News on custom and honour

In the European Union progress report published on November 8, this time crimes committed in the name of honor and custom, particularly in the Southeast, especially murders and suicide cases, are addressed. However, it does not escape attention that cautious statements are added to this mention: "There is not enough research on honor and custom killings. Particularly forcing girls into marriage with people they do not want, and the violation of their reproductive rights are seen as causes for these suicides" "Poverty, urbanization, and displacement create the environment in which these cases occur... Nevertheless, there is not enough data and research regarding the determinacy of these conditions"

On these issues where there is not enough data, the EU authorities nevertheless felt the need to say something. How could they not, when news they see almost every day in any Turkish newspaper they open, or every film they watch about the East, easily gives them the impression that people in the East and Southeast are mobilized en masse against women. Moreover, there is a monstrous actor named "custom" encountered in all these news stories, which is the mother of all evil. People in the Southeast have abandoned all their work and daily life, busy fulfilling whatever custom demands of them.

All over the world, murders are committed for one reason or another, while in the Southeast they are committed in the name of custom. All over the world, murders, injuries, forced detentions, and oppressions occur for reasons called "jealousy"—which are plain as day considered mitigating factors—but in the East, the same things are done in the name of "primitive values" such as custom and honor. Moreover, whatever evil exists in the Southeast, it is all done in the name of custom. Oppression against women, forced marriage, blood feuds, murders, extortions... That's not all... If custom demands it, even theft and rape are committed for retaliation.

Here is a news report that hit the papers about a month ago: "13-year-old B., living in Hevşiyan, one of Diyarbakır's most remote, isolated, and helpless hamlets, was kidnapped by a man who held her older brother responsible for the girl his son married not turning out to be a virgin; after experiencing the same ordeal, she was left in front of her home." In another incident reported by the newspaper Hürriyet, "In Beşçatak Village of Muş's Malazgirt District, 12-year-old Z. M. shared the same fate this time, and furthermore, there were women assisting in the rape!"

Just think about it. What is at issue here is not an "honor killing" committed in the name of "custom," but the organization of a rape by an entire family, women and men alike. This is mind-boggling. We know that custom does not have a written law, yet we cannot help but ask: in what custom could such a form of punishment exist? Especially in the Southeast, where custom and religious practices are known to be intertwined, what custom could permit such a form of retaliation? Could this not be something else? For instance, isn't this precisely a situation where custom has actually become completely meaningless and even entirely ineffective? Because if there were a functioning custom, it would somehow be connected to religion, and the religion of Islam, even in its worst understood forms, does not allow responding to rape with rape—as they say, "not even to entertain the thought."

In fact, considering the other dimensions of the incident, if custom were truly functioning even slightly in its pure form, the victims of rape would not be touched, and instead, punishment would be meted out exclusively to the perpetrators of rape.

Essentially, regarding what is happening in the Southeast, it is necessary to thoroughly analyze why many incidents appearing in the media every day are categorized under the headline of custom. Above all, categorizing what happens in newspapers under the title of "custom" is, at best, an ignorant haste. Anyone who knows a bit about the concept of custom cannot easily reconcile these acts with any functioning custom.

On the other hand, customs no longer possess an order capable of meaningfully determining human behavior. Different perceptions of custom can take shape in people's minds, and numerous actions are carried out in the name of these perceptions. However, a uniform customary morality no longer remains in this regard either. Urbanization has exerted its influence traumatically and shattered old relationships. Neither the lordship of the aga nor the authority of the sheikh remains. Social roles have come close to complete dissolution at this stage of modernization. There are only vague, fragmentary traces left in minds of old customs that cannot be sustained in the city. Yet, these too lack a foundation in modern urban society that could be followed or trigger sanctions when not enforced.

If there is no such foundation, what then is this "custom" behind so many incidents we read about in the newspapers every day? Is this actor (custom)—reported by the EU as a negative factor hindering Turkey's progress—merely a ghost trapped in limbo between life and death? Let us continue this subject, which deserves at least a few articles, later.