A jury in London has sentenced Pakistani parents to life in prison for murdering their 17-year old daughter, Shafilea. Both the parents – Iftikhar and Farzana, are from a village in Pakistani Punjab. Iftikhar immigrated to the UK in 1960s. Shafilea was brought up in the UK but her parents always pressurized her not to adapt Western culture. She was forced to marry a relative back in Pakistan wherein she drank bleach chemical as protest. Her eventful life came to an end in 2003 when she was suffocated to death by her parents. Her younger sister, Alesha, who was 12 at the time of murder, testified against her parents. By doing so, this high profile drama, which had gripped the UK Muslim community for the past many years, came to an end.
We may discuss separately whether Shafilea’s parents were right or wrong in enforcing several restrictions on her which were in conflict with the culture and environment she was raised in. My question to all such parents (who are not ready to accept that they either they have to integrate with the adapted country’ culture and values or face an isolated life full of contradictions) is why did they immigrate to the West in the first place? More or less, every other immigrant family from Muslim Asia faces the same issue as Shafilea’s patents did, squeezing the children between two cultures, forcing them to live ‘a rural Pakistani life’ while in the West; is it not better they stay back in their home countries and bring up the children per their cultural and family values.
The other extreme is equally dangerous wherein some young Muslims in the West are entrapped by extremist organizations. These young recruits end up destroying their own lives, lives of their parents and friends, staining the name of their country of origin. Can’t there be a middle way, away from these two extremes?
MASOOD KHAN
Saudi Arabia
