VOICES FROM IRAQ
By Ginny NiCarthy
II: GLIMPSES OF A UNIVERSITY
Seeing "beyond the crosshairs" had meant to me understanding a little about Iraqi culture through glimpses of day-to-day life, as well as dipping into Iraqi Culture with a capital C, including music, art and literature. Yet it was hard to focus on any topic other than the impending escalation of war. If Iraqis didn't bring up the threat of more U.S. bombs, or the devastating results of Desert Storm, Desert Fox, or Security Council sanctions, I did it myself.
So the very idea of a party at first sounded more bizarre than welcome. Through some grapevine that remains mysterious to me, our peace team was invited to a cultural event presented by a group of professional people. A party. The concept of sheer pleasure struck me as out of kilter, maybe even a frivolous indulgence. Nevertheless I joined the rest of the group, and we were ushered into a garden. In the pale light of the courtyard, one minute the plants looked vaguely pretty, and the next minute they seemed droopily oppressed by the heat, which hovered over ninety in the daytime.
Thamir, our official government monitor, or minder, was present, but so were about fifty Iraqis and Americans, women and men, laughing and talking in small groups. I was introduced to several of them, and soon I had buttonholed Saad, an English professor and his wife Lamia, who taught linguistics, both at the University of Baghdad. Our conversation was as close to private as anything I experienced in the ten days we had been herded here and there, nearly always accompanied by a government representative.
It was startling to see women, many of them in their sixties or older, wearing gaily colored skirts above ankle length or trousers. Neither black nun-like veils, nor decorative scarves covered women's hair. In contrast, at the children's diarrhea clinic, the leukemia hospital, and nearly everywhere we had been, women wore veils to cover their hair or headscarves, most of them black, though some were white or patterned. The ambience of the garden and the people hinted at a different universe from the one I had briefly dipped into all week. I know that Westerners are accused with some justice of obsessing about Muslim women's dress, yet I couldn't get over how obvious people's apparent belief systems or values appear when they dress in such disparate ways. So I asked Lamia how those who wear "modern" or "western" attire and traditionally clad women view each other.
"We don't even notice," she said. "Dress is not important. One of my good friends at the university wears a veil." She also mentioned a friend who prefers western dress, and who is upset that her thirteen-year-old daughter has taken to wearing a "veil." I took that to mean, for a girl that age, a scarf. Lamia didn't comment on the apparent importance of traditional attire, in that case, to both the mother and daughter.
I am a social worker by training and an activist by temperament, and for many years I worked in the movement against abuse of women. So I wanted to know how people deal with social problems, especially domestic violence, in this largely Muslim, yet officially secular, nation. Some U.S. researchers have found an increased incidence of abuse of women by men during war years, so I asked about that association in Iraq. Both Saad and Lamia quickly assured me that in their country there is no such thing as domestic violence. Saad explained that battering does not exist in Iraq, because the Koran encourages respect for women, and Iraqi families are strongly connected. I had asked the same question of Anisa, at the Women's Federation, and had received essentially the same explanation: Iraqi families have strong solid relationships "between husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and children and sisters and brothers." "Second," Anisa had said, "our social culture respects women very, very much. If a man raised his hand over a woman, whether she is related to him or not, he will not be respected among his friends. In our religion it is not allowed to even shout at a women, whether it's his wife or his sister, or even his daughter."
As an afterthought Anisa said that "if there is a case, and a woman -- or a man, sometimes -- comes to us and talks to us about such a problem, quickly we find a solution." Neither she nor I had commented on the disparity of her assertion that abuse of women didn't happen, yet when it does occur, a solution is found.
When Saad said essentially the same thing, my skepticism about the absence of battering and abuse was evident. After more conversation and my questioning his statements, Saad allowed as how, well, perhaps there was a little abuse, "maybe one in a thousand, among people who are, well, rural people. Primitive people. Drinkers perhaps."
