Forbidden Love (20 page)

father’s and brothers’ estimation a kind of penance proof that I had nothing to hide, had no secretive contacts with anybody. Getting one of my brothers to leave me at the bookshop for a few hours would not be a problem. Amjed had already agreed to drive me as soon as he came home from work. When I heard his car outside, I bolted out of the front door and jumped in.

“Are you sure you have everything you need? Do you have enough money?” he asked. He drew a 50 dinar note from his wallet and handed it to me. “Take this in case.” How sad that my response to a generous gesture from my brother was only suspicion.

At Books Cafe, I found Michael lurking among the shelves. We walked around the store for two hours, picking up books and flipping through them as we talked. He explained how he would get my passport and visa issued, using my ID, which I gave him. He suggested that I go to Greece, because he was closer to his friends there than his friends in London. He spent the remainder of the time trying to reassure me that all would go well. If everything went as planned, he predicted that I’d be in Greece the following month. He even offered to pay all my expenses. I hesitantly agreed because I knew that my savings were running low and I wouldn’t be able to scrape much more together before my departure. By the time Amjed pulled up to the kerb, I’d agreed to go ahead with the plan, given Michael my ID, and bought a pile of six books.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” Amjed asked as I closed the door and positioned myself in the car.

“I did,” I replied.

For the rest of the month I got updates on Michael’s progress from Jehan. In the meantime, I distanced myself even further from my family, worried that they’d somehow discover

my secret. My feelings about leaving changed daily. I was excited and couldn’t wait to see another country and experience another way of life. I was also angry because I felt as if I was being exiled from my homeland simply because I didn’t condone honour killing. It seemed ridiculous that in order to try to make a difference in Jordan, I had to leave, and although I knew I had no other choice, I constantly questioned my decision.

Finally Jehan gave me a date, time, and flight number, and told me that Michael would meet me at the airport, posing as my eldest brother. Now the only thing left to do was arrange a way to be at the airport on time. I would be flying to Athens in a few days. My flight was scheduled for eleven on the morning of 10 May.

That morning, I dressed, threw a few things in a gym bag, and ran down to my mother after my father and brothers had left for work.

“I have to get something from the salon and drop a few things off. Can

I go?” I asked. “Why don’t you wait until your father gets home? I don’t even have the keys,” she replied.

“This really can’t wait and it may take me a while. I just want to go through the things I left there. I still have a set of keys.”

“Just have some breakfast first.”

“Will you have some breakfast with me? We can eat on the veranda.”

She brightened. “It’s nice to see you starting to become active again.”

“You go and sit on the veranda and I’ll serve you breakfast, please. It would make me happy.”

“Well, all right,” she agreed.

I struggled to keep from crying as I cooked and carried the

food out to her. This was the last time we’d sit having breakfast together, perhaps ever. I sat staring at her, trying to create a permanent memory of this moment. Oh, how I wished I could take her with me, or tell her that I was leaving, but she would become too emotional. And it would put her life at risk; my father would kill her if he thought she’d known anything about my escape. After breakfast, I hugged her tightly and kissed her repeatedly on both cheeks.

“What’s all that for? You’re acting as if I’m never going to see you again,” she said.

I could scarcely speak. “I love you, Mother. I want to thank you for everything.”

“Well, I love you too, and I’m so glad you’re feeling better.” I left my father’s house and walked towards the salon, as I had so many mornings before, with Dalia by my side. This time I noticed every pebble, every tree, every detail. It would be the last time I’d ever walk down these streets. Or see my mother.

I was a little girl again, ready to run back to the safety of my mother’s skirts and arms. I realized that it was my mother I couldn’t bear to leave. If only a generation could fall away, and she could run from the house and join me, arm in arm, as we walked to freedom.

I arrived at the airport to find Michael waiting outside. He ran towards me as I stepped from the taxi.

“Thank God you made it. I was worried you’d change your mind,” he said.

