definition also accepts that all structures of violence that serve to defend male honour are in fact honour crimes. Essentially, they are crimes of motivation, not of passion. Furthermore, it is critical that these crimes be viewed through a wider scope. Meaning there needs to be less focus on these crimes as an "Eastern" phenomenon. The book mentions the damage caused by Khouri's book by perpetuating honour crimes as a problem "of the other."

The book agrees that a single, straight-forward approach by one acting party is not enough. Rather, to solve the problem there needs to be a collaboration from different activists, law makers and locals.

This gives you a brief idea of what variety of articles I will be engaging in.

For now, goodbye!
-Liz

The Lady Vanishes, part 2

Welcome to my next, and last, entry on Rana Husseini's Murder in the Name of Honour.

Husseini, along with other activists, started a campaign, the Jordanian National Committee to Eliminate So-Called Honour Crimes. Their first form of action was a petition to bring Article 98 and 340 up to debate. In the petition there is an extraordinary statement which expresses my interest in Norma Khouri's book. It is a demand to raise the voices of victims:

"In the name of our sisters, daughters and mothers who do not have any voice, in the name of those who this minute unjustly suffer different forms of violence and injury to protect honour, with no one to protect them and guarantee their human rights, we raise our own voice." (35)

This is a critical statement. It is the voices of victims that need to be heard. And not only their voices, but those witnesses and perpetrators of violence. In traumatic events, all of these voices need to be heard. Not only for recovery and processing, but also for those outside of the event to understand.

Husseini received massive resistance, both from the Islamic Action Front and Al-Tahrir party. Each group claimed this was a western, even Zionist, plot to "to destroy our Islamic, social and family values, by stripping men of their humanity when they surprise their wives or female relatives committing adultery"(69).

The vote in Parliament to alter these votes did not pass. Yet in 2001, article 340 was expanded so that women received a similar reduction penalty as men (not a goal of the campaign). A new law called Khuloe gave women more rights for divorce. Slowly, courts started to investigate murders more thoroughly to determine if they were passion or honour crimes. Plays were performed in schools about these crimes and the public seemed to start listening.

This is where Norma Khouri steps in the pictures. Her book, Forbidden Love, was a critical hit in Australia at the time. Husseini received a plethora of emails, claiming that the men in Jordan were "animals with no feelings whatsoever" and promises that they would never visit Jordan...a country which relies on tourism.

Khouri's book tells the story of her friend being murdered for dating a man of a different religion. Khouri is a witness to this crimes, its build-up, and the aftermath. In my opinion, the book is poorly written, incredibly orientalist and anti-Arab, and reeks of exaggeration.

Husseini researched the book and found over 80 errors-including Jordan's geographical location, Khouri's supposed business, ect. During its publication, the debates regarding Australia's role in the Iraq war would be. Palestinian activist in Australia, Ihab Shalbak, gives this quote:

"Norma Khouri is providing what Bush, Blair and Howard failed to deliver which is the moral case of the war, for attacking savage Arab men and liberate Arab women and the feminized Arab world." (96)

How did this effect the cause? Husseini writes,

"She ruined our cause. Those who opposed change, who suspected that western agenda lies behind our activism, were suddenly presented with 'evidence' that crimes of honour were a fiction and exaggerations and sought to link our campaign to Khouri's book" (94)

The affect this book had in terms of the Western world is simple. It provided another over-simplified, hysterical and orientalist view of the Arab world. It establishes a divide between the "west" and "the Other." And despite the West's own history of both honour crimes, crimes of passion, and domestic abuse, it puts the west on a pedestal of moral superiority.

With this type of attitude, the Western world assumes a responsibility to solve this crisis. However, it is only grass root, local movements like Husseini's that provide substantial change. Instead of books like Khouri's, Husseini suggests another form of vocalizing these crimes: pictures of victims, interviews with families, attempts to humanize the victim.

What is my opinion? I agree that Khouri did irreparable damage for many years. Yet at this time, I believe her book has undeniable value because it provides the prospective of a witness. Yes, Khouri never lived her adult life in Jordan and spent most of it in Chicago. Yes, she never witnessed an honour crime. But as an Arab, she is connected to this culture and this issue. And it obviously concerns her. Thus she is a witness. To what degree, I do not know yet. But between the lines, there is a story. This is what I believed when I read this book.

None of my opinions are set in stone.

