Burned Alive

I finally got the chance to buy and read this book. This is an extract from the book:

suddenly felt a cold liquid running over my head and instantly I was on fire. It is like a movie that has been speeded up, images racing past. I start to run in the garden, barefoot. I slap my hair, I scream. I feel my dress billow out behind me. Was my dress on fire, too?
I smell the gasoline and I run, the hem of my long dress getting in the way. My terror leads me instinctively away from the courtyard. I run toward the garden as the only way out. I know I'm running and I'm on fire and I'm screaming. But I remember almost nothing after that. How did I get away? Did he run after me? Was he waiting for me to fall so he could watch me go up in flames?

I've been meaning to read this book for a long time. I bought the book and shoved it along with the 60 odd books I haven't read. I guess with all the news lately about the fake autobiography out there (which shall remain unnamed), I thought I'd finally read the book. I finished reading the whole thing in 3 days and cried most of my home reading it on the train. Not only is the story touching and inspiring, but I was also outraged that these honour killings still occur now days. I mean, it's a known fact that they continue to happen. But the frequency and how "normal" people treat this situation is truely unbelievable. As a woman, I demand freedom like my brother got. I expect to have the same opportunities with education and work as any other men out there. Most of my friends know what an aggressive...errrrr.....assertive bitch I am. That is because I believe everyone should be treated the same and have the same opportunities. And when that doesn't happen, I will do something to make it happen. That is me. That is who I grew up to be. That is what I was taught, from a kid, that life should be. But these people, they keep their women locked up in their houses. They have no education provided. They don't know of any world except what the four fences around their house surrounds. The beating, degredation and killings that occur are the "norm" to them. They know no other alternative. No only did I cry for the suffering Souad is going through, but also the suffering all the other women are going through.

I seriously recommend this book to anyone out there. Hopefully after you've read it, we have another person on our side to battle these honour killings and educate people to what a human being deserves. And that is not to be beaten up, insulted, tortured and removed of all basic human rights.