Eyewitness view of women in Iraq

Yanar Mohammed, a founder of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), spoke at Bluestockings Bookstore in New York City in June. Her remarks appear in the Aug/Sep 2004 issue of News & Letters.

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I'm so glad to speak here and to know there are so many people who care about women in Iraq. I believe men and women should have equal rights and there should be no different treatment of people based on ethnicity or religion, and there should be separation of mosque and state.

The bloody rule of Saddam Hussein kept us under dictatorship for 35 years, but now that's history. I didn't want the war because I knew there would be severe casualties, but now we are trying to make the best of it. Real change must come from the people; it cannot be imposed from above.

OWFI began with three women in Baghdad in post-war Iraq. We asked ourselves, what do we want Iraq to look like? I want to walk on the streets, proud to be a woman, without someone telling me to stay inside the house and wear black from head to toe, telling me I cannot go to work without the permission of my husband or my father, denying me access to education. I don't want my husband to marry three other women.

BUSH PROMISED FREEDOM: IT’S A LIE

The freedoms promised to us by George Bush turned out to be a big lie, as expected. The U.S. is giving the power over to the patriarchal forces, starting with the Islamists, then the nationalists, and even, to our big surprise, the tribal leaders.

The new Iraq is being led by a president who is a tribal head, and a prime minister from the previous Ba'ath regime—an Arab nationalist party that is fascist and willing to commit genocide against minorities, as seen in the 180,000 Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's army. Every decade we had a new war justified by this wish for Arab glory. So this so-called hand-over of power is handing power to the most reactionary forces in society, where women have no voice. Even the few women they put into the new government are not activists who can rise to the challenge of the times.

We have no credible government. OWFI's membership in Iraq is over 2,000—many more than last time I was here! These women are not allowed to take part in the councils organized by the Americans, who don't consider secular women acceptable because they give priority to tribal and religious heads. The mullahs were visiting the U.S. occupiers (CPA) all the time, but we were not allowed to be on any of those councils because we want a government that is secular, egalitarian, non-nationalistic.

ILLEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT

At some point there were promises of a secular government, but now there is none. The new government is illegitimate because it was set up according to a formula based on religion, ethnicity and gender. The transitional constitution they have written is based mainly on Islamic Sharia law. It allows exceptions for those of other religions, but again they identify us as Muslim or non-Muslim. And if you are a Muslim, are you a Shiite, a Sunni, a Wahabi, or what? If you are a Christian, what kind of Christian? Do you see where this scenario takes us? To fighting in the streets by armed militias funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are the ones in black who have machine guns, and are the biggest enemies of women.

Here is some of what OWFI did from January to May: We now have almost 10,000 supporters; we distribute that many copies of our newspaper, EQUALITY. During the violent days in March, we were able to get almost 1,000 people out for International Women's Day (IWD), to the square where Saddam's statue was pulled down, 900 of them women, some under the veil.

In January, the CPA held a conference for women but invited only professionals and women sent by political Islamist parties. They defended the Iraqi Governing Council’s Resolution 137 imposing sharia and repealing rights of women. With sharia, there is no minimum age for marriage, men can and do marry children. The day after the resolution, 85 women's groups were demonstrating against it! We succeeded in getting it repealed.

Yet the U.S. continues to say that people want a religious government. They cite the half million Shiites who came into the streets after Saddam fell. That took place during the euphoria of being able to practice religion as they wished after years of being forbidden. But this year only 1,500 came out. People don't want to live under a sad religious culture. Even men want to see the women they live with free. Capitalist systems need religion to keep the family structure, to keep workers divided, to keep workers and women under control. We want socialism instead.

In February millions of dollars went missing from the banks and was replaced by counterfeit money. It was probably stolen by people in the Ministry of Finance. They blamed low level women bank clerks saying they would go to jail unless they paid back huge amounts of money. Fifty women were taken to jail and hundreds more were threatened. We helped them organize a union and demanded the CPA negotiate with us. It was a major embarrassment for the CPA, and the women were released. The men who put them there were jailed instead. All these women are now members of OWFI.

The new government is illegitimate. The Worker Communist Party of Iraq is planning for another day. I believe in a socialist revolution, but I work for reforms every day. We don' t want a society like Russia; that was state-capitalist, not socialist. We emphasize human rights, women's rights, a future of workers' rule.

—Yanar Mohammed

To support OWFI, see their website: www.equalityiniraq.com

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