Posted on 12/07/2001 3:49:08 PM PST by Map Kernow
SIX months ago, Jackie Ballard was a power-suited MP, a high-profile frontbencher and a television regular who urged women to assert their rights in a male-dominated society. She was even talked about as a potential leader of the Liberal Democrats.
The voters thought otherwise. One general election later, Jackie Ballard has been catapulted out of Parliament and into a world that should be anathema to any self-respecting feminist.
She has turned her back on Taunton, the Somerset constituency she lost in June, and moved to Teheran, the capital of an Islamic regime demonised by the West, where she is discovering the pleasures of the veil and pursuing an academic career.
From liberal democracy to Islamic theocracy seems an extraordinary journey for any British politician to make, but in Ballard's case it is even more so: a Left-wing, divorced single mother, she willingly submitted herself to the strict rules of dress and social deportment that are the law in Iran.
Her decision to move followed her election defeat. When she found herself suddenly unemployed at the age of 48, she decided it was time to try something completely different. So she packed her bags, kissed her family goodbye and flew off to Iran.
She has been there scarcely more than a month yet, in her first interview, she admits she likes it so much she is unlikely to return home. Her daughter, Christine, 22, is supportive, as is her Scottish mother. (Ballard was divorced from her quantity surveyor husband, Derek, in 1989.) She has signed up to do a PhD on the impact of the internet on Iranian society, is studying Farsi three times a week and has nearly mastered Teheran's maddening taxi system.
"The other day, the traffic was even worse than usual, so we were held up a lot. I thought I said to the taxi driver that `the weather is bad today', but he must have thought I was talking about the pollution because he stopped the car in the middle of the traffic, got out of the taxi, poked around in his boot and came back with a cup of tea for me."
What will really astonish her female friends back home, she knows, is her new-found enthusiasm for wearing the mandatory headscarf and long shapeless coat that are the accepted alternative to the chadoor.
"When I first came here, I was hung up about the idea of wearing a headscarf," she says. "Only Vera Duckworth wears headscarves, I thought. But once I had gone out a few times, it became just something you do.
"You see pictures on telly of crowds of Iranian women in black chadoors, but you never see the pretty women in short coats and shocking pink headscarves worn off the back of their heads."
But isn't it difficult to talk about the chadoor in fashion terms when many women object to being forced to wear it? "Of course, there are Iranian women here who resent that they have to. But in parts of the country, they always did, even before the revolution.
"They don't have to wear the chadoor; they can choose. But they do have to be covered. Women in chadoors are not browbeaten. They have chosen to wear them. People expect Iranian women to be submissive, but they certainly are not. So it is a much more complicated issue than the way it is seen from the West."
Contrary to popular perceptions, women are educated and allowed to work in Iran. They are represented in the professions, Ballard says. "Six university vice-chancellors in Iran are women, more than in the UK. The country's vice-president is a woman - we have John Prescott."
She contrasts her experience of covering up with what women in public life in Britain have to contend with. As she sees it, she has merely traded one mandatory uniform - the work suit - for another, and one that is far more flexible at that. Shopping has taken on a new dimension.
"I now find it liberating. You can wear anything you like under the coat. You don't have to worry about which suit to wear today. I now have a bigger wardrobe of scarves than of suits. I have to cover up, but underneath I can wear jeans and a T-shirt, or anything else for that matter.
"And don't kid yourself that it's only women in Islam who are pressured into wearing a uniform. Look at the women on the Labour backbenches in their uniform of matching suits. They can't wear what they want. They have to conform. They can't wear jeans and T-shirts. Liberals bleat about having to wear the chadoor, but try being an MP in the Commons."
Ballard, who describes herself as "a chubby middle-aged woman", believes sex appeal takes on a whole new meaning when all that can be seen is the face, a quiff of hair, manicured fingers and the flash of an ankle. "Dressed like this, you notice the attractiveness of people's eyes," she says. "You don't focus on boobs and bums. You look at faces."
Ballard's conversations with young Iranian women about relationships have been revealing. They grill her on the question of how to get a boyfriend and other cultural practices.
"They are pretty aghast at what happens in the West, that you can have quite a few boyfriends before you settle down," she says. "Here, good girls are introduced to somebody by their families. I told them that when you buy a house it makes sense to check out a few first before making your choice. They pointed out that you can check the houses, but that doesn't mean you have to sleep in each one."
Ballard's interest in Iran began when she was a student at the LSE and had an Iranian boyfriend. But it wasn't until she entered the Commons in 1997 that she visited the country. She formed a friendship with an Iranian constituent in Taunton who came to see her about a visa issue. He helped her to arrange holidays there and, when she landed in Teheran this time, she stayed with his sister for four weeks.
