Blood Cleans Honor, or So We Are Told

1196 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of respect in society

The number of honor killings each year is unknown. Figures are only estimates at the very best. The Iraq government dismisses the numbers that are published and those outside the country have no way to identify how many honor killings take place, if they are even recorded somewhere. According the Human Rights Watch, honor crimes are “acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members who are perceived to have brought dishonor upon the family” (Stop Violence Against Women). Just sheer suspicion can be seen as a reason to commit an honor killing. This is because honor is a huge aspect of the culture in Iraq. Without it a family has little left. So if honor is needed to be restored then it must be done. Honor killings, done because a female in the family is not virgin, are seen as a socially accepted way to restore honor to the family in Iraq. The law used for the sentencing of those who commit honor killings in Iraq, families and communities who have participated in honor killings, and the females victims of honor killings all have different viewpoints. However, the truth is honor killings are historically viewed as a way to restore honor and because of that, most in Iraq look upon honor killings as constructive way to restore honor.
Honor killings have an extensive past in Iraq, after being integrated into the culture, honor killings are viewed as an acceptable norm of the culture. Under Taliban groups, a honor killing is seen as the only way to restore honor to a family name after women, who are the property of the men in the family, engage in pre-marital sex or infidelity. This idea comes from the cultural belief that “blood cleanses honor” (Husseini). Rape is also considered to fal...

... middle of paper ...

...a tight grasp on the culture in Iraq and it would be hard for people to let it go. After all “blood cleanses honor” (Husseini) and families value honor.

Works Cited

Husseini, Rana. "Speak Truth to Power." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2014
Bayoumy, Yara and Aseel Kami. "Honor Killings Require Tougher Laws, Say Iraqi Women." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 06 Mar. 2012. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
"Four Years On: Join IKWRO in Remembering Du’a Khalil Aswad | IKWRO." IKWRO Four Years on Join IKWRO in Remembering Dua Khalil Aswad Comments. IKWRO, 7 Apr. 2011. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.
Ali, Latifa, and Richard Shears. "Betrayed." One World, Many Cultures. 8th Eds. Stuart Hirschberg and Terry Hirschberg. New York: Macmillan Pub., 2012. 155-162. Print.
Stop Violence Against Women “Crimes Committed in the Name of "Honor"
Stop Violence Against Women, n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.

    Read More

  • Blood Justice

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    How would you like to be accused of a crime and then be disenfranchised because of your race? Well this is what happened to Mark Charles Parker because he allegedly raped June Walters a pregnant white woman on February 23 1959. In Howard Smead’s historical nonfiction book Blood Justice he describes one of the most important investigations of a racist, motivated crime in the history of the United States.

    Read More

  • Ptsd In The Kite Runner

    1667 Words  | 4 Pages

    After Talibans lost control of Kabul, there was a survey done in Afghanistan. About 42 percent of Afghans suffered from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD) (Badkhen, 2012). Amir is a wealthy Pashtun child that lived in Kabul, Afghanistan. He had servants Hassan and Ali. Hassan and Ali were Hazaras. Hassan and Amir were close, but were not “friends”. There was once a kite fighting tournament that Amir won and Hassan was the kite runner. Hassan went after the last kite and while returning to Amir from capturing the kite, Hassan ran into a known bully, Assef. Amir was looking for Hassan. When Amir found Hassan, he sees Assef with him. Assef asks for the kite but Hassan denies giving Assef the kite. Assef then rapes Hassan while

    Read More

  • The Sociological Complexities of the Taliban

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    The society of the Taliban is almost a polar opposite of that in the United States. The group looks at women as having little to no rights and believes that their holy book, the Quran, gives reasoning to the roles of women as virtually sexual objects in their society. Their political leaders were not elected into their positions, but took them by force. It operates fifteen courts of law in Southern Afghanistan in the...

    Read More

  • Honor in Colonial Latin America

    388 Words  | 1 Pages

    Honor, just as today, is the way your name is viewed by others in the public. Threats toward ones honor might be defended differently in the public view. Honor varied between genders. Males felt it necessary to defend their honor when another slighted their masculinity, family, or physical ability. Females felt honor too. They often saw it important to defend their honor like did the males. Usually it was defended by gossip or name-calling but on occasion did result in physical violence as well. Females saw honor in a moral sense. Ones sexual activity or lack thereof before marriage, fidelity in marriage and celibacy after marriage all proved a woman to be honorable. Just like today, a personal reputation would be on the line if called a demoralizing name.

    Read More

  • Lincoln Keiser's Friend by Day, Enemy by Night

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Friend by Day, Enemy by Night” shares an in depth look into the lives of the Kohistanis who live in Thull, Pakistan. The author of the text, Lincoln Keiser, goes into great depth in explaining the life of these people before and after mar dushmani. Mar dushmani can be directly translated as “death enmity.” This social relationship between the Kohistanis causes for many problems. As a general principle death enmity allows men to retaliate whenever another man wrongs them, though the act of revenge itself should not exceed the original wrong. The example stated in the book is, “a blow should answer a blow and a death answer a death.” For such offenses as attacks on men through their wives, sisters, and daughters retaliation usually occurs in deadly violence. Killing the offender is considered the most appropriate response. Although violence usually takes place during retaliation, it is not the only way to handle it.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    2953 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...ey are murdering people they had grown up with, the tradition dominates their life and is one of the only things that they know therefore it is necessary to uphold.

