I am a member of several discussion lists, one of which is concerned with women and Islam. Recently someone there posted a review of a book about "honor" crimes committed against women in the West Bank. For those interested in the review, it skewers the book, marketed as a true story by a woman who underwent horrible torture and mistreatment, as being basically completely made up. The evidence the reviewer marshalled to prove her point was pretty damning. The book was riddled with inconsistencies and falsehoods that anyone who had lived in the West Bank or even had a very basic knowledge of Arab culture would recognize.
Now, this discussion list is pretty progressive, and people on there are very feminist and all of them are horrified by "honor" crimes and loudly denounce them and try to fight them in various ways, such as doing Amnesty letter-writing campaigns and similar things to fight the medieval practice. I have been a member of the list for several years.
A new person to the list, however, seemed to think that a critical review of the book was a whitewash for the practice of honor killing, and stated the following amazing idea:
"I did say that it does not matter whether it is true or not and I
am not going to take that back. The point and the main aspect of
the story was the matter of "honor killing" and the treatment of
women. So, what if she glaring mistakes in reference to important
matters of area and the Palestinian people, for all you know the
story could have been written by someone here in the U.S. who has
never set foot in the Middle East, but to dwell solely on her
mistakes and ignore the plot and meaning of the story then "honor
killing" will remain an hidden secret."
I read this statement over and over again. She really is saying that a book full of lies is supposed to be read without noticing the lies and instead merely focusing on its polemics, or else "honor" killing has no solution.
Are there a lot of people out there that think lying is OK in order to get people involved in an issue? Why is the truth not just as OK, or more OK? I want to say more about this but it will take some thought. There is just so much wrong with the idea that I am unsure of where to start.
4 comments:
Salaams
I am concerned about these kind of fictions because 'honour killing', though abhorent, is a truncheon used against to denigrate Muslim cultures. There isn't an anthropological word for misogynistic killings in the US and Europe (where femicidal murder is still widespread).
Wasalaam
Yakoub
Z, your comments are interesting, but to me it is kind of pointless to juxtapose two different cultural treatments of women and proceed to say this one is better than the other. The honor killing issue is a very complex one, but so is the issue of how women are treated in a western context. It's not a contest as to which is better- I'd rather see it as a call for us to improve the situation on whatever front most directly concerns us (which means, if you live in the West and understand women's issues there in depth, it's better suited for you to stick to Western women's issues - and if you want to help non-Western women, try finding some non-Western grassroots groups to support). I'd like women to be respected and not objectified, both in the West and the East.
I've posted Carnival of the BabeWits #1, which links back to this post. Hope the title doesn't seem to "objectify" women.
Some years ago at the height of the feminist accumulation of surveys, there was one that was referred to in the House of Commons. It was claimed this showed over a million women had been sexually assaulted. There was quite a fuss and it proved impossible to get the authors to publish their work or even a lot of their "methods" but it was learned that the survey had originated in a Rape Relief group in a Prairie city, the persons questioned had been those who contacted the Shelter, and those who did for any reason were "encouraged" to do the survey by visiting them at home (up to 4 times). The age range was 15 to 85 (this is in an area where much of the population is or is derived from recent immigrants) and when the authors finally admitted to the definition they had used, sexual assault was any unwanted contact including a kiss, or a push as on a crowded bus. The large resulting figure was due to multiplying the "sample" and the result of that was that they had more Indian women assaulted than was the Indian women population, at the time. There was quite a controversy and one of the standard defences of this statistical rubbish was that assaults on women needed to be brought forward into public attention, so it did not matter that the study was garbage.
The feminist organizations went right on using this fraud for years.
Post a Comment