Honour on Trial: The Shafia Murders and the Culture of Honour Killings by Paul Schliesmann (review)

The Shafia trial attracted unprecedented attention in the local, national and international media. Described as a heinous case involving the honour killings of four of the Shafia female family members, it symbolized how an immigrant family chose to punish its own for violating cultural codes. According to media accounts, it was a classic tale of culture clash with the key words being immigrant origins and tribal, patriarchal cultures.

Schliesmann, a reporter, followed the trial through its three-month span at the local Kingstone courthouse, in geographic proximity to the site of the crime—the Kingston Mills locks. There, as Schliesmann documents, in 2009, a car was found submerged in the canal. Four dead bodies were found belonging to Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia (aged 19, 17 and 13, respectively), and Rona Amir (aged 52). The three younger women were daughters of Mohammad and Tooba Yahya Shafia, while Rona was Mohammad Shafia’s first wife.

Schliesmann offers a journalistic account of the trial recounting the evidence presented, the arguments of the prosecution and defence, and testimonies presented by numerous witnesses. Each chapter tours through the different facets of the case—from the initial investigation and interrogation by the Kingston police to the arguments presented in court. Honour on Trial is an easy read, accessible to a wide audience but lacking in any kind of scholarly analysis. Though Schliesmann includes a concluding chapter where he recounts other honour killing cases in Canada, there is little in the book that interrogates the very definition of the crime as an honour killing. The book reads as a fast and condensed collection of details concerning the case, which makes it ideal for the general public interested in such crimes. However, there is scant attention paid to the very construction of this crime as a high profile event capturing mass media spotlight at this particular historical juncture.

While Schliesmann does not promise any kind of analysis, the book’s front cover suggests otherwise: “The Shafia Murders and the Culture of Honour Killings.” What is the ‘culture of honour killings’? And how is culture being understood in this particular context? A reading of the text suggests that a number of critical assumptions underpin Schliesmann’s recounting of the case. In the discussion that follows, I take up some of these assumptions, arguing that many are embedded in a discourse of Orientalism, which as author Edward Said has eloquently argued, constructs a particularly unfavourable view of the Orient as the Other, and in which the Orient represents everything that is opposite and inferior to the West. My discussion is not intended to discount the horrendous murders of these women, or to minimize the violence they suffered. Rather, I wish to draw out and expand on the kinds of taken-for-granted assumptions that underpin even empathic accounts of femicides involving women from racialized communities.

In his introduction to the book, Schliesmann argues, “With the murders, it became obvious that a new wave of immigration had brought with it challenges for young women wanting to fit into Canadian culture” (xi). This begs the question as to what characterizes Canadian culture, and it is at this point that an Orientalist discourse emerges. Canadian culture, as articulated by Schliesmann, is liberating, egalitarian, free of gendered violence, and above all, characterized by a harmonious culture built on ethical values and a respect for human rights. Yet, existing statistics reveal that an average of 58 women are killed every year by their spouses, ex-spouses or boyfriends. That aside, more Aboriginal women are murdered every year, and young women even more so. Schliesmann himself notes that suicide is the third leading cause of death among those aged 15-24 years. Yet, he makes no mention of the gendered dimension of these and other statistics that highlight the vulnerability of young women to various forms of violence. This suggests that, regardless of their cultural background, young women in...