Saturday 18 April 2009

Honor Crimes

Think that a man related to you is to kill you; Think your father, your brother, your uncle, your cousin, or your husband, you know that today in Jordan he can get out clean & be applauded by ironically-your family & the society because he successfully proved your unworthiness of living, in addition to that, the juridical system justifies his madness & denies you your life.

We live in a society were women willingly submit to men, we obey, we allow the father figure to manage our lives for security & stability, we developed a need for protection by the male from the male, the workforce is male dominant, those who set up the rules are males, women keep silent out of respect and because of the precedence of the family unit in our priorities, but it turns to ownership that extends to how we should live and how to mold our lives to fit into our roles.

You know how I picture women in our society; we are like butterflies in a glass enclosure where we have limited fields to venture in, and are brought to think that this garden we have is paradise, thats why we are always thankful that we have a system to rely on regardless of how much it eats from our individuality. Thats why women obsess with things like " virginity being a family concern, marriage race, what if he divorced me, what if he married a second one, turn a blind eye to him cheating, quit the job to bring up kids, he yells at me, he started beating me.." you know the rest of the record.
you always need to satisfy the society & the "him" in the equation because you depend on him. you are never ever independent or learned to stand alone. If its not him, then its the family, you never own your space, something for yourself , when have you really thought of yourself alone, you know you can't ignore how much your family and society play a role in most if not all the decisions you make. you are either a sister, a daughter, a girlfriend, a wife, a mother "first". you were never "you" first before being any of those roles and think of about all your behaviors and how it serves these roles. where is you?


so you ask me what do you want? I tell you, I want legal safety, justice, more freedom, better education and civil rights for my gender.

Today, I wont talk about the cases where murdered women were proven innocent, this is an evident proof of a failure of the juridical system. when a woman whether guilty or not regardless of what guilty means, is killed and the killer gets away, this means I mean nothing to the system that I subscribe to and yeah I am less than a man in this case.

in Christianity it is written: " Do Not Kill " & in Islam you are not to kill a woman who commits adultery, not you, not by yourself without witnesses & this is exactly why there are courts. The raging reaction and the momentary insanity is bullshit & saying its a tradition is even more bullshit.

8 comments:

kinzi said...

Tala, this is a great post. It is time for change, and you bring up and pull together concepts that make it workable.

I read that there have been several killing for honor in Gaza lately too.

Between the HKs, and the crowd of smiling man urging Jihan to jump, I am beginning to think that men here just don't like women much at all.

Tala said...

hey Kinzi, Thank you for taking the first reviving the topic among the online community again and move outwards, what you are doing is something every woman to thank you for.

major change time :) I hope.

I would say there is too much to change about men's perception of women and family, a need for self discovery on behalf of women

Wessam said...

"I tell you, I want legal safety, justice, more freedom, better education and civil rights for my gender."

Well, you can't be a muslim woman and want all that, we all know that Islam gives the male total control of the women in his family, it's true that honor killing is against Islam, but Islam makes it alot easier for a man to control, abuse, deny rights, and kill the females related to him.

kinzi said...

Tala, you are a sweetie. If my ranting and nagging on-line can help change one man's mind, it is worth it.

This time, though, we won't give up. As one woman mentioned, we have been polite long enough. We are going to raise a little ruckus now.

One thing that is necessary is a model of a respected, cherished, empowered, devout, yet submitted woman. Men may be able to trust us that we don't need the threat of death to stay faithful.

Anonymous said...

The "honor killing" campaign in Jordan is the most dishonest human rights campaign ever waged by any party. Not because the crime is not horrendous and the laws should be changed, but because those who stand behind the campaign are the most cowardly and opportunistic and despicable people. Their funding is dubious and they know the Jordanian King is to blame for the Honor killing laws in Jordan, thanks to his rigged Parliament and rigged elections. They know 10000 more Arab women are killed at the hands of White American Men in Iraq and by Zionists in Israel. But they prefer to read from the American script and shame Jordan and Jordanians who, according to every study, are overwhelmingly against the King's laws by a wide margin. Very sick and troubled and completely unethical people.

Tala said...

Anonymous,

do you have a link to the campaign? because I didn't see any official campaign as far as I know

why does it always have to be about who is doing what, & not about rationalizing the validity of what is being said?

whatever it is that is going on, why do you think it has a negative impact ?

bambam said...

good job there pulling it all together, been a while but u came through.
now regarding what you asked (although u asked the muslim bloggers - i'll answer instead) ...
"Islam gives the male total control of the women in his family"
to an extent that's true, but it's not like women are robbed of any rights. they are denied self determination for instance (unless they are divorced) and that is the right to decide whom to marry and the freedom to travel.

"where is the parts in Islam that are in favor of the woman?"
Hmm i'll have to dig into that but briefly its the status of personhood, the ability to inherit, marriage rights, and custody right all of which didn't really exist as prominently before islam.

Anonymous said...

As a Canadian, a woman and a university student (who should perhaps make an effort to be more wordly) I have never even heard of this issue, i'm glad to be informed. I am shocked and saddened that a woman should ever be treated this way.