Honour Killings - the whats, hows and whys...

Northman, morticia, Mazier:

 

I am not trying to minimize the issue. I simply stated that I understand the predicament the family members find themselves in, but I do not agree with the course of action they take.

 

In my own village, one of our neighbors and his brother murdered his own 16 year old daughter for the sake of the "family's honor" - all these years later, he's still grieving, and wishes his daughter were still alive. He wasn't even Muslim, and neither was he religious.

 

My own grandfather had one daughter who "followed her heart" and was married multiple times, and another daughter who was unable to reconcile with her husband. He did not take it upon himself to restore his "family's honor" but he didn't � and neither did he take his own life. I feel sorry for the people that are so influenced by what others may think of them and resort to killing their own children.

 

I have three sisters, and as far as I am concerned, their lives are their own and they are free to live their lives as they please.

Edited by Master_Blaster - 28-Jun-2006 at 20:18

Originally posted by Maziar Originally posted by Mortaza well,  do you  have a reading  problem?  this is  becoming boring, we said murderers deserve to capital punishment(acording to islam),  so isnt this enough condemnation? how can we  condemn it? show  us condemnation you want?  So we can learn what  is condemnation accepted  by you.     I was reffering to Master Blaster , not to you, so calm budy.

Originally posted by Master_Blaster In my own village, one of our neighbors and his brother�murdered his own�16 year old daughter for the sake of the "family's honor" - all these years later, he's still grieving, and wishes his daughter were still alive. He wasn't even Muslim, and neither was he religious.

That is very sad, MB.    I'm sure many others have regretted their actions as well, however, it's all too late for the victim.

Originally posted by Master_Blaster My own grandfather had one daughter who "followed her heart" and was married multiple times, and another daughter who was unable to reconcile with her husband. He did not take it upon himself to restore his "family's honor" but he didn't � and neither did he take his own life. I feel sorry for the people that are so influenced by what others may think of them and resort to killing their own children.

You should be very proud of your grandfather for being a leader and not a follower. He had the strength to think for himself and the well-being of his family and, against everything he's ever known, he chose to do what he wanted and not what others expected of him. That's very admirable!

Originally posted by Master_Blaster Hint. Education is

   
1000% in agreement with you. Educating men and de-programming the mentality that women are "possessions that can easily be disposed of" is a good start.

Originally posted by Cent "1000% in agreement with you. Educating men and de-programming the mentality that women are "possessions that can easily be disposed of" is a good start." � Women are also behind honour killings. Educate women too.

Absolutely! Both genders need education.
    

Originally posted by Master_Blaster Northman, morticia, Mazier:   I am not trying to minimize the issue. I simply stated that I understand the predicament the family members find themselves in, but I do not agree with the course of action they take.   In my own village, one of our neighbors and his brother murdered his own 16 year old daughter for the sake of the "family's honor" - all these years later, he's still grieving, and wishes his daughter were still alive. He wasn't even Muslim, and neither was he religious.   My own grandfather had one daughter who "followed her heart" and was married multiple times, and another daughter who was unable to reconcile with her husband. He did not take it upon himself to restore his "family's honor" but he didn't � and neither did he take his own life. I feel sorry for the people that are so influenced by what others may think of them and resort to killing their own children.   The difference between my grandfather and the other villager was that my grandfather was educated and had actually received a college educated whereas the villager was completely illiterate. Hint. Education is key.   I have three sisters, and as far as I am concerned, their lives are their own and they are free to live their lives as they please.

Edited by Northman - 30-Jun-2006 at 10:08

Originally posted by Northman Let us for a moment imagine that I had no choice, nomatter the reason, but to kill my own daughter. I can safely say, I would without hessitation kill myself instead, and I know my son would do the same, if he was obliged to kill his sister. You dont accept it, but still you dont want us to talk about it?

Honor killings are pre-Islamic nomadic practices, and once again I wuold like to say that they have nothing to do with Islaming teaching. I have never heard of honor killins in my community and my grandparents are actually quite religious, I learned about it mostly in the West. I would never imagine killing my mother, sister or daughter for anything let alone because they had sex with somebody.

But we have to realize that it is easy for you and me to condemnt honor killings that because we come from free countries where individuals are only responsible for their own actions, and the individual actions of others do not influence them in any way. If someone from my family would have sex that wouldn't affect me in any way.

But in countries where this nomadic practice of honor killings still exists, the whole family is held responsible for the actions of even a single one of its member. In order to protect itself the family needs to enforce a strict "moral code".

If the family does not kill the offender of this "moral code", the whole family will suffer. If you were to kill yourself rather than take the life of the "offending" women, you would condemn your whole family to a shameful life. The act of killing is somehow considered to cleanse the family of the shame so that they can continue to be part of the society.

So the choice is not between killing yourself or the offending person, the choice is between condemning the whole family to a shameful existence or killing the offending person. You wouldn't want to kill a loved one, but you wouldn want to condemn your entire family either. Just killing yourself to avoid facing the dilemma will not help.

In the west there is this misconception that men are the ones who kill the women, in fact it is not that simple. The men only perform the act of killing, the decision for the killing is taken by a "family congress" and women (especially the mother of the groom) have a very strong influence on taking that decision.

It is very easy for you or me, to make moral judgements on those that perform honor killings, since we are part of free societies, but it is much harder for people who actually live within this nomadic social order.

