THE OTHER HALF
Questions women ask
KALPANA SHARMA
|
Women in Iran have had to fight the heavily patriarchal system that continues to govern the country.
|
Photo: AP
Making a mark: Iranian filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf.
"BREAKING news", which we are assaulted with each day as we watch 24-hour news on television, is necessarily uni-dimensional. Something has happened, or is happening, we are told. How did it happen? What was the lead up to it? Is there something more we as viewers or readers ought to know? These questions are not always answered satisfactorily. That is the nature of "news", we are told. True, every story cannot be backgrounded in detail. But it must contain enough information so that the more curious can seek other facts.
Establishing stereotypes
The real problem with instant news is that the persistent repetition of current developments tends to establish images that obliterate other details, other nuances about a place, a person or an event. For instance, what are the images that come to mind when you think of Iran today? Of Iran's alleged attempt to go "nuclear" — a word the American President has yet to learn how to pronounce. Of Ahmedinijad, the bearded President of the country whose photographs generally depict him mid-rant. Of women covered from head to toe in the all-encompassing "chador".
Yet, we know Iran as a country is much more than that, much, much more. This ancient land is also known for its poetry, its art, its monuments and its culture. Today's Iran is a fascinating mix of modern and traditional. Some of this comes across in the exceptional films that have come out of Iran.
For women in Iran, life is not all that easy. They have access to education and jobs, but there are limits placed. Women are lawyers, journalists, in business, in academia. Women filmmakers like Samira Makhbalbaf and Puran Derakshandeh, to name just two, are making a mark.
But they are exceptions and do not have to confront the problems that the majority of women face by virtue of unequal laws that place them in a secondary status. Women have had to fight the heavily patriarchal system that continues to govern the country. This is manifest in the demand that people must accept, without questioning, what the powers-that-be decide is best for "the people". The nature of patriarchy is to rule by dictat, not by reasoned debate. It is the antithesis of democracy.
But Iranian women are asking "why". Why must they have lesser rights than men? Why are young women not permitted to go abroad for studies unless they are married? Why should women be stoned for alleged adultery? Why can they not question polygamy? Why can they not have custody of their children after divorce? In August 2006, Iranian women began a campaign to collect one million signatures to demand the end of discriminatory laws in Iran. To launch the campaign, some of them held a public demonstration in Tehran last year. For that, they were arrested and five of them are still in prison.
On March 4 this year, another 33 women were arrested, this time for holding up placards outside the court where the five women arrested last year were facing trial. They were charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state and taking part in an illegal gathering. In the last week, the majority of the women arrested on March 4 have been released. But three, including two lawyers, are still in jail. The authorities have given no reasons for their detention. They have been kept in solitary confinement in section 209 of the Evin Prison.
The two lawyers are Shadi Sadr and Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh. They can get out if they can post a bail of $2,00,000, an amount clearly out of reach for most ordinary people in Iran. At the time of writing, the two women continued to be in detention without any charges. Meanwhile the organisations that they ran have been closed down. Shadi Sadr ran the Raahi Legal Centre where legal help was offered to indigent women while Mahboubeh ran an NGO training centre.
Salute their courage
The courage of these women to speak out, to question, needs to be saluted in a system that will not permit such questioning. Their struggle needs to be reported as much as the apparent obduracy of the Iranian government in the face of demands from the Western nations to give in on the nuclear question. For as Nobel Peace Laureate, that doughty campaigner for human rights Shirin Ebadi, writes in her book Iran Awakening (Rider, 2006):
"The Islamic Republic may hold firm to its right to nuclear power, even if it means suffering sanctions at the hands of the international community. But its more rational policy makers see a tainted human rights record as a self-inflicted wound that weakens Iran's bargaining power. If the clerics in power detect military strikes on the horizon instead of a negotiated solution, they will find no incentive, no credibility gained, in safeguarding the rights of their citizens. I see foreign pressure as useful, but it must be the right kind of pressure, targeted and with a purpose. For in the end, the Iranian Revolution has produced its own opposition, not least a nation of educated, conscious women who are agitating for their rights. They must be given the chance to fight their own fights, to transform their country uninterrupted."
"A nation of educated, conscious women". What a different image that is of Iran from that conveyed to us by the media.
E-mail the writer: sharma.kalpana@yahoo.com
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
