"I am a doctor, so I have no fear of death. Death is only a moment and no more. I am prepared to receive death with open arms rather than live in shame by being forced to be veiled. I am not going to bow to those who expect me to express regret for fifty years of my efforts for equality between men and women. I am not prepared to wear the chador and step back in history."
This was the last letter Dr. Farrokhroo Parsa wrote to her children from her jail cell. Shortly after, she was executed by the firing squad of Mullah Khomeini's regime. Amongst the myriad of unjust accusations filed against Dr. Parsa by the hateful mullahs was her alleged encouragement towards the Iranian female athletes to wear shorts. Before the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, Dr. Parsa was the Minister of Education. On May 8, 1980, she was executed . The official reason for her execution was: "spreading vice on Earth and fighting God" (whatever that means). Dr. Parsa was not the only National Treasure we lost to these thugs. Many Iranian women believe that Dr. Parsa, as well as other female educators, were killed immediately after the 1979 revolution in an attempt to put fear in Iranian women and thus, force them into submission.
After the mullahs took over Iran, most women accepted their faiths, gave up their freedoms and wore the Chador. A few brave Iranian women, however, took a stand and said no to submission. Many, like Dr. Parsa, were eliminated by these hateful men of God. Others took their own lives in protest. One of the saddest cases of suicide was Dr. Homa Darabi. Soaked in gasoline, Dr. Darabi walked to the middle of a public square in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and set herself on fire. As the fire covered her body, Homa removed her headscarf and shouted “Death to tyranny. Long live freedom. Long live Iran”
I was one of the female athletes that wore shorts, which apparently contributed to Dr. Parsa’s execution. I was on the basketball team in my high school and we wore shorts that came down below our knees. I, however, wore shorter shorts when I rode my bike in our neighborhood. I really don’t remember asking Dr. Parsa if I should wear shorts or not.
Right after his 1979 victory, mullah Khomeini declared Chador (Veil) as the flag of revolution. As time went by, that flag of revolution turned Black.
My blog, Black Chador is dedicated to Dr. Parsa and Dr. Darabi and other brave women like them. It is also dedicated to all the women in Iran who are still fighting for Freedom, Equality and Justice against this barbarian regime.
I don’t like writing long blogs, but as time goes by, I will write more about Black Chador and the history of Chador in Iran.
7 comments:
Excellent again! I agree 100% that we should educate the world about what is happening in Iran which is just like a black hole under mollahs. Nobody really knows the degree of oppression for all Iraninas bu especially for Iranian women.
Please keep on blogging about this collosal injustice.
Dear Holly,
I warn you, this is a SUPER LONG comment I'm leaving for you here, but please take the time to read it all, thanks!
I would like to show you a couple of quotes here, and ask you to guess who they came from?
1)
"The revolutionary government owes to the good citizen all the protection of the nation; it owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death... These notions would be enough to explain the origin and the nature of laws that we call revolutionary ... If the revolutionary government must be more active in its march and more free in his movements than an ordinary government, is it for that less fair and legitimate? No; it is supported by the most holy of all laws: the Salvation of the People."
2)
"Terror is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice."
go ahead guess! whose are these quotes??? Khomeini? Khamenei? perhaps Khalkhali? ha?!!!! what do you think????!!!! maybe the second one is from an Al-Qaeda leader???
:-)
No, my dear friend, these sentences are both from Maximilien Robespierre, the most influential member of the Committee of Public Safety established on 6 September 1793 in the most horrifying period of the French Revolution called "La Terreur" or "The Reign of Terror".
What's my point?
You see dear friend, knowledge of history is always the best tool we can rely upon in order to better understand our present time political events and trends.
If the French Revolution which eventually (after MANY years and too much bloodshed and disappointment, not to mention after it was stolen by Napoleon Bonaparte and turned into an Empire and structured as a monarchy again), finally led to the formation of modern France based on Enlightenment principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights, then could we have REALLY expected the Iranian Revolution to lead to a perfect Democracy right away????? Would that have been a "fair" expectation according to HISTORY?? Any historian will tell you NO!
As I've told you before, my uncle was a historian, which is why as ENLIGHTENED and modern as he was, but he never approved of those forces from outside Iran who insisted upon changing the course of history by FORCE. He knew better! After all, he had seen so much more resilience and survival from Iran in the course of its 2500 years civilization, that he was certain the dark times would eventually pass!
btw, he also told me in the summer of 1991 when he had come to Montreal to visit us, that the American Empire was exhibiting ALL the same signs of the Roman Empire at the END of it!
