Forbidden Lies, a documentary by the Australian filmmaker Anna Broinowski, is now at the movies (www.palacecinemas.com.au). The documentary is about Norma Khouri, who published a memoir Forbidden Love in 2003 about her life story in Jordan and the honour killing of her best friend Dalia; her young Muslim friend was killed by her father and brothers who found out that she was secretly dating a man. Norma Khouri (born in 1970) published the book as ‘a true story’; and said she had fled Jordan out of fear of persecution and had written the book at internet cafes in Greece. The book became a best-seller; only in Australia it sold more than 200,000 copies; and Norma became a human-rights celebrity overnight touring the world to talk about honour killings in Jordan and in the Middle East. She introduced herself as ‘a virgin-refugee’, and got so much support from her readers, high-profile politicians and intellectuals all around the world. She got probably a refugee visa to settle in Australia. Australians-a society which doesn’t respect its indigenous people much and which keeps some poor refugees including children in detention centres- welcomed her almost with a red carpet and embraced her. An Australian singer composed a special song for Norma and all the honour-killing victims; some people helped her start a campaign against honour killings.
In 2004 , the Australian journalist Malcolm Knox found out that Norma’s story was fake. Norma was actually a US citizen; she was born in Jordan, and migrated to the US with her family when she was three years old (she has a strong American accent but she made people believe that she developed her accent when she studied in the US for a couple of years). And she was no virgin, but married with two children. Also she was sought after by the FBI because of defrauding people of money in the US.
The filmmaker Anna Broinowski interviews many people including Norma herself, her husband, some people in Australia who supported her including an Australian writer, her publishers, genuine human rights activists in Jordan ( a lawyer and journalist who generally work quietly and diligently to bring a stop to honour killings), someone from the FBI and the Australian journalist Malcolm Knox who revealed Norma was fake etc. And Anna Broinowski asks her audience to decide whether Norma is a con-artist or not? (Norma still insists her story was geniune, and doesn’t want to reclassify it as fiction).
Isn’t Norma’s success actually a matter of supply and demand? We all know that the books and films about the ‘battered-raped’ Muslim women by ‘fierce and cruel’ Muslim Middle Eastern men’ sell a lot in Western countries; these stories almost sell as much as ‘sex’! Norma was probably smart enough to take notice of this demand and swiftly exploited it. And actually isn’t she only a small entrepreneur who wanted to make a couple of million dollars compared to George W.Bush, John Howard etc. and the big entrepreneurs who have made billions of dollars out of the war in the Middle East based on bigger lies about the Weapons of Mass Destruction which have never been discovered?
What interests me most actually isn’t Norma the con-artist and her fake story; there has always been con-artists and there’ll be more; but ‘the sick minds’ and ‘the sick imagination’ of the Western men and women who are obsessed with and thrilled by these stories. I wonder what Freud would have said about ‘this sick obsession’ if he had been alive and had psychoanalysed the Western mind?
No sensible person from Muslim background can deny the honour killings which happen generally in poor-feudal-patriarchal parts of some Muslim countries; it doesn’t happen to all Muslim women, but to the ones with no social and economic power who have to live at the mercy of men. I wonder if Norma’s story has in any way helped improve the situation of these women; though the genuine female human rights activists are quietly and diligently doing the hard work and trying to make a difference in these countries.
I wonder if the same Western men and women are paying the same attention to the maybe millions of young African women who have died due to AIDS and left their infants and young children behind! Or has Norma drawn so much attention because she was bringing some bad news about the West’s ideological enemy (Islam) and making the Christian liberal Western consumers feel smug and superior about their values and lifestyles?
Don’t miss this film, it’s a very good documentary! And by the way, according to the film Norma Khouri is planning to become a human rights lawyer; watch out!
How in the world can you call yourself an ‘Anthropologist’ with all of your political motivations intercepting your thought process? This happens a lot in this field.. women becoming to involved in their subject material and then finding themselves influencing their subjects. Take it back to the science and get objective and non-bias. You’ll learn and understand more…
BTW.. WMD’s were found in Syria and Lebanon. They were delivered there prior to the invasion of Iraq by US and allied military forces by Russian Special Ops.
As a matter of a fact, Israel just blew a stock pile up two weeks ago and then issued a warning to Syria- ” Use biological weapons against us and we will wipe you off the map…” Just FYI…
Actually, Norma Khouri’s story takes place in Jordan. . .she is of Jordanian descent. And it isn’t just Western minds that are interested in this.
I recently conducted a nationwide survey of Jordanians’ attitudes and opinions about “honor” killings. When I set out, I didn’t even know whether people would be willing to speak to me about this subject, for it is still quite taboo in Jordan. But once they got started, the didn’t stop. Some went on and on. . .for hours. Jordanians are every bit as fascinated by this phenomenon as Westerners. In fact, I would say more so, since they are much more aware of the issue and often have first-hand knowledge of specific cases.
For a number of years now, Norma’s book and Anna’s documentary actually served to distract some of the Jordanian activists from making any real progress in Jordan. Rather than use all the brouhaha to call attention to the cause they supposedly support, they instead focused on documenting and calling attention to all the errors in Norma’s book. . .often relatively minor ones, such as the fact that the River Jordan does not run through Amman, nor are there co-ed hair salons there. As a professional marketer, I think this was a missed opportunity to make some real progress for all the at-risk girls and women, for right now there are still three laws on the books that allow the perpetrators to be treated with such leniency that the average sentence is six months, there are no women’s shelters in Jordan that accept those in danger for these crimes, and there is just a whole lot of work that needs to be done.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”
This is a great blog post, and it echoes the same themes we cover in our blog, Muslima Media Watch: http://muslimamediawatch.blogspot.com/2007/08/look-whos-talking-now-new-orientalism.html
Would you mind if I included a link to this post on our blog?
Who are you asking, Zeynab? If me, I don’t mind.
Thank you for documentary review. I watched it and I belive it’s a good investigtional documentary. I agree with the writer, ones shouldn’t take all what the media propagates as a fact. biased media is all around us no question about that.