Honor Killings

[ya falaha! 0]

Good question...I'm not sure how to answer.

I don't hate the man for having this opinion but I don't agree with him AT ALL either. Of course I don't have to agree with him all the time about everything.

Edited January 5, 2007 by moody

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Would you marry a white man who was comfortable with the concept of lynching a black man? Assume he wouldn't actually do it, but just thought it was ok.

[ya falaha! 0]

No, I would not.

Honor killing doesn't affect my life so I don't give it much thought. Sorry if I'm indifferent about the topic. It doesn't shock me. It does disgust me, however.

[AngelK96 0]

Would you marry a white man who was comfortable with the concept of lynching a black man? Assume he wouldn't actually do it, but just thought it was ok.

Good Analogy!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Honor killing doesn't affect my life so I don't give it much thought. Sorry if I'm indifferent about the topic. It doesn't shock me. It does disgust me, however.

The lynching of a black man shocks you but the honor killing of an alleged "#######" does not?

Interesting response, that helps me understand quite a bit. Thanks

[ya falaha! 0]

It doesn't shock me because it's not something I just found out about. Like a new concept that I just discovered. Neither lynching nor honor killings shock me. Some ppl do horrifying things. Disgusting, horrifying...not shocking. You're taking what I'm saying the wrong way. But of course that's expected if you're gonna discuss your opinions with several ppl with ranging personalities and ideas. I never used the word "#######" as I don't believe that these women being murdered are "sluts". Just like I don't support or agree with honor killings. But because I won't vilify my husband because he doesn't find honor killings wrong per se...I'm wrong.

Honor killing doesn't affect my life so I don't give it much thought. Sorry if I'm indifferent about the topic. It doesn't shock me. It does disgust me, however.

The lynching of a black man shocks you but the honor killing of an alleged "#######" does not?

Interesting response, that helps me understand quite a bit. Thanks

Edited January 5, 2007 by moody

[chri'stina 190]

I cannot help but wonder how many of the men that support this have actual had sex outside of marriage themselves.

I am with the other women who expressed horror at the thought of being married to someone who could kill his own family for choices about their own bodies and sexuality.

Agree with both of your points. Yes if any man who supports honor killings has had premarital sex, then they win the award for the biggest hypocrites.

I didn't vote but my husband is from a country where they also deal with honor killings sometimes. I don't know all the details besides that it happens. My husband has 4 sisters. He would never kill them no matter what they did. He'd be upset sure and disappointed, but the thought of killing them? Wow, that's horrible.

Edited January 5, 2007 by stina&suj

[maggieNomar 0]

To me it seems like a paradox. I think of the family unit as being so much more valued in the MENA, yet at the same time it is acceptable to murder one's kin. Can anyone explain this?

Doesn't it have something to do with saving the family's reputation? A girl who had sex outside of marriage is a disgrace to the family, right?

eta: I agree with you though... it seems like a paradox ans I don't think most of us will ever be able to understand or agree with that reasoning.

What about the guy that has the sex WITH the girl? Does anything happen to him?? Or is he just taking care of his manly needs so it's over looked???

[Joey559 1]

Good question...I'm not sure how to answer.

I don't hate the man for having this opinion but I don't agree with him AT ALL either. Of course I don't have to agree with him all the time about everything.

Does it make you fear for your life at all? With this man? I'm not trying to raise your defenses I'm honestly curious from an outsider's standpoint. I guess it would be like being in a room with a dog that savegly bit someone. Just because it's MY dog i'd still be wary. What happened if you were, God forbid, raped? Would he shame you? Leave you? Just curious....

Edited January 5, 2007 by Joey559

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I won't vilify my husband because he doesn't find honor killings wrong

Forget 'vilify'. Are you willing to simply say he is wrong?

[ya falaha! 0]

My husband doesn't disagree with it and I'm thinking it's because of the environment he's been raised in. I do not think he would practice it. He doesn't know anyone personally who's been involved in it. He's not a violent man so I don't fear him. It's not like he goes around talking about honor killings all the time or rallies men to go commit them. We only discussed it once. Not sure how it came up but he made a comment that if his sisters would "** around" his father would kill them. He didn't say he would do it. At any rate, JP asked ppl's opinions on the subject and comment so I did.

Yes, I believe he's wrong in this case. Like I said, I don't agree or condone this kind of act. It's horrible.

I won't vilify my husband because he doesn't find honor killings wrong

Forget 'vilify'. Are you willing to simply say he is wrong?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Ok

[sophyie 0]

Here's a somewhat recent (from 2005) example of (non- arab) honor killings in a western country:

THE DEATH OF A MUSLIM WOMAN"The ####### Lived Like a German"

By Jody K. Biehl in Berlin

In the past four months, six Muslim women living in Berlin have been brutally murdered by family members. Their crime? Trying to break free and live Western lifestyles. Within their communities, the killers are revered as heroes for preserving their family dignity. How can such a horrific and shockingly archaic practice be flourishing in the heart of Europe? The deaths have sparked momentary outrage, but will they change the grim reality for Muslim women?

