"I understand the panic that parents from some ethnic communities feel in the west's over-sexualised society, but killing your child is a barbaric response," said Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Daily Mail yesterday. She insisted that there should be no special concession for Abdalla Yones, who began a life sentence on Monday for the murder of his 16-year-old daughter, Heshu.I don't often agree with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown but she has taken a consistent line in repeatedly urging Asians in the UK to condemn the barbaric treatment of women that goes on in some families.
Yesterday, I bought the Daily Mail for the sole purpose of reading the piece the Guardian refers to. Unfortunately, the article is not available on-line. That's a pity because Alibhai-Brown's piece deserves a wide circulation.
Yones is a Muslim and such killings are shockingly frequent in Muslim countries (although they also take place in Hindu and Sikh families). Now we are seeing them with alarming frequency in Britain too.Alibhai-Brown has been trying to raise awareness of the problem for some time now. She has received hundreds of letters from Asian women in the UK who live in fear of such treatment at the hands of their families.
Back in April 1999, Rukhsana Naz, 19, from Derby, was strangled by her brother as her mother held her down. She had a boyfriend and was pregnant after leaving the husband who had been forced on her in the first place.
In June 2001, Shahida Perveen, 24, from Manchester was murdered by her father after he found her with her secret boyfriend in her bedroom.
Last January, Sahda Bibi, 21, also from Manchester, was murdered an hour before her wedding because she was marrying out of choice and her relatives did not approve.
Mother of two Surjit Kaur Athwal, 26, from Middlesex, has been missing, presumed murdered, since December 1998. She had started divorce proceedings against her husband and disappeared while in India for a family wedding.
But in Britain, sadly and tragically, there is much more obfuscation, too little condemnation. There is a kind of cultural protectionism so that concerned people, both inside and outside ethnic communities, are paralysed into silence.If a white racist had murdered his daughter in this way, I don't think BBC Radio would have had a cultural commentator on, explaining why the father had felt justified in acting the way he did. But that's beside the point.
They know that if the speak out they will be accused of being racist or of harming community relations. But just imagine the uproar if Heshu had had her throat cut by a white racist.
As Alibhai-Brown makes clear, this is not a Muslim issue, it's an Asian issue. It would be good to see more people being as forthright as Alibhai-Brown in their condemnation of this latest killing.
So called "honor killings" are barbaric murders but it's not just the crime that needs to be condemned; it's the attitudes of those who support and condone it. The racist tribalism and the primitive view of women that motivate these people have no place in modern society.