    Read More

  • The Long Term Effects of the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    We have all heard of the bombings of women and children. We ask why anyone would do such a horrible thing to a woman and her child. It is usually due to the belief that they are defending their family and the village from assaults (Tirman). I was under the impression that these human bombers were made to carry out these attacks on soldiers. However, Nicole Argo said that these people actually volunteer this, and with researching this, she found that these people actually are invested in their community. I have associated the war in Iraq and Afghanistan a war on terrorism, but the Muslims have seen it as religious war called jihad. These human bombs have been used since the 1970’s (Argo, 2006).

    Read More

  • The weight of Honor

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the play Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand proves with the character Cyrano and his struggles with physical identity that honor is courageously holding up to one's promises and not taking credit for another’s work despite the consequences.

    Read More

  • The Living Dead of Afghanistan

    1904 Words  | 4 Pages

    Travesties are committed against women every day, in every country, in every city, town and home. In Afghanistan women are not only discriminated against, they are publicly reduced to animals. Women are deprived of basic human rights: they are not allowed to travel outside their homes without being completely covered by the traditional shroud-like burqa; they are not allowed to speak or walk loudly in public; they are not allowed to laugh or speak with other women; they are not allowed to attend school nor work; they are expected to be invisible; they are the ghosts of what were once educated, notable, and successful women. With their ruthless and extreme laws, the Taliban have effectively removed the physical presence of women in Afghanistan. The Taliban have stolen the very souls of these women and have turned them into the “living dead” of Afghanistan. The Taliban’s harsh restrictions and extreme religious laws have tainted the freedoms and basic human rights of the once valued and prominent women of Afghanistan.

    Read More

  • Use of Blood in Macbeth

    595 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagery is the use of symbols to convey an idea or to create a specific atmosphere for the audience. Shakespeare uses imagery in Macbeth often, the most prevalent one, is blood. I believe he uses this as a way to convey guilt, murder, betrayal, treachery and evil, and to symbolize forewarning of events.

    Read More

  • Rape as a War Tactic in the Rwandan Genocide

    2041 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but people tend to ignore, or even worse, not speak of the act. There have been recorded cases of rape and sexual assault in almost every war in human history. Genocidal rape was used as a gendered war tactic in the Rwandan genocide in order to accomplish the Hutu goal of elimination of the Tutsi people in whole, or part.

    Read More

  • Drones In Humane Warfare

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although one must understand that people will grieve like any other human when their loved ones have reached demise, especially if wrongfully or even earlier done. The author, Jeremy Scahill, examines with a logically statement, “People who are aggrieved by attacks on their homes that forced them to go out and fight,” since the militants operating in Yemen are receiving such responses of hostility through families, thus there needs to be a reevaluation on the aerial aircraft. Above all, people from Yemen are being pushed into unimaginable thought processes as an effect as there are results concluding, “Support for Al-Qaeda in Yemen is indigenously spreading and merging with the mounting rage of powerful tribes at the United States counterterrorism policy.” (Source K). Besides, none of these families are claiming this lifestyle with open hands, but core members of the terrorist group are growing because the United States is growing with power as the Amnesty International claims, “Drone strikes can be classified as war crimes or illegal extrajudicial executions.” (Source K). When statistics represent these masses converting, whereas declared, “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula core members grew from three hundred in 2009 when these strikes began once again to seven hundred people in 2012.” (Source K). This is around

    Read More

  • Honor

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    HONOR CAN BE DEFINED IN SO MANY WAYS CAN mean respect and esteem shown to another. HONOR may ALSO apply to the recognition of one's right to great respect or to any expression of such recognition IN SOME SITUATIONS IT implies profound respect mingled with love, devotion.There is a priceless respect that everyone in the world possesses, and that is the. respect of a person?s honor. A person?s honor is something that can not be bought, sold,. or traded it?s something that must be gained by the respect of your peers. An example of. how honor is seen in everyday life in through a persons word. The standard dictionary definition of honor first lists public regard and esteem under the word, with ethical conduct or high standards of justice and responsibility appearing much further down the list. This is reflected in the way the modern world treats the issue of honor. In ancient times, honor was the manner of being that we now describe as having integrity. In plain language, an honorable person avoids deception whenever possible, treats others with respect and sticks to her beliefs no matter how others think or act. People generally do not seem to behave very well toward each other any more.Honor determines the hierarchy of an individual while revealing his loyalty and true intentions. Reward comes for those at the top whose honor does not diminish, while a false or fleeting honor of a lesser mortal causes destruction. Exploring and discussing how to act honorably toward each other is a place to start.The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. How can you be a person of integrity? First, figure out what integrity (honor) is. My mother used to say to treat others the way you wanted to be treated. Does anyone do that these days? Well, I know that I don't want to be cut off in traffic, or yelled at, or bumped into rudely at the grocery store, or left picking up garbage all over my yard from the street. So I could try not to do those things to other people. I won't cut off others in traffic, or yell, or act rude at the grocery store, or throw garbage in the street. That's just a place to start. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

    Read More

  • Yasmina Khadra And De Niro's War Analysis

    1928 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Middle East is a place often portrayed by violence and terrorism. Often times we allow the media to misconstrue our minds and we fall into and believe the typical stereotypes imposed on us. To say you truly understand the conflicts and issues that occur in the Middle East, I believe you must have had to physically been there or have experienced it. In the fictional novels, The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra and De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage, we are given two different portrayals and views of the lifestyle that goes on in the Middle East. Although the stories are fictional, many would say that there is some truth behind there “stories”.

    Read More

More about Blood Cleans Honor, or So We Are Told

Open Document