Iran Awakening: Talking about Bhutanese- II
Ramesh Gautam/Norway
……………….Continued
The vast discriminations went on. Several protests in opposition to the government moves were being made routine in Tehran University. Punishments, life imprisonments and death sentences were being made government instruments for oppression. A sort of religious extremism was inculcated in the brains of young girls; Islam was wrongly incorporated in them widely and wildly. The public majority antagonism was always overruled. Shirin recalls the one day incident when she was forced to get the permission from her mother to spend some nights out skiing with her husband ,”And that is how I was forced, at the age of forty-five, to dial up my mother and say, ’Maman, can you tell this man that I’m allowed to go skiing?’”
The pains and miseries of the women went on getting augmented. The realm for women got narrowed. Mothers always worried if their daughters went out with wrong hejabi. Young girls were harassed, punished or even raped in prisons for being out with their male friends. The value of the women was labeled half the men’s. Shirin juxtaposes Iran of the days of her youth and Iran of the days of her young daughters. She recalls that, at least, her daughters grew up when Iran was little liberal. But the situation went worse again. Shirin has narrated several such stories of the contexts which left my heart nail-bitten each time I tried to fathom the helplessness of the Iranians. Iran’s image in the international forums could never brighten. It was largely accused for supporting terrorism in many places including Lebanon. The UN, US and EU went on alarming it for this and nuclear power deals.
Stars of hopes started twinkling among the Iranians when Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, proclaimed of metamorphosing Iran into something different as dreamt by them. He was elected as a president in 1997 but he could never walk light-heartedly under the shadow of the supreme leader. Many of his assumptions fell paralyzed without being initiated. He was always a critic of the Guardian Council and the Judiciary System, the heads of which were appointed by the Supreme leader but he always praised the Supreme leader, who was not a body elected by the people and who was always the biggest threat to the press. The dualism in nature of Khatami had always been examined under suspicion. The women Mps in his tenure were not successful enough to secure their justifiable positions, let alone uplifting the women in deplorable situations. Two-terms Khatami tenure went off taking with it several undone pledges Khatami made before he was elected.
Shirin Ebadi
Click here to read her autobiography
Click here to see her speaking about Human Rights, Women and Islam at the University of San Diego’s, USA
Present Context:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the president of Iran in 2005. He had ruled out the future relation with the USA during the election campaign. Many analysts believe that after he was appointed as a Mayor of Tehran in 2003, he had reviewed many papers passed by the reformists before him and had imposed discriminatory bails as per the religious emphasis.
Despite many protests and oppositions, Ahmadinejad was declared victorious in the election of August this year. He is believed to be a hardliner and many are of opinion that the situation of women will not improve during his tenure. Student protests against him, his controversial speeches, nuclear weapons and uranium purification issues, his visions about the west and Israel and many others are regular topics of discussions today. Many think that his hard-line visions will further belittle the women’s significance and possible roles in Iranian socio-politics.
To be continued………….
Click here to read part-I
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