I’ve never quite understood what “Izzat” means, since it covers behavior I think of as thoroughly dishonorable and fails to cover other things that I think of as being quite honorable. But now, thanks to two tragedies in Georgia that have recently been in the news, I think I understand. Izzat means kill the bride.
Exhibit A: Chaudhry Rashid and his daughter Sandeela Kanwal
Rashid is accused of having killed his daughter because she wanted to get out of her arranged marriage:
Authorities allege that Rashid killed his daughter because he feared that her resistance to a recently arranged marriage would disgrace the Pakistani-American family… “She was very unhappy with the marriage, had not seen the husband in three months and was seeking a divorce,” … “The father felt like the he had to uphold his family’s honor…” [Link]
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p>Let’s ignore for a second the fact that in Islam marriage is a civil affair and divorce is allowed. And let’s ignore the fact that if the marriage broke down, some responsibility must reasonably lay with the person responsible for choosing the groom. And let’s ignore the fact that the father was married to an American, so he clearly had not had an arranged marriage himself.
If the police account is correct (and Rashid has been charged but not yet tried, so the facts are not all out and there is no verdict), Rashid saw his daughter’s behavior as bringing disgrace to the family, and believed that the only way to set things right was to kill his daughter.
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p>Exhibit B: Chiman Rai and his daughter-in-law Sparkle Michelle Rai
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p>In this case, it’s Chiman Rai’s son, Ricky, who the father feels has stained the escutcheon by marrying a black woman, Sparkle Reid. The son is the one who has dishonored the family here, right? So what does the father do? Disinherit him? Kill his son? Nope – he hires hitmen to kill his daughter-in-law:
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Atlanta jurors have found an India-born businessman guilty of masterminding the murder of his black daughter-in-law because he feared the mixed marriage would smear the caste-conscious family’s name… two women arrived at the apartment of Rai’s son Ricky and his new wife, pretending to deliver a package. A 300-pound hit man then choked Sparkle Reid Rai with a vacuum cleaner cord and stabbed her a dozen times within earshot of her 6-month-old daughter. [Link]
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(The son went on to marry a desi girl, never telling her about his ex-wife or daughter, by then being raised by Sparkle’s parents. And Chiman Rai was just convicted on seven charges and may face the death penalty, but this is besides the point)
See, it’s the magic solution. No matter who does something “wrong” (the son, the daughter) nor what that “wrong” thing is (getting married, getting divorced), the answer is always the same: if you want to preserve the family’s honor, kill the bride and regain your “izzat.” Bride-killing, on the other hand, well that’s not shameful at all.
49 · lazy_ngawang said
First of all, go fornicate with your inexcusably rude self. Second, I did go to the police and that’s why I’m still alive and responding to the likes of you. But thanks for making assumptions about me being “too soft”. Why so protective of Demondoll? And why so appallingly insulting towards millions of desi women you don’t even know? How lucky your sister is, to have such a compassionate sibling. “Loser family” indeed.
Break it up, everybody. I don’t want to close down the thread.
lazy_ngawang
Don’t assume and don’t assult. Be respectful of other people’s experiences, OK?
CR:
I understand you might have been upset by demondoll’s comment, and understandably so, but let’s keep this clean. It’s legit for demondoll to be frustrated about cultural condescension, we write about that here too. Frustration at being talked down to need not negate recognition of real problems in the community.
Sigh, everybody, just … count to 100 or something and cool down before commenting again. Thanks.
17 · Bichoo said
Honor killings might be rare, but the coercion and oppression that lead up to them is pretty common. Do you follow what I’m saying? Do you realize how many people are abused and stuck in situations they would not freely choose because of these barbaric patriarchal attitudes and the actions that follow from them? A lot. Every day of life sucks for a lot of women (and queers) in our community and life sucks for their kids, too. Man, some of the stories I’ve heard…and I’ve had a sister and a cousin disowned, too.
36 · ShallowThinker said
Yeah dude, people from good families never do wrong.
46 · CR said
Word.
