i hate the world today

[harborshore]

Hate it. Hate it.

Sometimes there is no right way to write about something. Sometimes all you can do is cry your eyes out and manage three paragraphs of nothing and collect links.

For 14valentines Day 7, Domestic Violence.



Medine Memi was buried alive in Turkey forty days ago. She was sixteen. She was found two days ago. According to the autopsy report, she was conscious when they buried her 20 meters below a hen house sitting up with her hands tied behind her back. Her family (what a curious word it is, family) did this to her. Why? She had male friends. Source

It happens closer to home, too. The most famous cases in Sweden were activist Fadime Sadindahl, who was murdered in 2002, because she had a boyfriend her family didn't approve of and because she'd chosen to speak out against her family (she spoke in front of the Swedish parliament on her situation and on what society should be doing to help), and Pela Atroshi in 1999, who wouldn't marry when she was told. It happens way too often; it's still happening, all over the world. Forgive me for not looking up more recent cases, my heart hurts too much to take it right now.

Don't call them honor killings. There is no honor in this. Instead, there is such deep shame that I am hard pressed to find adequate words for it. Don't call them honor killings, please. Call them murders, and call them shameful, and call them hate crimes, and god, please, let people know you feel this way.



Here is Amnesty's resource page where you can contact US senators and ask them to vote to authorize the Office for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department. Obviously, this is most likely to have effect if US Americans do it. (I did it anyway.)

Here is a link to possible actions you can take at the SKSW Campaign (Stop Killing and Stoning Women).

Women Living Under Muslim Laws is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. They work to link together organizations and people all over the world.

Here is the link to the Kurdish Women's Network against these killings, though their website has not been updated in a while.

If you want to pass on the links or reblog this (I've pasted the code for the links below) or support the organizations, that would be good. This should be talked about; this should be something politicians hear about. We as a society have a responsibility to these women, because fuck everything, this isn't the world I signed on to live in.

This should not be happening.

Code for the links:

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8501181.stm">Source</a> <a href="http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=12572">Here</a> is Amnesty's resource page where you can contact US senators and ask them to vote to authorize the Office for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department. Obviously, this is most likely to have effect if US Americans do it. (I did it anyway.) <a href="http://www.stop-killing.org/node/7">Here</a> is a link to possible actions you can take at the SKSW Campaign (Stop Killing and Stoning Women). <a href="http://www.wluml.org/">Women Living Under Muslim Laws</a> is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. They work to link together organizations and people all over the world. <a href="http://www.kwahk.org/">Here</a> is the link to the Kurdish Women's Network against these killings, though their website has not been updated in a while.

Comments

[torakowalski.livejournal.com]

Urgh. *cuddles you*

I found an article that said we have approx 12 of these kinds of murders every year in the UK; I don't know if that's an accurate number but I do know that reports on the news have become commonplace enough it no longer has such a shock value. Which is sickening. These are women being killed by their families, by the people who they're supposed to feel safe with. I hate that the word 'honour' is used anywhere in connection with it.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I just--she was sixteen. Last year, a thirteen-year-old girl was stoned to death. They're the same age as my cousins, I can't--no, there's nothing honorable about it. It's domestic violence and it's murder and it's nauseating and awful and I don't know what to do with myself.

[liketheroad.livejournal.com]

*hides under a rock with you*

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

This is not my fucking planet, I swear to god.

[crowgirl13.livejournal.com]

It took me a minute to understand why they would called honor killings. I couldn't figure out how it would be an honor to be killed.

Yeah.

Thank you for the links, honey. *hugs you tight*

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Right, no, exactly. There's no sense in it, none.

*clings* I just hate the fucking universe right now.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Some of them are pretty useful (hopefully, at least).

And yes, absolutely. That IS really good. Fadime said it herself in her speech: "I became a face and a name for a story that no one had heard before in this country." and that remained true after she died, for both her and Pela. And it was their story that was told, very much so. I just really want that to happen before they die so they don't have to die, I want them to be able to be who they are absolutely all the time.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

♥ Couldn't stop crying, had to write something.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I'm more numb today than anything, but yes, hate. She was sixteen years old, I can't even--sixteen.

[extemporally.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links, bb.

(PS. If you wanted to make it easier for people to copy the links, you could put the coding in a text box. Like so: <textarea>YOUR TEXT HERE)

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I don't even know, but I had to write something, I could barely remember how to breathe.


(Thank you! I knew there was something I could do to make that work better. Also, I finally found an English source for the story, so that's in there too.(

[kickingrad.livejournal.com]

I love you, I love you.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

You got the email, huh? ♥

[kickingrad.livejournal.com]

I don't seem to have any email? But that was just love for you because your passion and fire is seriously, seriously awesome, and I though you could do with a little because this shit fucking hurts, it canes, it burns.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes it does. I basically cried for a day and a half. *clings*

It was from my RL address?

[kickingrad.livejournal.com]

I have it now. Oh, my darling.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Empathy, it is a curse and a blessing both.

[sullen-hearts.livejournal.com]

"Honour killings" to me makes it sound like something that Those Nasty Asians Do that "we" Can't Do Anything About and to me, that's just incredibly wrong.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I feel like the real problem with the term is that it's whitewashing what is actually happening, like there's some sort of virtue in killing your daughter because she has the temerity to have a sexuality (see Much Ado About Nothing for a Western example). You know what term I prefer? Hate crimes.

[sullen-hearts.livejournal.com]

I agree, that's what I meant to say in a much clumsier way. Hate crimes, that's good.

[x_dark_siren_x]

I never understood why they were called "honour killings". I still get angry when people write about them in articles without quote marks, because. Because then there's nothing to draw attention to how wrong they are, nothing to call them into question; without the quotations, they seem normal, something people have acclimatised to, accepted. And it's not normal, it's wrong, because these are their families and no family should ever think that justifiable, they're supposed to be the people who love you and protect you.

I'm heartsick. I'm shaking so much, I use the delete key more than I'm actually typing anything. She was sixteen. So many more are younger still. Why is this still happening? Why do people think it's okay?

We as a society have a responsibility to these women, because fuck everything, this isn't the world I signed on to live in. Hear fucking hear.

♥ It will get better. Because it has to. Because I don't want to bring children - bring daughters - into a world where this happens. I don't want them to ask me why, and have no answers for them. I don't want to have to watch them learn that these things happen in the world. Because they shouldn't. I have only a basic understanding of Islam, but this - this isn't in the Koran. This isn't any anything I ever read about Islam. Those pieces I read couldn't praise women enough. So what happened?

*hugs*

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

This is a late reply but I've been trying to make my thoughts on this neater. I'm afraid I haven't really managed to do that :( I agree with you that these need to be stopped and isn't honor. It's murder. I agree with you so much on this. Last year there was a highly publicized honor killing in my home country and the thing I did not understand then and still do not understand now is how academics could come out and say that it was ok. I remain horrified that they made the argument that it was a case of western cultural insensitivity to treat the perpetrators as murderers because they were only doing what was culturally appropriate. I know it's maybe a slippery slope but it seems like in the case of so-called honor killings it doesn't matter if they are a part of a culture or not - the act itself is still murder and should be treated as such. The idea that because the perpetrators were from a different culture it was alright and that these women were actually at fault because they weren't conforming to that culture still enrages me. Thank you for the links.