Murder in the Name of Honor (14 page)

‘In such circumstances,' Shalbak continued, ‘Norma Khouri is providing what [George] Bush, [Tony] Blair and [John] Howard failed to deliver which is the moral case of the war, for attacking savage Arab men and liberate Arab women and the feminized Arab world.'

Shalbak also contacted Malcolm Knox, the literary editor of the
Sydney Morning Herald
. Knox contacted me in June and confirmed the great extent of the book's influence in Australia, saying it was crucial to know how reliable
Forbidden Love
was.

Knox travelled to Chicago and found Khouri's family. He learned that Khouri was married and had two children; she had
moved with her family to the USA when she was three years old. He confronted Khouri but she denied everything and claimed that she had lived in Jordan at the time of Dalia's death. Knox wrote a large feature that appeared on the front page of the
Sydney Morning Herald
on 24 July 2003.

Reporters Tony Koch and Paul Whittaker followed this up with an article in
The Australian
on 10 August 2004, entitled ‘Khouri ready to defend her honour', in which they stated that her lawyers had confirmed that Khouri obtained a government permit to enter Australia after US Vice President Dick Cheney's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, had supported her application for Australian residency in 2003.

Based on Knox's findings and the list of errors compiled by Dr Amal Sabbagh (then secretary general of the JNCW) and myself, the publishers finally withdrew the book for good after Khouri failed to provide evidence that she ever lived in Jordan. The publishers also shelved plans to publish a second book by Khouri,
A Matter of Honour
, in November 2004. This was to have been about how she fled from Jordan following Dalia's death and about her new life in Greece, the USA and Australia.

‘In the absence of conclusive evidence being provided by Ms Khouri, we have no alternative but to acknowledge the considerable doubts that exist as to the truth of events described by the author in
Forbidden Love
,' said Margaret Seale, managing director of Random House Australia in a statement issued on 13 August 2004. The publishers apologized to their booksellers and readers who purchased the book believing it was a true story and offered refunds on all returned books.

I sent hundreds of emails to all the people who had emailed me, attaching the list of errors, the letter sent to the publishing house and Malcolm Knox's story. Only a few people bothered to respond. None were apologetic. One woman wrote, commending my work, and told me that she now understands what really went
on in Jordan and concluded that Norma Khouri was a con artist. But the damage had been done.

A woman named Klea wrote this in August 2004:

I feel that your so-called ‘proof' that
Forbidden Love
is a fake can at the least be called questionable. I'm sure that men in Jordan and other Muslim countries were outraged and embarrassed by Norma's words being published all over the world … You can defend the puny attempt to veil the truth of what is happening to women in these Middle Eastern Muslim countries, but Khouri has already succeeded at opening the world's eyes. Those defending equality and human rights will continue to fight against you and those you shield.

Many international writers and columnists wrote several articles after the book proved to be a hoax, arguing that the Australian government had used it as a means to convince people that there were strong moral reasons (namely, the supposed severely abusive treatment of all Muslim women in the Middle East) for Australia to take part in the war in Iraq.

Nada Jarrar, a Lebanese novelist, wrote an interesting piece in the
Guardian
on 24 November 2004, saying Khouri's book should never have rung true, even as a work of fiction. She wrote:

In what fictional world are all the female characters victims, and all the men tyrannical or just plain stupid? How did a work of ‘non-fiction' so entirely superficial and written in such a facile manner ever get published – and why did it then get such an enthusiastic response from the public?

The tragedy of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, might have increased western interest in the Middle East and in Islam … It has also fuelled a desire to have certain preconceived prejudices about the Arab world – and Arab women –
confirmed by publishers and the media. There is a whole new market for books, fiction and non-fiction, that depict Arabs as people with no sense of – or vision for – the world around them, who feel no love for life or each other, who have created monolithic societies where nuance does not exist.

She added: ‘Khouri's betrayal of her fellow Arab women is only a microcosm of a much larger deception. Greed and hunger for power – in so far as writers can be powerful – seem to have been her chief motivations. It is sad that she was able to find so willing an audience in the west.'

Joseph Wakim, founder of the Australian Arabic Council and a former Multicultural Affairs Commissioner, wrote an article in the
Canberra Times
on 28 July 2004, entitled ‘A sexed-up story of honour killings', saying, ‘Whether deliberately or not, the book's release in 2002 in the shadows of the September 11 attacks, has undoubtedly capitalized on the tidal wave of Islamophobia that is sweeping across most of the non-Muslim continents … Given the current Islamophobic climate, Khouri did not even need to claim that hers was a true story. The tide was already on her side … she merely reinforced an image that many western readers already possess.'

Ihab Shalbak wrote a piece for the
Sydney Morning Herald
on 2 August 2004, arguing that the book ‘helped provide a moral case for war to the hesitant public in Australia'.

‘Curiously,' Shalbak wrote, ‘while many Australians welcomed Khouri as a refugee, and bought 200,000 copies of her book, large numbers of Australians [have since] voted in a new government with an extremely tough migration policy. What's more, we know there are hundreds of Arab and Muslim women in detention centres around the country.'

Exposing so-called honour crimes in one's own society is like igniting an uncontrolled fire. Sometimes, it is all too easy to play
into the hands of other people who have their own agendas. People like Khouri have taken advantage of the huge publicity generated by our campaign to release false information about the issue, in this case portraying all Arab and Muslim men as evil murderers.

Now that publishers have realized the massive interest in and market potential for books on this subject, many other non-fiction books about honour killings have since appeared. Publishers (and authors) owe the world a duty of care to check non-fiction stories before they are published in future. Stories like Khouri's fictional tale have enormous amounts of influence, and the damage caused by misinformation can be incalculable.