What about Husseini's book? Overall, I found the tone a bit too emotional. The anger is palatable, which is good in some cases, but it became overwhelming. Although it provided an image of a progressive Middle East, it often portrayed the "backwardness" in a way that Westerners could assume an image of superiority. I believe it is essential that none of us think our culture is better than this, because it simply isn't true. Here is one quote from a woman that I felt was unneeded:

"We are in a Middle Eastern society and I am for punishing women more than men because men cannot resist the seduction of girls who are dressed improperly...When women are punished, fear of their families will build up among them and they will think twice before committing any immoral mistake."

I worry about this quote. It should be included, but perhaps in a different document, where the language is not as emotional elevated. A reader gets caught up in Husseini's anger and reading this quote could easily send them into a tailspin. But to Husseini's credit, she does reveal that the Western world fights with their own demons regarding this issue. Perhaps that resolves the other issues I had with the book, I am not sure.

All the best! Article views will come up eventually.

Liz

The Lady Vanishes, part 1

Good morning,

I woke up to a pouring rain this morning. The minute I had my coffee ready, I sat down with my computer to start up my blog again. The topic for this morning? They book I finished a few weeks ago: Murder in the Name of Honor, by Rana Husseini. To keep these little ramblings short and sweet, I will install long ones into two parts.

While in Jordan, I had the chance to meet internationally known journalist Rana for her ideas about my thesis and the status of honor killings in Jordan. I made no indication that those ideas would be published, so I won't share them. Needless to say, she assured me the importance of Khouri's book in the movement and its continuing negative impact in Jordan. Ergo, my thesis isn't a total waste of time.

Her book is an impressive one. It addresses the status of the anti-honor killing movement in Jordan and their struggles in snuffing out the problem. Although I found her book interesting and informative, its tone is extremely hyper-emotional. This is understandable-this is an emotional topic. And as a journalist who reported on honor killings as a living, Rana has every right to be upset. This often distracted me from her major message. As an academic, I did not like this aspect. But as someone trying to learn about the conflict at a basic level, I enjoyed it. I recommend it to anyone who is just starting to learn about honor killings (thus, I review it first off).

Rana begins the book by placing us in the context:
“Imagine your sister or daughter being killed for chewing gum, for laughing at a joke in the street, for wearing make-up or a short skirt, for choosing her own boyfriend/husband and becoming pregnant.” (xi)

For those who have a daughter, your daughter has most likely done some of these things. If you are someone's daughter, you probably have done the same. According to Jordanian police, about 25 women a year are killed through these type of honor killings. An honor killing is where a woman in the family has tarnished their reputation and must be "cleansed" to preserve honor. It is a mode of control-over a woman's sexuality, over choices in love, and over her movement. Even rape is considered punishable by honor killing.

Rana is a journalist in Amman, with a focus on crime. When she started reporting on these crimes, she received an onslaught of criticism from her readers for writing about this non-problem. Others told her she was wasting her time, considering their culture stagnant.

To her credit, Rana doesn't only represent the obvious victims of this culture, but the silent suppressed: the murderers. Now, obviously, they are not sympathetic characters initially. But the social pressure from parents and community to do the "honor" creates a Catch-22. Either way, your sister/daughter/cousin will die, you just won't be the one to do it. This killer that will be quoted below saw his sister die by his hand and then his life destroyed.

“I took the stand and told the judges that I had to kill my sister, because if I did not kill her, it would have been like killing more than a thousand men from my tribe.”

“No one wants to be the one to kill his sister, but traditions and society inflict things on us that we really do not want to do. If society would not have shunned us after her rape, we would not have killed her and instead locked her inside the house until she died or someone married her.”

True, it is hard to sympathize him as a westerner. We see the opportunities of free choice, to run away, ect. This just simply isn't an option. Especially when the legal punishment is not severe.

In her various court visits, she finds that Jordanian law grants leniency to these killers. The law states that those who murder in a "passionate frenzy" are granted leniency. Article 340 and 98 are two constitutional articles that preserve the rights of murderers. 98 allows a killer a reduced sentence if he kills someone in "a fit of frenzy." 340 allows a person to kill or injure another if they are involved in adulterous situation.

Rana, along with other prominent international actors and locals, started a campaign to target article 340. In my next post, I will elaborate more on this campaign, how it ended, and how Khouri played a role in its failure.

Much love,
Liz