I was not sure whether or not I should be going to another movie about Jordan. I saw Body of Lies and that was terrible. However, Forbidden Lies seemed like a very serious documentary, dealing with a very real issue: honor killing in Jordan and the book : Forbidden Love that Norma Khouri had written a few years back and was revealed to be a hoax.
A local movie theater here in Tucson decided the movie was so good that they were going to squeeze it into their schedule and show it only once on a Wednesday evening. I was really hesitant to go. Despite the ugliness of honor crimes, I was not looking forward to seeing another movie showing us as clueless Bedouins who beat up women and watch all their movements and deprive them of any right, something that Norma Khouri had claimed in the beginning of her book. But with town half-dead in this heat, I had nothing better to do.
I was surprised by how many people showed up (more than a 100), even thought the movie was already on DVD. My only wish was for it to show something positive about Jordan. ANYTHING.
Briefly, Norma Khouri wrote a book about her best friend (Dalia) who was honor-killed sometime in 1997, and the father who murdered her got away with 3 months in jail. She wanted to tell her story to the world. The book became a best seller, and was well-received in the West. However, many stated-facts in the book were clearly big fat lies. (for example, as a spoiled Shmesani kid myself, I immediately recognized that books @ cafe did not exist before 1997).
Norma responded by saying that she had to modify a lot of things in the book to protect people. The director of the movie goes Norma a chance to defend herself. It also interviews and interacts with a few Jordanian personnel who work on honor killings in Jordan, including Rana Al-Husseini.
The movies is fantastic. It has many twist and surprises. It's really one of the best documentaries I've ever seen and an example on how looking for one piece of truth leads you to the full truth. I very highly recommend it to any person interested in honor killings, Jordan, or journalism overall. And at times it's very funny, we really got some sense of humor.
Regardless of what you think of Norma, her story could have been true and it did happen to many women and will happen this year and the year after. However writing a bunch of lies about her country and her people did hurt the cause of these victims and the country itself. If you think differently let me know!
Finally, the take-home-message from the movie could be: Jordan River does not flow through Amman! HAHAHAHAHA
here's the trailer:
A local movie theater here in Tucson decided the movie was so good that they were going to squeeze it into their schedule and show it only once on a Wednesday evening. I was really hesitant to go. Despite the ugliness of honor crimes, I was not looking forward to seeing another movie showing us as clueless Bedouins who beat up women and watch all their movements and deprive them of any right, something that Norma Khouri had claimed in the beginning of her book. But with town half-dead in this heat, I had nothing better to do.
I was surprised by how many people showed up (more than a 100), even thought the movie was already on DVD. My only wish was for it to show something positive about Jordan. ANYTHING.
Briefly, Norma Khouri wrote a book about her best friend (Dalia) who was honor-killed sometime in 1997, and the father who murdered her got away with 3 months in jail. She wanted to tell her story to the world. The book became a best seller, and was well-received in the West. However, many stated-facts in the book were clearly big fat lies. (for example, as a spoiled Shmesani kid myself, I immediately recognized that books @ cafe did not exist before 1997).
Norma responded by saying that she had to modify a lot of things in the book to protect people. The director of the movie goes Norma a chance to defend herself. It also interviews and interacts with a few Jordanian personnel who work on honor killings in Jordan, including Rana Al-Husseini.
The movies is fantastic. It has many twist and surprises. It's really one of the best documentaries I've ever seen and an example on how looking for one piece of truth leads you to the full truth. I very highly recommend it to any person interested in honor killings, Jordan, or journalism overall. And at times it's very funny, we really got some sense of humor.
Regardless of what you think of Norma, her story could have been true and it did happen to many women and will happen this year and the year after. However writing a bunch of lies about her country and her people did hurt the cause of these victims and the country itself. If you think differently let me know!
Finally, the take-home-message from the movie could be: Jordan River does not flow through Amman! HAHAHAHAHA
here's the trailer:
Posts
26 comments:
I don't think it matters where Jordan river flows or if Norma lied. What matters is that honor killings are happening in Jordan and it’s no laughing matter. For Jordanians to get all outraged about the geographic errors in this book is kind of ridiculous. Don't you think?