Honour is concept that has been widely interpreted by different societies, cultures and classes throughout history to promote behaviour that is beneficial to the community. The roots lie with early man, who wanted to ensure his genes were passed on. The simplest way for him to do this was to make sure that ‘his' woman did not have sex with other men. Men who controlled ‘their' women were seen as strong leaders of high status and therefore were honoured by others in the tribe. As time went on, the honour of a group (or individual man) depended on the behaviour and morality of its female members (or his female relatives).

A sexualized form of honour continued to develop, with women being seen as a form of property, a valued commodity to be traded. So women's bodies and sexuality gained a monetary value, which led their husbands and families to regulate and guard their sexual behaviour. Intact women were prized by the community – who all stood to benefit from the alliances and profits that would arise from her marriage to a member of another tribe. As patriarchal notions of morality and culture became more deeply entrenched, these idealizations of women's sexual behaviour gradually came to be reinforced by dress codes and notions of right and wrong. As men created and dominated the religious, cultural and judicial elements of society, women became subordinate, as they were legally, culturally and religiously bound by their husbands and male relatives to keep the family honour. Maintaining this
honour meant that women
had
to be restricted so there would be less chance that this precious commodity would be lost.

The advantages of keeping sexual honour intact are numerous. It provides increased security and large families (in the sense that marriage prospects for a family's children will be good); it is used to keep a family stable, particularly in immigrant communities where honour may also help give a sense of superiority, self-awareness and pride; and a family's high status will lead to good business contacts and opportunities.

As we have already seen, honour may be lost for any number of reasons: women having sex before marriage, committing adultery, being raped, defying parental authority and becoming westernized in immigrant communities. However, most commonly in my experience, honour can simply be lost through gossip and rumour about a woman suspected of immoral behaviour. Generally, an immoral act does not become dishonourable until it becomes public knowledge – hence the reason for gossip being so damaging.

The sheer numbers of so-called honour murders are undeniably shocking. As mentioned in the introduction, in 2000 the UN Population Fund estimated that over five thousand women die in honour killings every year. Some experts insist that the true figure is much higher, simply because of under-reporting and because many so-called honour killings are disguised as suicides, accidents and disappearances. In countries where this form of violence is considered an acceptable check on women's behaviour rather than a serious crime, the perpetrators remain unpunished. A 2005 report from the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, prepared by Swiss UN Ambassador Theodor Winkler, entitled ‘Slaughtering Eve. The Hidden Gendercide in Women in an Insecure World: Violence against Women. Facts, Figures and Analysis,' stated that around two hundred million women and girls are ‘demographically' missing because of gender-related violence. Winkler listed examples of such violence which
included abortion of female foetuses, deprivation of food and medical care and honour-related murders.

Thankfully, over a relatively small number of years, it has become apparent that there is a widespread desire for change. In 2002, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 57/179 and committed to ‘working towards the elimination of crimes against women and girls committed in the name of honour'. The resolution called upon states to ‘investigate thoroughly, prosecute effectively and document cases of crimes against women committed in the name of honour and to punish the perpetrators'.

The resolution also urged states to intensify their efforts to raise awareness of the need to prevent and eliminate crimes against women committed in the name of honour and work to change the attitudes towards these crimes within each country's community.

An updated resolution, co-sponsored by seventy-nine countries, was presented jointly by Turkey and the UK in 2004 to the UN General Assembly. This ‘Resolution on Working Towards the Elimination of Crimes against Women and Girls Committed in the Name of Honour' acknowledged in its title that girls could also be victims of these crimes, and called on the international community to introduce measures to prevent so-called honour crimes and introduce effective legislation.

Meanwhile, many people in Jordan and countries such as Pakistan and Turkey have voiced their disapproval of the way foreign and sometimes local media have handled the issue of so-called honour crimes.

In Jordan many feel that we are targeted as if ours is the only country where so-called honour crimes take place; that we've been singled out, attacked and blackmailed by western countries who have threatened to block financial aid if the Kingdom does not change its discriminatory laws against women.

These feelings are mirrored in Pakistan where, in September 2005, I attended a regional conference on violence against women
in Islamabad. At this conference, the then President, General Pervez Musharraf, pledged to protect and empower women in his country, but spoke strongly against individuals and foreign organizations that ‘singled out' Pakistan for criticism on the issue of so-called honour crimes.

‘What hurts me is that Pakistan is singled out when it comes to violence against women. I would not be with people who single us out alone. Let us all raise the issue together. Never single out Pakistan. That I will always oppose with my will and power,' the President told the gathering.

This is perhaps because Jordanian and Pakistani campaigners have led the way in exposing the problem and so international coverage of the issue in these countries has indeed been very intense. The sheer volume of work that has since been conducted by governmental and non-governmental organizations in these countries, and by other activists and journalists, has made Jordan a pioneering country in the region in terms of combating violence against women.

Nevertheless, so-called honour killings and other forms of violence against women continue to occur, and not just in Jordan and Pakistan. Reports submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights indicate that these crimes occur in countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, the UK, Palestine, India, Israel, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, Yemen, Uganda and the USA.

After our campaign became internationally known, I began to receive correspondence from all over the world about so-called crimes of honour. I was invited to speak at dozens of conferences where I was asked for advice about running campaigns to raise awareness or how to effect a change in the law.

It soon became very clear to me that so-called honour crime is one of the most serious global problems currently faced by women. As I visited dozens of different countries and conducted my own
research, I was shocked and appalled to learn that the problem was far greater than anyone seemed to realize – particularly those who were in a position to do something about it. The next section of this book describes my experience of so-called honour crimes around the world, starting with the other country that has received as much, if not more, international attention than Jordan: Pakistan.