Honor Killings: Made in the USA

 by Phyllis Chesler  

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Among the customs brought to the United States from those who emigrate fom Muslim countries is the honor killing.

They have dishonored our shores for quite some time and more keep coming our way.

I am talking about honor killings in North America. In The Death of Feminism, I write about honor murders in Missouri, Ohio, and in parts of New Jersey, New York, and Canada which took place during the last quarter-century.

Earlier this month, an Egyptian Arab Muslim father in Dallas, Texas allegedly shot his two beautiful teenage daughters to death because he disapproved of their American-style ways. Their names were Amina and Sarah Said and their father’s name was Abdul Said. The girls looked sassy and full of life; they looked like Dallas teenagers. They were 17- and 18-years-old and their friends considered them “geniuses.” Abdul was a taxi driver. (In parts of Europe, taxi drivers are known to aid and abet honor murders).

Perhaps how Amina and Sarah dressed, and how they thought, shamed their father Abdul. He was no longer in control of his women — a mark of shame which provoked his need to kill them. Perhaps their flowering sexuality enraged him because it made him desire them — and from this he concluded that other men might desire them too and if he could not have them, no man could.

The blogs and the local Texas media (the Dallas Morning News) were all over this. Hot Air, Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, were too. The only national coverage of this story was contained in the Washington Times. Why did the national and international media so far shy clear of this story? Perhaps they chose to dig deeper first or maybe they were waiting for an arrest to be made. But one also wonders: Were they afraid of being accused of “Islamophobia” if they reported the truth? Did they not want to use the word “Arab” or “Muslim” lest they be attacked as “racists”?

As of 4pm est on January 3rd, the mainstream media had still not covered this honor murder or the ongoing manhunt for the alleged killer — their father. Robert Stacey McCain of the Washington Times just published a piece with some more details. Apparently, Amina and Sarah not only had “boyfriends,” their boyfriends were non-Muslims! They told their friends that their father was angry with them for “not acting like proper Muslim girls.”

Thus, these beautiful and now murdered sisters feared for their lives. They told people that their father was threatening them. Their own mother has now led police to the father as the probable murderer.

They could have been saved if a school or police official had been trained to pre-emptively recognize and rescue all such girls and women in danger of being killed by their families in honor killings.

Earlier today, on January 3, 2008, the hardcopy edition of the New York Times carried a story about a presumably non-Muslim honor killing in Chicago, in which a father, Subhash Chander, killed his pregnant daughter, son-in-law and 3-year-old grandson “because he disapproved of his daughter’s marriage” to a lower-caste man. All the protagonists are from India or are of Indian origin. So far, I can find no coverage of the Texas honor killing by a Muslim father in the pages of the Paper of Record.

Abdul Said has now made the Most Wanted List. However, I am told that the police have described the murder as senseless, baffling, puzzling, etc. — as opposed to as an obvious, old-fashioned honor killing. Perhaps I’m wrong, but has anyone thought to look for him in a mosque?

[Editor's note: Dr. Chesler filed a second piece on this subject on January 6, 2008, reprinted below.]

The Story is Bigger Than an Honor Murder in Dallas

The “story” is now also about the mainstream national media’s utter failure to cover the Dallas-based honor murders of two teenager sisters, Sarah and Amina Said — and it is also about their father Abdul, an Egyptian-born taxi driver, who has somewhat miraculously managed to avoid capture for five full days. As of this writing, he has still not been found.

Is there connection between these two stories? I fear there might be, at least in this sense: If Abdul Said’s photo had been plastered all across our television screens and on the pages of our morning newspapers maybe — just maybe — someone might have recognized him or maybe — just maybe — someone at a mosque might have been shamed by this dishonorable act and encouraged to mount a Muslim religious campaign to find and turn him over to the police.

Talk about whistling Dixie!

Where is Abdul? Did he shoot himself? If so, where’s the corpse? Did he flee the country after a well-planned murder? If so, what plane did he board and where did he go? What kind of powerful friends might a taxi driver have? Is he really only a taxi driver? Has he taken shelter in a mosque?

I have no inside information but I assume that the police are asking all these questions. Authorities have offered a $10,000.00 reward for Abdul Said.