Hatin Surucu just wanted to live her own life. Instead, she became Berlin's latest victim of honor killings. Her Turkish Muslim brothers allegedly gunned her down for adopting Western ways.

The shots came from nowhere and within minutes the young Turkish mother standing at the Berlin bus stop was dead. A telephone call from a relative had brought her to this cold, unforgiving place. She thought she would only be gone for a few minutes and wore a light jacket in the freezing February wind. She had left her five-year-old son asleep in his bed. He awoke looking for his mother, who, like many Turkish women in Germany, harbored a secret life of fear, courage and, ultimately, grief. Now her little boy has his own tragedy to bear: His mother, Hatin Surucu, was not the victim of random violence, but likely died at the hands of her own family in what is known as an "honor killing."

Hatin's crime, it appears, was the desire to lead a normal life in her family's adopted land. The vivacious 23-year-old beauty, who was raised in Berlin, divorced the Turkish cousin she was forced to marry at age 16. She also discarded her Islamic head scarf, enrolled in a technical school where she was training to become an electrician and began dating German men. For her family, such behavior represented the ultimate shame -- the embrace of "corrupt" Western ways. Days after the crime, police arrested her three brothers, ages 25, 24 and 18. The youngest of the three allegedly bragged to his girlfriend about the Feb. 7 killing. At her funeral, Hakin's Turkish-Kurdish parents draped their only daughter's casket in verses from the Koran and buried her according to Muslim tradition. Absent of course, were the brothers, who were in jail.

The crime might be easier to digest if it had been an archaic anomaly, but five other Muslim women have been murdered in Berlin during the past four months by their husbands or partners for besmirching the family's Muslim honor. Two of them were stabbed to death in front of their young children, one was shot, one strangled and a fifth drowned. It seems hard to fathom, but in the middle of democratic Western Europe -- in Germany, a nation where pacifism is almost a universal mantra -- murderous macho patriotism not only exists but also appears to be thriving. It may even be Germany's liberalism -- and its post World War II fear of criticizing minority cultures -- that has encouraged ultra-religious families to settle here.

The problem is that much of this insular and ultra-religious world is out of public view, often hidden in inner-city apartments where the most influential links to the outside world are satellite dishes that receive Turkish and Arabic television and the local mosque. Tens of thousands of Turkish women live behind these walls of silence, in homes run by husbands many met on their wedding day and ruled by the ever-present verses of the Koran. In these families, loyalty and honor are elevated virtues and women are treated little better than slaves, unseen by society and often unnoticed or ignored by their German neighbors. To get what they want, these women have to run. They have to change their names, their passports, even their hair color and break with the families they often love, but simply can no longer obey.

(...)

The Turkish women's organization Papatya has documented 40 instances of honor killings in Germany since 1996. Examples include a Darmstadt girl whose two brothers pummelled her to death with a hockey stick in April 2004 after they learned she had slept with her boyfriend. In Augsburg in April, a man stabbed his wife and 7-year-old daughter because the wife was having an affair. In December 2003, a Tuebingen father strangled his 16-year-old daughter and threw her body into a lake because she had a boyfriend. Bullets, knives, even axes and gasoline are the weapons of choice. The crime list compiled by Papatya is an exercise in horror. And the sad part, said Boehmecke, is that it is far from complete. "We'll never really know how many victims there are. Too often these crimes go unreported."

In many cases, fathers -- and sometimes even mothers -- single out their youngest son to do the killing, Boehmecke said, "because they know minors will get lighter sentences from German judges." In some cases, these boys are revered by their community and fellow inmates as "honor heroes" -- a dementedly skewed status they carry with them for the rest of their lives. Currently, six boys are serving time in Berlin's juvenile prison for honor killings. "In a way, these boys are victims, too," she said. Sometimes they are forced to kill their favorite sister.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,344374,00.html

Edited January 5, 2007 by sophyie

[Together4ever 1]

Concerning human nature, the "other guy" is always in some way wrong because his motivations are not based on the same reality as the one doing the observing of "the other guy". As many on this site should well know, the differences in cultures is sometimes subtle and sometimes not. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. This thread is just another frollick through the land of that creepy "other guy".

[Jenn! 918]

Concerning human nature, the "other guy" is always in some way wrong because his motivations are not based on the same reality as the one doing the observing of "the other guy". As many on this site should well know, the differences in cultures is sometimes subtle and sometimes not. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. This thread is just another frollick through the land of that creepy "other guy".

Yeah, but I'd say it's more than creepy though! This is about murder! I can't just chalk that up to different strokes for different folks...