Yes, I am the James Morton who wrote in today's Sun:
'Honour killing' is terrorism
By JAMES MORTON
Steven Hazel wanted to end his marriage.
He increased the life insurance on his wife and removed his prize possessions from the family home. Hazel then murdered his wife and tried to hide the murder by burning down the family home in southwestern Ontario with his wife's body inside.
This is a terrible story about violence and greed -- but Hazel's violence was directed at his wife only and he had no plans to intimidate others by his cruel deed.
Compare the Hazel case to the dreadful actions of Hasibullah Sadiqi who murdered his sister Khatera and her fiance Feroz Mangal in the Ottawa area because Khatera moved in with Feroz before getting married.
According to the Crown at Sadiqi's trial, the killing was committed for the purpose of "restoring the family's reputation and respect in the Afghan community."
Sadiqi presents a typical "honour" killing; a killing, usually of a woman, committed because she has breached some sexual code of conduct, say, by dating a man of a different religion or race.
In an honour killing the murder is committed for the purpose of enforcing the sexual code of conduct and warning others who might be tempted to breach that code of the fate that may befall them.
At first blush there's no difference between an honour killing and any other murder. If a woman is killed for insurance money or for honour, she's still dead.
But on closer analysis there is a difference and an important one.
Killing a spouse for insurance is brutal and monstrous but it is an act only focused on the deceased.
But honour killing kills the deceased and threatens others. An honour killing uses violence as theatre to intimidate others. It stands to enforce a sexual code of conduct by violence and threats.
An honour killing is part of an organized effort to subjugate women to a specific and oppressive view of society. Although the total number of honour killings in Canada is still relatively small, probably less than 50 in total to date, the impact on the community as a whole is huge. When compared to a worldwide figure of perhaps 5,000 honour killing a year the implied threat is heightened.
But numbers alone do not tell the story. Even at its height, the number of lynchings in the American South was fairly small (probably less than 100 a year) but the intimidation huge. Southern blacks knew the danger of speaking up for their rights; with honour killings, women can see the risk of behaving outside their place.
Under Canadian law, terrorism includes an act taken for political, religious or ideological purposes which threatens the public or national security by killing, seriously harming or endangering a person. Terrorism is violence designed to intimidate for an ideological purpose.
That's what an honour killing is -- violence intended to subjugate and intimidate women.
In the United Kingdom ,the Crown Prosecution Service has found links between honour killings and terrorism.
Nazir Afzal, the CPS's spokesperson on honour crime, said a terror group threatened to kill a woman, now in hiding, for her sexual behaviour.
"They told her husband that if he didn't put his wife in her place then they would do it themselves," Afzal said.
In just the same way the Ku Klux Klan used violence to enforce white supremacy in the southern United States honour killings seek to keep women as second-class citizens unable to choose how to live their lives.
Let's call honour killing what it really is.
Call it terrorism.
23 comments:
Excellent article, James. The connection with lynchings is dead on. Talking about honour killings without talking about hatred of women is like talking about KKK lynchings without talking about race.
Is that guy from Calgary who butchered his beauty queen wife a terrorist as well?
Or does the terrorist designation only apply to Muslims?
I assume that's why 'honour killings' figured so prominently in the piece.
Do any other religious ethnic groups kill women? Maybe it would be better to focus on this need so many men have to control women. Religion, culture, that's just the excuse.
wsam
anon: the original post is saying that terrorism is an act designed to terrorize.
It would apply to anyone, of any religion or culture, who used violence or the threat of violence to change the general public's behaviour.
Ted, I don't know if it's hatred of women. I can't really speak for these murderers. It's more about being willing to lethally enforce one's own version of morality and a belief in the superiority of that morality. Do the people doing this really "hate" all women, or does their narrowmindedness and ignorance consume them in specific cases?
