The tip of the iceberg
Lots of girls calling for help.
Hundreds of children fearing for their lives have called a new national helpline set up to assist victims of forced marriages since its launch four months ago…Many are seeking ways to escape parents and family members who are trying to force them into unwanted marriages. Others have said they fear becoming victims of so-called “honour killings”, because of social and sexual behaviour that their community disapproves of.
A small but nevertheless significant point – if a ‘community’ disapproves of various forms of innocuous social and sexual behaviour enough to motivate killing the people who engage in it, then that ‘community’ is not ‘their community,’ and it’s misleading to call it that. It sounds cozy and loving and protective and, you know, communal, in a good way. But it isn’t any of that, is it – not if it’s so controlling and so puritanical that it prompts some people to murder female relatives. So newspapers should stop calling it that. They should say something blunter and more neutral – their neighbours disapprove of, their co-religionists disapprove of, their parents’ friends disapprove of; something like that.
Run by the refuge charity Karma Nirvana and initially funded by the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit, the network is staffed by survivors of forced marriages who help find refuges for women who predominantly hail from Britain’s south Asian and Middle Eastern communities. According to Jasvinder Sanghera, who was disowned by her family for refusing a forced marriage and went on to set up Karma Nirvana, the youngest caller to the new helpline was 13. “We have to move away from thinking that forced marriages and honour-based violence only affect a few people,” she said. “These numbers will be just the tip of the iceberg.”…When asked to name who was responsible for violence against them, just 13 per cent of victims mentioned husbands, while 71 per cent blamed immediate family. “For me this is one of the most shocking, but insightful statistics,” said Ms Sanghera. “It shows how violence is being perpetrated by the entire community, not just abusive husbands. That’s why it is so hard to tackle and so difficult for people to escape.”
It’s the entire community, and not ‘their’ community; more like their jailer. If it were really ‘their’ community they wouldn’t need to escape.
More about the Random House Mohammad historical novel affair.
“The men, aged 40, 22 and 30 have been taken to Paddington Green police station where they remain in custody.
They were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
It is thought that the men were suspected of attempting to set fire to a publishers in Islington, north London, the BBC understands.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7639249.stm
The publishers are the ones that took on the Jewel of Medina when Random House dropped it.
Not attempted censorship of course, according to Stanley Fish.
Perhaps the book conglomerate was afraid that if it published The Jewel of Medina that Random House Tower headquarters in NY would be history.
BTW, what is the name of the publishing company in Islington? Thanks for the link – and information on the ‘would be’ new publisher
According to a ‘Bad Science’ article in B&W News
“Edinburgh is the most miserable place in the country”
Well, well whatever about being (allegedly) labelled stingy) – being miserable, one would think, would automatically follow suit.
There must be something untoward in the sandstone!
BTW, what is the name of the publishing company in Islington?
It’s Gibson Square (company website).
“There must be something untoward in the sandstone!”
It’s the haar, which blanks out every second summer day, and the short dreich days in winter, and the price of the beer, and the east wind that cuts your head off. The sandstone soaks in the damp (as I know to my cost) and everything including your mind and soul goes foosty.
The town is grey and the people wear black. Their faces are tripping them. Chief occupations:- making money and drinking.
Aye, we’re a gloomy crew. (Pouring a whisky.)
Blame the Bad Science laddie with the bad haar-do for this Felix Benson poem.
“You say: ‘at this point in my life’
and ‘I should be…’and that is when I realised that you had given in. But if you would just listen.
When the traffic stops behind the newspaper rustle, the hard drive crackle
and beneath the scraping shopper’s heel,
there is something coming to claim you
it streaks across Princes Street long fingered, insubstantial as a ghoul
an expanding parcel of air,(a loaded gift) dry ice sifts through your knees and smokes against the grass like a crap horror trick don’t underestimate its tortoise speed just marvel as its great thumb smudges the stone curlicues of the Scottish Gothic – the three west end spires swallowed like swords and by sleight, the Balmoral Hotel
disappears into a silk handkerchief.
Look out at the pallor: You are inside a glass snowstorm, wildly shaken the last survivor in a remote outpost, all traces kicked over. Watch as the whiteness gulps down the metal bus stop, solid high street, the wooden gate, and swallows your driveway whole.
As its shadowy foot reaches your front step, vapour breaches your hall;
you’ll hear the bedrock silence underneath: the solid, insubstantial peace.
Sorry, OB, to be out of order. But there is a Northerly sea fog blowing in my direction and it is plaguing me with its penetrating mysterious air. :-)!
Yeah, very OT; I don’t know what started all this Edinburgh stuff.
Silverwhistle could you give an example of a recent christian honour killing?
Read carefully, Richard – Silverwhistle said honour crime, not honour killing.
Thank you for the information regarding the new publisher, Geoffrey.