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Nazanin Afshin-Jam's fight for Muslim
women's rights
6.2.2007
By Kathryn Lopez
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February 6, 2007
At the end of January, Nazanin Fatehi, a Kurd, was
released from an Iranian prison. She had been there
for almost two years for the "crime" of self-defense
against would-be rapists. Nazanin, then 17, fatally
stabbed one of the attackers. But I'm not sure that
matters. The world should be outraged by what this
girl went through. She should be a household name.
Her guardian angel was a former Miss Canada (2003),
Nazanin Afshin-Jam. Afshin-Jam is a native of Iran —
her family fled during the 1981 revolution, her
father having been victim of the Revolutionary
Guard's tyranny. In Fatehi, Afshin-Jam very easily
saw what could have been her fate and resolved to
help her.
Afshin-Jam, an aspiring pop singer whose first
record's release has been delayed as she has worked
on saving the life of this young Iranian Kurd, shows
what a little star-power and a lot of determination
can do. Self-absorbed celebrities should put their
power to use. Instead of reflexively Bush-bashing,
they could put their hearts into a cause and use
their popularity to make a difference.
What Afshin-Jam has done is particularly significant
not just because of the life she's saved but because
it strikes at the heart of the clash of
civilizations we are facing today. Consider again
that the fact that young Nazanin Fatehi killed one
of her assailants is not what put her in jail. The
issue is that Islamic law may have punished this
innocent victim anyway. That's what we need to
examine.
Instead, though, as a culture, we give more
attention to a ridiculous press release from the
Council on American-Islamic Relations denouncing the
popular primetime-TV drama "24" for daring to
portray fictional terrorists as Muslims. After the
four-hour season premiere in January, CAIR whined:
"The raw emotional impact of fictional scenes that
include widespread death and destruction in America
may adversely affect the public's attitude toward
civil liberties, religious freedom and interfaith
relations. The program's repeated association of
acts of terrorism with Islam will only serve to
increase anti-Muslim prejudice in our society."
They were not random terrorists who attacked us on
Sept. 11 and who continue to go after our troops and
allies in Iraq today. We really need to talk about
these things. In his book "America Alone: The End of
the World as We Know It", my colleague Mark Steyn
writes that reforming Islam is key to winning the
war on terror. It's something that non-Muslims can't
really do but "all the free world" can "create
conditions that increase the likelihood of Muslim
reform, or at any rate do not actively impede it."
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Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Miss
Canda
VIDEO The Tale of Two Nazanins- The struggle to
save the life of an Iranian Kurdish girl
Nazanin Fatehi, 17 year old Kurdish girl from Iran
(Kurdistan) sentenced to death in Iran
www.helpnazanin.com |
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An essential part of this life-saving exercise is to
support real women's rights. Nancy Pelosi may think
she liberated hundreds of American girls to dream of
one day becoming Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, but there are girls out there who
are really actually oppressed. Women's rights are,
Mark writes, "the biggest vulnerability in Islam."
He continues: "Not every Muslim female wants to be
Gloria Steinem or Paris Hilton. But nor do they want
a life that starts with genital mutilation and ends
with an honor killing at the hands of your brothers.
The overwhelming majority of females in Continental
battered women's shelters are Muslim — which gives
you some sense of what women in the Middle East
might do if they had any women's shelters to go to.
When half the population of these societies is a
potential source of dissent, we need to use it."
Without being partisan — or even demonizing the
Iranian government — Nazanin Afshin-Jam shone a
bright light on a tremendous problem we have to
grapple with. Blaming others for supporting the same
war you once did isn't going to win this war. Facing
hard questions — harder than symbolic, albeit deeply
demoralizing, congressional resolutions — will.
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