Would these killers hate their daughters if they were obedient to outdated rules about clothing and courtship? Probably not. It's not about hatred per se, but the frightening consequences of an utter lack of empathy towards women and a lack of skepticism towards religion and tradition.
What you call what Israel does in Gaza and West Bank. Honour killing, mass murder or holcaust? All three apply. If you're looking at one side you must look at the other. Namely, Israel.
The katyusha and suicide vest are implements of terrorism.
So are the bulldozer, the roadblock and the water cut-offs.
9/11 was terrorism. So was "shock and awe" in Iraq.
All were attempts to change political and public opinion via violence against civilians. So it goes with honour killings. This was Morton's point.
Hey, if democratically elected leaders can be Hitlers, people who disagree with my political views can be Nazis, critics of Israeli racism can be anti-Semites, why can't males who abuse and murder females be terrorists?
Greg and Doz, one of the worst terrorism carried out, in the last fifty years,is by Israel against Palestinians. It is a terrorist state. Why not call a spade a spade? They are not any better than Nazis.
That is your personal view, quite androcentric I'd say. And you found the appropriate media outlet to publish that opinion - the Toronto Sun. Congratulations.
My own view has been informed by my own experience and those of hundreds of women who have been violated by patriarchal traditions, conventions and customs that are judeo/christian or muslim in origin.
Serial rapists are terrorists. Ask women who live in residence on campus.
Men who batter their intimate partners are terrorists. Ask the women who were involved with Jean Guy Tremblay.
Willie Pickton as well as the men currently hunting down and killing Aboriginal girls in Winnipeg are terrorists.
It's so interesting how "honour" killings have suddenly become the weapon of convenience to attack the muslim cultures and faith.
As if the Catholic Church in many European and Latin-American countries did not promote values and ideology that encourage men to subjugate their wives, their daughters and their sisters to a standard of "honour" that the men themselves rarely observe.
deBeauxOs, right on. Morton is too biased and racist to understand that.
It is interesting how fear of the other, in this case Muslims, sees crimes committed by that other as uniquely horrific and reprehensible. Or, at least, deserving of special mention. While ignoring similar crimes carried out by non-threatening groups. Sort of like 19th Century Anglo-Canadians chastising the Irish for being drunks.
Morton writes that terrorism is violence designed to intimidate for religious, political, or ideological purposes. Apparently a formulation now enshrined in Canadian law. This is unfortunate.
Most people who study terrorism consider it a tactic. We talk about how criminals terrorize communities. Is not most mafia violence a type of terrorism?
Terrorism is like airpower, or manoeuvre warfare. It is a means, a way of advancing goals, a tactic. To confuse terrorism with the strategic goals of terrorists is a mistake, a mistake which makes any conversation about terrorism meaningless, miring it in semantics.
Ryan Alexander Jenkins had previously beaten his wife at least once. I can only assume the beating(s) was intended to intimate her, to subjugate and oppress her. Though, of course, I have no idea what his actual intentions were. But if we understand terrorism as a tactic he was actively ‘terrorizing’ her – since that was the result. He then cut her into little pieces. Probably to hide the evidence.
Thousands of cases of domestic violence happen every day. The vast majority, men against women. Are those men not terrorizing their wives, girlfriends and daughters? Does the sheer scale of violence perpetuated by men against women not amount to one gender terrorizing another? By Morton’s reasoning, and that of the Canadian government, apparently, is not a message of intimidation being sent? (Question. Is male dominance primarily ideological, or political).
Or is it only terrorism if the crime can be reduced to ‘honour killing’ – a phrase that right now points at one community, Muslims.
For the record. I'm pretty sure Morton wasn't equating Israel’s actions in Gaza with 'honour killing'. The idea is patently ridiculous and disguises (badly) an anti-Israel agenda – as is equating ‘honour killing’ with ‘terrorism’. The latter being just another stick to beat Muslims with.
Support your local women’s shelter.
