مبارزه نوه آيت الله خميني با چادر

نيويورک تايمز

براساس مقاله الن اسكيولينو

برگردان از نازي عظيما – راديو فردا

 

 

الن اسکيولينو گزارشگر نيويورک تايمز در تهران گفتوگويي با زهرا اشراقي نوه دختري آيت الله خميني داشته است که در شماره امروز اين روزنامه با عنوان: دختر انقلاب ايران با چادر مبارزه مي‌کند، به چاپ رسيده است.

الن اسکيولينو مي‌نويسد اگر بخواهيم در جمهوري اسلامي ايران به کسي گواهي صلاحيت بدهيم مدال طلا نصيب زهرا اشراقي مي‌شود که نوه آيت الله خميني و همسر برادر رئيس جمهوري ايران است و شوهرش محمد رضا خاتمي، رئيس فراکسيون اصلاح گرايان در مجلس است.
در جامعه اي که زنان قدرت خود را از مردان‌شان اخذ مي‌کنند خانم اشراقي بايد از پايگاه مهمي برخوردار باشد. با اين حال اين زن سی و نه ساله که مادر دو فرزند و کارمند دولت است و در آپارتمان لوکس و پر تجملي زندگي مي‌کند خود را در دام وضع خانوادگي اش اسير مي‌يابد و از سر کردن چادر نفرت دارد. او مي‌گويد: متاسفانه چادر را به زور به زنان تحميل کرده اند. چه در مکان هاي دولتي، چه در مدرسه دخترم. چادر يک لباس سنتي ايراني بود اما به سمبل انقلاب تبديل شد و حالا مردم براي آن حرمتي قائل نيستند. من فقط به خاطر وضعيت خانوادگي ام چادر سر مي‌کنم.

اما به نوشته الن اسکيولينو در جايي که ايت الله خميني چادر را پرچم انقلاب خوانده است اين حرفها بوي طغيان مي‌دهد.

خانم اشراقي بايد به عنوان عضو خانواده آيت الله خميني نماد انقلاب و جمهوري اسلامي آن باشد و هيچ چيز جز چادري که سراسر بدن از فرق سر تا نوک پا را بپوشاند نمي تواند سمبل اين انقلاب باشد.

اما برخورد مردم با چادر اکنون در ايران انقدر منفي است که بعضي کسبه به ويژه در نقاط شمالي تهران از فروختن جنس به چادري ها خودداري مي‌کنند. خانم اشراقي مي‌گويد: رفته بودم از يک مغازه شلوار بخرم اما مغازه دار شلوار را به من نفروخت چون چادري بودم. و مي‌افزايد: ولي تقصير خودمان است. مردم از دستگاه راضي نيستند و چادر نماد اين حکومت شده است.

زهرا اشراقي زني است با چشمان ميشي و ابرواني کاملا پيراسته و موي اندکي هاي لايت شده که در وزارت کشور درباره بهبود امور زنان کار مي‌کند. او مي‌گويد با همکارانش در اداره بر سر رنگ و مدل لباسهايي که زير چادر مي‌پوشد مدام در جنگ است. با اين حال در خانه لباسهاي به قواره اندامش بر تن مي‌کند. در پاسخ الن اسکيولينو که اگر در خيابان چادر از سر بردارد چه مي‌شود مي‌گويد: مگر مي‌خواهيد حکم قتلم صادر شود؟

خانم اشراقي در ارزوي داشتن هم سخني بيرون از محيط خانواده خود است. در کشوري که ديوارهاي بلندي ميان زندگي خصوصي و زندگي اجتماعي قرار دارد، در خانواده هاي مذهبي اين ديوارها بازهم بلندتر است. مي‌گويد: مي‌نشينم اينجا و احساس مي‌کنم خودم نيستم. خود واقعي ام نيستم. بايد هميشه پشت نقابي پنهان باشم.

شوهرش محمدرضا خاتمي، پزشکي که از بارز ترين چهره هاي سياسي ايران است از گفت و گو با الن اسکيولينو سرباز مي‌زند.

با انکه پدر بزرگش موسيقي را مانند ترياک مخدر دانست زيرا مردم را بي غيرت مي‌کند، زهرا اشراقي مي‌گويد که در خانه گاه آواز مي‌خواند و مي‌رقصد. مي گويد نمي توانم حس هايم را خفه کنم.