“I gave you my word. I’m ready to leave.” He checked me in and waited with me until my flight to Athens began boarding.

“This is it. You’re going to be safe now, and you’ll be free. Don’t worry about anything. When you get there, take a taxi

to the address I gave you, they’re expecting you. God be with you,” he said.

“Thank you, Michael, thank you for everything. In a few days or so will you please contact my mother and tell her that I’m all right? Don’t tell her anything else, just that I’m OK. Please?”

“I will. I promise. Don’t worry.”

I boarded the plane and, as it took off, I wept. I cried out of joy and fear. I cried for my mother, and for the empty seats that should have been Dalia’s and Michael’s. I cried for the stark rose beauty of the desert, the mystique of Aqaba, even the gossips in the salon who had no hope of ever having anything bigger or better to do. I cried for my father, as trapped in his prison of laws, pride, and obligations as my mother.

And I thanked God that I was lucky enough to be escaping. I had no idea what would happen to me. Only that whatever I found would be better than what I had left, a place where-for how many generations more? -exuberant, idealistic innocents like Dalia faced the daily possibility of death.

AFTERWORD

Honour killings have been an accepted part of Jordanian culture since the beginning of human record. These crimes are committed in other countries as well, but it is difficult to say how frequently since most countries don’t keep statistics about the number of deaths caused by this barbaric ritual. The idea of murder as a way to cleanse family honour is said to be most common in Jordan and among Palestinians, where it is firmly rooted in ethnic Bedouin tradition, which is still as pervasive as a desert sandstorm in even urbanized Arab families. Using just the published figures, each week one Jordanian woman is murdered for losing her chastity, whether she’s a victim of rumour or a victim of rape. As with Dalia, the mere suspicion that she has lost her virginity can lead to a girl’s, or woman’s, murder. Many honour killings, however, are later classified as suicides or accidental deaths and so the published figures are very unreliable. The most frequent, and mistaken, claim is that these murders are born of Islamic faith, when in fact the murders are a cultural hangover of tribal life that pre-dates both

Islam and Christianity. True, Islamic law subjugates women and calls for the ‘scourging’ of rule breakers, but the code of honour killings has its roots in the Hammurabi and Assyrian laws from 1200 BE, which declared a woman’s chastity to be her family’s property. These laws evolved in an unforgiving desert and are common to all Arabs of the region, of whatever faith. These days, Christian women are just as likely to be killed as Muslim women for ‘dishonouring’ their families.

There are two reasons why Jordan has gone to great lengths to keep the true extent of the problem tucked away from public view. First, it damages the image Jordan is promoting to the world of a modern democratic state. To Westerners, honour killings are seen as an anachronistic, scarcely believable, anthropological phenomenon that continues only in a few rare, isolated, still-primitive pockets like head-hunting in New Guinea. While writing these words (on 17 May 2002), I spotted a large story in the New York Times and on the web about a woman from a primitive village in ‘the barren northwest’ of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border who had been condemned to death by stoning for being forcibly raped by her brother-in-law. She was a victim, said the Times, of “Pakistan’s strict Islamic laws.” Jordan does not want to be linked in the media mind with these backward, desolate cultures.

Second, there is real fear that the issue is a time bomb whose fuse could be lit by fanning public sentiment against the practice. And so the government of Jordan discourages any stories in the media about honour killings. Hints of the subjugation of woman do appear; on the same day that the story about the Pakistani woman appeared, the New York Times printed a tiny piece about Toujan Faisal, the only woman ever elected to Jordan’s parliament, who was being sent to prison for speaking out against government corruption. The fact that

she was the first and only woman in that all-male body is a revealing story of repression in itself.

