On the Run from Islamic "Family Honor"

This story is excerpted from an article titled "Running Scared" in the March 2008 British edition of Cosmopolitan.

As 'Zena' walks home from the shop where she works, she takes in the
scene around her. It's an ordinary day, but... she clocks everything about her
surroundings -- number plates on passing cars, a man at the bus stop, two women
chatting... in the pub window. She's walking briskly, too; if she's even a few
minutes late home, her husband Jack will start to worry.

Zena, 37, a British Muslim, is one of the many women in the UK who has
taken the extreme measure of changing her identity. She and Jack... have lived
as runaways since Zena refused to be forced into an arranged marriage when she
was 21.

By her own account, Zena grew up in a home filled not with fear and abuse, but with laughter and affection. "My family meant everything to me... My sisters and I were real daddy's girls. We always felt he would protect us... " While adhering to Muslim "cultural" strictures against pubs and nightclubs, the large family of siblings invited friends over for pizza and dancing to Michael Jackson and Madonna. "The house was always noisy and full of laughter."

But in the back of her mind, Zena knew she was expected to submit to a marriage arranged by her parents.

In 1992 Zena met 'Jack', who is English and non-Muslim, and the two fell in love. They started meeting in secret. But Zena's parents had already chosen her future husband. So one morning before dawn Zena sneaked out of the house and eloped with Jack. Several days later Zena called her "loving family", hoping to persuade them to accept her marriage to Jack.

My brother answered and said I had brought shame on the family, that we were
both walking corpses and our bodies would end up in several bin liners. He said
they'd send a bounty hunter to track us down.

Zena and Jack were granted 'nationally sensitive' status by the police, in which their birth names and all traces of their past were wiped off government records. They have changed their identities twice more and moved more than 30 times. Even Jack has been forced to limit his contact with his own family. She and Jack live the lives of fugitives.

I have six different routes to get home from work so there's less chance of me
being followed. We know it takes seven seconds for someone to get from the front
door to our bedroom, so I've got enough time to get out of the window.

Zena mourns the loss of her large family. "Knowing that they want me killed is devastating," she says. She has not spoken with any family member in the 15 years of her marriage, and does not even know if her parents are still alive. And she will never have a family of her own, since it would be dangerous and unfair to bring a child into their fugitive lives. But she has no other regrets. "There are days when it's tough, but it's all been worth it. Despite our troubles, we rarely argue -- we know we're stronger if we face them together. I never tire of having only Jack in my life... I love him and know I've done the right thing. I would do it again tomorrow in a heartbeat."

The website JoinHunt4Yasser, devoted to the capture of Yasser Said, who murdered his daughters Amina and Sarah in Texas in December 2007, posts this January, 2003, quote from "Al Skudsi bin Hookah, roving reporter and foreign correspondent for The Gaza Gajeera."

Our way of life is under attack. And we are not fighting back. Deep
down, we know that when a woman has disgraced her family, nothing will restore
honor except by killing her. This is understood in Jordan, Syria, Yemen,
Lebanon, Egypt, the Gaza strip and the West Bank. So why are we Arabs telling
the Western press that honor killing is cultural, that it is not really part of
Islam? Our way of life is based on maintaining our honor. And make no mistake
about it: a woman does tarnish her family's honor by engaging in pre-marital
sex, or by getting herself raped, when she seeks divorce and when she marries
against her family's wishes.

There are millions of men like bin Hookah who believe women are their property, that they hold the power of life and death over them and have the final say in how they will conduct their lives. Fortunately, in Western culture such men are a small minority. But if bin Hookah is right, they are the majority in Islamic culture. And their "way of life" creeps nearer with every concession to Muslim "cultural sensitivity".