Honor killings

March 7th, 2011 by Charles Cameron

[ by Charles Cameron — cross-posted from ChicagoBoyz ]

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I had occasion today to give myself a quick refresher course on honor killings, one form of which is already present in the Torah as of Leviticus 21.9:

And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.

and found myself once again noting that there is a substantial swathe of regions of the world where honor killings are found, and that where it is found (including in immigrant communities from those parts of the world) the practice is not confined to any one religious group.

Hence this DoubleQuote:

I think it is appropriate to consider honor killing a form of religious violence when the claim is made by those who do the killing that they are acting in the name of their religion — but that it is also important to distinguish such acts committed in a cultural context in which they are practiced across religions from acts that are the exclusive province of one religious tradition.

There are examples of honor killings which are performed in the name of Islam, and/or advocated by Islamic scholars — and the same could no doubt be said of other religious traditions — but honor killing as a genre is fundamentally more cultural than religious.

Sources: Brandeis study — BBC — Sydney Morning Herald

The analytic point:

From my point of view as an analyst, it is important to note and compare both religious and cultural drivers — neither avoiding mention of the one out of “correctness” — nor overlooking the other for lack of comparative data.

Posted in analytic, anthropology, britain, christianity, counterintuitive, cultural intelligence, extremists, framing, freedom, geopolitics, Human Rights, India, islamic world, islamist, kurdistan, Perception, Religion, social science, Theology, tribes, Uncategorized | 1 comment

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  1. david ronfeldt:

    March 9th, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    good post, charles.  your point is sound that “honor killing as a genre is fundamentally more cultural than religious.”  
    .
    can we push it a step further, as follows?  honor killing of women mainly occurs in cultures that are deeply if not virulently tribal.  and that mostly means parts of africa, the middle east, and south asia.  
    .
    latin america shares some cultural traits with those regions, but it’s not fraught with such honor killings.  the reason, i’d suppose, is that tribal and clan identities are generally weaker in latin america.  in contrast, what troubles the region more, mexico in particular, are called “femicides” — the murder of women by men who treat women as property.  a perceived insult to a man’s honor may lie behind such femicides, but it’s an individual and not a tribal phenom of local culture.
    .
    is there evidence that honor killing is of lower incidence in cultures where islam (not to mention other religions) is prevalent but that are also relatively modernized and less tribalized?   for example, indonesia?  malaysia?  i don’t recall hearing about honor killings of women being characteristic there.
    .
    [hmmm, i see that the commenting activity on this post is almost entirely over at chicagoboyz.  so i’ll repeat my comment there, though i’m happier here.]