And so Jordan continues to be reluctant to discuss this issue and its officials are unwilling to provide accurate statistics and information about today’s honour crimes. Some government officials claim that twenty-five per cent of all murders each year are honour crimes, while others try to say that only about twenty-five women in total are murdered annually for reasons of honour. The Public Security Director, Major General Thaher Fawaz, said that in 1999 there were a total of 61,523 crimes in Jordan, of these, 5,173 were classified as felonies (since honour crimes are categorized as misdemeanours they are not included in this number), 2,248 were drug related, and the remaining 54,102 were burglary (depending on the nature of the offence this is sometimes considered a felony), or assault and battery (usually domestic violence where the victim is female), or immoral acts. Honour crimes, rape, molestation, and any other charges filed against a woman’s honour are listed as

immoral acts.

Based on these statistics it is easy to see that far more than twenty-five women are murdered each year for reasons of honour. It is also obvious that the official numbers report only a small percentage of honour crimes. The government has chosen secrecy rather than face the embarrassment of the scale of the problem. Also, if the real numbers were known and published, the government would be under greater pressure from Western governments and human rights organizations to stop these crimes. As it stands, the Jordanian government can pretend it hardly ever happens and so can Western governments reluctant to intervene in other nations’ cultural practices. In 1998, the UN conservatively estimated that over 5,000 women are killed for reasons of honour every year, 1,000 of

those in Pakistan and Afghanistan, around 400 in Yemen, 50 in Lebanon, 1,000 in Egypt, and the rest, about 2,550, in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan. Considering the fact that Jordan’s population is larger than the populations of the West Bank and Gaza combined, it is reasonable to

conclude that the majority of these 2,550 lived in Jordan. \020Two articles in Jordan’s penal code allow these murders and protect the murderers. Article 340 exempts from punishment those who kill female relatives found committing adultery, and reduces the penalty for those who kill female relatives found in a situation of adultery (such as talking to a stranger). Article 98 reduces the penalty for the perpetrator of a crime when he acts ‘in a fit of fury’ in response to a wrongful and serious act on the part of the victim. The mere rumour or suspicion that a woman has acted immorally is considered a wrongful and serious act on the part of the woman, and all perpetrators of honour crimes claim to have acted ‘in a fit of fury’. These laws give men the freedom to kill their female relatives even when they only suspect immoral behaviour. Most men turn themselves in to the police immediately after killing a female relative and are bailed out by family members while awaiting trial, and the time they spend out on bail counts as time served once they’re convicted. Since honour killing is considered a misdemeanour, the offenders receive only short sentences, ranging from three months to two years, and they are treated as heroes in prison.

But activism is beginning to unsettle things in Jordan. Some women’s and human rights activists in the country are foreigners, but most come from the class of modern, educated Jordanians who have studied abroad. The ones who have found a means to ‘speak out’ come mainly from very wealthy or powerful families. The issue is also getting the attention of

many young university students. Most of the signatures on petitions to abolish laws protecting honour killings were those of university students, a promising sign that many of the younger educated Jordanians want to see this practice outlawed.

According to activists currently struggling to abolish Article 340, the majority of victims are innocent. Most of the honour killings are based on suspicion and rumour and are often committed for financial reasons to secure an inheritance. Activists have called these crimes a basic violation of human rights and have been trying to abolish the laws that permit their practice since 1998. Officials and medical examiners have confirmed that approximately ninety per cent of honour crime victims had not engaged in any sexual activity, or were innocent of the acts they were rumoured to have committed. These crimes do not receive international attention, though one woman reporter at the Jordan Times, an English-language weekly paper printed in Jordan, took a brave stance against these primitive customs, in the face of threats on her life, and began reporting on the crimes in the early nineties. Her reports have been chilling, and reveal that honour crimes are on the

rise.

In August 1997, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hassan drew attention to the situation by publicly stating that honour crimes top the list of murders committed in Jordan. Originally it was believed that if the crimes were published it would cause them to decrease in number by frightening women into submission. Since these crimes have started to be publicized, there have been several reactions. Many women, as well as some men, have been outraged, though not shocked, and have begun to demand either the abolition or amendment of Articles 340 and 98. The issue created a prolonged period