Friday, June 24, 2005

Honour...and bleach

"Then he forced the three women to drink bleach before strangling Rudaina, who was eight months pregnant".

Chris McGreal's report on an apparent rise of killings of Palestinian women (Guardian, 23 June) is a useful bit of journalism.

Judicious in his first choice of example - the murder of a 22 year old woman by her father - because the family in this case was Christian.

This makes the point that honour killing is not specifically Muslim - something worth remembering.

How, if at all, does one understand and deal with this kind of violence, especially (or so it seems) of men towards women and towards the relatively weak in so many societies and circumstances? (see also "
raping a three-year-old and a 75-year-old seems beyond comprehension" here).

What connection, if any, in the Palestinian case, to wider climate of violence, poverty and hopelessness?

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