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Political Islam & the Secularist Liberationist Women’s Movement in Iran |
| I am going to talk about political Islam and women’s struggle for secularism and freedom in Iran. Contrary to the dominant and distorted image that portrays Iranian women as defining their rights within the framework of Islamic law and trying to reconcile women’s rights with Islam, I talk about the secularist liberationist women’s movement in Iran. The last 24 years have been some of the darkest in women’s lives in Iran. The Islamic regime which was the first established government of political Islam brought nothing but repression, death, torture, lack of rights and dark reaction. For 24 years Islamic laws have been and still are in full force against women in Iran. Women were amongst the very first targets attacked by the Islamic Republic. With Khomeini’s pronouncements on the veil, immense outbursts of anger expressed by women on the streets on the International Women’s Day in 1979. This anger was not simply because of their rejection of the veil. They saw in the attempts to impose the veil a much greater implied threat. They felt that this was just the beginning of a whole series of measures, which would lead to the seclusion of women from social and economic activity. Political Islam which first came to power in Iran is a major force that has imposed serious setbacks on women's lives in the region, in the recent decades. Political Islam is a political movement that came to the fore against the secular and progressive movements for liberation and egalitarianism and against women’s rights and freedom in the region. In the 1970s, the political Islamic movement grew stronger and became more widespread. Political Islam is nothing but the enforcement of brutal laws and traditions, and killing, beheading, and genocide of people. In Iran, the Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Islamic regimes proceeded to transform the countries, and particularly women's homes into prison houses, where the confinement of women, their exclusion from many fields of work and education and their brutal treatment became the law of the land. In addition, the misogynist rhetoric they have let loose in the social sphere implicitly sanctions male violence towards women. As women were the first victims of political Islam, they also became the pioneer force fighting against political Islam in Iran. In fact, the post – revolutionary period in Iran has seen an extra ordinary gender- awareness amongst Iranian women. During the last twenty – four years women’s resistance against Islamic laws has been a daily fact of life. Tens of thousands of women have offended the rules and have been attacked by Islamic moral squads with fists and kicks, knives, cutters and throwing acid on their faces yearly. The penalty for breaking the rules of segregation and Hijab has been insult, cash fines, expulsion, and deprivation from education, arrest, imprisonment, beating and flogging. 80 percent of women resisted against these rules have been young women who were born after the coming to power of the Islamic Republic. No day has gone without resistance and hope during the last two decades. Women in Iran have succeeded in pushing back the offensive of the Islamic regime inch by inch, re – appropriating spheres of public life that were lost immediately after the revolution. Their success in forcing the government to remove, at least on paper, the ban on certain fields of higher education is a case in point. Women have succeeded in placing their plight at the center of politics in Iran and as a major issue of conflict in political discourse and ideological mobilization. In the streets of Iran’s major cities, growing clashes between the morality police and bystanders over the arrest of violators of the Islamic dress code demonstrate that women’s resistance, together with the overall political and economic crisis of the Islamic regime have caused a disenchantment of ordinary Iranians with the Islamists who continue their policy of purifying the female soul and body from secular ideas and practices. In recent years many courageous women have either publicly thrown their veils away or burnt them in street demonstrations. Women and the politics of gender continue to be the Achilles’ heel of the Islamic Republic. During the post revolutionary period, women have struggled to open spaces and make opportunities in education and employment. They have campaigned against Islamic child abuse and have organized association for the defense of children’s rights. They are actively involved in semi – legal and clandestine political struggle. Culturally, they resist and campaign against Islamic and traditional images of women dictated and portrayed by the Islamic cultural authorities in films, theatres, newspapers and magazines. Despite strict Islamic moral code and preserving taboos, more than ever before pre – marital sexual relationship is common and taboos have been broken. All of these make the women’s movement a strong political reality at the center of Iran’s political scene. Here, I would like to talk about the so – called Islamic Feminism or Muslim feminists. This is a tendency, which tries to improve women’s situation by reforming some of Islamic principles and Koranic verses. They mildly criticize some aspects of Islamic Republic’s policies and some of its leaders. They are the political allies of the so-called reformist faction of the Islamic government of Iran whose agenda for shaping a tolerable Islamic regime has been badly defeated in the most recent years. This trend is not of any importance inside Iran, but again it has got publicity due to the efforts of Western governments and also western mainstream media that try to portray a distorted image of women’s demands in Iran and reduce them to those of Islamic feminist’s expectations. They promote and even try to impose a moderate Islamic government on Iranian people, which suits their interests in Iran and in the region. But, the fact is that Iranian society has changed dramatically and deeply since 1979. The movement for secularism and atheism, for modern ideas and culture, for individual freedom, for women's liberation and civil liberties has been widespread and deep. Disgust for religion and the backward ruling culture is immense. Women and the youth are the champions of this battle; a battle that threatens the basic pillars of the Islamic system. The most hopeful signs and the most remarkable stimulus for change continue to come directly from Iranian women both in Iran and in exile. In Iran, women presented the first and the most effective challenge to the Islamic regime by courageously questioning the right of Islamic authority to define the conditions of their lives. Any change in Iran will not only affect the lives of people living in Iran, but will have a significant impact on the region and worldwide. Secularism is not only realizable, but also, after the experiences of Iran, Afghanistan, the Sudan and Algeria, is an urgent and pressing need and demand of the people of the region. The answer to the question of Middle Eastern and Iranian women's liberation is secularism and the establishment of egalitarian political systems in Iran and in the region. Secularism has been and continues to be a pre-requisite for women's liberation. Our objectives must be: • The complete separation of religion from the state. • The elimination of all religious and religiously inspired notions from laws. • Religion to be declared the private affair of individuals. • The removal of any reference to a person’s religion in laws, on identity cards and in official papers. • A ban on ascribing any religion to people, whether individually or collectively, in official documents and the media. • The elimination of religion from education. • A ban on teaching religious subjects and dogma or to the religious interpretation of subjects in schools. And I should also like to add that we are not far from those days when women will be throwing away or burning the imposed veils, celebrating the overthrowing of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the beginning of a new era of secularism and an egalitarian society in Iran.
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