Iranian Women See Ebadi As Feminist Force By BRIAN MURPHY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN, Iran
Nine years ago, sociologist Saeed Madeni was jailed for three months for writing an article about Shirin Ebadi's campaign for women's rights.
"Feminism was considered as bad as atheism at that time," Madeni said Saturday, a day after Ebadi became the surprise winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Some limits on Iranian women have been rolled back since Madeni's arrest. But Ebadi's new international stature is considered a powerful tool to strike at more barriers - including laws that stripped Ebadi, Iran's first women judge, of her right to preside in court.
"This is an important moment for Iranian women," said Madeni, a researcher at a state-funded institute. "It could be a real turning point. I think Iranian reformers always expected a man to lead them, but it turns out differently."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee's selection of the relatively unknown lawyer-activist over others, including Pope John Paul II, was widely interpreted as a message to the Islamic world to expand women's roles on all levels.
"I am so happy I can't control myself," said Parvin Ardalan, an activist who has often joined Ebadi in challenges of Iran's ruling clerics. "This prize will push the Iranian women's movement to a brighter future."
The 1979 Islamic Revolution wiped out the Western-style of life and ambitions that were available to Iranian women. But even the most conservative clerics recognized that Iran's culture would not tolerate the heavy restrictions imposed in nations such as Saudi Arabia.
Slowly, Iranian women have made advances as the theocracy answers to the influence of reformers. The clerics have ceded ground on social issues, while making no concessions that would erode their political power.
The 290-member parliament has 11 women. Earlier this month, Iran's first women police officers joined the force.
Rules on the required coverings for women in public have been eased: hair pours out from under head scarves and the formless coat, known as the manteau, once favored by Iranian women has been largely replaced by shorter and tailored knee-length coverings.
But many doors remain closed.
A woman needs her husband's permission to work or travel abroad, and a man's court testimony is considered twice as important as a woman's.
Jobs such as judge and posts with the ruling inner circle are for men only. The powerful Guardian Council, which vets political candidates and interprets laws, has indicated women are barred from becoming president. But that interpretation could be challenged by Ebadi's supporters if momentum builds for her candidacy to succeed President Mohammad Khatami in 2005.
Ebadi has argued for a new interpretation of Islamic law that embraces democracy and equality before the law.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan saw a direct connection between the Nobel decision and demands for a greater voice for women.
"I hope this award will also underscore the importance of expanding human rights throughout the world and also how women speak out and insist on their rights," Annan said Friday.
The new Nobel laureate is scheduled to return to Tehran from Paris on Tuesday. Khatami's office - which has praised the award - said top government envoys would greet her.
The response from the hard-liners controlling the real power has ranged from indifference to harsh denunciations.
Conservative newspapers either ignored the news or published small items - in contrast to the banner headlines in the reformist press. State radio and television mentioned Ebadi at the tail end of their broadcasts.
"The prize is a support for secular movements, and against the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution," said Hamid Reza Taraqi, a former lawmaker and member of the hard-line Islamic Coalition Society.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2003/oct/11/101104565.html
NATIONAL IRANIAN AMERICAN COUNCIL
www.niacouncil.org
Washington DC, October 9, 2003 – As the days creep toward the October 31 deadline for Iran to comply with IAEA protocols regarding its nuclear status, "Iranologist" Ray Takeyh finds himself frequently called upon to characterize Iran's outlook and policy alternatives with regard to nuclear development. Today as a guest of the South Asian Studies department at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, the National Defense University scholar fit his analysis of issues of nuclear weapons and terrorism into a sketch of the trajectory of Iran's foreign relations since 1979 (and the isolation of the decade under Khomeini), which he sees as "a halting process of transition from a revolutionary state to a pragmatic state," though the process of "graduating" is "neither absolute nor comprehensive."
He thinks that the Iranian approach to non-proliferation, terrorism and changes in the political landscape of its neighbors has increasingly reflected and will demonstrate, to some extent, an awareness that direct confrontation with the United States is not a risk the state can afford.
