Women of Iran: Leading the March to Freedom in Maryam Rajavi’s Vision
Women are history’s first victims of oppression. Besides having to endure political and socio-economic pressure, they are penalized for the sin of being women.
Yet half of the human beings on this planet are women, and inevitably gender oppression and the culture inherent to it directly affect and enchain the other half of humanity, the men. Hence, genuine freedom for the individual and society is ultimately attainable solely through the emancipation of oppressed woman. In other words, gender discrimination and oppression transcend and affect all other domains of human existence.
But one cry, and one cry alone, has remained unanswered, stifled in the depths of history: It is the cry of “the slaves of slaves,” the cry of women, the voice of those enduring the ugliest of all oppressions.
Gender-oppression ran so deep that no one believed it even existed. Gender oppression was not considered as oppression at all, as only natural life form for women.
A woman I am
My bare feet
Pacing the parched Earth
Since the First Day
In search of a drop of water…
Women were doubly enslaved, once as all other slaves and all other oppressed people, who have been subjugated and exploited in every age of history, and once as women. Yes, the footprint of women can be seen in all shackles of bondage, and the voice of the oppressed can be heard in their smothered cries.
What is life like for women in Iran?
But there exists an even more painful story: The tragedy of women in my fettered homeland, Iran, under the reign of the inhuman mullahs, who not only consider woman as eternally a slave, but also negate her humanity.
Can one speak of women and the movement for equality without exposing the misogyny and barbarism of the fundamentalists who rule Iran?
About which aspect of this bitter, unbearable tragedy should I tell you? Should I speak of the hundreds of women who are assaulted in the streets every day? Or of those arrested and lashed? Or of the respectable women forced to sign confessions that they are prostitutes, just because of the color of their dress or a lock of hair showing from beneath their scarves? Or of the women ruthlessly stoned to death?
Or should I tell of the multitude of women office employees, teachers and workers who were expelled from their jobs simply because they were women?
Or should I tell of the brutality and cruelty of the clerical regime’s executioners, who sent elderly grandmothers, pregnant women and little girls before firing squads without even establishing their identities?
Let me stress that neither the people, nor history nor God will ever forget these atrocities. These criminals will be held accountable for destroying so much talent and potential. As the Quran says in condemning the murder of girl children: “For what sin were you murdered?”
Indeed, the women of Iran have risen up against this monster, a monster, which has emerged from the depths of the Dark Ages, whose very survival depends on misogyny and gender apartheid. This beast is not just the enemy of the Iranian people; it is at war with humanity.
The Role of Women in the Revolution
Yes, in my view, humanity will be rid of the foreboding specter of fundamentalism only when women take on their leading role in this global campaign, and use every democratic means to block appeasement of the misogynous, inhuman mullahs of Iran.
In this way, women will show that although they have faced the most brutal oppression throughout the centuries, now, in the great era of women’s emancipation, the victims of centuries of the most dreadful historical oppression will echo the voices of all oppressed peoples.
Today, the voice of women is indeed the voice of the oppressed, those whose cries reach no one: the voice of the children denied all rights and means to grow; the voice of the poor and destitute, who moan not just for lack of bread, but for lack of compassion.
Now it is the turn of women to rebel against all forms of oppression, to rise and end gender-based oppression and inequality, to unite women and men in their true human identity. They must rebel and give a new lease of life to human society, rise and topple the pillars of all oppression, tear asunder the status quo and chart a new course.
The Brave Women of Iran
My homeland, however, tells a different story, because:
– The mighty resistance of Iranian women and the pain and blood of tens of thousands of martyred and tortured women have given new meaning to these words, and have colored them with a brilliant courage, seriousness, love of life and hope of construction.
– The women of Iran have defied the mullahs’ humiliation and proudly challenged the guardians of inequality.
– Women and mothers forsook their marriages for the freedom of their people and country, and bid farewell for an indefinite period to their beloved children.
– Women undertook the heaviest and most complex responsibilities in the battle against the misogynous and inhuman fundamentalists.
But to the mullahs, I say,
You have done your utmost to humiliate, suppress, torture and slaughter Iranian women, but rest assured that you would receive the blow from the very force you discounted, the very force whom your reactionary mindset cannot allow you to take into consideration.
Rest assured that these knowledgeable and free women will dismantle your oppression everywhere. They will not allow you to abuse religion.
It is you who will propel human history into the golden age of equality, peace, democracy, and development.
I salute all free-thinking women and men everywhere, who are paying the high price of liberty.
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