‘Honour killing’ is based on a similar intellectual confusion between ‘my property’ and ‘my child’. All but the stupidest rabbits get it right: sad that not all humans do.

Maybe it should be called RRS: ‘Retarded Rabbit Syndrome’.

Justforfun

“Perhaps if we offered a prize, like a night out with Rumbold, all expenses paid, folk would come up with better ideas?”

Oh dear.

Not if- as I do- you think Jack Falstaff best summed up honour:
honour pricksme on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is
honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what
is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?
he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth he hear it? no. ‘Tis insensible, then. Yea,
to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore
I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so
ends my catechism.

If we think of that every time someone mentions honour we’ll get a more accurate idea of what they’re talking about.

For a parent to murder their child is the greatest betrayal of trust that there is.

However I would conceed that the egos of those that do the killing undoubtably think they are the ones being betrayed. But the idea of ‘betrayal’ is at the heart of it and a powerfull emotion in people. Over time the word betrayal will need to be associated with the betrayal of the child so that the act of betrayal and its stigma is seen by all in the community as falling on the purputrators of these killings.

At present the community sees ‘honour’ falling on the perputrators. Betrayal and honour are closely linked but the ‘betrayal’ is the key to shedding light on the circumstances of the murder. ‘Honour’ just covers it up.

Just a thought – but still not ideal – need to think some more.

As an aside – I had thought we might have some nice liberal Labour legislation like the removal of the family name from the passport of all 1st degree relatives and the substitution of the murderer’s street name for the next two generations in all their passports and on all official documentation. Bank accounts, driving license, etc etc.

Justforfun

True but I want to watch something at least. And a BBC would be better than a toss-up between Fox and CNN.

Would an independent BBC have been so ineffective?

Agreed it was spineless, but so were most of the other media despite being independent. The tone taken by privatised media organisations is more than likely dictated by the political ambitions of the owner. Without sufficient media diversity that can be a problem IMO.

But the advantage of public funding is that we can hold it to a higher standard than we can with channels like Fox. They’re not even worth watching

Many would agree with you about Fox. But you are not paying for it and you are not being forced to watch it.

Many folk are convinced the BBC is also biased. If we didn’t have to pay for it, then we could just turn the channel over and watch Big Brother or even Fox News.

Also, does govt ownership imply a higher standard?
It certainly implies more scope for govt interference. The BBC were utterly spineless over Iraq and the Kelly affair. Would an independent BBC have been so ineffective?

I agree with Rumbold that ‘honour killings’ is, what, a contradiction in terms.

It needs to be sunk.

We do need a new term, but I’ve wracked my very small brain and come up with nothing. (There is something about it in Southern European culture, but my head is stuck on Omerta, and that is not it.)

Perhaps if we offered a prize, like a night out with Rumbold, all expenses paid, folk would come up with better ideas?

Well, maybe not all expenses paid.

I am really not happy with ‘submission killings’. It sounds like the victim agreed to their own death, which is not the point at all.

Adult Infanticide

Murder

Family murder

Filicide

Submission Killings

‘Submission killings’ seems to have somewhat of a ring to it, as all the others, while correct, can be used easily on another cases that one would not normally associate with ‘honour’ killings.

This might sound like some sort of grim contest, but often when one reads of such cases the word ‘honour’ sticks in the mind, suggesting that it is somehow superior to any other case of murdering one’s daughter. It would be a very small change at best, but if there was a shift in terminology, one or two would-be murders may just pause for a moment. At least in the public’s minds it would stop the link between ‘honour’ and killing.

Similarly, the BBC as a public broadcaster will always attract criticism as privatised ones do. But the advantage of public funding is that we can hold it to a higher standard than we can with channels like Fox. They’re not even worth watching and to my mind end up splitting audiences even further.

I don’t have a problem with privatised channels, but as long as there is a strong publicly funded broadcaster that is held to stronger standards. I’m just annoyed at complaints that say the BBC is left-wing, pushing it even more to the right.

I think ‘Family Murder’ is a good term, because it adds an extra element to plain ‘Murder’… and people should recognise that if its someone in the family who has murdered, it is more than likely to be an ‘honour’ killing.

Submission killings?

The point of such beatings/ killings is to compel the girl to submit to her families desires, or punish her for not submitting.

Which part of the brain needs to be surgically removed in order to believe that that arrangement of affairs would be inherently ‘neutral’ or ‘free’?

Well, the point about the BBC is supposed to be that it it is not biased

That indeed is the point but as Sunny and Johann point out it clearly isn’t. Also what does neutral mean? Neutral in who’s eyes?

It must annoy those like Sunny to have to subsidise a centre-right broadcaster. It annoys me to have to subsidise any broadcaster when we are spoilt for choice for news channels.

Set the BBC free and let their biases flourish.

If murder is not precise enough, there already is a word, filicide, for the murder of one’s child when they are no longer an infant. Infanticide is usually used for the killing of young babies by their mothers when their minds are disturbed by the birth. apart from anything else, the infantility here is exhibited by the killers, not the victims.

‘Adult Infanticide’ sounds like a pretty good term, TFI.