No, it's just a relfection of how absurd it was for this person to be allowed to publish this book. If the editors did a little investigation they would have discovered this fat lie and several others, but it looks like a book tarnishing a middle Eastern culture is something that sells and should be published ASAP without paying attention to detail.
Yes honor killings are terrible but having a awful person like Norma talk about it is very dispicable
I will be very interested to watch this documentary.
I have just finished reading 'Forbidden Love', and am shocked to find myself so taken in. I did not find the execution of the book that thrilling, however, my interest was held, as I believed it was a true story. Jean Sasson's quote, printed clearly on the cover, states that this is an '...extraordinary true story...'.
I cannot believe that the publisher's made no effort to corroborate her story! Surely the editor will have had to check up on basic facts such as geography before they would even consider publishing it??
Having read the book, I decided to find out a little more about the supposed campaign being carried out on the back of this book. As five years have elapsed since it's publication, I thought it would be interesting to see how things may have changed. I was perplexed to find that not only does the website 'www.honorlost.com' not (no longer?) exist, but the name Norma Khouri supplies plentiful entries that include the words 'lies', 'fraud' and 'hoax', when simply googled.
I love to read fiction based in history and other cultures, and am keen to learn about these while enjoying a good story. I appreciate that 'literal licence', as Norma was quoted calling it, is a necessary part of such works, however I would hope that unconfirmed 'facts' were extrapolated from historical records mixed with the writers feel for the characters and the time, place and culture. In fact, in many good books that I have read, there has been a large addendum before or after, where the writer explains to the reader what liberties he or she has taken in trying to create a good story, and what genuine research this was based on.
'Forbidden Love' has tainted my enjoyment of books such as this, as I will be sceptical now when reading, detracting from my immersion in the story, which is a shame.
If Norma had wanted to make a genuine contribution to a real cause, she would have contacted the lobby and support groups involved and worked with them - and gained true statistics of the problem, which could be verified and examined.
In retrospect, is it apparent that Norma has no understanding of living in a patriarchal society, as she does not express the depth of anguish caused by the conflict between her need to conform to the indoctrination of her upbringing, and her wish for freedom and change. There is no balancing of the condemnation with an explanation of how the 'evil' protagonists have become as they are or justify themselves, beyond shallow repetition. The story lacks almost any reference to any positives, or even heartfelt affection for her homeland and family.
I feel soiled and used for having been conned in this way, and sorry for all of the genuine writers of true accounts, because they will find their reception that much cooler because of it.
i totally agree! it is just so wrong for them to say she is lieing when it has been proven that she did not lie! so she left out the part of her being an American. so what! i thought it was a free country....they need to stop bothering her about it, and at least she cared enough to say it and share the story all over the world. what did they do???
It has been proven that Norma did lie and wrote a story about a very serious problem of honor killings for her personal gain. It is sad to see that a book filled with lies could be published, her book is filled with information trying to hurt Islam as well as Jordanian society.
As a human being, whether Muslim, Christian, male or female I denounce honor crimes. Islam is innocent from these old ignorant traditions. How can a human being kill another to clean his honor? Honor crimes do exist and occur and we should all as a society do our part and raise awareness, just like we do with other murder, rape and domestic violence.
Norma Khoury’s intention was not to raise awareness; if she did she would have been honest from the beginning. Norma could have contacted the right resources and obtained the right and truthful FACTS about honor killings. Norma could have contacted Rana Hosseini and worked close with her to get the true facts and stories about these crimes. Rana was one of the first reporters to make light of these honor crime stories in Jordan. Norma claims that rana’s awareness was thru her stories in a local small newspaper and that she (norma) wants the issue to be known globally. Here is my point, if Norma wanted the world to know about the truth she should have contacted the right people in Jordan and got their opinions, facts and statistics about these crimes. Instead Norma fabricated a story that made no sense and made lot of harm while doing it. Norma based her novel on stories out of a tragedies that do occur. She did more harm than awareness.
Norma labeled every Muslim house to have an honor killing waiting to happen. Is every Christian a con artist like you? Off course not, because you only represent yourself, your own sick minded self. All I can say is shame on you for deceiving all of us.