This is just my attempt to explain what leads to honor killings. My position is still that there should be no merci on those murderers that perform those acts, but if we are to have any success uprooting this disease we must focus on its causes which is the social psychology, merely suppressing the symptoms will not work.

Originally posted by Northman MB - once again you make a great effort to tell us this isnt a muslim-problem. Why do you as muslim feel "hit" and think you repeatedly have to defend muslims in this context?

 

I do not feel it is a Muslim problem for many reasons:

 

1. Because it is not condoned in Islam, it is not written anywhere in the Qu'ran or in the Hadiths as has been mentioned here already.

 

2. Because it is practiced in non-Islamic communities in India and China, and was once practiced even amongst the Christian Europeans.

 

3. Because it doesn't occur as often as you think it does. It is extremely rare.

 

Originally posted by Northman OK - we have discussed numbers before. But only numbers I brought forward.

 

Yes, we did in fact discuss the numbers before and I stipulated that there were 1.5 billion Muslims, 1.1 billion Indians, and other communities such as those in China where honor killings were not unheard of.

 

You stated that according to a human rights organization, some 5,000 women had been the victims of honor killings since a particular year (I don't recall the year exactly). I further contended that if we are to take into account that there are 1.5 billion Muslims plus 1.1. billion Indians (largely Hindus), and half of this total (2.6 billion) is female, then the 5,000 is minimal to say the least.

Originally posted by Northman May I ask you to give us some background for YOUR statements. How many killings per year is your expression "extremely rare" based upon?

 

I've lived in these communities - Muslim and non-Muslim. I've slept there. I've eaten there. I know what goes on there, and I know that many young women have premarital sex but they're not murdered by their family members for engaging in these relationships. It's sort of just "swept under the rug" and no one discusses it.

 

Why else would a single honor killing make so much headlines?

 

I know that there are Iranian women in the United States, Turkish women in Germany, and Pakistani women in the United Kingdom, among others, who have premarital sexual relations with Muslim and non-Muslim men. Many even marry non-Muslim men. I don't see their families murdering them. I do see them bring their American, or German, or English husbands/boyfriends to cultural events. Would that happen if honor killings were as prevalent as the media makes them out to be?

 

There were 20,000 to 50,000 Bosnian Muslim women raped and gang-raped by Serbian Christian men, and there were 20,000 Albanian Muslim women raped and gang-raped by Serbian Christian men, and there were thousands of Afghan Muslim women raped by Soviet soldiers, and there are Chechen Muslim women being raped by Russian Christian soldiers as you and I discuss this issue. Yet, none of these women were murdered by their Muslim husbands, fathers, or brothers to salvage the "family's honor"  - that is what I mean when I said it is not a Muslim problem.

 

It is a problem, I realize that, and I know that it needs to be addressed before other women and girls lose their lives over it, but let's not condemn and entire group of people for it.

 

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world. Thousands of American Roman Catholic children have been molested by priests in their churches - many times more the 5,000 women you have mentioned - does that mean that we condemn the entire Roman Catholic Church?

 

 

 

Edited by Master_Blaster - 02-Jul-2006 at 20:52

Originally posted by Northman You say you learned about it in the west. Isnt that a clear indication of the fact (like Mila said) that noone talks about it in regions where its stll practised most frequently, whereas the reaction of western media and populations will always be much stronger and visible, when it happens here?

There could be another explanation for why it is more often heard of in the West.Muslim girls in the West are more likely to "offend" the "honor code" since they are influenced by Western culture. Clearly, since  honor "crimes" are more widespread in Western societies, so are honor killings.

But you are right that in conservative socieites where honor killings are practiced, usually the killing is never reported to the police, or if it is, it is recorded as an act of suicide. But I'd say people at least in the close neighbourhood would know about it, since if nobody knew about the issue, there would be no need to protect honor and perform the honor killing in the first place. People would know about the killing but no one would dare interfere. Honor is considered a family business, the family's right to punish its members is taught to be sacred. In Turkey even the police did not dare interfere in a "family business" and they used to scrap the murder simply as an act of suicide. People do hear about honor killings, but they don't dare do anything about them. So it is a twofold process, the family is obliged to kill  because of "honor" and nobody dares to prevent the killing again because of "honor" - no wonder why the practice has continued for millenia.


I have never heard of honor killings where I live in Bulgaria, but they surely exist in the more conservative areas of Turkey (south east and Istanbul slums). Authorities area not very open on the issue, and they try to give an impression that everything is going fine, so I learned about the extent of the problem only on the West.

But do not underestimate media in Muslim countries either. The murder of Guldunya Toren and Emine Usta generated great public outrage all over Turkey. For those that understand Turkish here is a link to the article reporting on the murder of Emine Usta, mother of 4. The reason for the murder this time is her desire to divorce her drunkard husband.

http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/364037.asp

But still there is a long way to go. According to this article by BBC 40% Turkish men think that honor killings are justified!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4357158.stm


Edited by bg_turk - 03-Jul-2006 at 02:00

Originally posted by bg_turk But still there is a long way to go. According to this article by BBC 40% Turkish men think that honor killings are justified! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4357158.stm

That article is a little misleading. As far as I know, Diyarbakir is a Kurdish-populated city in one of the most lawless regions regions of Turkey - hardly an acceptable location to conduct any poll questioning "Turkish" impressions of something. It'd be like conducting the same poll in Bosnia by asking 500 Serbs in Banja Luka.