Opinion
Are Some Honor Killings More Equal Than Others?
By Phyllis Chesler
Published July 12, 2010
| FoxNews.com
If an honor killing is committed by Muslims in North America, chances
are you won't read about it in the mainstream American media, except
perhaps locally, and briefly. However, if the honor killing has been
perpetrated by Hindus or Sikhs, and in faraway India, the crime merits
prominent treatment in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and
of course, in The New York Times.
For example, on Saturday, July 10 the Gray Lady ran a front page
article about a caste-related honor killing in Koderma, India.
The murdered young woman, Nirupama Pathak, a journalist, was a
Brahmin, considered the highest caste; for more than a year, she was
secretly engaged to a "top" fellow student who belonged to the "middle
upper caste." Ms. Pathak was also secretly pregnant. For her, there
was no going back. And, unlike the law in many Muslim countries, the
Indian law was on her side: Despite tribal tradition, inter-caste
marriages are specifically permitted. Poor Nirupama was found dead in
her bedroom in her family home. The family told the police, variously,
that she had either electrocuted or hung herself. They produced a
suicide note. However, according to an autopsy, it seems she had been
suffocated. Since only her mother had been at home with her, her
mother was arrested.
In late May, The Washington Post also did a major story about a Hindu
couple in India whose marriage was ruled "incestuous" (they were from
the same clan as well as caste); thus, the groom was strangled and the
bride forced to drink pesticide. Their bodies were dumped in a canal.
The fact the murderers and their victims were Hindus was openly—almost
gladly--discussed.
Why do I write "gladly?" Because this, after all, is proof that honor
killings are not specific to Muslims. Nevertheless, according to my
2010 study in Middle East Quarterly, 84% of those who commit honor
murders in North America have been Muslims and 96% of honor murderers
in Europe were Muslims.
Yes, Hindus and Sikhs have committed honor murders in the West.
Apparently, the kind of Hindus who emigrate to the West do not bring
such tribal or religious customs along with them.
But Muslims do.
In addition, unlike Muslims, Hindus do not honor-murder their women
for refusing to veil, for wanting an education or a profession, or for
refusing to marry their first cousins. The control of marriage and
reproduction follows a different pattern among Hindus where marriage
to someone who is too close is viewed as "incestuous" and prohibited.
Even marriage to same-caste members who happen to live in the same
village is forbidden.
However, to their credit, the Indian police are swiftly making
arrests, the Indian Prime Minister is calling for a cabinet-level
commission to legislate and enforce harsher penalties for such honor
killings. One does not see a similar concerted effort in Muslim
countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, or in the
disputed Palestinian territories.
As the author of the book "Woman's Inhumanity to Woman," as well as of
two studies about honor killings, worldwide, I am not surprised that
women, like men, also participate in honor killings. In fact, like
Nirupama Pathak's mother whom, according to the Times, may have had a
hands-on role in her daughter's murder, many Muslim mothers lure their
young daughters home to their deaths with sweet words.
If the American media had treated such stories as prominently as they
have now begun to treat Hindu honor killings, Americans would have
known that Muslim girls and women are being murdered in North America
for the "crimes" of being too Western (or for refusing to be battered
any further)—and that their female relatives, including their mothers,
sometimes play a role in their deaths.
But, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times did
not write any in-depth stories or send their own reporters to cover
the honor killings of: Noor-Al-Maleki in Phoenix (2009); Aasiya Z.
Hassan in Buffalo (2009); the three Shafi daughters and a first wife
in Kingston Canada (2009); the two Said sisters in Dallas (2008);
Sandeela Kanwal in Atlanta (2008); Aqsa Parvez in Toronto (2007);
Khatera Sadiqi in Ottawa (2006); Dr. Lubaina Bhatti Ahmed in St.
Clairsville, Ohio (1999); Methal Dayem in Cleveland (1999); or, about
the first known honor killing on American soil, that of Palestina Isa
in St. Louis (1989). In five of these nine cases, mothers played a key
and murderous role.
Rather reluctantly, certainly belatedly, The New York Times covered
the gruesome Buffalo beheading of Aasiya Hasan, by her media
tycoon/batterer husband Muzammil. The article quoted many experts who
claimed that honor killings are like domestic violence everywhere:
regrettable, but in no way specific to Muslims. This is not true.
North American and European fathers and mothers do not collectively
murder their young daughters. Western batterers do not usually behead
the wives who dare to leave them and, while wife-murder in some ways
looks "the same" everywhere, there are also crucial differences.
Batterer-murderers who commit femicide are not valorized by their
families in the West nor are they helped by their own
families-of-origin or by their wife's family-of-origin. This seems to
be the case in 40% of honor killings, world-wide.
Why is so much of the American media, with some honorable exceptions,
so afraid to use the word "Muslim" and "honor killing" in the same
article?
Are they afraid they will be attacked as "Islamophobic," or "racist?"
Does this fear blind the media to the fact that the victims are mainly
women--who also happen to be Muslims and women of color? Is the
mainstream media afraid of being fire-bombed by the more fanatical
members of the "religion of peace" for telling the truth about Islamic
gender apartheid or barbarism?
On thing is clear: The liberal-left mainstream media in America is no
longer reporting the news when it comes to Muslims. One last case in
point: One of the "Harry Potter" actresses, Afshan Azad, (who plays
the graceful and lovely Padma Patil), was recently threatened with
death by her father and brother because she was dating a Hindu man.
They beat her up as well causing her to flee her home and to go into
hiding in London. Of course, Afshan's family is Muslim and from
Bangladesh.
I never thought something so explosive, so newsworthy, would be kept
out of the American media for fear of offending…the White House? The
Muslim world?
You tell me.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler is Emerita Professor of Psychology and the author
of thirteen books including Woman's Inhumanity to Woman and The New
Anti-Semitism. She may be reached through her website:
www.phyllis-chesler.com
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