On Iran's self-limitation of relationships with Al-Qaeda or saboteurs in Iraq, for example, Takeyh pointed out how a cautious outlook, if not rhetoric, may be required in this era of an American doctrine of military intervention as a preventative measure for both proliferation and terrorism: "Flirting with terrorist organizations can not just get you condemnation, but a visit from General Sanchez." In fact, he said, even directly after September 11, Hizbollah leadership was called to Tehran with a message of, "This better not be you!" Takeyh also revealed in the question and answer period that Iranian conservatives have secretly sent representatives to study the China model: political passivity for economic rewards.
Takeyh, Director of Studies at the Near East and South Asian Institute of the NDU, posits that a realization of the necessity for some form of relationship with the United States has affected Iranian policy especially in the past two years, though he stipulated, "We can't really speak of Iranian government; we have to speak of Iranian governments." He implied that the "perplexing impasse" on certain issues between conservatives/hard-liners and liberals/reformists Additionally, Takeyh pointed out that while the American instinct is to interact with other regimes based on package agreements that incorporate all areas of overlapping concerns, the Iranians would prefer what he calls "compartmentalized pragmatism," relations with the United States on certain issues where there exists a coincidence of interests, such as a stable Afghanistan, which led them to participate cordially in the Bonn and Tokyo conferences on the matter.
As well, Iran's policies on issues that have historically been guided by their religious ideological cores have seen significant shifts as the need for economic growth and some friends in the international community outweigh them. For example, Takeyh cited the example that though Iran's longstanding and tried relationship with Hizbollah remains intact and problematic, the policy of opposition to a Palestinian-Israeli peace has been narrowed to opposition of an American-brokered peace. The shift in part represents a following of Saudi Arabia's lead, with which (as early as 1995) the Iranian government prioritized a relationship over support for Shi'a dissidents in Saudi Arabia, though it is a state that Khomeini spent pages of his will denouncing.
The pattern of non-involvement in Shi'a minority rights can be observed most places except for Lebanon, says Takeyh, such as in Kashmir, because of the primacy of Iran's relationship with Moscow, and even in Iraq, though Iran does hope to have interlocutors (though not necessarily representatives) in the future government. Additionally, he marks Khatami's election as the beginning of active Iranian interests in trade and international dialogue with members of the European Union and India, for example, with whom efforts to establish a viable commercial relationship based on their purchase of Iran's natural gas continue.
With respect to non-proliferation compliance, Takeyh believes that there is a real debate going on in Iran now, for "this is not an issue that breaks down on pragmatist and conservative/hardliner." Outlining three schools of thought on the issue, he predicted that Iran will sign the additional IAEA protocols in the next couple of months, approaching but not crossing the threshold (as India has done), he says. The first school of thought, in favor of developing nuclear weapons, uses the "dangerous neighborhood" argument, which Takeyh considers somewhat difficult to support. Iraq was formerly a threat because of its chemical weapons programs, but no longer, Pakistan is less frequently cited because the relationship is murky and it is a fellow Muslim country, and Israel is most accurately characterized as a condition conflict in which both parties use proxies-Iran acts through Hizbollah and other such pro-Palestinian groups, and Israel acts through US-imposed sanctions.
The second school of thought on nuclear development advocates going forward with a program under IAEA auspices, during the three-to-four-year window it takes to implement full monitoring, and the two years it would take them to complete your survey, but negotiating and splitting the coalition on the US side all the while. Finally, some of those Takeyh refers to as pragmatists or reformists take the position that for Iran to possess nuclear weapons would only exacerbate its strategic vulnerabilities, resulting in further isolation and commercial weakening. Among most views there is some consideration of the national pride, the question of why some states may have nuclear weapons while Iran is told they should not be among them.
In the future, then, Takeyh sees coalitions shifting based upon Iran's relations with the United States, and an Iranian interest in the security architecture of the post-war Persian Gulf because it is crucial for access to the international petroleum market. Hardliners will continue to desire isolation, because under its conditions internal concessions are not needed as "you can talk about external threats, external enemies which you yourself created."
Ray Takeyh recently published an article in the journal entitled National Interest including many of the themes of this talk, and has written a soon-to-be-published book, Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam. He has written extensively on various international issues and was previously a fellow at Yale University in International Security Studies.
http://www.niacouncil.org/pressreleases/press125.asp