Having been raised in a multi-cultural environment, and having had Muslims as friends whilst growing up, I can understand a lot about the culture, but anyone outside of the whackier violent elements of Islam would find these 'honour killings' despicable.
I hope that women's plight in Islam is solved by increasing secularisation of Islam, although the 'worst' communities are the most resistant to secularisation, just as with any religion in need of reform. Christianity's secularisation staretd in the 19th C, Islam's is only begining to build up speed.
By way of example, in many textbooks prior to the 50's, you will read how Muslims do not hold with images of living creatures. This Quaranic prescription has effectively disappeared; the worst of the fundamentalist Mullahs will use TV etc. without any qualms, despite the fact their father or grandfather would have insisted it was 'unIslamic'.
Religions reflect cultures; ignorant, violent, misogynistic cultures have ignorant, violent, misogynistic religions. Christianity WAS ignorant, violent, misogynistic, but for the most part has reformed in the past hundred years or so as humanist concepts like human rights have spread through society. Islam will reform in the same way.
For members of traditionalistic religious communities in the West, we have to impose law as severely as it allows, offer help to those at risk, and ensure religiously prejudiced parents cannot stop their children being aware of the standards of the society they live in, and the help available to those at risk of crime.