As I’ve previously noted, on January 3rd, the New York Times did cover a daughter’s murder in Chicago — but wouldn’t ya know, the murder was committed by a drunken and abusive Hindu father which subliminally “proves” that non-Muslim fathers also kill their pregnant daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren. So there!

It’s not as if the mainstream media is quiet about Muslim Matters. In fact, the January 5th-6th issue of the New York Times Book Review is entirely devoted to Islam. Entirely. Completely. The lead “essay,” (to be distinguished from three non-opener essays and the twelve book reviews), is a sterling example of the subtle disinformation campaign being waged by the overly glamorized Tariq Ramadan and is titled “Reading the Koran.” Is this title a play on or a playful admonition towards Azar Nafisi’s best-seller Reading Lolita in Teheran — a far more comprehensible and literary piece of writing but one which is highly critical of Islamist Iran?

And on January 6, the Paper of Record had a piece about domestic violence in the Muslim communities but guess what the headline reads? “Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocates. Sympathetic Clerics Ally With Activists.” All’s well, Islam is not the problem. Indeed, according to this article, one brave mullah (truly, peace be upon him) and some religious Muslims are “saving” abused Muslim women — not only from murderously violent Muslim men — but also from the female staff at domestic violence shelters (read: secularist feminists) who are too spooked by hijab and hallel eating requirements to be of much use. Or perhaps their modern ways spook abused Muslim women.

I am absolutely honored to be among the many internet bloggers and local Dallas media who broke this story on January 2nd and who have continued to write about it ever since. Let’s hear it for those who made the first two pages of Google which cites nearly 4,000 such references: Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs, Ron Dreher, at Crunchy Con; Robert Stacy McCain at the Washington Times in “Fishwrap,” (and who called it to my attention), Dymphna at Gates of Vienna, Robert Spencer at JihadWatch, LindaSog, Ace of Spades, Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, Scared Monkeys, NationalReviewOnline (which reprinted the local Dallas coverage), Cheat-Seeking Missiles, Michelle Malkin, Debbie Shlussel — and of course, let’s hear it for the local Dallas media who have informed us of the following details:

Earlier today, the girls had two funerals: one was a large Christian Baptist-style funeral (!) at which a Catholic priest presided and the second took place in a mosque. (Is Mrs. Said a convert to Islam from Christianity or did teenage schoolmates wish to be consoled by a Christian service?) Mrs. Said and her teenage son have gone into hiding. The family was, allegedly, plagued by domestic violence. The deceased teenagers, (may Sarah and Amina rest in peace), had both been very smart and also afraid of their father. They had intellectual and professional ambitions and they had non-Muslim boyfriends. This is what passes for a capital offense in many Muslim families.

Yes, I wrote “many” and I mean “many.”

Only a few honor murders need take place in order to effectively intimidate and humble an entire generation and population of Muslim women. Honor murderers might be doing the “dirty” work for all Islam.

This might be one reason why Muslim leaders do not step forward to denounce honor murders and other acts of terrorism towards women and children. They fear they would be targeted by Islamist terrorists for doing so — but perhaps they also fear losing the “home court” advantage, so to speak. All Muslim tyrants — Osama bin Laden, taxi-drivers in Dallas — profit both psychologically and economically when women are willing slaves.

Neither funeral mentioned that the girls had been honor-murdered nor did the Dallas media initially focus on this as an honor murder. The liberal mainstream media did not cover the murders at all — only the conservative-leaning blog media did (as blogger Israel Matzav noted on Cheat-Seeking Missiles. )

Okay: I challenge the Muslim cleric who is heroized in the New York Times, Imam Muhammed Magid, of Falls Church, Virginia, to take on honor murders as well as domestic violence.

And, while I’m at it, I challenge the mainstream media to cover the Dallas honor murders and to name them as such. A girl can always dream. It might be in the funny mainstream papers tommorrow.

UPDATE: It is now one full week since the shocking and shameful Dallas honor murders took place. As of this writing, (January 8th, at 6:30pm est), the mainstream media continues to maintain its enormous and profound silence. The murderer remains at large and is suspected to be the father of the slain girls: Abdul Said. I have been told that both the AP and Fox affiliates put the story on the wire but it has not traveled beyond Dallas. Any ideas of what it might take to get this story to move? Are two corpses not enough? Is the fact that the alleged murderer is an Arab Muslim man too politically incorrect to print?

Culture: Religion

Read more articles by Phyllis Chesler