TRIGGER WARNING. Discussion of violence to follow.
Hello! Today, Jill is generous enough to let me guest-blog about Rana Husseini’s new book - Murder in the Name of Honour. I attended the Jordanian launch last night, and finished the book within the space of a few hours. Reading it took precedent over biological functions such as eating and sleeping. I couldn’t put it down.
Rana Husseini is a Jordanian journalist and human rights campaigner. When she first started investigating honour crime, she had the pleasure of sifting through death-threats in her mailbox. She pressed on, and her badass determination served as an example to others. Murder in the Name of Honour speaks of years of struggle on many fronts.
I first interviewed Rana in 2007, in connection with an honour killing memoir she helped reveal as a hoax. “Forbidden Love” (American title: “Honor Lost”) dealt a severe blow to the anti-honour killing campaign in Jordan – it gave detractors ammunition to argue that the effort was run by Western propagandists trying to ruin Jordanian society.
A chapter of Murder in the Name of Honour deals with this epic fuck-you to Jordan’s actual activists. For further information, please check out Anna Broinowski’s documentary “Forbidden Lie$.”
I recently did another interview with Rana, which should come out shortly. We talked about the book, sensationalism vs. sensitivity, the present state of honour crime in the world and so on.
Rana Husseini
In the book, Rana provides gut-wrenching accounts of interviews she did with men who murdered their sisters. She shows how both personal and public judgment influences a family to purge a woman as if she’s not a human being but a disease.
At one point, the younger sister of a murdered rape victim says she blames her dead sister for everything. Not only is the scene pure horror, it makes you think about how, once one sister has been raped, the “seal of freshness” on the other sisters is up for public scrutiny. In that sense, honour crime is like a monster that feeds on itself.
Many of these crimes have nothing to do with “family honour.” Some women are killed over inheritance issues. Some are killed when their husbands get bored with them. And so on. Laws granting leniency to men who supposedly surprise their female relatives in an “act of adultery” are still on the books in Jordan, and law enforcement and the justice system can still act sympathetic toward men who kill their female relatives, which means that these murderers can also get off with a slap on the wrist by hiding behind “honour.”
Rana covers honour killing in many other countries, including Brazil, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Israel & Palestine, Italy, etc. The book includes a horrific transcript of an 1989 honour killing in the U.S., when an audio surveillance tape revealed how a father and a mother teamed up to stab their daughter to death. The mother held her down as the father did it. It reads like something out of Heart of Darkness – only worse.
Rana draws attention to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s fight against honour killings. Hirsi Ali’s work for a conservative think tank and harsh criticism of Islam means that the larger progressive community is often rightfully mistrustful of her, but I also believe we should note that she must live in seclusion to protect her life, and speak out against the thuggish intimidation against her. Whatever you may think of her politics on the whole, in this book, Hirsi Ali is revealed as someone who has done a lot to fight honour crime in the Netherlands.
In a chapter on the UK, Rana quotes a British police officer on an incident involving a man who burned his family to death:
“Honour is completely the wrong word. It is a control murder… It is not honour crime; it is ‘control crime’ and fear of losing that control.”
I believe these words ring true across cultures. Women need to be controlled. We shouldn’t have silly ideas about our bodies belonging to us. God help us if we should make a man feel as though he no longer has the upper hand.
Murder in the Name of Honour is a book that opens up a window on a world of sweaty, claustrophobic anxiety that finds a sick refuge in slaughtering women. Although both male and female defenders of honour crime babble about “family values,” Rana’s book clearly shows that the concept of “family” is tossed out the window when an honour crime is committed. She accentuates how deeply unnatural and barbarous this phenomenon is.
ⓒ OneWorld
Last night in Amman, I saw people – men and women, expats and locals, children and grandparents – come out to support Rana’s work. The book sold out quickly. This fight is far from over, but more and more Jordanians are looking beyond platitudes on female chastity and subservience and to the horror underneath. Even some people from highly conservative backgrounds are openly talking about how this phenomenon is unacceptable.
Women are still dying. In Jordan, there have been 9 killings so far this year. But the ball is rolling now. I don’t believe that anyone can make it stop.
Rana’s book is due to hit the shelves in the States on the 26th of June, 2009. I hope you check it out.
Awesome review, Natalia. Thanks so much for posting it!
Certainly these crimes are horrible, but I’ve encountered this suggestion that “honor killing” is a bad name for them before, and I’m not sure I agree. It’s obvious what the reasoning is; “honor” is a term of praise, and of course we wish to give no hint of praise to the motives of these killings. But it seems to me that in general honor is a highly suspect concept, more often than not reflecting aristocratic (and of course patriarchal) priorities. Motives of “honor” justifying bad acts is the usual way of things, so I think it makes more sense to accept that this is just what “honor” means and question whether anybody should value it, rather than to try to stop people from applying “honor” to the cases which are really its most typical representatives.
I remember the 1989 case coverage in the local papers (it occurred in my city), and what little was quoted was horrific.
The cases involving daughters are the ones that get attention as “honor killings” in the Western press, probably because the cases involving wives are rather ho-hum everyday occurrences among Anglo populations in the States and dominant nationalities in Europe.
Thanks, Jill. Aaron, honour reflects tribal and familial priorities as well, which is why it’s so tenacious. I think the problem is defining honour as something that’s tied to the bodies of your female relatives. An honourable woman isn’t someone who doesn’t lie or cheat or steal, for example – she’s just someone who has an “unsullied” vagina. It’s ridiculous.
Nancy, I think the difference is – most people who kill their wives and girlfriends will go to jail for a long time, assuming they’re caught. I think society’s apathetic stance on both stalking and intimate partner violence, however, belies how deep the problem runs. Rana does cite a disturbing case where a trucker surprised his wife with a lover. He chased the lover out with a gun, then calmly came back to the house and shot at his wife twice before he killed her, a few hours later. The (U.S.) judge still claimed it wasn’t actually premeditated.
[...] Natalia Antonova writes about Rana Hussein and honor killing for Feministe. [...]
Thank you for writing about this book. I transferred it to my wish list at my usual online shop and will add it to my July basket of purchases.
Gotcha. It’s fine to be against honor killings and the degradation and enslavement of women – but we don’t want to take it to the extreme where we might have to attack the cause of all this, Islam. I mean, women’s rights are all very nice – I suppose – but heaven-for-fend that we violate multiculti pieties or have to show some real courage. Better get ready for the burka and the clitorectimony.
If the so-called “feminist” movement ever recovers its spine, let the rest of us know.
If you ever learn to understand a nuanced argument, let the rest of us know.
I happen to think that much of what Hirsi Ali says about her own entanglements with religion is perfectly justifiable. It’s her lived experience, and as someone who disdains religious community to begin with, I think she has every right to share it. But not everything about Hirsi Ali’s work is palatable for the progressive movement, and guess what? That’s perfectly alright as well.
I also happen to think that Rana Husseini, whose book I review here, is a great example of “real courage.” Of course, she’s also Muslim, so I guess she doesn’t count.
(I honestly don’t know why I’m bothering, but whatever)