Women are the epicentre of the earthquake that can

put an end to the whole anti-woman Islamic Republic system!

The notable presence of women in the one-year-old uprising of the people of Iran inflicted a fatal blow on the anti-women Islamic system. This broad and extensive presence showed that women are one of the main forces to upend this society's system of oppression and exploitation. It showed how women have targeted nerve centre of the Islamic regime that is the oppression of women and seriously challenged the regime's ideological identity. It showed how the liberation, freedom and equality of women is tied to the overthrow of the whole Islamic Republic.

It is not without reason that in the recent months once again an extensive campaign against women and those who do not fully observe hijab (the principle of modesty, mainly meaning that women must fully cover their heads and body) has been launched by the Islamic regime rulers and its reactionary prayer-leader imams in Tehran, Mashhad and other cities.

Kazem Sedighi, one of these Friday prayer leaders, claimed that women who are not observing the hijab prescribed by Islamic law "have increased the possibility of an earthquake." This claim is an expression of the point that hijab is a decisive feature of the Islamic system.  The authorities' extensive campaign against women for not observing hijab, at a moment when the Islamic Republic is struggling for its very existence, shows that hijab is a criteria to measure loyalty or disloyalty to the regime. In launching such a campaign on issues such as hijab that represent contempt for women and their oppression, they want to appeal to the other half of the society.

It is clear that in such a situation, this attack against the women is being launched not from a position of strength but one of weakness, and that women have played an important role in creating this situation.

At the same time, the "Green" leaders who advocate an Islamic Republic – "not a word less, not a word more" – are supporting all the anti-women laws and beliefs, including compulsory hijab and Islamic punishment of women. They want to keep those laws.

Nobody has forgotten that it was with the Khomeini's order that hijab – this symbol of women's slavery – became compulsory. Khomeini, like the whole Islamic system, believed that women should be kept covered to ensure men's ownership of women and in this way preserve the social order based on the patriarchal system. Compulsory hijab is the symbol of all the unequal laws and Islamic punishment that Khomeini introduced. This is why women were the first social force that protested against Khomeini and his reactionary order, staging five days of protest starting on 8 March 1978 and making the regime retreat for a time. Since then the struggle and resistance of women and in particular young girls against compulsory hijab have continued.

The women and girls who crave liberation, equality and freedom, those who want to destroy the old society and establish a new society and are fighting for it, should push the "Green" leadership aside. They should not forget that both the so-called "reformists" and "conservatives' are protecting a total anti-women system and, each in their own way, both want to prevent it from falling apart. The oppression of women is one of this system's main pillars.

Women's struggles over the last 31 years and their brave role in the recent struggles, in particular on Ashura (26 December 2009) when they targeted the main anti-women symbol, have shown that, yes, women are the epicentre of an earthquake that can put an end to the existence of the Islamic regime forever and on its ashes build a new society where women are not oppressed and religion is separate from state, a society where the different nationalities are not oppressed. A society that is not based on suppression, prison, torture and rape but on equality and freedom, where all are free to express their opinion, a society in which there is no oppression and exploitation.

8 March Women's organization (Iran-Afghanistan)

June 2010    

www.8mars.com   /  zan_dem_iran@hotmail.com