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Mehrangiz Kar*
Translated by Golriz Farshi
In the outskirts of my hometown in the south of Iran, the girls were and still are beheaded because of tribal and family customs. Sometimes, the criminal male members of the family, after wiping the stain of disgrace from their family's reputation in their wicked way way, would place the cut off head behind their door at night to be viewed by everyone in the morning and thus prove to all the extent and stretch of their zeal and fanaticism. Girl-killing was the existing and exciting news in our town. The twilight was colored with the blood of the innocent, native girls and the news would circulate mouth to mouth to be a warning to all children who are born female and were supposed to, as soon as they reach the age of nine, act like mature, adult females, that they should be aware of their situation and not do a single wrong act. What wonders me is that not only the tribal custom but the civil law also backed these criminals. Our neighborhood was not too far from the outskirt of town where the natives resided. Hence, the image of sweet innocent girls weltering in their own blood was preserved in and heavily weighed down my childish unconscious mind. These lasting images were reconstructed in my nightmares and smothered the childish dreams in blood.
I spent my childhood in this feverish environment where woman killing was an inveterate custom. My brother Fereydoon, was 16 years my senior. Ever since he had come of age, in this dreadful place where female lovers deserved to be beheaded, composed poems praising love and passion. He had garnished the Bedouin life around us with elegance and grace. He'd compose, and childishly I'd stare at his lips that were moving against the flow of water. Everyday, he'd come home bearing another incident that spoke of defiance against ignorance, cruelty and superstition. He, and his poetic ways, would anger the crowd who longed to protect their superstitious strongholds; those who were committed to protecting the principals and chastity of their family by means of any violent act. Hence, in an unfair act of battle, they would attack him. Sometimes they'd knock him down with a chair; other times, in an attempt to shake his anti violence and superstition ideals, they'd force the household members to burn his books. Every time he'd see his burned ideals, he'd compose more. Armed with his poems and compositions, he would find the signs of slavery and guilelessly would try to remove the wretched symbols of ignorance, that he claimed obstructed liberty and justice.
I remember the day I turned 5 and my ears were going to be pierced. One of the neighborhood women heated a sewing needle and passed the double folded string from the earlobe. Then she knotted the string to keep the piercing from closing. Even though I was teary eyed from fear and pain, deep inside I was brimming with excitement. A pair of ruby earrings would soon ornate my ears. In their own way, the household members shared my excitement and each of them was celebrating this event that was a precursor to my initiation into womanhood. That day, my mother was burning wild rue seed on coal brazier (to ward of the evil eye) and my grandmother was sewing me a cotton doll. When Fereydoon came home at noon, things changed. When he saw my teary eyes and the dried blood on my earlobe, he was outraged. He cursed the household members and began to cry. He wailed and warned, "you are teaching my sister the traditions of slavery. You are raising my sister as a female slave with rings (of obedience) in her ears. You are …"
Under their breath, my mother and grandmother laughed at him and I, I simply did not understand what he was saying. A few days passed. The wound on my ear lobes healed. Fereydoon calmed down. Before the ruby earrings replace the sewing string, Fereydoon took me to the cinema with him. In our town there was only one cinema that showed either Indian or Arab movies. Going to the cinema was an unachievable dream for most little girls. After the movie, Fereydoon took me to a drugstore and with an alcohol dipped cotton ball, took out the blood and puss stained string from my ear lobes. Then we went to a patisserie. He picked a small table for two, sat me on one chair and sat on the other in front of me. Then, he spoke to me like an adult. He told me tales of slavery and in the end he made me promise that I'd forget the ruby earrings forever. The heavenly taste of the cream puffs prevented me from understanding everything he was telling me, but that night a general and dark image of the system of slavery and female slaves with rings in their ears formed and permanently stayed in my mind. Fereydoon, once he made me promise and shake hands on it so as to never break the promise, took me to the only modern photo gallery of the city. Once there, he took the photographers tie from around the his neck and with it, tied and tamed my long braided hair behind my head. And so I became, according to the fashion of those days, a la garcon. He smiled a satisfied smile. He picked me up and put me on a chair, stood next to the chair and asked for the photo to be taken. When the photo was developed, Fereydoon enlarged and framed it and put it on the halls shelf. He stressed to the household members that, "This is how a little girl should be, her hair is short and simple, won’t get in her way. And no rings on her ears, she is free …"
Recently, after years of separation, I found Fereydoon sick and in bed. Old and frail and about to depart into eternity. Together, we revisited the childhood memories. I asked him, "You said that piercing the ears is a sign of slavery. Here where you live, the center of western civilization, women not only have one or multiple rings in their ears, but even their nostrils are pierced with a ring on it. Do you still consider rings to be the symbol of slavery?"
Fereydoon struggled to rid himself from the attacks of the Parkinson disease. Then, he caught a passing moment of time and without hesitation, he said: "Whatever the mature, adult person chooses with free will is a sign of freedom; and whatever he accepts out of fear or force, is a sign of slavery. In the slavery system children are raised slaves from infancy, so as to prevent them from rising against the system. Slave owners should not be left free to brain wash children. One should not …"
Parkinson attacked. Fereydoon fell into silence.
From Fereydoons generation I had many men by my side, some half and others all the way. They were my companions on the journey, and shall always be. They thought me the custom and method of breaking the silence.
I owe them. I also have many a-things to say to the brothers who, in this day and age, on the threshold of entering the 21st century, justify the slavery of women. But when will the opportunity arise?
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* This article was originally published in Zanan magazine, issue 29, in Persian.
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