Where Vengeance is Written in Blood

In a remarkable book, Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, the Morroccan scholar Fatna Sabbah writes these daring words:

"I would like to say to the young men formed in our Muslim civilisation that it is highly improbable that they can value liberty - by which I mean, relating to another person as an act of free will, whether it be in bed, in erotic play, or in political debates in party cells or parliament - if they are not conscious of the political import of the hatred and degradation of women in this culture."

I recalled these fine words when reading a recent article highlighting the continuing atrocities taking place in the name of patriarchal and tribal honour. It describes the intense anguish of a Ms. Khouri, whose newly-released book recalls how her childhood friend, Dalia, was brutally killed at the hands of her own father.

"At the age of 26, Dalia became a victim, both of the power of unbidden love and the determination of her culture to crush it. She could not help herself. Through elaborate deceptions with the complicity of Ms. Khouri she held secret, though chaste, meetings with a young Catholic man named Michael.

In retrospect, the outcome was inevitable. As with other unmarried women, it was the job of her brothers to monitor her movements like detectives.

The final chapters of Ms. Khouri's book accelerate with grief and passion.

Dalia was stabbed 12 times in the chest, Ms. Khouri writes, and her father stood over her to be sure she was dead before calling an ambulance.

"I've cleansed my house," he shouted when Ms. Khouri ran in through the door, just a block away from her own home. "I've cut the rotten part and brought honor back to my family name."

"Tears flooded my eyes and I began wailing, as so many centuries of grieving Arab women had done before me," Ms. Khouri writes.

Then, in language that went well beyond traditional grief, she shouted at him: "Dalia never shamed you, you shamed yourself. You've turned your home into a house of murder. The spilling of her innocent blood has stained your name, your hands and your soul forever.""

I never cease to be astonished and repulsed at the virulent and pervasive nature of such evil deeds in the Arab and Muslim world. That Dalia's case was not in any way untypical only serves to show how premeditated killings are encouraged and abetted by the twin problems of severe cultural authoritarianism and the embarrassingly weak state of government tenacity in countering such vicious practices.

The article continues:

"Now, with the publication of her friend's story, "Honor Lost" (Simon & Schuster), this dark-haired woman with even darker eyes is stepping forward as a public face for all the women who risk death for violating a brutal desert code of behavior.

"I want the world to know Dalia the way I knew her," Ms. Khouri said in an interview here. "And I want them to know that she represents thousands of women who are still dying, and who had brothers and sisters and friends in their lives who are missing them the way I am missing Dalia.""

Ms. Khouri is truly courageous. That one would need to be in the first place is a sad and telling indication of just how rampant is the totalitarianism that she fights against. Ideally, an individual should not have to delve deep to find her inner courage to criticise those aspects of Muslim culture she disagrees with, but only a supreme confidence that the institutions of her nation will unapologetically defend her rights as an individual human being to the end. But this is not the state of affairs in Jordan at the present time, let alone in the wider Arab and Muslim world. Those under the aegis of a modern, liberal nation must not therefore feel guilty in actively condemning such practices, identifying their roots, and calling for them to be purged forever. Our human rights and freedoms are far too important for us to ignore their stark absence elsewhere.

UPDATE: Zack Ajmal also chimes in with some interesting observations. See Joe's post for a full set of links.