Dishonour Killings: Tribute to the Fallen Daughters

I watched a film last night called När Mörkret Faller, English title - When Darkness Falls, a Swedish film made in 2006, it got me thinking...

Especially moving was the story of Layla and Nina, teenage sisters belonging to a Middle Eastern ethnic group living in Sweden. Nina was later murdered by her male relatives because her father discovered a message left on her mobile phone was by a male friend, which he saw as an act of dishonouring the family by associating with boys before marriage.

Not only the image of Nina's violent death lingers in my mind but also the struggle of Layla, the younger sister who witnessed Nina's death, weighing her conscience against what is right and of her loyalty to her family. In the end, Layla put her life in danger by reporting the case to the police.

To make things worse, the girls' mother, whom they both adored and trusted, was in on the game when she lured Layla out of the safety of the police station to accept a cup of hot chocolate, spiked with drowsy substance, in order to get her out of the country, perhaps a fate similar to Nina's. It was also the mother who convinced Nina an arranged marriage in Germany would save the family's honour, tricking Nina into returning to the family from the safety of her refuge, sealing her fate.

The story is not just about murder but also of the betrayal of trust, by the female adults in the family, who failed to protect those in their care. Fortunately, it ended well for Layla, she is cut off from her family but gained a life and freedom of movement.

The film has a profound affect on me as I would never have imagined such violence and primitive practice can be carried out on loved ones - a daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin or niece - let alone another human being, as these stories don't appear very often on the news media in my part of the world.

It got me thinking about honour killings and immigrant families again, I am proud to say that Australia has done well in integrating ethnic groups to the mainstream community, perhaps that is why the statistic for honour killings are significantly lower than countries with a large Middle Eastern and South Asian communities.

Take Sweden for example, ethnic groups and immigrants often live in a concentrated area, or ghetto if you like. In these area, many older immigrants lack Swedish language skill and understanding of Swedish way of life, creating prejudice in the mainstream society and further isolating them. I also think poor language skill and adequate resettlement education contribute to their failure to understand and accept the culture of the country they are in, in turns, rejecting the Westernised outlooks of the younger generations.

The most famous case being the murder of Kurdish woman Fadime Şahindal in 2002, who was shot dead by her father in front of her mother and sisters for defying his wishes to an arranged marriage in Turkey.

Stepping into these places is like stepping out of Sweden, it is no wonder some still have the mentality of the old country.

There are similar communities in Australia too, where pockets of migrant communities can be found throughout the suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne but comparing to Europe, the community is still more integrated and cannot be called a ghetto. Although crimes and violence are still present, but rarely crimes of honour killings, where the motivation behind it is purely selfish and served to save face, mostly to the male members of the family.

It is very unfortunate to be born a daughter into these families.

I also detest to the term Honour Killings, there is no honour to these killings, they are called MURDER.

Easter Egg

Classic, paper-made and beautifully illustrated, that's my Easter Egg.

Nothing beats a Northern European style Easter Egg where one can put different kinds of goodies in the hollow centre, a great way to give an environmental- or diet-friendly gift to family and friends during Easter.

Is Social Media Making Humans Behaving like Idiots?

I always complain that people who drive erratically in order to gain one or two minutes of their life only to waste it on using Facebook.

It may not the whole truth but it is most possible.

Anyone with a Facebook account can attest to this - one can spend hours just browsing through out-of-focus snaps (in another words, photos that should never have been published) or wonder why your friend never responded to your comments on their status updates. All done while facing a devise, instead of another human being.

Yet they called this a social network, most of the time I don't see anything social about it; in fact, it should be renamed as anti-social network.

I dare say most people have no clue, even to the point of almost naive, with online security when they sign up for social networks like Facebook, assuming the names in their Friend List are really friends but in reality just a sugar-coated label. Armed with this false sense of security, many let their guards down and often revealed too much information, forgetting sometimes these information can pass onto the wrong hands, like bullies, opportunist thieves, sex predators and anyone with unkind intentions.

Facebook has been mentioned in some of the teenage bully cases here in Australia, how the victims having not only to endure taunting at school, but to have this anti-social behaviour follow them to the safety of their own homes, when they logon to Facebook. The ones I have heard about resulted in the teens taking their own lives, makes me wonder how many out there are suffering in silence?

If social media is used as a platform for idiotic anti-social group behaviour, what is so social about this networking?

When told, many adults would wave their hands in the air saying the kids are just having fun, it is normal or kids are just being kids, does it imply that ridiculing someone without face-to-face contact is more acceptable?

I think not.

Social media is also the perfect platform for narcissists, everyone has at least one on their Facebook Friend List - the person who couldn't stop broadcasting information about themselves, usually by means of posting photos and status updates. I agree these people already exist in our society but social media magnifies this display like a loud speaker, I worry that people who read and see these display on social media and think it is as a perfectly acceptable normal everyday behaviour.

Narcissism is not quite an idiotic anti-social behaviour but it can be when everybody develop this me first and me want everything outlook, the sense of community and working together as one will be lost.

I accept that social media is not going to go away any time soon but I do hope that creators of social media acknowledge that they have a social responsibility to the public - to provide education on privacy and security matters, as well as sternly reminding the public to use the platform as a responsible and decent human being. As an ex-Facebook user, I hope to see that people realise that social media is an artificial environment which cannot be replaced by the warmth and genuineness of direct one-to-one human contact.