I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan

by Khalida Brohi

PEOPLE OFTEN BECOME POETS WHEN they fall in love, but I became a poet when hate entered my heart. My cousin had just been murdered. She was killed for something that was considered a sin: love. Murdered unjustly by my own uncle. Her father had let it happen. Her mother had had no power. The society watched as she was dragged from her home. Memories of her were erased. And we were instructed never to say her name again. Khadija.

The other women echoed Bhalla Ama’s skepticism. They couldn’t see the wrongs in the cultural restrictions that I was trying to describe, or the physical and emotional harm some traditions inflicted on women. I did not yet understand that one debilitating effect of honor killings is that they make the women who are left behind think nothing of domestic violence, seeing it as natural and ordained. This project was going to be harder than I thought. I had assumed my main task would be to change the minds of the men—I hadn’t counted on having to change the minds of the women too.