Cultural Tradition?
Hindu India and the countries of the Muslim world share a culture of male entitlement to female domination. The culture itself and the manifestations of institutionalized, culturized misogny are manifest and deeply engrained, from widows in India being burned alongside their husbands on funeral pyres, arranged marriages of girls to older men, abortion of female foetuses and killing of female infants, flinging of acid on women, and all manner of viciousness by the groom's family to express dissatisfaction with the bride's dowry.In Muslim countries, the practise of honour killings, accepted by some governments as a legitimate way of dealing with wayward women who bring disgrace to their families and their tribes by not sufficiently adhering to the values of modest demeanour, conduct and dress, predates Islam. Yet the ancient practises of control of women in male-dominating countries where the patriarchy has been entrenched firmly over the millennia has been absorbed by Islam as well.
In Islam as well, young girls are given in marriage at a very young age, and often to elderly men. The girls and their mothers have no say in the matter of their marriage dispersal. Rural girls are commonly not given an education simply because they are female, intended to spend their lives cloistered, with garments completely shielding them from public view, bearing children, serving men, becoming expendable when they are barren.
A man, his family and his tribe's honour is integrally bound by female purity. Females of the family, be they wife or sister, mother or cousin, must be beyond reproach in their modest conduct. There must be no hint of impropriety; women must be segregated from men; there are no innocent encounters devoid of sexual intent. Should a woman be raped this represents an assault on the honour of her menfolk and her fate is sealed with death, to restore that honour.
Should a woman be accused, whether with malign intent to smear an innocent woman, or having committed the sin of being with a man not of her family, she is consigned to death. A rumour is sufficient to seal her fate. And because such consequences of conduct and assumed guilt are accepted as normal in backward societies that deny equality and justice for women, there are few in those societies who commit to overturning those customs.
"In our culture, everybody knows but nobody says. I get cases that say the cause of death is a firearm injury. I know inside what really happened, but what can I do? I sign the certificate and say 'Bye-bye; that's it." This, from a medical doctor who sees an infinite number of family honour killings. He is the chief coroner of East Jerusalem, affirming he rarely sees a case in which honour killing is given as the official cause of death.
Throughout Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Jordan, and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, tribal shame and honour are linked to female 'purity'. Violence against women is endemic. And as emigration from those countries becomes increasingly common, countries in Europe and North America which accept them as immigrants see a rising tide of honour killing.
Those who practise this peculiar form of restoration of 'honour' by murdering women and girls, bridle at criticism from those who are aghast at such atrocities as parents conspiring to murder their girl children to restore family pride and honour. They insist that what they do is their own affair, and not anyone else's business.
They learn, through the justice system, that it is society's business, that to conduct themselves in such a manner has a grave penalty, that the receiving society will not accept that this is their 'culture, their religion', that demands such gruesomely horrible remedies.
Labels: Africa, Crime, India, Islamism, Middle East, Sexism
posted by Pieface @ Monday, January 30, 2012
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