I was watching Forbidden Lie$ yesterday at first I sympathized with Norma then I am shocked to say that my empathy was entirely wasteful. The most shocking thing to me is when Broinowski investigates she finds more and more contradictions in Khouri's version of the truth. Each time an inconsistency is found, with a straight face Khouri adds more to the story and makes it more complex. Each contradiction is patched with a new story tailor-made to win the sympathies of the listener.
I read somewhere that “Norma is a fraud; Norma is a conwoman; Norma is a thief, a liar, a breaker of hearts and a stealer of fortunes; she’s as dangerous a creature as one can find – a manipulative, controlling narcissist, charming and alluring, but utterly untrustworthy. In short, a person best left well alone. She finds this hilarious” All I can say is Amen
This women has some guts. She just opened a portion of it and one can see how deep it goes...
How many involved to descredit her... Governments and politics on international level. It will take down anyone but her.
It's ridicules to talk the geographical errors in this book and what mostly matters is the honor killings taking place in Jordan and in the surrounding Muslim countries. It reflects how cruel these people are and how uneducated they are. The men in these countries can do anything wrong and they say they do it in the name of the God.How ridiculous.But they want to beat women and women are only a toy to be used in men's sexual desires. That is the truth that world should know.
all i can say that this women norma khouri is a crazy women , anyone who says bad things about his country and not loyalenough is crazy.. so how can anyone believe in one who insoliate his own country. every country have good things and bad things i no that honor things cant be solve by killing but even though she is a lier and she cant write these things about her country she must have theropy or somethig to stop lieng i watched thw shawo ,she couldnt stop lieng even in the last moment .
yeah well when reading a story we should concentrate on what the story means and message the author is trying to send. and whether "Dalia" existed or not it doesn't matter coz a lot of other girls get killed to protect their families honor, and the sad truth is that most of them weren't doing anything against honor
It's one thing to have a strong and powerful message, such as the one that Norma Khouri intended to put across, but it completely destroys your cause when you lie to get that message across.It's an insult to those who endorse you, because in a way, readers start to view the writer as a leader in advocating the cause and the leaders needs to have people's trust in order to be able to succeed. I mean, Khouri could have so easily written a book that was BASED on a true story, rather than publishing it as a factual true story. In that case, any objections anyone would have wouldn't be nearly as effective as they in fact are because her book would be mostly fiction.
If we were to focus on the message alone though, then she couldn't go wrong. Honor crimes are crimes, no matter how someone tries to dress them up. Even in Islam, it's believed that people's lives belong to Allah ultimately which means no one has the right to take someone else's life, unless they had committed murder themselves. So in terms of cause, liar or not, I still admire the fact that Khouri spoke against honor crimes. I just have little to no respect for her. There are so many other ways the message could've been put forward and spread.
Come on you guys just get over it. this happens in all eastern countries not just Jordan.It's something we read in our daily news.It's not a local Jordanian issue its an Arabic matter.
Well i guess she was mistaken to say that almost every woman is treated that way in Jordan because it's never that way in Jordan neither any other country.It's not a majority and it shouldn't define the identity of a country .. it's something personal that depends on the way individual people think.
It doesn't matter if she's right or wrong what matter is your people should try to act in civil way trying to show your country isn't that bad, That what matters.. but let's speak reality, we all have such cases in our arabic countries and A LOT
why all this happen to the isslem world i m with you norma khory
thanks hareega 4 this nice coverage to the biggest lie in this century
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al mhbash al hsini
That book is obvious that Norma did it for her own good ...first of all i am against honor killings.. and i have lived in Jordan for 2 years and i havent seen or heard about anything she's talking about. and like rana said if she wanted to fight "honor killing" let her fight for it from Jordan itself. And what made this thing a complete hoax is that she was cornered with the questions but she just wouldnt admit even if we put all her life issues aside.