Using your personal tragedy to mockingly oppression-olympics-one-up someone else and their experiences? CLASSY. That totally makes me sympathetic to you! Seriously, I’m sorry you went through what you did, but not everyone did and I think it is annoying when people assume that you’re SO OPPRESSED. So can we keep the issue of people assuming things about brown women, and the issue of shit like this ACTUALLY happening, separate please?
Yeah my parents have been more strict that regular American parents, but never abusive, and neither have my friends’ parents been (a couple of them told their parents they have boyfriends, and their parents weren’t happy but they certainly didn’t bring out the matches either). Since this blog is all about proclaiming the diversity of desi American experiences, I’d like to make clear that mine, and many others’ doesn’t include this sort of misogynistic attitude.
Aside, menstruation is considered impure in nearly all major world religions, and women aren’t allowed to enter places of worship in all of those. A lot of the misogyny we’re talking about has been part of many cultures throughout history, and the undercurrents will never go away despite how urban and modern our world gets, but for some reason it’s highly concentrated in the subcontinent, or it seems to be so. To tackle the problem we need to actually look at its roots in culture instead of overgeneralizing and condemning an entire society.
CR:
I’m sorry for what you went through, and women who are abused certainly have my sympathy. However, you could try being more respectful in your comments. It sounds like you don’t want to hear other people’s points-of-view.
It’s true that there are some problems in our community, and we ought to face them honestly. However, we should not bash our entire culture based on these problems. Sometimes, desis are way too critical, in a way that I rarely see in anyone else. There are good things and bad things about EVERY culture. It saddens me when Desis don’t see the good in their own culture. I think this may ultimately have to do with power and our position in the world. We are bottom-feeders in a sense, because we come from a poor country. And it is common for bottom-feeders to loathe themselves and wish to be like those at the top. If we want to be truly improve as a culture, we must learn to truly appreciate ourselves, both the good and bad parts of us. Often the good stems from the bad and vice-versa; things are often interconnected.
There is no need to throw the baby out with the bath-water.
That’s all I have to say.
*women aren’t allowed to enter places of worship during menstruation in all of those
55 · Demondoll said
Unless it is a baby girl, of course.
54 · bindu said
Whoa. Didn’t the intern already tell everyone to chill before commenting on this highly-emotional and controversial subject? I don’t know that your statement (or “last word”-ing in general) is moving us towards productive dialogue. To accuse someone who is obviously hurt that they are “Using” a personal tragedy implies something rather unsavory which isn’t the classiest thing to do to a survivor, is it? 🙁
It’s difficult to get “sorry” from the earlier part of your quote, the one which ends in the sarcastic declaration of sympathy which I excerpted above.
In any case, if one of us goes through it, that’s one girl too many. I’m saddened that people are focusing on certain aspects of this, out of insecurity, trollishness, denial, whatever. It must feel like a slap in the face to someone who has experienced this to read a number of comments which are critical of the media when what we really need to do is call out these attitudes when we witness them, in our family and friends. Commenters hello, campmuir and Harbeer have all tried to explain why crying “racism!” or ignoring very real issues is an awful thing for us to do. I guess for those who have ears, let them hear…
A little more respect, for everyone, please?
55 · Demondoll said
One more thing– there’s plenty of celebrating the good about our community but like most humans, we are loathe to examine the bad, which is why some of the comments upthread seem disingenuous.
Look at the discussion inspired by this post. It turns in to a chorus of “not me! my parents were awesome!” and “the media is racist!”. Demondoll, you yourself decided to bring up condescension as your primary concern and you worried that the media’s sensationalism was making that problem worse for you…how is that helping us improve as a culture, if we aren’t willing to take our lumps, because we’re afraid of arming “feminists” or others with ammunition?
Jesse Jackson didn’t like Obama speaking the truth to his community on Father’s day…sometimes we need to confront what’s wrong within our family, instead of avoiding it or rushing to distance ourselves from it.
The thread has been closed for a while to give people time to cool off.