Police in Peoria, Arizona arrested Faleh Hassan Almalaki for murder. Almalaki, an Iraqi living in the United States, ran down his daughter, Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20 and 43-year-old Amal Edan Khalaf, Noor's boyfriend's mother. After two weeks in intensive care, Noor died from her injuries. Amal remains hospitalized. Noor left a son. If you haven't heard the story, I'm sure you're wondering why a father would run down his daughter with his car. The answer? His daughter had become "too westernized" and refused an arranged marriage, instead opting to move in with her boyfriend and son. This type of murder occurs a lot in the Middle East and Africa and is called Honor killings. When a woman does something that dishonors her family in some way, a male family member will kill her to restore the family's honor. This occurs frequently in cases of rape. Women are considered to be at fault if they are raped, no matter what the situation. When they are raped, they shame their family and a family member must restore honor by killing her.
The case of Noor Almaleki is not unusual. Honor killings have been happening in immigrant communities in the United States with increasing and alarming frequency. People that come to the United States from places in Africa and the Middle East often suffer from culture shock. We are, after all, a much different society than they are coming from. Women are treated far better in this society than elsewhere in the world. Our culture is more free and open and lenient when it comes to things like women being able to drive, not cover their faces, wear make-up, be educated and work. For the most part, there are no arranged marriages here. But a lot of the time, people that immigrate here, bring their culture and stick to their cultural norms, despite them being so different from the norms here. The failure to assimilate probably has a lot to do with the conflict that erupts between parents and children, who attend American schools and learn Western ways.
This situation is a reminder that no matter how far we've come as a society, we have a long way to go. It's not just the Iraqi/Islamic culture that we have to deal with. We have to deal with our failure to recognize that this is happening and our failure to try to stop it. Noor's father said to several different people that Noor was becoming too Westernized. I am sure that there were people who saw warning signs they chose to ignore. We, as a society, are failing young women who immigrate to this country if we turn a blind eye to the tremendous stress they endure in moving to a foreign land with a different language and culture.
It is also a reminder that in most other parts of the world, women are not afforded the basic human rights that we take for granted. I do not have to worry about my father killing me for living with Michael out of wedlock (though I'm quite sure he doesn't like it). I have an education that so many women in the world are denied. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has written a book "Half the Sky", which makes a strong argument that everyone benefits when women are afforded basic human rights, most especially education.
The way you defeat ignorance and extremism is through education. Not just education for those who believe in honor killings, but for women. Participation in civil society insures that society remains civil. If you have an entire gender that is excluded from basic things like education and jobs, you cannot have a society that functions on a level where it can excel. Greg Mortensen makes that basic argument in "Three Cups of Tea" He has built more than 100 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan that girls attend and that the Taliban leaves alone.
Women in the Middle East and Africa face such daunting challenges - veils, lack of opportunity for education, AIDS, rape, genocide, honor killings. There could be a woman in Africa or the Middle East who could find the cure for cancer or write the next great novel, but we will never know because she lacks the opportunity to learn. She lacks the opportunity to excel. She lacks basic human rights and has to worry whether she'll be raped and then killed by her family.
I'm not sure what the answer is. I don't really have one. But it doesn't mean I'm not outraged or that I don't think about this. It also means that I realize how incredibly lucky I am to live where I do.
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