As Norma, Delia and all Middle Eastern Moslem women reading this, Ms. Khouri's book, know, fixing the consequences of this shameful, "criminal cultural conspiracy," is not going to be easy. But we in the West know what the correct answer to it is: It is to get rid of religion. Full stop.
But we in the West are also pragmatic and have been going about it indirectly and at a leisurely pace: the old fashion way, as it were, by allowing religion to die on the vine due primarily to the weight of its own backwardness, narrow-mindedness, and ignorance. Unfortunately, that course is a slow and agonizing one, making the final death of religion much too far into the future to be a viable strategy for use in the Middle East with the Islamic religion.
In the Middle East, the pace of this process somehow must be quickened, otherwise the entire world will remain in mortal danger -- vulnerable not just to dishonor killings, but also to other forms of mindless religiously-generated strife such as, religiously inspired terrorism, female genital mutilation, and even the potential for nuclear war between Israel and its neighbors, or Pakistan and India.
The only way I see that ending all the scourges of religion can be sped-up in the short run, is for women the world over, to wake up and finally realize what is the real nature of the problem that religion was designed to solve: Modern Religion is simply a very, very expensive "pacifier" for men's sexual fears and insecurities all wrapped into a set of rituals of moral piety.
Why should women so willingly remain a part of a criminal cultural enterprise that enables this self-destructive psychological insecurity to run rampant over their lives -- a system that subjugates them and murders them both physically and psychologically?
The first step towards a solution of self-emancipation from this culture of gender slavery is obvious: The truth of the colossal fraud and the weak psychological foundation of male sexual fears upon which honor killings are built must be exposed. Exposure to the light of the day is always the best disinfectant.
At first, it may not seem so, but exposing this sexually based fraud will be cathartic for both women and "sexually secure men" who do not want their humanity defined by, defiled, or even tied to, such shameful and ignorant crimes. And at the same time, exposure pulls the cover of secrecy away from "sexually insecure men," who want nothing more than to keep the fraud and the secrecy of the true underlying nature of the crime hidden forever. Nothing undermines the fragility and moral bankruptcy of this hidden fear-based male sexual project, more than public exposure.
However, it must be further said though, that it is women who must lead the fight to bring this issue to the table and to world attention. They must do so publicly, with the names of individuals like that of Dalia, but also by realizing that by doing so publicly and actively, it is not going to be any less difficult or cost-free than doing nothing, submissively in silence. Anyone who does not believe this should talk to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who openly declared war on the crimes committed by the Islamic religion against women, and is still paying the price for it.
And worst still, is the fact that women must begin to defend their right to sexual freedom in place -- and do so conspicuously in the very countries where these shameful sexually insecure murders are still encoded as law and sanctioned as everyday practice. Since women at ground zero are already being sacrificed in silence as martyrs anyway, it is now time for martyrs -- both men and women -- with loud voices, to stand up and be counted. Will there be casualties of this war? You can count on it. But civilization and our common humanity depend on it!
Honor murders must be denounced from the highest platform, from the podium of the United Nations, as one of the last scourges of the 21st Century, along with racism and genocide, as an insidious violation of both Human Rights, and Women's rights. To pretend that it can be done at a safe "standoff distance" far away from ground zero, sipping tea on the verandas of some Western country, is a pipe-dream that quickly has diminishing value and returns, ones that in the end will not only not solve the problem, but indeed as Ayaan Hirsi Ali's life has demonstrated, could eventually even backfire and make it worse.
What is needed is a worldwide full-court press on the ground by both "sexually secure men" and women, moving together, side-by-side, both inside and outside the targeted countries, with their hands joined in a committed cause. They must then literally fight to the death until the practice of dishonorable killing of women is formally abolished by the religion of Islam and any other religions that practice it.
Women in the lion's den at ground zero, must take the lead and begin to roar loudly, continuing to sacrifice their lives, but this time they are not doing so meekly, or quietly or without asking loudly and publicly: Why indeed does a "man's honor" have to be made equivalent to limiting a woman's sexual freedom? Why does it involve keeping my vagina locked up in a cage? Why do I have to suffer as a slave, be physically mutilated, and die by the hands of the males in my family, or die sexually repressed simply because men have say-so over my body?
Then of course, Moslem women must go one step further and ask themselves the same question that Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali asked herself, the most important question of all: If all Islam does, is protect men from their own sexual fears, why then do we (Muslim women) need religion at all? Five stars
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