First, we could start by abandoning this ridiculous, self-indulgent ideological debate over the taxonomy of honour killings. Those on the left who abhor the term are right about one thing: A good few of the people who constantly shout it from the rooftops are mostly interested in demonizing Islam. But that doesn’t change the fact that honour killings can . . . rather easily be distinguished from other cases of domestic violence. A murderer who kills a relative in certainty that his peers will approve is a very different animal from one who does so out of anti-social, purely secular rage.

. . . writes Chris Selley in Recipe to reduce honour killings at Canada’s National Post (gleaned from a Tweet by Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail). More:

Between 1998 and 2007 . . . 65 Canadian children between the ages of 12 and 17 were killed by a family member. One of them was Aqsa Parvez. … Muhammad Parvez felt humiliated by his daughter’s dress, her behaviour and her choice of friends, and his remedy was to choke the life out of her. “My community will say you have not been able to control your daughter,” he lamented to his wife.

If honour killings are on the rise in Canada. … it’s not as if this is a leading cause of death in Canada, or even of domestic homicide. … The question is not whether this is a problem for the diaspora communities in question, and for Canada. It is. The question is whether it demands sweeping, perhaps structural, changes to Canadian society — for example, “the immigration debate we don’t want to have,” as a Globe and Mail headline darkly intoned yesterday. I don’t think it does. I think it just means we need to try harder.

For example . . .

An unapologetic, incessant message to women and girls living in abusive situations that they don’t have to, and should not, put up with it, backed up with well-funded resources like safe houses and punitive criminal sanctions for offenders.

Asking “What’s the alternative?” Selley concludes:

In a highly theoretical world, we could ban immigration from countries or communities where honour crimes are common. That’s obviously not going to happen. And if it did, we’d be denying people like Aqsa Parvez even the chance to be Canadian. [He] came to Canada as a refugee, not as an immigrant. … Canada granted him asylum from persecution . . . and he repaid the favour by persecuting his daughter for wanting to be free. Because of this cretin, we should turn the country upside down? No thanks.

Do Focal Points readers agree that honor killings can easily be distinguished from other cases of domestic violence? Do you agree with the author that all of us in North America need to guard against over-reacting to honor killings?