More on the honor killing

Here's my Dallas Morning News column about the alleged honor killings of Sarah and Amina Said by their father, Yaser, who is still at large. In response, one reader identifying himself (or herself) as a relative of the wanted man -- this is not something I can verify -- wrote to say:

Hi, i think you are a Jewish extremist sick person. Who is saying nothing but lies. I've been reading you're news paper for the last 24 years. I have never heard a Jewish or Christian man committed a crime. The man you are taking about, is one of the best people you can ever meet in your life. You have convicted the man before we even know if he was a killer or a victim. Just because he is a Muslim. Stop beating around the bushes. The Aunt that you are taking about, has never visited that man and her sister that you are talking about is a [slanderous accusation deleted -- RD.] and you're not alone hating Muslims. Its you Lesbians, Homosexual, child molesters, and to add to all of that the Jews, that no one can mention in any news paper owned bye them. The child molesting case that you were talking about was created by the wife's mother, To take the kids from him and the case was dropped because the mother confessed to the truth. Instead of spreading hate and inciting violence teach your kids to stay away from Muslim girls. Educate them. Instead of teaching them how to [deleted] each other like animals. I know you're only waiting fro any Muslim man with a traffic ticket to make a big deal out of it. You have 40,000 cases in a month in the United states and none of them were mentioned as Jew or Christian.

This story has struck a raw nerve with me ever since it broke. My own maternal grandmother - who came to Texas from Lebanon with her Orthodox family as a little girl in 1910 - ran away on the eve of her arranged marriage to my grandfather when she was 16. Her uncle and brother discovered she was staying with a sympathetic cousin, so they dragged her screaming from their house, took her back home, beat the daylights out of her, and tied her to the bed until it was time for her to walk down the aisle. This was Texas in the '20's, but I still find myself getting uncontrollably angry and then sad when I think about it, just like I do thinking about how the lives of the Said sisters were cut short by a virulent strain of this same attitude that's been allowed to fester and worsen nearly a century later.

That letter lends credence to the idea that the problem is not Islam so much as it is vestiges of Arab tribal culture.

Another reader, Ellen Sheeley, author of a study on honor killings in Jordan, writes to say:

Regarding your opinion piece "Was This an Honor Killing?" (January 13, 2008), the answer is yes. I know. I've been working on them in the Middle East for years. Even wrote a book about the ones in Jordan.

It is almost irrelevant (but interesting, nonetheless) what Mr. Yasir Said might have to say about his reasons. The triggers, the modus operandi, and even qualities of the aftermath all reveal to an experienced, seasoned eye that the murders of the beautiful Said sisters were dishonor killings (that is what I have taken to calling them, for there is nothing honorable about these crimes).

But you are correct in saying that the appropriate labeling of these crimes matters. It matters for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, in order to prevent these crimes, one must understand how the triggers and the modus operandi are different from other forms of violence against women and even other forms of family violence. If the Said sisters had come to me, I would've easily been able to recognize the life-or-death peril they were in. But they confided in people who did not understand the importance of family honor to their father, the affront their Western lifestyles presented to him. And so people mistook their concerns for something less serious than they were. And now two girls with such promise are dead, and for no justifiable reason.

Mr. Yasir Said's teenage son Islam's denials that religion has anything to do with these crimes is technically correct. Dishonor killings are believed to have their origins in misinterpretations of pre-Islamic Arab tribal codes. They pre-date Islam by centuries and, in fact, are un-Islamic. But, by denying that these crimes have anything to do with faith, Mr. Islam Said is not necessarily denying that they are dishonor killings. He is making a fine distinction that is wholly lost on most Americans (and most people reporting on these crimes, I might add) because, if Americans know anything about these crimes at all, they mistakenly believe they are Islamic. But I am quite sure Mr. Islam Said knows darned well these are dishonor killings. Similarly, whether Mr. Yasir Said bowed and prayed in the direction of Mecca five times a day is pretty irrelevant to this discussion. Part of the modus operandi is to cloud the issue with irrelevancies and with angry, loud denials and protestations, and we in the West play into this by being ignorant/naive about Middle East culture and Islam and wanting to be objective and open minded and willing to entertain all options until final "proof" is presented.

It is just an empirical reality that, although dishonor killings are un-Islamic, the overwhelming majority of the U.N.-estimated 5,000 of them per annum globally occur in Arab/Muslim countries and in Arab/Muslim immigrant communities elsewhere. This has to do with their origins in misinterpretations of pre-Islamic Arab tribal codes. There is a dishonor killing belt, and it is disingenious and simply factually incorrect when some try to claim there is no pattern to these crimes or to equate them with other forms of violence that truly have occurred over time and across cultures and that, unfortunately, seem to be part of the human condition.