Honor Killings in Babakot
In Babakot,
And in all those places
We don’t hear, we don’t see
The old tradition lives,
Underneath our skin
Inside our heads
Tarnished and convoluted
In the name of honor
Hangs the fate of women
In ditches, proof of our humanity
Shot, thrown and burnt
In the name of honor
In the name of humanity
Inside there, still unnoticed
Remains of our acts and virtues
We say we are in the 21st century
Far behind we are in time
And the wisdom and logic
Too long a walk, too hard to rectify
These old ways, upon us
Where we kill in the name of honor
Yet still alive those men
As they breathe the empty honor
For you and me, only the bitterness
Those beautiful faces, our daughters
Gone forever, heads sunk in grief
As words betray us, to describe
Heinous crimes and we call ourselves
The followers of prophet and Islam
In us, the old tradition lives
This indifference, not to protest
Not to challenge, not to hear those pleas
The moment their lives came into existence
To the moments thrown and burnt, in hell
The hell we have created, in the name of honor
If this is the honor, then shame a better option
I won’t have to kill, my daughters and mothers
As we betray humanity in the name of honor!
Asim Khan
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