He said Empires have a common way of rise-fall cycles which are always predictable when looking at them through the prism of HISTORY. He said that from what he could see by looking at the sociological, economic and political trends in America, its consistently low standing at the bottom of the list when it came to K-12 Education ranking (especially in Math and Sciences) among all the industrial nations, its greed-based economy which had no regulations put on businesses, and its bullying foreign policy, it would only be the matter of decades (he even said a couple of decades, if I remember correctly!!!) before this Empire will fall too!
So, my friend, if Iran had Revolutionary Committees and Courts in the first couple of years between 1979 and 1980 where some radical "bloodthirsty mullah" types like Khalkhali acted the way Maximilien Robespierre acted between 1793 and 1794, let's NOT "throw the baby out with the bath water", and let's stay more optimistic about the chances of having our revolution EVENTUALLY correct and REFORM itself according to principles of Enlightenment, albeit Islamic Enlightenment which is the only kind of Enlightenment appropriate for a country of 90% Muslims with a 1400 years of Islamic history!
you know? My MOST favorite composer in the WORLD who has shaped a lot of who I am (b/c I grew up listening to his genius symphonies as if they were the voice of God), i.e., Ludwig van Beethoven was attracted to the ideals of the Enlightenment in Europe, so he initially dedicated his third symphony, the Eroica (Italian for "heroic"), to Napoleon, believing that he actually intended to sustain the democratic and republican ideals of the French Revolution, but in 1804, when Napoleon's imperial ambitions became clear, Beethoven took hold of the title-page of his symphony and scratched the name Bonaparte out so violently that he made a hole in the paper. He later changed the work's title to "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uom" ("Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man"), and he rededicated it to his patron, Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz. The fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony (which is my most favorite piece of music in the whole wide world, and ALWAYS makes me not only cry but sob like a baby) also features an elaborate choral setting of Schiller's Ode An die Freude ("Ode to Joy"), an optimistic hymn championing the brotherhood of humanity, and as you might know, Schiller and Goethe were the fathers of Romanticism in Europe, which was heavily shaped by their study and fascination of our Hafez, as evidenced in Goethe's West-Eastern Divan (as sited in any encyclopedia you refer to as: a collection of poems in the Persian style, influenced by the work of Hafez).
So Anna,
I read your entire post and didn't get enlightened. What does your comments has to do with my post of Khomeini killing our brave Iranian women?
Are you saying we should welcome what that bastard did to our country and our mothers, sisters and daughters?
I am not a historian but a person with common sense. My common sense says these mullahs will not free Iran willingly and it is up to Iranians to pull the rug from under them.
If you want to relay on history then take a look at countries with strong Islamic history and then tell me which one is a pro democracy and Human Rights?
As for blaming all the killings in Iran on Khalkhali he was chosen by Mullah Khomeini to be the implementer of their nonsense Sharia law and to kill as many dissenters as he could. “Kholkholi” (Insane in Farsi) as many Iranians called him was a long time friend and supporter of Mullah Khomeini. Their relationship goes back as far as 1955. Kholhkoli later on became a strong support of Khatami (I wonder why). I wonder if Khatami agreed with him or supported him and his gang, Fadayane Islam or not but I believe there was something there which we might never find out what. But we know that Khatami was elected as president of Iran in 1997 and then got re-elected in 2001. At the same time we know many Iranian dissenters which majorities of them were highly educated and intellectuals were murdered by various means not limited to car accidents, stabbing during robberies or even manufactured heart attack by injection of potassium in to their veins. All these killings were done in 1998 during Thalami’s first term with Kholkholi at his side. I know your uncle was an important poet and journalist and highly intellectual, I always wonder about his death.
Like you I use to believe in “History repeats itself” but now I believe “History should repair itself before repeating itself” what do I mean by that? I believe we should learn from history and not only learn from I mistakes made but also fast forward the good parts. I bet if during French revelation people had access to internet and cell phone with video capturing capability, Blackberry with all its capabilities then the French didn’t have to wait for over 100 years to pick the fruit of their revelation. It is interesting that you brought out the French history which is one of my interests. I always called the “Bread Revolution” and in many occasions I wondered what would happen if Iranians were denied their bread? Would they rise up to these Unelected Mullahs?
One interesting point I learned from my kid sister that lives in England. She is a food scientist for a major company in England. She once told me that by regulation government of England have made sure that price of bread be kept at the lowest level so everyone can afford the basic bread. Would that mean the Royal Family has learned from history and don’t want “History to repeat itself”? I wonder.
