Dean's World

Eric Scheie is angry about honor killings in parts of the muslim world.

For those who don't know, honor killings are the practice of killing someone for besmirching the family honor. Men of course kill each other over such things in all sorts of cultures. But what Eric's talking about here is the specific, fairly widespread, practice of a man--usually a husband or father--killing a wife or daughter for besmirching the family honor. This brutal practice is culturally accepted in many parts of the muslim world.

To understand the phenomenon, though, it's necessary to understand something else: it's almost always the family honor that's seen as besmirched, not the man's personal honor. That is not a minor distinction. More on that in a minute.

Try talking some time to someone who's from that culture, or lived there long enough to develop close friendships. You discover all sorts of things that no one's supposed to discuss out loud. For one thing, the power of family in such societies is enormous; family is usually seen as far more important than the individual, which is alien to our own culture but central to theirs.

It's also somewhat taboo to discuss this, but while publicly women are expected to step back and be submissive, in private, outside the public eye, they often hold tremendous sway over family life, and men often defer to them in all sorts of matters.

A friend of mine who's lived in Saudi Arabia once told me that the wealthiest and most powerful men, even princes, talk to their mothers every day for counsel and advice. Even if they travel abroad, even if they are in their 50s or 60s, they usually call their mother every single day so long as she's alive. My friend who told me this thought it would surprise me. It didn't. It matches what Arab friends have told me, and what I've read in many places about Arab culture.

Put it this way: Women aren't allowed to drive? Yeah, that's bad. They should be allowed to drive. But one of the dirty little secrets is that this usually means that a woman's sons or younger brothers become mules who are expected to drive her wherever she wants, whenever she wants. But pointing that out is considered impolite--and if you point it out to a Western woman, she usually thinks you're "making excuses for oppression."

No it isn't making excuses. It's noticing reality, and how it's not always as simple as we'd like to think it is. Cultures are rarely such simple things.

Anyway, Eric wonders why moderate muslims are usually silent about the practice of honor killings, and why so few Western feminists speak out about it. The practice must be condemned of course, but to condemn it effectively, in a way that is likely to affect change, we must look at some things that a lot of people are very reluctant to look at directly. It turns out that there's a dirty little secret here, one that some Western feminists have uncovered but have been reluctant to talk about, and which few in the muslim world want to discuss openly because it's considered taboo.

For the most blunt assessment, I recommend a book by a Western feminist scholar named Patricia Pearson, entitled When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence. Mind you, this book was written long before 9/11 and was not written directly about the muslim world. Nevertheless, amongst the many, many studies Pearson cites on female violence--which is far more common than most people wish to acknowledge, by the way--you will find a startling revelation:

In the vast majority of "honor killings" in the muslim world, the killing is done at the direct behest of a man's mother or wife.

Not "with her support." At her behest. Because she demanded that he do it.

Unfortunately, getting most people to wrap their heads around all of that, or the fact that these killings are often done with the full expectation that the man might well be jailed while the woman who ordered it remains blameless, is extremely difficult.

How do you address such a complex phenomenon? Or is merely condemning it enough?