EXTRACT: Many of the victims of ‘honour killings’ are from petty bourgeois backgrounds - the parents may be shopkeepers or own some other small business. Such a culture emphasises and lauds patriarchal power because that is the actual reality of the social, commercial and business relations - which as a matter of necessity requires the exploitation of family members, especially females ones, if they are to avoid bankruptcy and ruination.
In Pakistan this petty bourgeois exploitation is more likely to be of a rural nature. Its ideologisation has taken a religious form, which has been carried over into Britain and elsewhere, placing the crime of honour killing within a particular context. That is why we do not agree with the approach of Socialist Worker, whose report of the “horrific case of Shafilea Ahmed” focuses entirely on the hypocritical “outrage” of the press.
In Pakistan this petty bourgeois exploitation is more likely to be of a rural nature. Its ideologisation has taken a religious form, which has been carried over into Britain and elsewhere, placing the crime of honour killing within a particular context. That is why we do not agree with the approach of Socialist Worker, whose report of the “horrific case of Shafilea Ahmed” focuses entirely on the hypocritical “outrage” of the press.
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