Category: women’s issues

More from Phyllis Chesler on honor killings

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Phyllis Chesler’s scholarly study of honor killings continues to be discussed.  I referred to it in a post in February, after the New York State beheading hit the news. Now here is an interview of Chesler by Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review.  It begins:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What exactly is an honor killing? And is it odd for there to be one in, say, New York State? 
 
Phyllis Chesler: The beheading in Buffalo, N.Y., is a hybrid case which involves some features of Western-style domestic violence and a Pakistani-Islamic method of murder. However, in 2004, in Scottsville, N.Y., a Turkish-Muslim woman was honor-murdered, and in 2008, in Henrietta, N.Y., a serious honor murder was attempted by an Afghan Muslim. However, honor killings usually take place in shame-and-honor societies, mainly in the Third World. In the West, such murders are mainly done by Muslims (it is a Muslim-on-Muslim crime), and to a much lesser extent, by Sikhs. Strangers are not usually honor-murdered; only daughters, wives, or sisters are. It is an intimate family crime, a premeditated one, with many warnings given. It is also a family collaboration. 

Chesler says that most Muslims deny the connection between Islam and honor killing. But 90 percent of honor killings in the west are done by Muslims, and the vast majority worldwide. In Muslim countries this kind of murder is dealt with very leniently by the state, if at all. And sometimes the response is bizarre:

More progressive countries, like Jordan, deal with the intractable problem of honor-related violence against women and honor killing by locking up the potential victims, often for as long as a decade.

And she continues:

Unlike traditional Western-style non-fatal domestic violence, or Western-style femicide, both of which are considered and prosecuted as crimes, honor killings are traditionally not frowned upon, and the men who restore their family’s honor are valorized. 

Muslim leaders invariably respond to honor killings by objecting to anyone implicating Islam in the practice. Lopez asked Chesler what a better response should be. Chesler says the leaders need to change their attitude toward honor killings and condemn it.

  Those who commit honor killings — like Yaser Said, who murdered his two daughters in Dallas — must not be sheltered or supported by their families or communities or helped to escape.  
 
… Muslim religious leaders should pledge to found shelters for battered Muslim women who are in danger of being honor-murdered. They must understand that the attempts to honor-kill a “disobedient” or “runaway” daughter or wife will never end until she is dead. Most will require the equivalent of a federal witness-protection program. What may work for non-immigrant and non-Muslim victims of domestic violence (not honor killing/femicide), may not necessarily work for Muslim girls and women. 

[And] the good Muslim leaders might start instructing youngsters against the tight control of girls and women and start shaming and shunning such behaviors in their midst. 

None of this can happen until Islam itself is reformed.

…the moderate, peaceful, and “good” Muslims need to really wrestle with the Koran and the Hadith. They must help bring 7th- and 8th-century holy documents into the 21st century as other religions have done, namely Judaism and Christianity. Denying that the Koran is barbaric, that it views infidels (Jews and Christians) as subhuman, and that it commands jihad and death to infidels will not help matters.

 Leaders within Islam worldwide should work to stop honor killings, says Chesler:

While American-Muslim groups argue, after the fact, that honor killings are pre-Islamic cultural relics, I say: A religion which boasts so many economically wealthy leaders and 1.5-plus billion followers should, by now, have been able to stamp out such pre-Islamic cultural behaviors.

Lopez asks Chesler where feminists stand on honor killings.

Chesler: The good news: I have been working with a number of people who oppose and expose honor killings: Nonie Darwish, Nancy Kobrin, Maryam Namazie, and Douglas Murray in the U.K., Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Andy Bostom, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Robert Spencer, and others in the U.S. 
 
But what you are really asking me is whether any of the academic, post-colonialist, postmodern feminists have come aboard, or whether public, Democratic-party feminists have done so. Well, I finally have one NOW feminist ally. Marcia Pappas, the president of NOW-NYS, has been speaking out about the beheading in Buffalo without fearing that what she says will lead to charges of “racism.” We will work together on this issue. I have gradual, increasing support behind the scenes from second-wave feminists, but they are fearful about their funding, careers, even their lives.

 And finally, what does Chesler hope to accomplish?

With all due respect to the Obama administration, we may not be able to abolish odious practices in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or in Gaza and the West Bank — but we ought to be able to keep them from happening here.  

My own opinion is that honor killing is so barbaric that we should cut off immigration from any country where it is practiced, with very few exceptions made, only for those who have shown they are reformers, by deeds as well as words. I mean, of course, Muslim immigration, since honor killing is now practiced all over western Europe. We don’t have to keep out Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, though it would be a good thing if he took more notice of it than he has.

Update: Judge says ‘honour’ crimes have no place in English law. But here’s their dilemma.

The 41 year old father of three Muslim children placed with white foster parents was challenging being refused contact with them.

He also called for them to be placed with a Muslim family, but was refused permission to appeal against the decision of the High Court Family Division.

