Re: Honor Killing.
Reply #33 - August 31, 2009, 02:03 AM
The fact that islam has placed so much 'honor' on and piousness related to a family whose women are covered up to hide anything that seems 'too sexual', hair, arms, legs, whole body. Anything 'out of order' can be seen as non-belief, islam can see things very black and white at times (ok so these days it is becoming more modern, but the older generations tend to hold stricter views), the crime for apostacy as we know is the death penaty so I think the honor(not) killings come from this angle.
Also, I don't know the statistics, but I feel that many of these honor killings are occuring in families of eastern background, that is, Pakistani's, bangladeshi's and countries around there. I think that a lot of the time it's about how everyone else sees the family, it's about appearences and because parents can be very controlling to the point it is as if they believe they own us, not just we are their daughter or son, but almost as a thing of theirs, an object, we belong to them and their family, anything done by us which seems 'out of order' reflects hugely on them in their minds. In their minds we are malfunctioning, we are getting out of their control, we are staining the family, their reputation.
Now an interesting thing to look at would be why do these communities place so much on appearences, I've heard on this forum that some parents are ok that their son/daughter is an apostate, but it's about 'what would people think?'. I've also come across this mentality of people being noted in a book called 'Islam in transition' (:Life of pakistani's living in Britain? I'm not sure of the extact wording of this extension to the title.)
I have to note, I think bangladeshi's gossip alot, especially women as most don't work and have nothing better to do. This is an obvious reason as to why it could be alot is being place on appearences. There's a quote I heard, not sure by who, goes something like 'Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, great minds dicuss ideas'. We need to move the thinking of women from these backgrounds from gossiping about 'she did this and he did that....' to thinking about their future, that is the thing, women from these background grow up with no expectations of them, with no one encouraging them. Men from these backgrounds, however, are expected to earn money for their family etc (which comes from the roles given by islam obviously) and getting a profession which is highly regarded such as a doctor or lawyer etc they are adding to the family reputation. Men have a focus, an aim, although I do know men in my family who do gossip also, but they also work in a take away. Women grow up around the gossiping of other women and exposed to the idea of getting married off to someone from a young age, they will not pick up on the importance of education, of aiming for a career. When I was young, I was aganist learning to cook or doing anything that made me seem grown up, I was afraid my parents would marry me off if they thought I seemed old enough. I focused on education because I saw it as my only window to freedom. A lot of girls won't see this if there's a lot of pressure at home to learn to cook etc to be a good wife for their future husband.
So basically, views of women in the islamic society needs to change, women need to be encouraged to stick to education, to aim for a good job/career. Women in islam need more oppertunities to explore what they enjoy, decide where they as an individual can fit into society. Sure it is up to them if they want to be a housewife, but if they don't see the opperturnity, if they can't explore then it's by default. If muslims won't listen to non-muslims, then it's on the successful, public speaking muslim women to help their fellow women into the 21st centuary. I have to note Queen Rania of Jordan seems to be doing a good job, from the few videos I have seen on her youtube channel.
Yeah, I think main reason for honor killings is because women are seen as a 'thing' 'you are a woman of this family' you arn't seen as a person, an individual with a mind of your own, you are seen as a woman and this is why you have to fit into a box, you belong to someone else always with a label, 'Property of Mr.Father' initially and then transfered to another man and re-labelled as 'Property of Mr.Husband'.
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Topic: Honor Killing.