Solomonia Archive: Honor Killing

Thursday, January 19, 2006

I'm a couple days late in noting this important and surprisingly clear-headed article that appeared on the front page of the Boston Globe concerning the epidemic of honor killing going on in Europe. Let's pay attention to this issue before it becomes an epidemic here. Where are our women's rights groups speaking out about this issue not only in the West, but world-wide?

For Muslim women, a deadly defiance - 'Honor killings' on rise in Europe

...The rise of fundamentalism among Muslims in Europe can be blamed, at least partially, on the failure of countries to integrate the millions of Muslims who started arriving in large numbers in the 1960s. Two generations later, most lead lives largely segregated from the mainstream. ''It's been taboo to discuss integration. It offends those who say every expression of cultural difference is somehow wonderful," said Heinz Buschkowsky, mayor of the Berlin borough of Neukoelln, where more than a third of the residents are Arabs and Turks. ''But now, with culture being expressed by covering women's faces or killing a girl who refuses to marry some old man in the home village, perhaps it is time to break the taboo."

In Neukoelln's largely immigrant Thomas Morus school, not far from the place where Hatun Surucu was murdered, students greeted news of her slaying with loud approval. Her brothers were hailed as local heroes.

The principal, Volker Steffans, was so disgusted by the display that he sent a letter to parents, to be read and signed, explaining what he had always regarded as obvious -- that girls should not be harassed for refusing to wear head scarves; that girls should not be attacked for wanting to pursue careers; that women should not be murdered for expecting tolerance and equality in a Western society.

''A murder happened nearby; a young woman was killed. She died because she wanted to live freely," Steffans said. ''But we are shocked by the fact that students approve of this murder and say [Surucu] deserved to die because she 'lived like a German.' "

Posted by Solomon at 11:44 AM on Thursday, Jan 19, 2006 | Comments (2)
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2 Comments

#1 Meryl Yourish | January 19, 2006 12:50 PM

Solly, say what you like about a lot of things, but please don't mindlessly repeat the canard that women's groups don't protest honor killings and the other hideous suppresions of women in the Islamic world. Instead, go visit some women's groups websites and see for yourself that they've been protesting it since before the conservatives got wind of it. (Try not to get distracted by the anti-Bush portions of the website.)

You may have forgotten, but I have not, that CNN ran a documentary on the Taliban something like a million times after 9/11--and it was a documentary on women under the Taliban. NOW had an awareness program long before 9/11.

Women's groups are there, and have been there. The fact that they're not in the headlines is not their fault.

#2 Solomon | January 19, 2006 1:06 PM

Fair enough. I'm not going to do a study of how much time they spend on these things, I'm going on what I've osmosed from people like Tammy Bruce and Phyllis Chesler and what they've described. A search for "Honor Killings" on NOW's site comes up with only 11 results, and at least one of those (the one I bothered reading) has Patricia Ireland drawing an equivalency between honor crimes and more traditional (not the right word, but you take the point) partner abuse which misses the point in my view.

They know how to get headlines and issue press releases if they want to. I just believe they're far more comfortable with traditional domestic politics.