by matttbastard
Everything in my city has been looted, stolen and burnt. Basra used to be full of life. Now, everything is black. Women are compelled to wear black robes and veils. My life has becomeblack. Everything is forbidden now: laughter, coloured clothes, music, walking in the markets, going to the parks. And the British who came in the name of liberating just watch it all, smiling.
– Um Mohammad, “Shuttered lives: Iraq through the eyes of its women”
“For what have we been pushed back into the dark ages?
How can this be liberation if my daughter has fewer rights than I did at her age? If she has less control over her life than I did? Fewer choices than even her grandmother had?
Why have we been forgotten?? Neither our Parliament nor our Government cares. They are up there for their own interests.
But what about the powers that crossed the high seas to liberate us?? They poured out their billions; they sacrificed their sons … to “liberate” us … but what we, the women of Iraq got, is article 41.
Go to your cleric – he is sure to solve all your issues.”
– Anonymous, “Now we have Article 41”
See also: Hidden victims of a brutal conflict: Iraq’s women, Women Lose Ground in the New Iraq and U.S. invasion makes life worse for women of Iraq.
Bookmark: Houzan Mahmoud’s blog and The Organization of Women’s Freedom In Iraq (OWFI); don’t forget to make a donation.
Related: Guernica interview with OWFI founder Yanar Mohammed:
We are becoming an underground railroad for Iraqi women. Some have to leave the country or they will be killed. Women cannot dream of having political standing or status. You are treated as a second-class creature inside your house. You do not have any choices and people do not expect much from you.
bastard.logic 