Culture and Honor Killings

One of the goals of the Western occupation of Iraq is to create a stable, functioning democracy in the hope that this will lead to the flourishing of democracy across the Middle East. Aside from the question of whether democracy can be imposed from above, there is the question of how compatible Iraqi and Arab culture right now are with the basic requirements of democratic institutions.

David Aaronovitch writes for The Observer:

[A] fortnight ago there was a report from Istanbul about the trial of the father and brothers of a 14-year-old girl. This child had been raped and imprisoned by another man. The men of the family, from eastern Turkey, held a council and decided their honour could only be salvaged if the girl was killed. She was strangled by her father with a piece of electrical flex. He told police: 'She begged as I was strangling her ... but I did not take notice of her cries.'

In the 21st century? And there are less appalling variants of the same attitude. In Baghdad a month ago, while Nick Berg was staying at a hotel just down the road, I spoke with a representative of Moqtada al-Sadr. There were two things that concerned this cleric most about the new Iraq. The first was the rights of minorities to exercise a constitutional veto, which he opposed, and the second - more substantial - concerned his rejection of a code enshrining equality for women. He wanted it to be illegal to dress 'immodestly', for example. This was his red line.

Now, this is not a matter of Islam versus Western values per se. Those who have campaigned hardest against honour killings have been Muslims themselves, and the tribal values that are enshrined in the commodification of women precede Islam. In Jordan, Queen Rania has come out for tougher laws but until now she has been thwarted by Islamist parties in the Jordanian parliament, who complain about a possible breakdown of family values if men are punished for killing erring wives and daughters.

The problem is, democracy is not simply a matter of having elections and going with whatever the majority decides. a stable, functioning democracy requires more: respect for the right of minorities, respect for basic liberal values, etc. These are not incompatible with Islam, but it is hard to see how well they could function in a culture where young girls are murdered when they are raped and where men think that they should be able to legislate “modesty” for women.

This is why democracy doesn’t work so well when imposed from above. Democracy works best when people want it, but they are most likely to want and appreciate it when they appreciate a certain level of pluralism in terms of religion, values, and politics.

Read More:

• Recent Books on Islam
• Islam
• Religion in Iraq