Iqbal Tamimi: Are Honour Killings the Most Serious Threat to Palestinian Women?

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Are Honour Killings the Most Serious Threat to Palestinian Women?

http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/10/25/are-honour-killings-the-most-serious-threat-to-palestinian-women/

By
Iqbal
Tamimi • Oct 25th, 2008 at 14:37 • Category:
Analysis,

Internet and Communication,

Interviews,
Israel,
Music, Poetry,
Events,
Newswire,
Palestine
,
Religion

On Thursday 23rd October 2008, Professor Paul Gough, Dean of the
Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of the West of England in
Bristol inaugurated at the Arnolfini the celebrated author, broadcaster
and Independent columnist Yasmin Alibahai-Brown as the
University’s first Visiting Professor in Journalism.

Ms Alibahai-Brown arrived a few minutes earlier, and I had the
opportunity to exchange a few words with her before her lecture, in which
she spoke about her 30-year-long journey as the first non-white national
newspaper columnist in the UK and her 11-year-long work as a
columnist.

I asked her if as a Muslim, had she been wearing Hijab when she applied
for her job that might that have affected her chances of gaining
employment. I also asked her what she thought would happen now with an
identical situation.

Yasmin, as honest and faithful to the mission of journalism and its
ethics as she has always been. answered in complete sincerity, “No - I
was lucky myself that someone believed in me and gave me a chance, now
things are a little different. They would not employ a woman wearing
Hijab in TV of course, but she might be employed in journalism…not
necessarily to write a column, but maybe as a reporter.” She added that
there was another Muslim journalist that has been employed…she explained
that the mentioned journalist was wearing a Hijab at one time but now she
does not.

I respected her honesty and the point she raised, that we all need that
one person who would believe in us and give us a chance to prove
ourselves.

But there was another important comment Yasmin made when she asked me
prior to her lecture about Palestinian women. Yasmin has always been
defending women’s rights, so the first thing she asked me was this, “I am
concerned that I hear about honour killings in the Palestinian
territories are on the rise.”

This comment was very interesting for more than one reason. As a
celebrated journalist, Yasmin would have already known that children
killed by the Israeli forces are on the rise, people dying due to the
roadblocks and detainment at checkpoints, thus denied access to medical
treatment are also on the rise, attacks of the settlers on the
Palestinians who try to harvest their olive groves are on the rise,
attacks on journalists while trying to film the attacks on civilians are
on the rise, the areas of stolen lands from Palestinians are on the rise,
attacks on foreign peace campaigners are on the rise, the number of
students who are denied travel to join their universities are on the
rise… The list of bad things that is considered a breach of all human and
international laws by the Israeli state is on the rise. But my colleague
who I admired very much for her humane stands picked the least
significant number of incidents in this entire list of crimes and
expressed her concern.

I am sure that she was concerned of all the above breaches of
international law, but we did not have enough time to talk further, we
agreed that we should exchange emails later.

I thought of sharing this email with everybody, because I felt guilty
after meeting Ms Yasmin for many reasons…at the top of the list is
because I am a Palestinian journalist. I must have done a terrible job
not to notice what the media is doing to camouflage the real crimes. They
are using women, dead and alive, to ride their agendas - saddling their
stories on our backs.

I felt guilty for not having enough time to tell her that the honour
killing crime is there unfortunately, but very limited in number, this
does not mean that I am not outraged with this crime. But to explain to
her and others that this kind of crime was blown out of proportion to
cover the killings on political grounds, any activist can be killed and
this will be considered as an honour killing. I myself received emails
that had fabricated stories about women activists who were killed and
then the distributed lie was that it was an honour killing.

Colleague journalists should read between the lines and analyse what is
happening on the ground. Why has a new kind of crime suddenly appeared
like the foam on the surface of every cup of media gossip and is
distributed fresh, tickling the noses of propaganda weavers? And why has
news of this kind of crime been travelling faster than the spilled blood
of thousands of innocent Palestinian children and women killed inside
their own homes in their own beds? Why now … indeed.

I have been receiving lots of emails from our fellow women colleagues,
journalists in Palestine who are suffering career oppression besides fear
for their lives and reputations. Israeli forces are not their only enemy;
they are fighting corruption, misconceptions, social and traditional old
rules, besides political views. Sometimes oppression comes from their own
gender; women are oppressing other women within their own profession for
different reasons.

Last month the supervisor of a women’s empowering organisation in Gaza
dismissed a young woman journalist arbitrarily. She was also reported to
have used words that offended the young journalist personally. Such
comments had nothing to do with perfecting her profession as a
journalist, but rather it was described by some local journalists as a
kind of media hooliganism happening before an audience. The argument had
nothing to do with her journalistic skills; she was accused of being
“divorced”. For those who do not know much about the Middle Eastern
societies and its sensitivity towards divorced women, I guess they ought
to read a little bit more. For being a divorcee is more like being
accused of a crime, divorcee is a swear word in some societies.

Women in Palestine have to fight the oppression of the Zionist state; and
lack of justice of the society towards women in general and against
journalists in particular. When I asked why no one cared to correct the
situation, the reply was that the lady in charge has strong “authority”,
and members of the board feared her anger especially since she is a
“lawyer”. Here I feel how privileged we are in the UK and how lucky that
we have a constitution, we enjoy many rights that we also take for
granted. Wherever the legal system needs a crutch to lean on, crime will
flourish.

The lawyer mentioned above is the Director of the Centre for Women and
legal guidance assumed to be in charge of resolving issues facing
battered women. Expelling the young female journalist arbitrarily is just
one of many examples I receive every day. And this example shows clearly
that women can be victims of other women too. The lawyer mentioned above
is running a centre that receives financial aid to support women, not to
oppress them.

One wonders why no one from the Palestinian syndicate or the Union ever
dared to confront or question such personalities, or do some justice by
filing an investigation.

This case was not an isolated incident; I have read an article written by
a Palestinian colleague journalist by the name of Ahmad Arar who tried to
raise such issues online, because there is no freedom of the press. If
you are not supporting A then you are supporting B, or worse you are a
mole for C. No one cared or dared to follow such matters any further
through the media, this is why we only hear about honour killings. Honour
killing is an excellent escape door, and as usual, women are the perfect
victims.

Even though Palestinian women are known to celebrate relatively better
liberties and status in their society compared with other Arab societies,
we know perfectly well that the female Palestinian journalist is fighting
a fierce battle to prove her presence as a professional. Besides the fact
that some female Palestinian journalists suffer sexual harassment,
discrimination in employment opportunities, and pressures from their own
society, added to all that is the suppression and the oppression by the
Israeli forces.

Palestinian female journalists have to deal with censorship from
political, religious and social sources. Besides being a target or
killed, they are caught in the crossfire between the fighting factions,
and the fires of the Israeli soldiers, added to all that are the
restrictions on their movement, and suffering low wages and many other
challenges.

All the above issues are under-represented in the media, except honour
killings. When International organizations and watchdogs witness such
phenomenon, they must know immediately that they are witnessing the
symptoms of corruption. The president of the Palestinian journalist
syndicate was never elected, nor does anyone recognize any prior work
from him as a journalist. He was appointed. Knowing such facts might
direct us to a very important issue. The journalists are the best
candidates to help their communities, for they know the obstacles facing
their colleagues and their people.

I hope colleagues in the UK can monitor such media manipulations with a
deeper analytical eye.

Photograph of Yasmin Albahai-Brown copyright Iqbal Tamimi
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Iqbal
Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is
the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network
Palestinian Mothers, open
to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike.
She is working now in UK.
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Iqbal
Tamimi