The basic logic is sound. If there is any racism surrounding the issue, then I would say it's because media outlets provide a disproportionate amount of coverage for the extremely rare "honour killings" that have occured in Canada because they are more "alien" than the more common spousal abuse that occurs in Canada on a daily basis.
So it's okay to equate honour killings with terrorism, because Muslims are scary?
They’re the new kids in town and they’re weird.
I'm pretty sure honour killings aren't exclusive to Muslim culture. Latin cultures used to have pretty oppressive ideas about women (some say still) – enshrined in law. In Spain, it used to be legally impossible for a husband to rape his wife.
Maybe there is a problem with Mediterranean culture? Can we agree that all people originally from the Mediterranean basin are genetically terrorists?
Great discussion. It exposes Morton as being a racist. He is quick to blame Muslims for "honour killing" but forgets what Israel is doing in Gaza. The later is pure terrorism.
This is silly.
If Israel’s military actions against Gaza constitute terrorism, then what military action doesn't constitute terrorism?
Is any use of force terrorist?
Most types of military action that I can think of employ force in order to intimidate. Or is it the use of force against civilians?
During World War two the allies bombed Germany to pieces. Was ‘Bomber’ Harris a terrorist? He was clearly wrong about the efficiency of strategic bombing, but I don’t think you can call him a terrorist. Strategic bombing, for Bomber Harris, was primarily about breaking the German will to resist.
I think people get too hung up on who is and who isn’t a terrorist. Mainly for political reasons.
Support your local women’s shelter.
wsam, I support your views on women. In case of Gaza it is innocent women and children who are being killed at will and that constitutes terrorism. It is not strategic bombing. Even some IDF members came out and admitted the terror being carried out against Palestinians and mass murder.
Congrats on your column. Someday, you might become a host on CFRB radio.
I disagree. Acts of terrorism are directed at states, by non state agents. It is a hate crime, not terrorism. Hate crimes against women may have correlations with terrorist acts, but they are not the same.
What, saying the murder of women to impose male hegemony is wrong is racist? Wake up! That implies that honour killing is to be expected from those inferior groups -- that's real bigotry. As for a cfrb radio show -- bring it on!
Isreal cannot commit acts of terrorism. It can commit acts of war, covert operations, and military incursions directed at non state organizations. It is a state. It's military and government are accountable to international law, international treaties and organizations, and the will of the voters.
Terrorists can't be voted into or out of power, as such. They have no accounability to militaries, states, voters or the larger international community. They are not a part of any legally accountable society as organizations.
The Taliban were the government of Afghanistan during the attacks on the WTC, and as such the invasion of Afghanistan, a state, as retaliation was completely justified.
The term is over used. Unfortunately Mr. Morton is engaging in this overuse and as such opens up the application of the term to Israel.
Israel may be a state but it is a terrorist state and anyone who supports terrorism carried out by Israel is a terrorist.
No, no. States can commit terrorism. The most common definition is the one the americans use in their USMC manuals. It's violence or the threat of violence against civilians in order to create political or public behaviour changes.
There's no reason to create a definition that purposely excludes things a nation does while including subnational groups. I think that's called "begging the question".
When military people attack military targets, it's war. When they attack civilian targets in order to cow them in to submission, it's terrorism.
As for the original topic, I think that honour killings are hate crimes (against women) but unless you can show that people are killing their daughters in order to intimidate - in a premeditated fashion - other daughters in to submission, it wouldn't qualify as "terrorism".
Greq, you're quite right. As you said on your blog we need to distinguish between terrorist and ass*%les.
Honor killings are abhorrent and yet another example of an ongoing discrimination against women.
They are not, however, terrorism. They are not executed against random victims, they are not perpetrated in order to achieve a political goal, and they do not have as an intended effect the terrorizing of an identifiable enemy.
Calling them terrorism does not escalate them into a more heinous category. The classification of 'violence against women' is sufficient, and sufficiently heinous, to suffice.
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