I'm truly quite flabaghasted (however you spell that) by some of the comments here i.e those who have and ounce of sympathy for her. She's utterly despicable liar, a narcissist, an opportunist, who is is actually deluded enough to believe that anyone with half a brain would fall for her very sad pitiful attempts to patch up things after the shame was exposed. in fact the hardest part of the movie was watching her dig herself in deeper with the sad attempt to defend herself (talk about death with a thousand cuts). To all you deluded sadarses who actually still side with her on the grounds that she is "at least trying" - well ... wake up and smell the coffee! all she has done is feed the western propaganda machine which loves to demonize the whole middle east with a broad brush. As many of the entries above quite rightly point out, if she really wanted to help she would have approached it all in a very different way. The fact that honor killings do happen only makes it all the worse people - all she does is trivialize the reality of it by feeding us the kind of perverse fabrication that appeals to uninformed 'us/them' western ignorance. I mean come on people! for Gods' sake - she's horrible -espically when compared to the many in the movie who are doing the hard yards, who are down there in the muck making real changes. I cant work out what is worse - her Norma or those, who upon seeing the movie still actually side with her spin. are you really that stupid or just morally repugnant? It beggars belief!
I'm truly quite flabaghasted (however you spell that) by some of the comments here i.e those who have and ounce of sympathy for her. She's utterly despicable liar, a narcissist, an opportunist, who is is actually deluded enough to believe that anyone with half a brain would fall for her very sad pitiful attempts to patch up things after the shame was exposed. in fact the hardest part of the movie was watching her dig herself in deeper with the sad attempt to defend herself (talk about death with a thousand cuts). To all you deluded sadarses who actually still side with her on the grounds that she is "at least trying" - well ... wake up and smell the coffee! all she has done is feed the western propaganda machine which loves to demonize the whole middle east with a broad brush. As many of the entries above quite rightly point out, if she really wanted to help she would have approached it all in a very different way. The fact that honor killings do happen only makes it all the worse people - all she does is trivialize the reality of it by feeding us the kind of perverse fabrication that appeals to uninformed 'us/them' western ignorance. I mean come on people! for Gods' sake - she's horrible -espically when compared to the many in the movie who are doing the hard yards, who are down there in the muck making real changes. I cant work out what is worse - her Norma or those, who upon seeing the movie still actually side with her spin. are you really that stupid or just morally repugnant? It beggars belief!
I'm truly quite flabaghasted (however you spell that) by some of the comments here i.e those who have and ounce of sympathy for her. She's utterly despicable liar, a narcissist, an opportunist, who is is actually deluded enough to believe that anyone with half a brain would fall for her very sad pitiful attempts to patch up things after the shame was exposed. in fact the hardest part of the movie was watching her dig herself in deeper with the sad attempt to defend herself (talk about death with a thousand cuts). To all you deluded sadarses who actually still side with her on the grounds that she is "at least trying" - well ... wake up and smell the coffee! all she has done is feed the western propaganda machine which loves to demonize the whole middle east with a broad brush. As many of the entries above quite rightly point out, if she really wanted to help she would have approached it all in a very different way. The fact that honor killings do happen only makes it all the worse people - all she does is trivialize the reality of it by feeding us the kind of perverse fabrication that appeals to uninformed 'us/them' western ignorance. I mean come on people! for Gods' sake - she's horrible -espically when compared to the many in the movie who are doing the hard yards, who are down there in the muck making real changes. I cant work out what is worse - her Norma or those, who upon seeing the movie still actually side with her spin. are you really that stupid or just morally repugnant? It beggars belief!
I'm truly quite flabaghasted (however you spell that) by some of the comments here i.e those who have and ounce of sympathy for her. She's utterly despicable liar, a narcissist, an opportunist, who is is actually deluded enough to believe that anyone with half a brain would fall for her very sad pitiful attempts to patch up things after the shame was exposed. in fact the hardest part of the movie was watching her dig herself in deeper with the sad attempt to defend herself (talk about death with a thousand cuts). To all you deluded sadarses who actually still side with her on the grounds that she is "at least trying" - well ... wake up and smell the coffee! all she has done is feed the western propaganda machine which loves to demonize the whole middle east with a broad brush. As many of the entries above quite rightly point out, if she really wanted to help she would have approached it all in a very different way. The fact that honor killings do happen only makes it all the worse people - all she does is trivialize the reality of it by feeding us the kind of perverse fabrication that appeals to uninformed 'us/them' western ignorance. I mean come on people! for Gods' sake - she's horrible -espically when compared to the many in the movie who are doing the hard yards, who are down there in the muck making real changes. I cant work out what is worse - her Norma or those, who upon seeing the movie still actually side with her spin. are you really that stupid or just morally repugnant? It beggars belief!
