(This article of mine was originally published in First Draft, the Prospect Magazine blog, 18 March 2009)
In Britain, freedom of consciousness and liberalism thrive. Women can choose to wear the hijab (headscarf) or not, and so Katharine Quarmby can ponder at will its aesthetic and fashion implications. In Iran, however, such a luxury is unimaginable. A woman’s worth and modesty is dictated by misogynist Islamist clerics who force women to wear the hijab and throw feminists in jail for daring to protest for equal human rights.
Unfortunately, some do not appreciate the freedoms held in Britain. In a recent talk I attended, Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 agent, labels what we see in Iran as ‘Muslim values’, praising Iran’s leaders for using their ‘creative imaginative faculties’ to construct a society based on collective ‘Islamic’ norms. Most Iranian women recognise this as Khomeini’s politicisation of religion. Crooke rejected the idea that the Iranian regime abuses a woman’s human rights, as these are a ‘Western’ construct – Christian, capitalist and rooted in individualism.
