Dana
2004-10-23 19:16:54 UTC
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=11907
Killing Women for Honor
By Ted Lapkin
TheAge.com | January 28, 2004
The attack took place just a few months ago, and it was nasty, brutish and
short. The three young men brandished axes as they forced their way through
the apartment door, hacking to death two women who cowered in terror against
the rear wall of their flat.
At first glance, this act of homicidal savagery might appear to be the sort
of violent tragedy that could take place in the crime-ridden quarters of any
city in the world. Yet these gruesome killings were not the work of deranged
serial killers run amok. Nor was this slaughter the result of a turf war
between rival gangs.
A closer examination of these murders reveals they bear all the hallmarks of
"honour killing", a cultural phenomenon that claims thousands of female
lives each year throughout the Middle East. Not only did this incident take
place in Amman, Jordan, but it was also a family affair in which brothers
butchered their own sisters.
And what did the victims do to warrant such a fate? Well, it is reported
that both of these women, aged in their 20s, had previously spurned their
family's attempts to force them into arranged marriages. The more
traditional segments of Arab society demand that women must serve, above all
else, as the subservient repositories of their familial honour. Any hint of
sexual impropriety, or act of insubordination by a female family member
marks the entire household with a badge of disgrace that can only be
expunged through the shedding of blood.
Moreover, the very day before this grisly murder, Jordan's Parliament
defeated a bill to toughen the ludicrously lax prison sentences meted out to
"honour killers". If past jail terms are a precedent, this fraternal
homicidal trio will serve no more than a few months for their crime.
Some might argue that the far away practice of honour killings, tragic
though it might be, should not be of any particular concern to Australians.
Yet such indifference would be a mistake because the oppression of women in
the Arab world flows from the same cultural wellspring that feeds the
Islamist extremism that threatens us all.
Anthropologist G. M. Kessler describes the Arab world as an "honour and
shame culture" in which the need to avoid the loss of face is overriding. It
can be argued that this cultural preoccupation with acquiring prestige and
avoiding humiliation is also a major contributory factor to the Islamist
phenomenon of suicide bombing.
The traditional concept of honour in Arab society manifests itself through
defensive and offensive forms. The defensive variant of Middle Eastern
honour is called "ird", and features the obsession with female sexual purity
that we have already observed.
The sense of ird is also offended by the weakness of the Arab world, when
compared with the West. This vexatious sense of societal inferiority is only
exacerbated by the presence of a high-tech Western democracy named Israel in
the heart of the Islamic Middle East.
The offensive form of honour is described by the Arabic word "sharaf", and
it involves positive action that is taken to enhance one's social status by
winning praise and renown. In the contemporary Middle East, the passion to
acquire sharaf is often focused on the insult to the pan-Arab sense of ird
that is posed by the existence of the infidel Israel, and the political,
military and technological pre-eminence of the infidel West.
Thus, terrorists who murder Americans, Australians or Israelis are thought
to reap the dual benefit of striking a blow on behalf of Islamic
civilisation, while also elevating their family prestige in the eyes of the
community.
Last year the United Nations published the Arab Human Development Report
2003, a study that analysed "the disabling constraints that hamper the
acquisition, diffusion and production of knowledge in Arab societies".
Written by Arab social scientists from throughout the Middle East, the UN
report concludes that a key to economic prosperity and social progress rests
with the liberation of that region's women.
Certain common traditional Arab concepts of dignity serve as the foundation
for a ruthless regime of social oppression that reduces most women to the
status of chattels. Yet the recent liberation of Iraq provides a sterling
opportunity to shatter this anachronistic social paradigm through the
establishment of a democratic government in Baghdad that practises gender
equality.
The emancipation of Iraqi women from their state of social servitude will
inspire changes to a Middle Eastern sense of honour that spawns the dual
atrocities of honour killing and suicide bombing. Only when Arab women begin
to enjoy the equal status that is taken for granted in Western society will
the foundations of Islamist terrorism begin to crumble as well.
