Ralph R. Reiland
Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003

What's difficult to understand is how a culture went from being in the forefront of human achievement to the very bottom of the international barrel – how an Islamic culture that led the world in economic, military, political and intellectual achievement dropped to the level of killing its own daughters and fitting its pubescent boys with dynamite belts.

Family values

"Abdalla Yones, 48, cut his daughter Heshu's throat and left her to bleed to death," reports The Telegraph of London. "He had subjected her to months of beatings before killing her in a frenzied knife attack."

Heshu Yones, 16, was found in the bathroom of her family's apartment in London with a kitchen knife sticking out of her neck. Her father, a Kurdish Muslim immigrant from Iraq, had stabbed her 11 times and slit her throat.

"Heshu used a mobile phone, preferred to spend time out with her friends rather than at home and wore makeup – always applying it at college or a friend's house," reports The Telegraph. She also had an 18-year-old boyfriend, a Lebanese Christian, a fellow student at the William Morris Academy in London.

During the investigation of her death, police found the "runaway" letter that Heshu had written. "Bye Dad, sorry I was so much trouble," she wrote. "Me and you will probably never understand each other. I'm sorry I wasn't what you wanted but there's some things you can't change."

Another part of Heshu's letter led police to believe she had been beaten for months prior to her murder. "Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick. I hope you enjoyed testing your strength on me, it was fun being on the receiving end. Well done."

The 16-year-old ended her letter with these words: "One day when I have a proper job every penny I owe you will be repaid in full. I will find a way to independently look after myself. I will be OK. Don't look for me because I don't know where I'm going yet. I just want to be alone."

Scotland Yard, referring to the crime as a "clash of cultures," described Heshu's murder as an "honor killing," a way of dealing with strong-willed daughters that is not altogether uncommon in Iraqi Kurdistan. Concurring, the sentencing judge said the murder was rooted in "the irreconcilable cultural differences between traditional Kurdish values and those of Western society."

British police believe there were 12 Muslim "honor killings" in the United Kingdom last year, reports WorldNetDaily.com – 12 murders of relatives who were seen as bringing shame to their families by way of everything from lip gloss to unauthorized hand-holding.

Holy Land

Closer to the hot spots on the Holy Land tours, Jordanian police found the remains of two sisters who were hacked to death by their brothers.

The Jordan Times reports the Muslim brothers admitted to taking an ax to their sisters, 20 and 27, in order to "uphold family honor." The older sister had left home to marry a man without her family's consent; the younger sister had run away to join her.

The sisters, the paper reports, were thought to be the 11th and 12th women killed this year in Jordan for "family honor" reasons. "One victim's head," said the newspaper, "was nearly cut clean off."

In Pakistan, where Islamic militancy is in full bloom, a report from Zahid Hussain published in The Sunday Times of London last December showed the year-end tally of religious attacks on women to be at an all-time high.

"At least 460 Pakistani women this year have been slaughtered by relatives in so-called 'honor killings' to protect the family name, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan," reported Hussain.

"The commission gave examples of mothers killed by their sons. In one case, a man killed his widowed mother for being 'immoral.' In Faisalabad, a young woman was hacked to death with an ax by her brothers after she was accused of having sex with a neighbor."

The mind-set? A man gets big by killing those who make him feel small. If Heshu is too free, get out the knife. If America is too rich, call out the hijackers.

Bottom line: We're witnessing a way of thinking that's opposed to freedom and modernity, a mind-set that promises only to deliver even greater levels of tyranny, poverty and underdevelopment to the Islamic world.

Ralph R. Reiland, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University.

E-mail: rrreiland@aol.com

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