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Where is the honour in this?

12th June 2007 by Helena 6 Comments  

Banaz MahmodA beautiful young girl is raped, strangled with a bootlace and buried in a suitcase in a garden. This is not the act of some random psycho; the persecution and murder of this young woman was arranged and carried out by her own family. Twenty-year-old Banaz Mahmod had the temerity to leave an abusive arranged marriage and fall in love with a man she met at a party. Her father decided she had shamed her family and ordered the “honour killing”.

Oh well, it’s terrible, but these things happen abroad you might think. Think again. This happened in England. Banaz lived in Mitcham in Surrey. Her parents came to England from Iraq (they are Kurdish) when she was only 10 years old. She assimilated into our culture. They obviously did not.

Official figures say that there have been 19 “honour killings” in the UK in the last 10 years. I would guess the real figure is way above that. Is it any wonder that Asian women are three times more likely to kill themselves than British women?

How much longer can this go on for? We may not have a right to impose our culture on others, but if they chose to live in OUR society then we have a right to expect them to behave as our rules dictate. And our rules say that women have a right to fall in love and marry whoever they choose without fear of death and judgement by a medieval creed that has no place in our world.

People who carry out “honour killings” should be deported. There is no room in civilised society for them. I don’t care if that infringes on their human rights. In my view once a father garrotes his daughter he ceases to have any rights. He is no longer human.

And next time a woman goes to the police four times pleading for protection, as Banaz did, then maybe they’ll listen. This is yet another tragic case of a young woman daring to be herself and paying the ultimate price. I wonder what her mother’s role in all this was? I suppose she was too scared to speak out for fear of being murdered herself.

I also wish the police would stop talking about “honour-based crime” (trust them to come up with some stupid phrase). There is no honour whatsoever in these crimes; there is only shame.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Life, Women, blog --> Tagged With: honour, where

6 thoughts on Where is the honour in this?

  • Rob Clack says:
    12th June 2007 at 4:33 pm

    I completely agree. The Thought Police pussyfoot around afraid to be labelled racist, but I’m with you – people choosing to live in this country must abide by _our_ rules, not necessarily their traditional ones. They should be locked up first, then deported when they’ve done their time.

    This comment may not be entirely coherent because the thought of these girls being murdered by their own families just makes my blood boil!

  • debio says:
    13th June 2007 at 11:03 am

    Yet again, the UK must adapt its culture to incorporate those of others. This behaviour is murder, by any definition, and requires no explanation by being labelled ‘Honour Killing’.

    Against my usual judgements, I feel quite sorry for the Police in these cases. How is PC-plod to be expected to recognise a potential crime when the lifestyle of the potential perpetrators is so alien to his/her experience?

    The Police are between a rock and a hard place – if they investigate then the ‘race card’ will be played and if they do nothing they will be criticised too.

  • lady macleod says:
    14th June 2007 at 1:08 am

    I am absolutely with you on the deporting. You have to draw the line somewhere. Western guilt over past offenses is getting in the way of good judgement about the present.

  • Gavin Corder says:
    14th June 2007 at 11:27 am

    Who said she was raped?

  • helena says:
    14th June 2007 at 11:46 am

    Hello Gavin
    She was raped before she was murdered in order to “dishonour” her according to several newspaper reports.
    Best
    H

  • Irene says:
    29th June 2007 at 8:43 am

    I am all with you. I think Western people have been made to feel guilty for being just them, but strangely enough quite everyone wants to live where they live and join in their lifestyle. That is a paradox!
    I wish this young lady’s death would mean a shift in consciousness. though I very much doubt it…

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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