Posted on 06/18/2010 5:04:23 AM PDT by Clive
The savage murder of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez by her father and brother because she wanted neither an arranged marriage nor every part of her life controlled was shocking.
Just as chilling is the thought that honour abuse in the West is far more prevalent than anyone ever imagined.
What worries domestic violence researcher Nawal Ammar is that while our stomachs churn over rare cases of honour killings, we’re overlooking less serious abuse going on behind closed doors, particularly in patriarchal immigrant communities.
“There is abuse that is low-key, outside our radar. We’re not watching it because it’s not a crisis. I think that’s even more dangerous,” says Ammar, dean of criminology, justice and policy studies at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
“Maybe 2% of it will escalate to killing. The (rest) is going to stay hidden. Nevertheless, it’s abuse and it has traumatizing effects.”
Abuse against immigrant women is three times the abuse rate of women in general, she points out, noting that teen girls in immigrant communities are bullied by their families for engaging in normal teenage activities, like putting on makeup, wearing shorts or going to the movies.
(Aqsa went to her first movie two days before she was strangled by her father and brother in December 2007.)
Given our immigration patterns, honour abuse will probably escalate, says Ammar, who does research on the abuse of immigrant women. Friends, educators, social workers and others need to intervene as soon as there are signs of serious friction within immigrant families, she warns.
“We need to have our eyes open. (Honour abuse) is a barbaric tradition that we need to watch out for.”
Sometimes victimized immigrant girls don’t dare hope for sympathy from their siblings, as was evident in Aqsa’s case.
Interviewed by the police after Aqsa’s murder, one of Aqsa’s sisters said she didn’t think anyone should go to jail for the killing.
Asked if it would be OK if the same thing had happened to her, she said yes, if she’d done something wrong.
One of the brothers told police he didn’t think Aqsa deserved to die, but if it was his daughter he might have broken her legs.
Nice values, this family imported to Canada.
It is incomprehensible to liberal-minded Canadians that, within certain immigrant families, the obsession with controlling all aspects of young women’s dress and behaviour is considered normal and that punishment for infractions is seen as justified.
And Muslim teens are apparently terrified of talking about it.
Raheel Raza, an interfaith consultant and author, spoke about Aqsa’s murder to mostly Muslim Grade 10 and 11 students at a Toronto-area high school on Wednesday. “They wouldn’t speak about it,” says Raza. “The instinctive feeling I got was that they don’t want to discuss this in public.”
She pressed on, emphasizing that immigrants must adhere to basic human rights and Canadian law.
“Eventually, some of them agreed that, yes, that’s true. But I could see that there was a lot of hesitance.”
The first challenge is for the Muslim community to accept that there’s a problem with dangerous patriarchal attitudes and the second is to spark dialogue, says Raza.
“It’s a discussion and debate that has to go on in every mosque, in every house.”
She just returned from Oxford where she was the first Muslim-born woman to lead a Friday prayer session for a mixed congregation in the U.K.
Raza has received death threats for her liberal Muslim mindset but she shrugs them off. “I’m not afraid,” she says. “If I give in, then I’m giving in to the extremists.”
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All values and cultures are the same. I learned that in college.
Besides, who else is going to drive our cabs?
Wow. A liberal Muslim. It’s as if the two negatives cancel each other out, creating what appears to be a positive.
If only she could convince the other 5,984,343,119 Muslims, we just might have a solution to ‘The Jihad Problem’. /s
I make a clear distinction, personally, between Jew-hating terrorist Muslims, and other Muslims that are not Jew-hating terrorists. If only there was an easy way to tell them apart without finding out the hard way which is which.
But the people in the article need to be prosecuted and sent to prison for life, because honor killing is most likely not distinguished in Canadian ( or U.S. ) law from any other type of murder, and their community should be sent a clear message that, regardless of their previous culture, it is NOT OK to practice these barbaric customs in the Western world.
Immigrants need to ASSIMILATE. Moved to Canada? You’re Canadian now. Moved to the U.S.? You’re an American now. Your heritage is your heritage, but there is only one set of Laws in this country, and that is the one that must be followed.
And this is coming from an immigrant. I’m from Russia, but as customary in my former country, I do not attempt to bribe police with Vodka and a hundred bucks every time I get pulled over, and we switched Russian Roulette for Monopoly since we moved here, which not only helped us assimilate faster while learning about capitalism and real estate, but has also stopped the mysterious dissapearance of about one friend a week out of our group.
( The last paragraph is intended for humorous consumption only and does not represent actual events or persons. Author is not responsible for damages incurred due to incorrect interpretation of the foregoing statementss. )
Why does the author equate “patriarchal” with “violent”?
LOL. I like your sense of humor!
Embrace diversity.....
Raza: There is no such thing as a “liberal Muslim mindset” —you are either a Muslim zombie or you are not.
ROFLMAO! That's got to be one of the funniest things I've read in a while.
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Why does the media call these 'honor killings', anyway? The honor they they speak of is to keep them exalted in the eyes of their barbaric 'god', so why not just call it what it really is?
Human sacrifice.
I am reminded of the story of the British Governor of India. When he learned of the Hindu practice of a dead man’s relatives throwing the widow onto a dead man’s funeral pyre, he ordered the practice stopped.
Hindus responded that it was a cultural practice, and could not be stopped. He responded that the British also had a cultural practice of hanging such people.
Next time a big funeral pyre as being constructed, he had gallows built next to it. When the relatives of the dead man threw the widow onto the fire, troops grabbed the relatives and hung them.
The practice stopped.
Hmmmmm. Seems like there is parallel there.
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