Killing Women for Honor
By Ted Lapkin
TheAge.com | January 28, 2004
The attack took place just a few months ago, and it was nasty, brutish and
short. The three young men brandished axes as they forced their way through
the apartment door, hacking to death two women who cowered in terror against
the rear wall of their flat.
At first glance, this act of homicidal savagery might appear to be the sort
of violent tragedy that could take place in the crime-ridden quarters of any
city in the world. Yet these gruesome killings were not the work of deranged
serial killers run amok. Nor was this slaughter the result of a turf war
between rival gangs.
A closer examination of these murders reveals they bear all the hallmarks of
"honour killing", a cultural phenomenon that claims thousands of female
lives each year throughout the Middle East. Not only did this incident take
place in Amman, Jordan, but it was also a family affair in which brothers
butchered their own sisters.
And what did the victims do to warrant such a fate? Well, it is reported
that both of these women, aged in their 20s, had previously spurned their
family's attempts to force them into arranged marriages. The more
traditional segments of Arab society demand that women must serve, above all
else, as the subservient repositories of their familial honour. Any hint of
sexual impropriety, or act of insubordination by a female family member
marks the entire household with a badge of disgrace that can only be
expunged through the shedding of blood.
Moreover, the very day before this grisly murder, Jordan's Parliament
defeated a bill to toughen the ludicrously lax prison sentences meted out to
"honour killers". If past jail terms are a precedent, this fraternal
homicidal trio will serve no more than a few months for their crime.
Some might argue that the far away practice of honour killings, tragic
though it might be, should not be of any particular concern to Australians.
Yet such indifference would be a mistake because the oppression of women in
the Arab world flows from the same cultural wellspring that feeds the
Islamist extremism that threatens us all.
Anthropologist G. M. Kessler describes the Arab world as an "honour and
shame culture" in which the need to avoid the loss of face is overriding. It
can be argued that this cultural preoccupation with acquiring prestige and
avoiding humiliation is also a major contributory factor to the Islamist
phenomenon of suicide bombing.
The traditional concept of honour in Arab society manifests itself through
defensive and offensive forms. The defensive variant of Middle Eastern
honour is called "ird", and features the obsession with female sexual purity
that we have already observed.
The sense of ird is also offended by the weakness of the Arab world, when
compared with the West. This vexatious sense of societal inferiority is only
exacerbated by the presence of a high-tech Western democracy named Israel in
the heart of the Islamic Middle East.
The offensive form of honour is described by the Arabic word "sharaf", and
it involves positive action that is taken to enhance one's social status by
winning praise and renown. In the contemporary Middle East, the passion to
acquire sharaf is often focused on the insult to the pan-Arab sense of ird
that is posed by the existence of the infidel Israel, and the political,
military and technological pre-eminence of the infidel West.
Thus, terrorists who murder Americans, Australians or Israelis are thought
to reap the dual benefit of striking a blow on behalf of Islamic
civilisation, while also elevating their family prestige in the eyes of the
community.
Last year the United Nations published the Arab Human Development Report
2003, a study that analysed "the disabling constraints that hamper the
acquisition, diffusion and production of knowledge in Arab societies".
Written by Arab social scientists from throughout the Middle East, the UN
report concludes that a key to economic prosperity and social progress rests
with the liberation of that region's women.
Certain common traditional Arab concepts of dignity serve as the foundation
for a ruthless regime of social oppression that reduces most women to the
status of chattels. Yet the recent liberation of Iraq provides a sterling
opportunity to shatter this anachronistic social paradigm through the
establishment of a democratic government in Baghdad that practises gender
equality.
The emancipation of Iraqi women from their state of social servitude will
inspire changes to a Middle Eastern sense of honour that spawns the dual
atrocities of honour killing and suicide bombing. Only when Arab women begin
to enjoy the equal status that is taken for granted in Western society will
the foundations of Islamist terrorism begin to crumble as well.