So what drew her back? One senses an unresolved affair of the heart. "The truth is, I love the country and the people and, many years ago at university, there was a particular special person." She refuses to say any more.
Ballard's approach to global politics is steeped in the tradition of CND and suspicion of the United States. The Iran she claims to have discovered is a progressive democracy that tolerates other religions. Some might think her perspective is too rose-tinted, but she hopes to use what public profile she has in Britain to promote a more positive image of Iran.
Her PhD on the effects of the internet, which she hopes to do jointly with Teheran University, will focus on one of the 21st-century arenas where Islam and the West collide.
"I think the big danger of globalisation is that these traditional and innocent cultures get diluted and devastated by western culture," she says. "A lot of western culture is awful. It's a tragedy if it infiltrates other cultures and they lose their individuality."
But doesn't protecting culture amount to censorship if it means deciding what Iranians are allowed to see? She ducks that one. "That's a debate for Iranians to have. It's about censorship and how far you can close the door. But I'm not here as a politician, I'm here as a student. I'm observing, not interfering."
As there are two million Afghan refugees in Iran, and the Teheran government is a bitter enemy of the Taliban, the war is an inescapable subject. She endorses the opposition to the military campaign that she has found in Iran. "I just can't understand how the biggest powers in the world can take on a poor, backward country whose people didn't choose their government."
Ballard's interest in Iran extends to Islam. She is reading about it but, as a Christian, "for the purposes of form filling", is not contemplating anything deeper than familiarisation.
As for British politics, they seem "a world away". Ballard entered Parliament through anti-Tory tactical voting and discovered that her opposition to hunting put her at odds with many constituents. Auberon Waugh was one, and ran a vitriolic campaign against her. She was too fat to be an MP, he suggested, although he eventually changed his mind after a jolly lunch with her in the Commons. "She is a humorous, sporting, intelligent and attractive woman, and I hope she wins the leadership of the Liberal Party," was his final verdict.
Ballard has been away from Westminster for six months and has already lost her taste for the place. "We had a general election where the big issue was who would spend one per cent of GDP more or less on public services. That's such an irrelevancy in terms of world priorities."
Does this mean she regrets ever being an MP? Her departure from politics was relatively brutal: she was targeted by pro-hunt voters. "If I hadn't been an MP, I wouldn't have ended up here. I don't regret it at all. It's given me perspective. It's opened lots of doors for me."
The fate of her party under Charles Kennedy, who defeated her in the race to succeed Paddy Ashdown two years ago, does not appear to trouble her. "I have no idea how my party is doing. And I don't wake up in the morning worrying about Charles Kennedy. Sorry Charles." She hoots with laughter.
She is, however, taking an interest in the selection contest in Taunton to choose the Lib Dem candidate for the next election. One of the short-listed four is the son of the outgoing British ambassador to Iran, who leaves this week, which would make a nice symmetry.
Ballard is eking out her redundancy pay - half a year's wages, about £25,000 - until she can find some form of income. She plans to find her own flat. In the meantime, she spends time in Teheran's thriving internet cafes, which are full of old women making cheap overseas telephone calls and young people surfing the net.
"I also go to a lot of dinner parties. Iranians have a lot of them. It makes it difficult to diet, but then it doesn't matter if you're covered up. The veil has many uses."
A simply ghastly story about a female, British Johnny Walker (the traitor captured fighting with the Taleban in Mazar-i-Sharif).
And vice versa, honey bunch. It's all about CHOICE v. compulsion. You could wear a head scarf here if you wanted to. But you could not refuse to wear one there. That about says it all. P.S. Please stay there.
Read my comment. If you don't think a story about "a leftist Brit ex-MP" turning her back on Western values to go live in an "Islamic Republic" at the height of the war on terror has anything to do with "the interests of this website," you obviously aren't here very much.
By the way, as the Brits say, "Have you been 'told' lately?"
Indeed. I find a lot of her comments to be outright "disinformation," based on what my Iranian friends tell me (we've got a bunch of Iranians in Southern California) and what I read (book recommendation: "Persian Mirrors" by Elaine Sciolino). This woman doesn't love Iran and its system, she just hates and resents the West, especially since the voters in her district gave her the heave-ho.
I think the days of the mullahs are numbered.
Inshallah! There're a lot of people in and outside of Iran, including me, who hope you're right.
She's like a lot of ex-pats. Irritating bunch, to be sure. I'd like to spend some time in Iran myself after they change their government, the people are intelligent, urbane, generous and hospitable to a fault, the women are stunningly beautiful, and the civilization's about 5,000 years old, but I'd hate to have to run into folks like this woman.
I second the motion! (Now if they'd only turn the outdoors temperature down to a comfortable 50s Fahrenheit...)
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