Angry in the Great White North

Update: The CBC reports that Toronto police were expected to hold a news conference late Monday afternoon with more information.

At the risk of earning the wrath of the Toronto Star’s Antonia Zerbisias for noting the obvious, I’m going to point at this murder in Toronto as something potentially very significant:

A broad white smile and bright eyes stare back from the photograph of a young woman just two months shy of her 21st birthday, a birthday she won’t see.

The woman in the photograph is Yasmin Ashareh and her remains were found in a bag where the residents of a John Garland townhouse complex put their trash.

Detective Wayne Banks of the Homicide Squad is investigating Yasmin’s whereabouts before her remains were discovered.

A post mortem was conducted on Friday and the cause of death was established to be stab wounds to the neck.

Yasmin lived alone, in a semi-rooming house where she rented a room, near where her body was discovered. According to Banks, she worked at a local store. Her family is from Somalia, although Yasmin was born in Canada. She leaves behind a mother, one brother and two sisters. Yasmin was not reported to be missing.

I’ve highlighted the portions of the report that I think are most disturbing.

Again, the one thing you won’t find mentioned in the article is that Somalia is a majority Muslim country (Sunni), and that Ashareh is a Muslim family name. Somalia is also organized by clan, and the sense of collective shame experienced by the entire clan for the actions of one member is very strong. Anyone outside the clan, and certainly non-Somalis, are treated with suspicion. Relationships with foreigners is strongly discouraged. And for women:

According to Somali custom, women’s social status is inferior. Both sexes believe that gender inequality is normal and natural. Women submit to males and they do much of the hard physical work. Boys and unmarried men tend the camel herds, while married men engage in trade, clear wells, and manage camels. Only senior men have the right to dispose of family property. Women’s security depends on their relationship to their fathers, husbands, brothers, and uncles. Male kin are expected to watch over a woman should she leave her husband.

The stabs wounds to the neck are part of a familiar pattern:

A BUSINESSMAN is facing a life sentence for stabbing his sister to death in front of his two young daughters in a so-called honour killing.

Azhar Nazir, 30, and his cousin, 17, used four knives to cut Samaira Nazir’s throat and repeatedly stab her after she fell in love with an asylum-seeker from what they saw as an unsuitable caste.

Miss Nazir, a businesswoman described as “strong-willed”, was heard to shout at her mother, Irshad Begum: “You are not my mother any more.” She was then held down as a scarf was tied around her neck and her throat was cut in three places. Nazir’s daughters, aged 2 and 4, were screaming and were splattered with blood. Police fear that they were ordered to watch as a warning to them. Neighbours called the police after hearing the screaming.

Besides the symbolism of taking revenge against the victim who spoke evil, throat slashing is a consistent element of honour killings around the world.

So we have a Westernized woman, born of a clannish Muslim family, unmarried and living on her own instead of under the protection of her male relatives. Already flags go up. She is probably dating, perhaps even kissing, strange non-Muslim men. Maybe drinking alcohol. Allah knows what else. The shame might be more than members of her family born and raised in Somalia could bear, especially if clan relatives in Somalia had gotten news of the situation.

This is speculation of course. Perhaps there is a good reason why the family did not note her disappearance for several days (a missed garbage pickup meant that the garbage bags were left out for several days before the body was discovered).

My gut tells me this was no mugging gone bad.

What if we do have an honour killing here? Clearly no one can says this is what happened, but then everyone is studiously avoiding looking at the dots that could be connected. Take that dangerous step with me and ask, "What if...?"

Then all the trouble that has beset Europe in the last dozen years might very well be on the horizon here. Already we have had 17 young men arrested on terrorism charges. In that case too, no mention was made of the obvious -- Muslim fundamentalism fueling terror was at work here. Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail dared mention the obvious, and was crudely attacked by the Toronto Star’s Antonia Zerbisias, who would have no mention of the role of religion in the plot.

If this story plays out as my instincts tell me it will (and I will try to follow it as best I can and let you know, one way or the other), then Toronto in particular and Canada as a whole will have to ask some harsh questions about just how well "Canadian values", so often talked about by the Liberal Party, have been taught to the immigrants who have been waved through our borders over the years. If those values fall away at the first hint of the Canadian lifestyle that goes along with those values (individual freedom, personal responsibility, gender equality, etc), then we might have a serious problem on our hands as the first generation born of those immigrants start coming of age. What problems? Extremism fueled by a harsh effort to retain traditional values and customs, resulting in violence and even death. Sometimes violence and death restricted to the community in question. Sometimes spilling out into the community at large.

Technorati Tags: Yasmin Ashareh, Toronto, murder

I just hope willful blindness in that larger community is not so widespread that we end up being unprepared for what might happen.

[Some thoughts about bilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, and values.]

Technorati Tags: Yasmin Ashareh, Toronto, murder