Multiculturalism has, and will likely always be, problematic. For though many of the world's countries pride themselves on open borders and hospitable populations founded on notions of generosity and the will to be free, humanity has spent the bulk of its history as a species in homogeneous environments, ensconced in tribes and lands where everyone walked and talked like everyone else. Certainly, there were exceptions, particularly in the most recent millennia in which technologies that allowed for large empires were deployed to conquer other lands, but these centuries are but the tip of the iceberg poking out of the waters of our evolutionary past.
As a consequence, human beings living in multicultural environments experience a quiet tension, one that pits the wisdom of their cultural enlightenment against the suspicion of their genetic makeup. While times are good, with crime low and jobs plentiful, wisdom wins out. But when times are difficult and money scarce, like for like takes the day, causing suspicion of the unknown to override judgement and for cynicism to replace kindness, a matter made all the worse when this multiculture is forced to grapple with crimes it cannot imagine, emanating from backgrounds with which it has only a passing knowledge. This is a truth chillingly rendered in Paul Schliesmann's brisk work of true crime.
For Canada, a country that has never experienced a high rate of crime, relative to much of the world, the Shafia Family murders came as a severe shock. An honor killing that claimed the lives of three teenaged daughters of a successful, immigrant family from Afghanistan, then living in Montreal, it would launch a three year odyssey beginning with a lengthy police investigation and concluding with a high-profile trial in which Mohammad Shafia, the family patriarch, Hamed, his son, and Tooba, his second wife, would stand accused of executing a cruel plot to drown the three young women, along with Rona, Mohammad's first wife, in a Kingston Mills Lock. It would take time for a motive to emerge for such a terrible and senseless crime, but eventually an chilling image of the family would take shape, one colored by tribal customs transported to the new world, customs that endow females with family honor to such a degree that any significant act of disobedience brings a stain upon the family that can only be cleansed with blood. This would prove to be true of the three Shafia daughters who, having once agreed not to date boys, broke with their eastern customs to embrace the western culture in which they were immersed. For this, they died in the cold and the darkness.
A thorough primer of the Shafia murders and the complex trial that would follow on from them, Honour on Trial is a read as swift as it is informative. Mr. Schliesmann, a Canadian journalist, possesses a newsman's prose, pages stripped of any sense of excess or flair. In its place, cold, hard facts which paint a portrait of events that are as clear as they are difficult to stomach. In this vein, the author makes no judgement calls about the Shafia family, leaving such editorializing to others. Instead, he uses established truths to depict the tragic, senseless course of events with heart-sinking deliberation, leaving little room for doubt.
For those looking for a simple chronicle of events, Honour on Trial serves admirably, but the Shafia case demand more than this. This was not only a murder. This was the premeditated killing of four women for reasons that are inescapably barbaric. Yes, we must be sensitive to the customs of other cultures, to embrace them and weave them into the fabric of who we are. But we must test those customs against not only our ethics, but the widely acknowledged human rights that should exist for all individuals. Any customs that fail that test, that violate the rights to be free for which countless people have fought, then those are customs we can all rightfully reject, leaving them in the dust of history along with every other unenlightened, self-serving notion that we've evolved out of. But for a brief section describing honor killings and the causes that give rise to them, Mr. Schliesmann fails to articulate this important point.
Every day, innocence is lost because of ignorance, because of customs that are not knocked down by exposure to other cultures. This is multiculturalism's value, a test of who we are against the values of others, a crucible from which reasoned truth can emerge. If only such enlightenment did not have to come at such a terrible cost... (3/5 Stars)
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