Thoughts on the struggle against "honor killing".(In Memory of Fadime Sahindal)

Fadime Sahindal was a young Kurdish-Swedish woman studying in a Swedish university. On 21 January 2002, Fadime's father shot her dead while she was visiting her sister in Uppsala. He confessed to the killing, telling police that his daughter had shamed the family. Fadime had "shamed" her father and brother by rejecting an arranged marriage, by choosing her partner. She had earlier "shamed" her family in 1998 for bringing a highly publicized court case against her father and brother after they threatened to kill her. The court gave her father a suspended sentence, and her 17-year-old brother a year's probation.

Fadime had to hide from the male members of her family. But she did not remain silent. She campaigned against this form of patriarchal violence known as "honor killing." Killing for reasons of "honor" is of ancient origin, but has occurred more frequently in recent years in the Middle East and in parts of Kurdistan devastated by war: Iraq and Turkey. Violence against women related to "honor" has occurred among refugee and immigrant communities in Western countries as well. But it is not a uniquely Kurdish phenomenon; it has been practiced in both the West and the East.

The short and tragic life of Fadime has become a symbol of the struggle over patriarchal violence. In Sweden and elsewhere, there have been extensive protests against honor killing in general and Fadime's murder in particular. The problem and the debate surrounding it are far from resolved. Public policy in Sweden, often lenient on such "culturally" motivated crimes, has come under a new round of criticism. The media and academia have also been involved, although the former more vocal than the latter. Racists and white supremacists have sought to appropriate the issue, but their efforts have been overshadowed by mass protests of both Kurds and non-Kurds. Among the Kurds there has been widespread condemnation, although nationalist Kurdish organizations have tended to downplay such crimes. They worry that the publicity casts shame on the nation.

We wish to contribute to the debate as academics engaged in the study of Kurdish society and gender relations, and as activists opposed to all forms of violence against women. We strongly condemn the killing of Fadime, and urge that serious efforts be made to prevent patriarchal violence against women. We contend that institutions of state, religion, family, education, and the Kurdish nationalist movement as well, are all implicated in the perpetuation of the crime of honor killing.

HONOR KILLING AS CULTURE: POLITICS AND THEORY

Is honor killing a part of Kurdish culture? Is it Islamic? These and other questions have been raised in the debates over the killing of Fadime and in other such cases, both in Europe and in Kurdistan. The questions often have political as well as theoretical underpinnings. We contend that violence against women should not be reduced to an issue of culture. This notwithstanding, we are persuaded that honor killing is definitely part and parcel of Kurdish culture.

Like Western and non-Western cultures, Kurdish culture is neither homogeneous nor monolithic. Like its Western counterparts, within the culture of the Kurds, gender is perceived and therefore treated within the context of at least two conflicting components. One is that of patriarchy and misogyny, present in folklore, language, literature, jokes and manners--in the "lived experience" of individuals. The most virulent forms culminate in bloodshed, as in the cases of Fadime and the countless unnamed women who have lost their lives. The second component within Kurdish culture is more obscure and therefore neither affirmed nor praised nor promoted. And that is the culture of struggle for gender equality. It emerged in the Kurdish press of the early 20th century (Klein 2001), inspired by late 19th and early 20th century liberal feminist and women's movements in Europe.

The first Kurdish women's organization was established in 1919. By the mid-20th century, the greatest Kurdish poet of the modern period, Abdullah Goran (1904-1962), strongly condemned honor killing in his poem, Berde-nusek "A Tomb-Stone" (Kurdish text and translation in Mojab, forthcoming). In 1982, Kurdish filmmaker Yilmaz Guney strongly condemned patriarchal brutality in his movie Yol (Road). Since the 1990s, there has been a rising struggle against honor killing in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the 1988 genocide known as Anfal and the two Gulf Wars had destroyed the social fabric of society, and unleashed waves of patriarchal violence.

To deny or ignore the existence of a culture of struggle for gender equality in Kurdistan or in other non-Western societies is a political decision emanating from patriarchal politics, in the sense that to do so denies the universality of the oppression of women and the struggle against it. It is racist in so far as it denies to non-Western, non-White women the means to understand the conditions surrounding their subordination and ignores their determination to resist.

The killing of Fadime had its genesis within the dictates of Kurdish patriarhal culture. But it is similar to, if not identical with, Western, Christian patriarchal culture, which has allowed men and women to blow up abortion clinics and assassinate doctors who conduct abortion in the United States and Canada. One can argue that the culture of honor killing is traditional, tribal, feudal, or rural. But …