August 29, 2004
A Hoax and Honor Lost for Norma Khouri
By Ali Abunimah
Full story at http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/7966
Excerpts:-
“A sensational book that purported to tell the "true" story of the murder of a young Jordanian woman by her father because she dared to date a Christian man has been exposed as a fraud… This has been a hard road, as Rana Husseini, (an investigative journalist at the Jordan Times) explained by telephone from Amman: "I have always been accused of tarnishing Jordan's image, of washing dirty laundry in public. But I have always been very careful to explain that honor killing is not part of the Muslim religion ...." Husseini pointed out that the practice also occurs among Christian families.“
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4 comments:
The real tragedy of this literary scandal is that it pulled attention away from the reality that dishonor killings do occur in Jordan (and elsewhere), and more or less as Norma Khouri described.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
http://www.redroom.com/author/ellen-r-sheeley
Though as much as I would like to empathize with Khouri’s circumstance in Jordan, and though I do admit, via the many readings that I did, that yes, the senseless killings do occur, it is increasingly difficult to lean towards her direction, and her cause, in light of this scandal. It is made even worse by her blaspheming a religion.
What Khouri did is very unfortunate and shameful.
Hello, this is Norma Khouri...the real shame of what I did was that it did not cause enough pressure on the Jordanian Government to force them to abolish articles 340 and 98 from the Jordanian penal code. My intentions were to create international awareness that these crimes are even happening in Jordan...which the international community was blissfully unaware of prior to this controversy. The governments...our governments use political "spin" in the media on a daily basis to perpetuate their actions...that is waht is shameful. the media is not interested in such a womens issue topic unless or until it is done in the way that i did it. I did the right thing the wrong way for the right reasons...millions of people know now that these crimes are happening, before this they knew nothing about them. What are you doing now that you know???
Dear Madam Khouri ... Thank you for your comments. I urge you to re-read my earlier comment posted on 25 June. Excerpt > " ... I do admit ... the senseless killings do occur ... difficult to lean towards her direction ... in light of this scandal ... made even worse by her blaspheming a religion."
Whatever your intentions, or whatever you set out to do, blaspheming a religion is not the way to do it, and rather than pulling your readers to empathise with you, you are creating simply the opposite.
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