Open letter to Ms. Amanpour. "Iranian Women are better off today" Are they?
On Monday, March 12 the Society of Iranian Professionals in San Jose had sponsored a meeting with Ms. Amanpour, the famous CNN Foreign Correspondent Reporter. The meeting was quite informative and I enjoyed having been under the same roof with such a group of professional Iranians. During the question and answer period, I asked Ms. Amanpour the following question "why she compared Iranian women with women in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and such in her documentaries about Iran. I told her that when I was growing up in Tehran in the 50¹s and prior to my departure to America in 1964 no one dared to compare women in Iran with the women in Saudi Arabia?" Because at that time the Iranian women advancements in our society was so far and superior that we were compared to most advanced Western women.

Ms. Amanpour interrupted my question and stated that since the Revolution in 1979 things have improved quite a bit for the Iranian Women as a whole. She explained that prior to the revolution the traditional Iranian women stayed at home. Today they are out and demanding their rights. She continued by saying that the Islamic revolution was the best thing that could happen to the Iranian women. They have lost their legal rights however, they are gaining grounds and are voting and getting elected to the office. She also stated that the Iranian women do not mind the hijab and they are making head ways in gaining back some legal rights under the frame work of the Islamic Republic. In addition she used herself as an example of a woman who would not have considered pursuing a career in journalism had it not been for the Islamic revolution which forced her to leave Iran and come to the United States of America. She also mentioned that in her documentary on Iran aired last year she was a bit too optimistic about Khatami and what he was able to do for Iran and the Iranians.

I perceived from her presentation and her answers to the questions that it was OK for the modern Iranian women such as my sister Dr. Homa Darabi and hundreds of educated and accomplished women of the pre-revolution time to be sacrificed in order to emancipate the traditional Iranian women. And I gathered that in her opinion Iranian women are better off today than in the period prior to the revolution.

Although I admire and respect such women as you for your accomplishments and believe that you are among the icons in our global society. However, I find your logic absolutely preposterous and without merit. To state that it was worthwhile to sacrifice women such as Dr. Farokh Roo Parsa, the first female Secretary of Education, Dr. Homa Darabi, the first Iranian to be accepted to the United States Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; and to imprison women such as Mehrangiz Kar, Shala Lahigi, Shirin Ebadi, and to stab to death women such as Parvaneh Skandary-Forohar and hundreds of young women to emancipate traditional women like Azam Taleghani is beyond my comprehension.

The women that this Islamic revolution sacrificed were icons just as Ms. Amanpour in their own professions and it took years of hard work and sweat and tear for them to become who they were. How dare can anyone say that it was worthwhile to loose them and gain what? What has the Islamic Republic brought us except shame, fear, poverty, isolation and Š.? Why should we want to have women such as shameless Azam Taleghani¹s to be leaders of Iranian women? In her interview with the Marie Claire Magazine, in the article "Tradition or outrage" Azam Taleghani states that " If my own daughter committed adultery, I would support death by stoning for her. The law is the law."

In the 20 years prior to the revolution of 1979 Iranian women gained incredible amount of freedom and power. We gained the right to vote in 1963. The family protection act went into effect in 1964. The polygamy was outlawed and Iranian women were given the right to divorce, get the custody of their children, travel without any restriction from their husbands or fathers and they were involved in all aspect of our society. Above all we had the freedom to choose what to wear in public, what fields of study to pursue and we could go abroad for higher education.

By 1978, 33% of university students were female with 2 million in the workforce. 190,000 were professionals with university degrees. There were 333 women in the local councils, 22 in Majlis and 2 in the Senate.

Women were singers, dancers, musicians, performers, lawyers and judges. Such professions are denied women under the rules of the Islamic Republic. In the pre-revolution times women could be witnesses in the court of law and the testimony of one woman was equal to that of one man. And if we were harmed or lost our lives we or our families were compensated based on our worth and not that of cows and camels, as is the practice under the Islamic laws. And never our life and livelihood was equal to one half of our male counter parts. Was it really worthwhile to loose all those rights so that the traditional women could be able to vote?!!!

Stoning, flogging, beating, acid throwing, mutilating and hanging in public was considered barbaric and to my knowledge was never done to women. And no mother in Iran was proud to stone her daughter to death as the case of Azam Taleghani.

Besides what to vote on? Who to vote for? The ratification of the Islamic laws that are barbaric and oppose to the basic human rights! Or to elect the people who must be certified by an Islamic committee comprised of group of outdated and fundamentalist Ayatollahs!!

And please, Ms. Amanpour don¹t tell me that it is not Khatami, but the Islamic Republic¹s constitution that has closed 35 newspapers and magazines and has imprisoned all the reporters, journalists, and editors. Khatami has the power to provoke the people of Iran into a mass strike against the foundation of the Islamic Republic. Wasn¹t Khatami elected by over 80% of the voting population? Didn¹t he have the support of over 22 million Iranian women and young men? Why doesn¹t he take advantage of his power and order a peaceful strike against Khamnenei and his people?

He keeps talking about dialogue among civilizations. Don¹t you think it is time for him and his Mullah friends to become civilized? You know why? Ms. Amanpour because he, himself is a Mullah and a Muslim and there is no such a thing as a moderate Moslem. Islam means submission and one either submits or gets killed in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I have not found anyone who can define "moderate submission."

Under the Shah we had personal freedom and not political freedom. Under the Islamic Republic we have lost both. I also don¹t know what Iranian woman told you that she does not mind the hijab. Perhaps you did not ask the question from a broad sample of women in Iran to validate your assumption. My sister burned herself to death in the public square because she did not want to wear the hijab. Her last cries were "death to tyranny, long live freedom, long live Iran." I hope you will read the book, "Rage Against the Veil" I presented you to understand how much better off we Iranian women were prior to the 1979 revolution and what we have to do to become an equal part of the Iranian society.

Sometimes, I let my mind go wild and I think what would we, Iranians, be today if there was not this revolution and would allow the progress to take its course. If we had not had the revolution we would not have had the Iran/Iraq war and so many of our youth would not have died. All the women I mentioned above would have kept contributing to the wellbeing of our nation. I am positive that the exchange rate would have been lowered to perhaps 20 Rials/Dollar instead of 8,500 Rials/Dollar. Our population had not doubled in size and unemployment rate would have been a lot closer to 5% than the 35%. Mandatory primary and secondary education would have raised the knowledge base in our homeland. Foreign investment, tourism and expansion of industry would have brought such prosperity to our homeland that we would have all been home and you would have enlightened us with your talk in Tehran and would have been introduced by an Iranian colleague. And the society of Iranian professionals would have invited you to the historical Talar-e-Rodaki. One more thing, I believe revolution or no revolution you would have become who you are just as I did due to our inherent will and determination to succeed.

I believe the revolution of 1979 was a mistake since it gave the power to the religious fundamentalist and it was not properly planned and correctly organized. That is perhaps why the Iranian people are not in favor of another revolution until such time they can properly define the democratic form of government they wish to have, a government that would give them life, liberty and the pursuit of their happiness. These are my thoughts.

Parvin Darabi