Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah's new book takes on a topic most other writers in the US would shun: honor. The word makes Americans wary, in expectation of syrupy movies and fire-breathing politics. But in The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, Appiah reclaims the concept and reincarnates the word.
I discovered this book as I was reading the Human Rights Watch report, released on October 6th, "Walls at Every Turn", a survey of the dismal treatment of domestic workers in Kuwait, where I lived for five years. I came to feel at home in Kuwait, and to care about the country's successes and failures, especially in the area of human rights. So as I read the stories and statistics in the HRW report, despair threatened. Appiah's book hit me like a tonic.
His theme is this: a nation's concern for its honor -- the way it's seen in the eyes of the world -- can make fundamental changes in the way it conducts itself. With bracing eloquence and a good ear for a story, he tells of three moral revolutions of this kind: how dueling ended in the Western world; how the Chinese came to see footbinding, customary for a millennium, as a cruel and brutish practice; and how the British outlawed slavery even against its own critical economic interests.
Appiah establishes a compelling case for what a national sense of honor can accomplish. His own target in this book is the so-called "honor killings" common in Pakistan, the Middle East, and in many places throughout the world. He quotes Asma Jahangir, a leading Pakistani lawyer and human rights advocate: "What sort of honor is it to open fire on an unarmed woman?" Along with many other activists in Pakistan, she's working to inspire a moral revolution there. The goal: to awaken a sense of real honor, Pakistan's honor as a nation.
My own mind shot to the Arab Gulf states and the starkly deficient conditions there for migrant workers. Could Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the two worst offenders in the region, undergo a moral revolution? Could they overhaul their attitudes toward the workers who outnumber them in their own countries? In Kuwait, 90% of the work force is made up of migrant workers. Could they open adequate shelters and offer counseling to abused workers? Institute far-reaching labor laws -- and enforce them?
Pie in the sky. So was the abolition of slavery in 1823, when a handful of English Quakers organized the first anti-slavery society. Slavery was deeply intertwined with the economy of England's vast empire, and the vibrant young nation across the Atlantic was becoming dependent upon it too. The chance to end slavery seemed perishingly small. But working people in England empathized with slaves, for good reason, and they turned out against slavery by the thousands across England, forcing change in the cushy and complacent upper classes. It took just ten years for the British to pass the Slavery Abolition Act, a remarkably short time for such a great, nationwide change of heart.
Footbinding in China began in the misty past, perhaps as early as the late 900's. By the 1300's, aristocratic families felt compelled to bind their young daughters' feet, however painful for these mere sprites of three or four years old. Appiah writes, "An honorable man married a foot-bound woman; a foot-bound woman would not be married to a man without honor." The practice became so ingrained that the tiny, deformed stump it produced, almost unrecognizable as a foot, was charged with erotic power.
Not until the 1800's when Christian missionaries infiltrated the country, did the Chinese begin to broaden their "honor world" as Appiah calls it, meaning, "a group of people who acknowledge the same codes." Missionaries were horrified by foot-binding, spoke out vociferously against it, and established anti-footbinding societies beginning in the 1870's. A change of attitude among the Chinese began, and before the turn of the century, China's honor world, "included the Japanese, Europeans, and Americans whose critical evaluations undermined China's claim to respect," Appiah writes, and in 1898 a Chinese intellectual would write a memo to the Imperial Palace saying, "There is nothing which makes us objects of ridicule so much as footbinding." In a matter of years, it had disappeared.
As Appiah shows, honor practices such as dueling and "honor killing" haven't been affected much by law; and religion's impact is nebulous. Dueling had been illegal by common law in England for decades and banned by religious standards for centuries before it was eradicated. In Pakistan, according to Appiah, "there is almost universal agreement... that honor killing is un-Islamic." It's also illegal, yet it claims more than a thousand Pakistani women a year, maybe many more.
Could a moral revolution happen in Pakistan? Its own citizens are rising up in protest of honor killing, a hopeful sign. In the Arab Gulf, there's reason for hope, too. A small number of Arabs, many of them young people who grew up on the Internet and consider themselves citizens of the world, are awake to the issues of their region. Even though the "honor world" in which they live doesn't yet recognize universal human rights, they do, and they can change that world.
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Family traditions, culture, and customs are under assault from hedonism and chaos- including MTV Arabia which essentially just shows American MTV shows with arabic subtitles. Watching American teenage pregnant moms be rewarded by MTV does what for Arab families?
So when a family busy trying to make ends meet and protect their kids from growing corrupting forces in their neighborhoods (criminal syndicates have spread in many poor slums), the family is then betrayed by the TV inside their home.
This conflict is the dynamic within most Arab societies, but also in Pakistan where Pakistani media is controlled by secular elites as well as inundated by Indian Bollywood products.
First, honor killing is not solely a Muslim problem (though, it does occur disproportionately in Muslim societies). Talk to Nick Kristof who will tell you about the honor killings in Pakistan's minority Christian community.
Second, I don't think that a "moral" revolution is needed to stop this. I think an "economic" revolution is needed. In Pakistan, for example, much of this happens in rural, backwater communities where feudal rule is still the norm. Pakistani law enforcement and legal system is reluctant to go into these areas because the feudal lord has so much power. Thus, this results in a lot of ad hoc, improvised, locally-dispensed justice (person A took your cow? You can take his goat in return). If an economic revolution happens, and pockets of feudal rule end, uniform legal practices and standards will come in, which will automatically reduce honor killings.
