The only people who will speak up for women are women unless it suits some political agenda.

“Anyway, to get back to the UK –SBS is always getting the namechecks but there many groups out there who are also working but not getting the same recognition: NAWP, KWRO, MECWR and IKWRO for example, refugee women’s organisations, women’s shelters. And these groups do connect with other larger women’s groups like Women’s Aid in combatting domestic violence etc.”

Good point. Thanks for raising it. How do you think that such groups can raise their profiles?

a painful way to go

Seems a nexus of Fire in Kurdish culture and honour killing make killing and suicide by fire the first choice.

Justforfun

Justforfun

Death by ‘Fire’ would make a good point. Perhaps a way to explan this thought. If one wants to repress Christian thought , what better way than crucify them and hold it up as an example of what happens to those who stray. However crucifiction is obviously murder. but to burn someone to death has the advantage of being difficult to prove and easily covered up and has the appropriate relogious angle thrown in for free.

This is very common in form of murder in India. Women murdered while cooking, and there self immolation has a historic dimension which further masks the murderers tracks

I have no evidence to give or anything , but I thought it worth mentioning Gallois Blond as you work in this area alot and perhaps its just something to ponder.

Justforfun

What’s the motive—and why fire? Doctors, rights advocates, and young women I spoke to described a collision of local tradition with modern technology and the fallout from the Iraq war. Death by immolation has a long history among ethnic Kurds. When someone is angry here, a popular interjection is “I’m going to burn myself!” Locals I talked to attributed the fire obsession to various local cultural sources. The Zoroastrian religion uses fire as a prominent symbol. The Kurdish new year, called “Nawroz,” commemorates the day a folk hero named Kawa killed a tyrant named Zohak and then set a fire on a mountaintop to tell his followers; Kurds celebrate the day by burning tires and with other pyrotechnic displays. “Burning, traditionally, has been the way to die among the Kurdish people,” says Yones, the health minister.

which comes from Newsweek recently.

the fact that women would rather not exist than fly in the face of established familial patterns is pretty damning. the message these women have received is that life is less important than customs and reputation.

Whenever Kurds and Zoroastrianism are mentioned in the same article be a little careful as there are many adgendas going on. Some Turks want to portray Kurds in Turkey figting for a homeland as ‘apostate zoroastrian communists’ and so try and de-humanise them as much as possible. Others in Iraq want to de-humanise all non-muslims with whatever comes to hand – hence Yazdis , Zoroastrians, Assyrians etc all get it in the neck as being a malign influence.

If these girls are burning themselves – its an easy get out to blame some pre-Islamic influence. “Fire = Zoroastrians” therefore its a throwback to Zoroastianism. I suggest the reason for the use of fire lies elsewhere, unless these women are trying, in some miss-informed way, to desperately make their last act some sort of reaching out and back to the benign peace of their ancestors and so fortify themselves as they commit suicide and cross to the unknown. Perhaps it is a way for them to get the strength to act? This the only way I can think of for this use of Fire to be linked to Zoroastrianism.

Justforfun

In Turkey there is growing concern for what have been dubbed ‘the virgin suicides’ where family members can make life unbearable for girls who go against their family values by for example, falling in love with the wrong man. Immense pressure is put on them to make up for the dishonour and most are told if they don’t do it themselves, others will be more than willing.

It’s just sick really.

As someone who has worked for years with Asian women suffering domestic violence, she’s now got a job in Refuge which doesn’t predominantly cater for Asian women and the difference is depressing

Abused women of other races share exactly the same insecurities, crushed esteems and fear of going it alone but blimey can they manage without the whole community pouring scorn

It’s bad enough that mental health issues are all but ignored in the community and depression is seen as attention-seeking it’s frightening to think that in this day and age everyone’s convinced a woman has been possessed by dark spirits if she’s depressed

The pressure to carry on and pretend everything is fine is nigh on impossible for a person suffering from depression (think PMT times comedown times constant) so suicide seems like the only option

It seems abused Asian women are so isolated, they haven’t got the fantasies of revenge and escape women from other communities can harbour to get through the day

This is not to say that the Asian community is a century behind – one cannot compare complex cultures in chronological terms – but there appear to be similarities in the prevailing conservatism.

I’ve mentioned this before on PP myself. There are some very “Victorian” attitudes prevalent in many quarters of the Asian population — particularly amongst the older generations — which cause a hell of a lot of problems.

All very Merchant-Ivory, and not in a good way either.

Anyway, to get back to the UK –SBS is always getting the namechecks but there many groups out there who are also working but not getting the same recognition: NAWP, KWRO, MECWR and IKWRO for example, refugee women’s organisations, women’s shelters. And these groups do connect with other larger women’s groups like Women’s Aid in combatting domestic violence etc. Here’s a few examples: IKWRO will be leading the Reclaim the Night march this year (which you’ll recognise as one of the major feminist events); many of the organisations and individuals who have had the accolade of the Emma Humphreys prize are dealing with minority issues (this year the prize went to anti-FGM campaigner Comfort Momoh). And I’m not sure, when you look at the work of the Poppy Project, and Eaves Housing’s other projects, you can say that women who involve themselves in the issues of prostitution and human trafficking are solely interested in the glass ceiling and the pay gap. Please don’t excuse lack of visibility with lack of concern.

I feel like I have read an article about Indian women committing suicide by train in Italy too? Is there some cultural dimension in play here? Some attribute the self-immolations of Kurdish and Iranian women to the legacy of Zoroastrianism in the area.

Sunny – I suppose it is a scandal that “community leaders” are silent on the issue, but should it be a surprise? At the risk of inviting further hoots of contempt, isn’t it a bit like expecting 19th Century British “community leaders” to query domestic violence and feminine disempowerment? There may have been a few, but not many. This is not to say that the Asian community is a century behind – one cannot compare complex cultures in chronological terms – but there appear to be similarities in the prevailing conservatism.

More to the point, for me the true scandal is the relative silence of feminists and leftists. Yes, there are a few that speak out, like Southall Black Sisters, but there is hardly the vast swathe of common support, outrage and action that one associates with the rise of Western feminism in the 70s and 80s. I would put this down to racism excusing itself in the name of cultural sensitivity. And of course class – feminism was mainly the pursuit of the better off, who cared little for their working class sisters. Indeed sometimes I think it should be decoupled from our understanding of the left altogether: it was more about the bourgeoisie re-invigorating itself. Not that you’ll be thanked for saying so of course, because its other step was… to occupy the left itself.