Neither Saad's comments, nor Anisa's should have surprised me, since the pattern of first denying, then gradually admitting to abuse of women in one's culture was familiar to me, from years of working against violence to women. In the early days of the movement against battering, virtually no one in the U.S. -- or in most other countries -- would admit it was a problem. Eventually more and more people grudgingly admitted that, well, it happened to a few women, but they were of another class, or ethnic group, different from the mainstream. Then, as the movement grew, one ethnic and religious group after another would move through the same process: it doesn't happen in our community. Well maybe once in a great while. Yes it's here, but only among strange, marginal people. Finally, yes it's common in our culture too. The process, I guessed, was no different in Iraq.
Lamia went off to speak to someone else, and Saad and I continued talking. He is a conventionally handsome man of perhaps forty-something, whose light skin contrasts dramatically with thick dark eyebrows. With a smile, he informed me that anyone caught dealing drugs is immediately executed, "which is a good thing, because we don't need drugs." Then he added, "We don't need drugs because we have alcohol, which is better, just fun." He didn't mention that a few years earlier, Saddam Hussein had banned public consumption of alcohol. However, Saad, did refer to the president's statement that the country should return to its religious roots, and Saad also thought that was a good thing, partly because it caused "those who had been abusing alcohol to stop battering and drinking." Another social improvement, according to Saad, was Hussein's decision to "snip kissing scenes out of television programs."
"We know where the kissing scenes are, anyway," he said, and this time his smile seemed almost conspiratorial.
"So," I asked, "censorship applies to TV, but not to movies?" I had noticed film marquees featuring women whose "bodice-ripped" outfits promised thrills.
"Hussein is not forcing anyone to watch anything. They can watch TV or not."
A trafficker in prostitution will be tried and executed, he said. In rural areas, even when there are no allegations of sexual conduct, if a daughter is discovered to have "turned around" with more than one boy (spent time with him), she may be killed by her family. Saad's now familiar show of teeth appeared once more, and he added, shrugging, "Those are primitive people."
Saad invited me to visit his class, which was studying "Waiting for Godot,"and I agreed to meet him at his university office the following day. That morning, as my roommate Sharon and I were getting ready to leave, I casually said that I supposed I should mention the appointment to Thamir.
"Not mention it," she said, gently mocking me. "Ask him."
"Oh. Of course." I was slow to learn the protocol of this police state, partly because control was exercised in an unobtrusive, subtle way. If there is such a thing as a soft police state, Iraq is it -- for obedient foreigners, anyway, who aren't killed for signs of disloyalty to the regime.
When, the next day, I asked Thamir if it was all right to get a cab to the university, he looked troubled. The group plan for the day was for him to escort us to an orphanage, and my opting out of it had split the group, and put him in a bind. He was reluctant to approve my independent trip, and I began to see how out of the question my notion had been that I would simply hop in a cab. Yet Thamir, inexplicably , did not want to turn me down. After much hemming and hawing, he decided to let me go, with Yassim as my driver. Yassim, a good natured humorous man of fifty-something, had been our driver nearly every day, and was clearly trusted by Thamir. But he was not an official minder appointed by a government ministry. He and I had developed a joking, and even affectionate relationship, so I was pleased to have his company, though he spoke only a few dozen English phrases, and I knew pitifully few Arabic words.
Thamir's decision to let me go with Yassim was one of many aspects of his job that was never made clear to me. The task seemed to include guarding of some mysterious State secrets, and monitoring unspecified behavior. I did understand that it was his responsibility to prevent foreigners from photographing police or military personnel or installations. Thamir had escorted James and me on a photography sojourn one day, and a few minutes into our trip, as I photographed people on the street, he suddenly appeared at my side, and gently but firmly steered me away from the area. I asked why.
"It's not a good idea to photograph military personnel," he said, quietly. "It's better for us to leave this area."
Only then did I realize that I had inadvertently photographed a man who leaned against a wall, almost behind a tree. The real target of my lens had been the tree, and I hadn't noticed the background figure of the lounging officer in fatigues. Aside from outdoor photographs, the minders' job may have been to discourage us from asking officials the wrong questions, or maybe to prevent us from hearing Iraqis criticize the government. Certainly, no one I met had questioned official policies or their leader in the least. The Christian Science Monitor (October 15th and 24th, 2002) and other papers have reported on Iraqis' wishes that Hussein would be out of their lives -- but this has happened only when the speaker was out of the hearing of minders.
