Fanaticism
1. Summary of Take the honour out of killing.
In this text, the author Fareena Alam attempts to give the reader insight into a world of religious fanaticism, where arranged marriages, honour killings and genital mutilation of women are facts of life, brutal acts which are happening increasingly more often in the Western part of the world. Fareena Alam warns the reader of the danger of misinterpreting these brutal acts, which mainly affects women, as a part of Islam, and that the problems are actually common in a lot of other religions. We are given the example of Anita Hindha, a 22 year old woman who was strangled to death in front of her 19-month-old son for renouncing the Indian religion Sikhism.
To cope with these threats, many women seek help and some are even given new identities, but as Fareena Alam points out, the police feel unable to properly root up the problem in fear of being accused of racism and Islamophobia.
2. Outline of attitudes to fanaticism
Fareena Alam, the author of Take the honour out of killing, describes the general attitude towards fanaticism as a mixture of fear, anger and lack of understanding. Many young people belonging to the new generation of British Muslims are simply terrified at the thought of their own family turning against them, should they act against the religion of which rules and laws their parents and siblings may fanatically follow.
To find the source of the fanatic beliefs, one would probably have to look at the original immigrants and perhaps even the communities they once belonged to. Such a community would carry out brutal acts, but saw them as necessary to uphold or strengthen the reputation and honour of a family. The problem, as Fareena Alam describes it, is that in many cases new immigrants managed to create similar communities in the countries they immigrated to, effectively making sure that the future generations would follow the rules as well.
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