Family ‘Honor’

March 9th, 2007 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags:
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The ‘honor’ of the family is, as we all know, considered to be so important in certain cultures that girls / young women are killed, murdered by their own relatives for thinking for themselves, deciding how they want to live themselves, and, thus, not doing what the family thinks the girl should do. Today, The Times published this article about Doaa Fares, a Druze, who was forced to withdraw from the Miss Israel contest, because two of her uncles and three other men planned to kill her.

They did not particularly agree with her choice to participate in this contest, they decided that she behaved like a ‘prostitute’, was hurting the ‘honor of the family’ and, thus, that she deserved to die. Luckily the police discovered the plot to kill her last week, after which Doaa “disappeared into protective custody” only to emerge from hiding a couple of days later announcing that “she was withdrawing from the competition, fearing for her life.”

She explained: “My life is much more important than a contest, but it’s very difficult for me to give up my dream.”

“The Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Mowafak Tarif” demanded of Doaa to quit. He explained: “We do encourage progress and modernisation, but certainly there are limits to which a woman can expose herself.”

Why yes, it’s quite clear that they encourage progress and modernization, for excusing attempts to kill a young woman for competing in a beauty pegeant, is ultra-modern. At least, stuff like that happens in the Netherlands as well, (Muslim) girls get killed here to ‘protect the honor of the family’ nowadays, while we had not seen that ever before. It’s only in the last couple of years that we see this kind of thing happening here.

So yes, modern it is.

In a way.

Back to the subject at hand – Doaa has withdrawn from the contest, but she’s not giving up just yet: she has “hired an agent and a spokes-person and is to star in a documentary about her ordeal.”

She should move out of her community ASAP, leave them all behind and start a new life as a modern, confident woman.

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