Iranian women, commemorating the 17th anniversary of Imam Khomeini's death in Khomeini tomb. Photo credit: Pooyan Tabatabaei, http://www.flickr.com/photos/pooyan/2229841505/in/photostream/
Obviously, on my Kebab Quest I have to go to Iran. The Persians, along with the Turks and Greeks, claim to have invented the kebab. But, more than any other country, I feel I need, with Iran, to also explain why I want to go. And I do want to go. Very much. And since people keep asking me, here is my clumsy attempt to explain. I want to go to Iran for reasons I can’t yet articulate. I want to go for so many reasons. I want to go to broaden my mind, to learn new things, witness an exotic culture in play.
There is, however, one reason above all (including to eat kebab, strangely) why I want to go. I want to go to find an answer to this pressing question: How far are we in the West from the Islamic Republic if the legitimate defence for rape is that a woman was provocatively dressed? If we believe that a man’s primal – natural – instinct cannot resist the temptations of seeing female flesh without acting on it?
“My Sister, guard your veil; My Brother, guard your eyes.”
This slogan was posted throughout the streets of Iran after the Islamic Revolution. Women were punished for letting their veil slip to reveal the nape of their neck. No flesh must be on display in the Islamic Republic. For who could blame a man for what he might do in the face of such temptation?
In the West, one way we’re currently protesting this line of thinking is through the Slut Walks that have taken place in the Canada, USA, UK and Australia, as well as many other countries. The walks are in response to a police officer telling a group of Canadian university students that if they didn’t want to get raped, they shouldn’t dress like sluts.
In the West, as in Iran, rape goes unpunished.
We all know the stories of rape victims in Islamic regimes being shunned by their families and prosecuted themselves under strange laws. We shake our heads at it as though we don’t understand. How many of us equally understand the shame of rape victims in the west, whose sexual history, sartorial judgment and drinking habits are all put on trial along with the accused?
The current rate of conviction for rape in the UK is about 6 percent. In Australia, it is even lower. In the West, as in Iran, rape goes unpunished.
I’m pleased that our Slut Walk protests can happen in public, but I want to go to Iran because I’m curious about the private protests that happen in Tehran homes every day. I have also been inspired by an Iranian feminist and academic, Azar Nafisi. I came across her book, Things I’ve Been Silent About, by accident; it was given to me as a birthday present by a good friend. I hungrily followed it up with Nafisi’s first book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say these books changed my life. They changed the way I thought about nation states and how much you can judge individuals by the actions of their national leaders. It changed everything I knew about Iranian attitudes to women. It changed everything I knew about Iran.
Nafisi’s books inspired me to read more about Iran and Iranian history. It struck me how little I knew about this fascinating country. I’ve asked myself so many times how I would feel if I fought for a revolution that then stripped away my own basic freedom. I’ve never been able to truly come up with an answer, but Nafisi articulates her thoughts and feelings beautifully. It seems to me that these women know the meaning of feminism better than I do. Having walked in the street with their boyfriends, they now must wear a veil and sit apart in cafés. How does one adapt?
I don’t know enough about the rich Persian culture and history that has given the world so much. I don’t know enough about the beautiful poetry of Rumi and Hafez or the stories of Ferdowsi. I want to know more.
But it’s not differences I go to Iran in search of. It’s solidarity. And perhaps a desire to ask the question: as women, do we all just want the same things? And how long till we, finally, get them?