My god this film was difficult to watch. I was squirming as this narcissistic liar was confronted with the absolute proof of her lying again and again and again, and her pathetic attempts to paper over the holes in her stories with more and more b/s.
This should be an instructive video for social workers, police recruits, maybe even school kids, anyone who might need to spot a pathological liar.
The worst thing was her prior criminal past as a con artist, I felt sorry for the old lady and the ex-boyfriend from whom she stole so much money. Pretending to care about honour killing while laughing about everybody's stupidity as she hops onto the real tragedies of others for financial gain. Then, hilariously, stabbing her husband and co-conspirator in the back when the heat got turned on. Truly a waste of oxygen, this woman.
Great film though, really great work from the Australian journalists who exposed this fraud.
HT wrote again
From The Times
August 3, 2007
Shia cleric bans ‘honour’ killings
BEIRUT Lebanon’s most senior Shia Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa banning “honour” killings, calling the custom of murdering a female relative for sexual misconduct “a repulsive act”.
The fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah is a rare condemnation of the practice by a prominent cleric. Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah is the religious authority for Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shias. Honour crimes are rarely reported in Lebanon, but the ayatollah’s spokesman Hani Abdullah said that his office had received reports of an increase in “honour” killings, though he could not give specific figures.
Although the practice is illegal in Arab countries, perpetrators often go unpunished or receive light sentences. The overwhelmingly Sunni populations of Jordan – where it is estimated that some 20 women are killed every year by their male relatives – and the Palestinian territories are unlikely to heed the ayatollah’s fatwa. However, the cleric does have followers among Shias in Iraq, where he lived for 30 years in the holy city of Najaf. (AP)
There are 2 parts to this story:
1: Honor Killing
2: Norma Khourie
Honor Killing still occurs thoughout the world, in some islamic and non-islamic families. As a practicing muslim, honor killing is totally against islamic teaching from the days of Prophet Mohammed(as). Pre-prohet Mohammed there was honor killings and they used to kill baby girls. It was Prophet Mohammed(as) that put a stop to it. Prohet Mohammed(as) had only children girls and he treated them with great honour, as an example to the rest of the Arabs.
There has been many FATWAS(laws) against honor killing, especially by the late Ayotallah Sayed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah (his web site is www.bayynat.org). those that commit honor killing are doing it on there own self-terms
2: Norma Khourie through Forbidden Lie$ showed the world that she is a big fat Liar. I couldn't believe that she was making the lying hole bigger and bigger for herself.
She is a manipulative, evil lady that sold her FATHER for a story.
She is a Cunning Con that lived on stealing other peoples livelyhood.
Good on the journalist and editors that exposed the lies, but they should have done there research prior.
Norma Khourie is nothing more that a racist Xenophobic that jumped on the band Wagon when everybody where bashing Muslims left-right and Centre, and at one time everybody believed her.
what goes around-Eventually comes around
CJ
I agree with Hareega such a shame that a book which could have done so much good in stopping this barbaric, legalised murder has in fact damaged the efforts to bring this out in the open and get action to stop it.
Had they been honest and said this was a fictionalised account of things that are really happening it might have galvanised some international uproar.
Shame that Norma (or whatever her real name is) felt she had to lie. Or was it all to do with the money?
Again I say SHAME.
RAL
I can't believe that people are complaining about supposed insults to a country that allows women to be killed for "honor" such a place has no honor of any kind. How anyone can even talk about anything but the huge evil being done to women, well, to me it speaks very clearly about what sort of people they are. So this young lady went about things wrongly, so what is so terrible about what she did, when set against young women being killed. Why not pour out some of that hate against those men who kill women, instead of against this woman who has publicized that fact!
How much does Khouri get paid for acting in Forbidden Lies? Shame on the film makers for pretending to be morally upright when they are no better than Khouri. And shame on us for going along with appauding such ventures. Khouri and the moralistic bastardized vultures that make money out of her vices are the winners because there are so many stupid idiots like us ready to be duped.
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