In Basra, as our group drove through the countryside, we passed villages where children just out of school strolled along the road, chaperoned by women in dramatic long black skirts and flowing veils that covered their hair and men in long white jellabas. In the background, narrow rivers cut through low palms sheltering mud houses. The scene was idyllic, and seemingly worlds away from the fear of war. James and I wanted to return for photographs, but each day Thamir persuaded us that it was too late, too early or too something to get good pictures. On the last day, I extracted a promise that we could return to that area. But at the appointed time it turned out that Thamir had arranged for the van driver to come for us at an hour that wouldn't get us back in time for our next appointment, so the trip had to be canceled.
"Besides," he said, "a boat ride will be better." The boat ride on the river in front of our hotel was enjoyable. But it was not what we wanted to do. Thamir had his way, without an argument, and without ever having to say, directly, "No."
When, the day after the garden party, I arrived at the university, Saad mentioned almost apologetically that before I visited his class, protocol must be observed. This meant first meeting the head of the department, a charming, erudite man with whom I chatted about deconstructionism and post-modernism literary criticism. So there I was, in a center of capital C Culture, discussing topics so distant from the real world of threatening war, that I felt uneasy. Next I had to meet the Dean of the school, who wanted to know what I thought about the Zionists. I allowed as how there are many peace activists in Israel, and that Zionist extremists are, indeed, causing a lot of trouble.
Protocol finally dispensed with, Saad took me to a classroom, where twenty or so students, mostly women, awaited us. The evening before, Saad had said the department of English consisted of about 90 percent women students. I had asked about math and science, and Saad explained that there used to be more women in those departments, but it was found that "they graduated and then married and stayed home to care for their babies, so their education was wasted. The country cannot afford that, because we badly need doctors and scientists."
The problem was solved by a new decree that requires women applicants to score 92% on entrance exams, for the same chance of admission as men who score only 90%. "That was a good decision," Saad said, smiling. Interestingly, even with the new rule, twenty to thirty percent of medical students are women.
Saad escorted me to the class studying "Waiting for Godot." The women were shy, and the first students to raise their hands were the two men in the class. But after I said I wanted to begin by hearing from women, a few brave females spoke up. They looked as if they were eighteen or twenty, and were all dressed as neatly as office workers. Most wore white or patterned scarves covering their hair. When I asked whether they saw a connection between Godot and their situation, they laughed in recognition. "We are waiting, waiting, waiting," someone said. I assumed that meant waiting for the American axe to fall; and once they warmed up, several students spoke out about their country and mine.
"I want to express my love of my country and my president. He is an example for the world. We are a great country because of our president."
"We have lost a lot, and have nothing more to lose. But the U.S. has no right to make us feel so afraid, just because someone wants to drive a big car."
"The sound of bombs makes me feel afraid. It's now every day, and they make our fear worse."
"They should leave us alone. We want to live in peace."
I asked, "What do you think about the freedom of women in the U.S.?"
"You have too much freedom."
"How?"
"Freedom should have some limitation."
"What kinds of limits are useful?"
"You need protection."
"From?"
"Too much freedom is not good. We are Muslim... and our religion and society does not allow us to go and do whatever we want. We are happy for this, and it protects us. We feel safe, and we have seen movies from the United States, and we don't like the morality."
"Can you give some examples?"
"Too much freedom. You can do whatever you want. Every girl has a boyfriend, or something like this. A girl walks with a boy; she can go out with him. The girl has the ability for example to object to her father's wishes, if she doesn't want to marry. We don't have that."
Before 1990 Iraq was heading toward full participation of women in society, but the student's disapproval of American women's freedom may reflect a recent trend of conservatism, bolstered by Saddam Hussein's call for a return to religious roots. Long time Iraqi residents, notice an increase in scarves or veils worn by women. Sanctions and the poverty result in girls staying out of school to mind younger children, and a consequent drop in female literacy. A stealthy erosion of women's liberties and opportunities, and may finally culminate in deep cuts in women's twenty years of progress.
[2,684 Words]
Posted on February 2, 2003.