Third, call me a marxist, but I do think that the manners and morals of a society are linked to the economic basis of that society (the means of production, so to speak). In a largely agricultural society, run by feudal lords, it is easy to treat women like chattel. When the institutions are hundreds of years old, the attitudes will be hundreds of years old as well. Economic modernization would involve education for both men and women, which would help to change men's attitudes towards women, and women's attitudes about themselves.
No doubt Christian missionaries worked diligently to end footbinding. But where was Christian ethos for British imperial forces in the First Opium war 1839-42? And China's Taiping Rebellion which began in 1851 as led by the Christian heretic who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus? The 'Christian rebels' led by Hong Xuiquan formed a Christian kingdom in secession from the Qing dynasty. But the Manchu emperor in arguably the deadliest and bloodiest rebellion in human history, killing up to 20 million people.
And while the British magnanimously abolished slavery in the mid 1800s, they gainly made up for it by conquering, colonizing and occupying the largest populations in the world, India and China. With a massive workforce subjugated under colonial rule, who needs chattel slavery?
As for Pakistan, after decades as subservient to America's regional interest, its now under quasi- occupation with American special forces stationed in Karachi undertaking all kinds of operations to make Pakistan into one segment of a transport route for Central Asia gas and resources going to the Gulf and on to India to fuel American corporate development plans. And as America's global hegemony is predicated on a successful outcome in AfPak, destabilizing and reconstituting Pakistan is a small thing. The fate of women being negligent before empire.
Umdat al-salik, "Who is Subject to Retaliation for Injurious Crimes"
"o1.2 The following are not subject to retaliation:
[...]
(4) a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring"...
The manual states (01.1-2) that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right," except when "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers)" kills his or her "offspring, or offspring's offspring." Hence, according to this view a parent, who murders his or her son/daughter for the sake of "honor," whether owing to issues of chastity, apostasy and the like, incurs no penalty under Shari'a. This ruling is derived from a hadith (Sahih Muslim, Book 19, Number 4457) where it is affirmed that one should not kill a child unless one could know "what Khadir had known about the child he killed." Khadir is a figure featured in the Qur'an who accompanies Moses on a journey and kills a son of believing parents for fear that he would rebel against the will of God (18:74 and 18:80-81).
http://www.meforum.org/2745/problem-of-honor-killings
Can you cite any authority for your opinion?
As for invoking religious law in the matter, I cite Deuteronomy 21:18-21: "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."
Islamic criminal law, or fiqhl uqubat, contains Hadd: proscribed punishment explicitly from revelation, Qisas: retaliation of equal kind (ie. eye for an eye) or monetary fine, and Taziri: punishment assigned by the discretion of a judge.
The Umdat reference regarding Qisas ( retaliation) applies for family members who commit homicide. It is a long established impediment that if a father kills his son, the father is not then killed in retaliation. The impediment ( manei in arabic) is a jurisprudential command from the text, not man's prejudice. It blocks the application of Qisas.
However, Taziri DOES still apply. Hence, if a father kills his son OR daughter, Qisas would not apply, but the judge applies a punishment with imprisonment.
As for the spurious claim that there is no Shariah law forbidding parents from killing their children, I have never heard of this, especially using story of Khadir to justify it. This is false precisely because Khadir has knowledge of which not even Moses (as) had, knowledge of the future. So the Sahih Muslim reference would essentially mean that only if someone KNEW with certainty the future. And of course no one does. Thus, There are many Quranic verses which forbid killing one's children.
6:140: "Lost, indeed, are they who, in their weak-minded ignorance, slay their children."
Very odd wording
It's official & international name, as long as since many centuries ago and before there were 20th century countries called and formed as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, etc., is the Persian Gulf.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/world/asia/10honor.html?_r=1
http://news.oneindia.in/cj/dipin-d/2010/horror-killings-to-guard-honour-shaking-india.html
Of course they can. Of course they will. The issue is: how long will that awakening take? How long will innocent people continue to suffer because of primitivism and backwardness?
It depends on the Saudis and the Kuwaitis, of course. But it also depends on us all. We need to unequivocally condemn these practices. They are WRONG. Unfortunately, many find it "fashionable" to be "politically correct" and "culturally sensitive". Sorry, I have no intention to be "culturally sensitive" in THAT sense. This is not "culture". It's WRONG.
And by the way, "we" could care less about democracy and human rights. Would not hold my breath on our gov't coming down hard on any of these practices. Well, unless Iran does it.
No.
The first war against the Soviets flooded the region with arms and ammunition and the "Religious war (for political gain)" ideology including a new breed of soldiers. This was keenly funded and aided by US and the Saudi royals through the then dictator (and US man crush [at the time]) Zia...
After the war was over the Mujahedeen were left to their own devices in Afghanistan while Pakistan had to play host to millions of Afghan refugees that never left (Who'd want to go back to Afghanistan) and huge caches of unchecked weaponry..... There were many years of internal conflict with tribes fighting tribes and untold tragedies. Then came along the Taliban, with the support of Pakistan and brought a semblance of peace in the country (You cannot deny that). However with this peace there was also a tendency to overdo things such as the refusal to allow women to live a life with any semblance of normalcy or equality....
The second Afghan war we all know about. This time the Mujahedeen were the enemies.... Again many refugees moved to Pakistan (again most never left) Along with the wheat, came the chaff (Taliban). And this time they didn't like Pakistan's support for the US invasion. By coincidence(??) this time another US Man-crush was at the helm... General Parvez Musharraf.