I have promised my reader not to write long blogs but to answer your long comment I have to break my promise, oh well.
Anna, the other difference between French revolution and Iranian revolution is the religion. Once you insert religion in a revolution or governing, all bets are off. This blood thirsty Mullahs (yes including your dear Mullah Khatami) will use Quran and Sharia laws to suck the blood out of every Iranian before we cut their hands off our country’s throat. These Mullahs starting with Mullah Khomeini have destroyed our culture and have taken out every characteristic s of our heritage such as joy, color, writing, dancing, singing, laughing and gathering. They even tried to take our wonderful Nurooz away from us in the name of Islam. No wonder Atheism has become the fastest growing faith in young Iranian population. Maybe at the end Mullah Khomeini’s legacy is that he was the one that destroyed Islam in Iran (one can hope).
At the end, I am honor to have such a young Iranian intellectual woman such as you on my blog. It is sad that people like you are not in Iran teaching our next young generation and getting them ready for a robust and prospers Iran in 21st century. Please keep up the good job you doing on this blog. I also read every comment you write on http://ebtekarm.blogspot.com/ .
Hey! Thank you for breaking your own promise and writing such a long response to my HUGE comment! It's really getting stimulating! :-)
You do have some very good points, I can't argue with that! Actually when I read a few months ago that the GREAT Dr. Haddad-Adel had given a speech in a commemorating ceremony for Khalkhali, I lost ALL trust in anybody from Iran's right wing, so I put my trust in the left wing entirely! But you're saying even Khatami supported that killer?! ... interesting! I did not know that!!!
You see my friend, this is what happens when you don't follow ANYTHING about the news of what's going on in a country that seemed absolutely doomed and hopeless to you, but then suddenly you think there's HOPE and you start following their news for a couple of years while an entire 18-19 years of it is all blank to you!!!
Thank you for enlightening me!
;-)
btw, my point about raising the comparison with the "Reign of Terror" in France at the beginning of their revolution, is that revolutions are always rocky at the beginning, and ours is only 30 years old, so let's give it a few more decades, let's do all we can to avoid a French Empire destiny by giving it back to the Pahlavi dynasty or any other monarchy (although, these clerics have been ruling exactly as if it was a monarchy for the past 30 years anyway), and let's just concentrate on promoting the principles of the ENLIGHTENMENT in Iran (with an Islamic twist, b/c again, Iran needs to modernize itself but as part of the modern Muslim world, otherwise it cannot survive in a sea of rival Arabs who hate the Ajam Persians)!
bad migam?! ...
;-)
actually, I just tried to make a few more points in defense of my earlier arguments here, which I abdicated too easily :-) but i addressed it to that guy on Persian Paradox who calls himself Soleslide, the American guy in Mumbai who insulted us in his earlier comments. I hope Dr. Ebtekar will soon post my comment there (under her "Khatami Speaks Out" post) and I will bring it back to my own site so that we can go from there!
I couldn't talk like that to you my friend, that's why I used some of the points I had tried to make to you here, I added a bit more umph and zest and clearer explanations to it, and I posted it there as an equally as condescending response to that guy's condescending comments about Iran! It is in no way something I would do to you!
;-)
hey, it's me again! sorry!
just wanted to say that i couldn't wait to see if Ebtekar posts it or not, so i just brought it back to my own site, wanna read?
http://mrs-immanuel-kant.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-response-to-mr-soleslide.html
a lot of it is redundant to you, but i think my points are clearer now, what do you think?
i mean, moving on from the Kholkholi arguments and Dr. Parsa and everything else, what do you think of my points about the 8-year war and all the protectionism they had to cling to, hence making the society more ripe for the fundamentalist, dictatorial, immoral forces to steal the revolution and derail it from its righteous path? let's say you are right about all the BAD mullahs, ... but still, looking at it from the sociological point of view.
>> Maybe at the end Mullah Khomeini’s legacy is that he was the one that destroyed Islam in Iran (one can hope).
I like that idea. To show a contemporary parallel, history will show that Bush ended the era of extremist ideologue neocons in US. That is quite an irony. Both of these religious extremists set their goal to promote their ideology and ended up destroying it by pushing their causes beyond tolerance limits and disgusting the offended masses. I am an atheist but these ironies sometimes remind me that there maybe a benevolent god who sent Chomeinis and Bushes to get us rid of plights :-)
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