One of the children had been set on fire by her mother who also tried to burn down their house in an attempt to incriminate her sister-in-law. The sister-in-law was said to have “disgraced” the family because she fled after being beaten and her first child murdered by her husband, the mother’s brother.

The local authority acknowledged that placing the children with a white family was “culturally and religiously inappropriate.” Fortunately, they also acknowledged that if they were placed with a culturally and religiously similar family they may be (i.e. would be) found and harmed. This is a big step forward for a local authority. Some of these enlightened government officials have responded to girls’ complaints about violence in the home by sending a culturally and religiously similar social worker to investigate. You can imagine how effective that is. Very effective for the father; not so much for the girl. But they were probably just responding to the judge’s order. And how I love this judge:

Lord Justice Wall said the activities brought to light by the case had “nothing to do with any concept of honour known to English law”.

He described arson, domestic violence and revenge likely to result in abduction or death as criminal acts of “simply sordid, criminal behaviour.”

An order was made banning identification of the children, aged five, nine and 11, whose parents are both Muslims and originate from families in Pakistan.

This should all sound routine, but it looks like a big step away from accepting that Muslims can follow sharia law in family matters, and a big step toward asserting the authority of British law. Hurray for Lord Justice Wall!

Hat tip: Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch.

500 British girls have genitals mutilated every year

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update March 25th:   I thought the British number was high, but here is an article from NYC that says our cases of female genital mutilation are much higher, and we are doing less about it.

 

That is a staggering number.    And, you can bet it’s happening here too in the secretive Somali Muslim communities in cities such as Minneapolis, Seattle, Nashville, Boston, San Diego and so on.

The article, from The Times, tells us that British health authorities are promoting a campaign to reach Somalis and other immigrants from the Horn of Africa  to have the gruesome operation reversed.  It would be done free as part of their nationalized health care sytem.  Hat tip Blulitespecial.  Gosh, just think taxpayers here could be paying for similar operations in years ahead if Obama gets his way.

The NHS is to advertise free operations to reverse female circumcisions, with experts warning that each year more than 500 British girls have their genitals mutilated.

Despite having been outlawed in 1985, female circumcision is still practised in British African communities, in some cases on girls as young as 5. Police have been unable to bring a single prosecution even though they suspect that community elders are being flown from the Horn of Africa to carry out the procedures.

The advertisement will appear from next month on a Somali satellite TV station much viewed in Britain.

What is female genital mutilation?  We have loads of posts on the subject in our health issues category, but it’s important to remind readers again.

Female circumcision, which is done for various reasons, such as religious and cultural traditions, can cause severe health complications including infections and psychological problems. The procedure, predominantly carried out on girls aged between 5 and 12, can range from the removal of the clitoris to the removal of all the exterior parts of the vagina, which is then sewn up.

To understand it fully, I recommend you read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book, Infidel, in which she describes how the procedure traumatized her and her sister.

Agency for Culture Change Management UK?   I wonder when we will get one of those.

Sarah McCulloch, of the Agency for Culture Change Management UK, said that every year more than 500 British girls were having circumcisions. “A lot of them are done in the UK, but some still travel overseas,” she said.

She said that a code of silence in Britain’s African communities had allowed circumcisions to continue and prevented arrests. The unqualified female elders, known as “house doctors” because they act in secret in a family home, are flown into the country.

It is supposedly a cultural (cultural relativism is crap) and religious (Islamic) obligation which destroys the sex drive and helps assure men get their sexual pleasure but that their women then don’t stray too far.  But it does more than that, it is the worst form of child abuse wrapped in a veil of secrecy often dooming girls to a lifetime of pain and psychological trauma.

Ms McCulloch said that girls were brainwashed into believing circumcision to be a cultural, and, in some cases, religious obligation that should be kept secret. “It is something they simply do not discuss — if they do they’d be seen as betraying their family and their community and culture,” she said. “I know many girls who want to accuse their parents but can’t. They don’t want to take their parents to court.”

In the US, refugee resettlement workers know this is happening and I sure hope they are brave enough to blow the whistle, but I doubt it.

Books to read:    It’s a long time since we wrote about this, but I recommend especially to our female readers three books that I found very informative about Islam.  I call them ‘my women’s books,’  one is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s that I mentioned above.  The other two are Nonie Darwish, “Now they call me Infidel,” and Brigitte Gabriel, “Because they Hate: A survivor of Islamic Terror warns America.”

Hirsi Ali grew up in Africa, Darwish in Egypt, and Gabriel in Lebanon, so they give you a multi-country/continent view of Islam and what it means to be female in that male-dominated Islamic political and religious society.

Blogger: How Islamic Immigration Reverses Civil Rights in the West

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Using the UK as a primary example, blogger Sultan Knish has written an essay I highly recommend you read.   I’ve never seen this blog, but plan to visit frequently from now on.  Here is a paragraph to wet your appetite and to remind readers that Sweden, and Australia too, are having  really tough times coping with their large numbers of Muslim immigrants unwilling to accept Western society’s civil rights.

The epidemic of gang rapes by Muslim immigrants in Sweden, Australia and elsewhere in the West are a cultural and religious problem that goes unacknowledged. They are the outgrowth of a belief system that views first non-Muslims and especially non-Muslim women as inferior and open to the taking. But they could not continue without a political and academic climate that discourages any criticism of Islam, and presumes that Western beliefs are inherently bad and non-Western beliefs are inherently good.

And here is her (I assume Sultan Knish is a ‘she’, the eyes are too pretty for a ‘he’) concluding paragraph.

King Sharia rules across Europe, violence and brutality is his penal code, and the silence and complacency of nations is his throne. The challenge is to uproot that throne before it hardens and becomes permanent. Before custom becomes law, that generations have grown up with. And the paradox is that it is the very people aiding Muslim immigration who have the most to suffer from it. The ideal of a liberal society is incompatible with a Muslim society. The two cannot and will not co-exist for long. Either the Sword of Islam or the Guarantees of Human Freedom must prevail.

Read the whole thing here.

Beheader said headless wife can’t reach paradise

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update March 14th:  Beheader pleads not quilty, at Jihad Watch here.

Daniel Pipes, Middle East scholar and anti-jihad fighter, has a column today on the New York State beheading case with a new piece of information. He writes:

A reliable source informs me – and this is breaking news – that the police found Muzzammil repeatedly told his wife that she had no right, under Islamic law, to divorce him. They also quote him stating that Aasiya, because beheaded, cannot reach paradise.

Presumably this is why he beheaded her.  After all, what’s the point of killing a wife who dishonors you if she’s going to go right to paradise? And it makes clear why beheading is a favorite method of killing by jihadists. Remember Daniel Pearl, among many others? 

I remember as a child hearing once in a great while about kidnappings or gruesome murders and being frightened and haunted by them. I feel somewhat like that now about this case; maybe that’s why I keep writing about it. I never heard of beheading as a child, except in folk tales. Probably the only Muslims in Philadelphia in the 1940s and 1950s were foreign students at the University of Pennsylvania, and I doubt they were adherents of Sharia.

Pipes also brings up the question of whether this is an honor killing or generic domestic violence:

Did Aasiya die in a crime of passion or to reinstate a family’s reputation? Was the violence generic or specifically Muslim? The Islamic Society of North America opts for domestic violence while the National Organization for Women‘s New York State chapter sees an honor killing.

The crime at Bridges TV fits neither model exactly, suggesting we need more information to determine its exact nature. But as the forces of political correctness inevitably bear down to exclude an Islamic dimension to the murder, the motive of family reputation must be kept alive. Enough with the pleasant deceits – time has come to utter hard truths about Bridges TV.

If you want to read more deeply into the issues raised by this case, a previous column by Pipes has many facts about the case, a review of Muslim reactions, and a discussion of honor killings. And an older column, continuously updated, follows the fortunes of Bridges TV, the cable channel the murderer and his wife founded.

Feminists dispute “honor killing”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update 2/25/09: Phyllis Chesler has a great article at FrontPage Magazine summarizing reactions from Muslims and feminists about the beheading and the controversy over whether it was an honor killing or not. It is so packed with information that I can’t summarize it; read the whole thing.

My post on honor killing has attracted some notice from a feminist blog. Apparently some feminists are debunking the notion that there is any connection whatsoever between the beheading of a Muslim wife who filed for divorce against her husband, and Islam itself with its primitive notions of honor, while other feminists are using this beheading to draw attention to honor killings. I think Phyllis Chesler’s scholarly article, from which I took the chart in my honor killing post, is especially valuable in distinguishing honor killing from the usual domestic abuse. (This is not to minimize the problem of domestic abuse, which the feminists claim we are doing when we draw attention to honor killings.)  

The same division is seen among Muslims. Many are shocked that anyone would link this beheading to Islam. Others are speaking out about the problem, as I wrote here.

This particular beheading case shares many characteristics with regular domestic violence — abusive men of many ethnic groups seem to feel their honor threatened when their mate leaves, or threatens to leave. The fact that the husband turned himself in to the police is interesting — he seems to have been remorseful, something that is not characteristic of honor killings, which are sanctioned by the community.

It is that sanctioning by the community — the Islamic community — that has caused some Muslims to speak out. There is no sanction for domestic violence in mainstream American culture (despite the strenuous efforts of some feminists to claim otherwise). There will, unfortunately, always be abusive men, and they need to be stopped both by law and by culture. It appears that in some cases Islamic culture overrules American law, and changing that has to be initiated by Muslims themselves.

Update 2/27/09: See my post, Beheader says headless wife can’t reach paradise for evidence linking the killing to Islam and honor killing.