در زمان انقلاب زهرا ۱۴ ساله بود. ۴ سال بعد او را شوهر دادند. به دانشجوي پزشکي اي که چهارسال از او مسن تر و پسر آيت اللهي مشهور بود. مي خواست موسيقي و نقاشي بخواند اما خانواده مخالفت کردند پس رو به تحصيل فلسفه آورد که پدربزرگ با آن هم مخالف بود چون خواندن فلسفه را کاري براي تمام عمر مي‌دانست که در طاقت زنان نمي گنجد.

مي گويد: هميشه رويم فشار بوده. جواني ام هدر شد.

در انتخابات سال ۱۳۷۶ براي آقاي خاتمي که در آن هنگام روحاني اي متوسط و رئيس کتابخانه ملي بود ستاد هاي انتخاباتي به راه انداخت. اما اکنون اميد خود را به اصلاحات سياسي در ايران در برابر محافظه کاران ازدست داده است. آشکارا برادر شوهرش را محکوم ميکند که: سرعت آقاي خاتمي لاک پشتي است.

ارزوي او داشتن زندگي آرامي فارغ از سياست است. مي‌گويد: فکر مي‌کردم مي‌شود وضع را عوض کرد اما حالا به اين نتيجه رسيده ام که فقط يک طرز فکر مي‌تواند حکومت کند. و مي‌افزايد: مي‌ترسم تلفن هايمان را گوش بدهند، مي‌ترسم توي اتاق ها شنود گذاشته باشند. تمام زندگي ام را در جنگ هاي سياسي گذرانده ام. حالا فقط منتظرم که شوهرم از سياست بيرون بيايد.

 لينک اصل مطلب در راديو فردا

متن انگليسي اين مقاله را در زير مي خوانيد:

 

Daughter of Iran Revolution Struggles Against the Veil

By ELAINE SCIOLINO


 

TEHRAN — When it comes to credentials in Iran's Islamic Republic, Zahra Eshraghi's are cast in gold.

Her grandfather was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the cleric who overthrew a king and led a revolution in the name of Islam. Her husband's brother is the reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. And her husband, Mohammad Reza Khatami, is the head of the reformist wing of Parliament.

In a society where women can derive enormous power from the men in their lives, those three pillars give Ms. Eshraghi enormous standing. Yet the 39-year-old government official and mother of two has a confession to make. She feels trapped by her family history. And she hates wearing the black veil known as the chador.

"I'm sorry to say that the chador was forced on women," she said over tea and cakes in her upscale apartment decorated in ornate furniture in northern Tehran. "Forced — in government buildings, in the school my daughter attends. This garment that was traditional Iranian dress was turned into a symbol of revolution. People have lost their respect for it. I only wear it because of my family status."

Those are the words of a rebel. Ayatollah Khomeini called the chador the "the flag of the revolution," and early in the revolution of 1979 encouraged all women to wear it. Eventually, all women were forced to wear garments that cover their heads and hide the shape of their bodies.

Ms. Eshraghi's frankness is emblematic of the changes today in Iran, where the values and promises of the revolution have given way to an intense, even dangerous debate about whether religion has a place in politics and society.

As a member of the ayatollah's family, Ms. Eshraghi is expected to embrace the trappings of the revolution and the Islamic Republic that followed. Nothing symbolizes the revolution more than the ankle-length black chador that covers all but a woman's face.

But the attitude toward the chador in Iran today has become so negative that some merchants — particularly in northern Tehran, which is more secular, Westernized and wealthy than the rest of the city — refuse to serve "chadori," as chador-wearing women are called. Chadori who do not want to expose themselves to insults avoid the new food court in Tehran that serves tacos and pizza but no traditional Persian food.

"I was in a shop, and I wanted to buy a pair of pants, and the owner wouldn't sell them to me because I was in a chador," Ms. Eshraghi said. "We have only ourselves to blame. People are not happy with the establishment, and the chador has become its symbol."

Pale-eyed, with perfectly manicured eyebrows and slightly frosted hair, Ms. Eshraghi said she had always covered her hair in public — at least with a scarf — because of the dictates of Islam. She fought colleagues at the Interior Ministry, where she promotes women's issues, when they tried to force her to wear more modest dress and dark colors underneath her chador. Behind closed doors, she wears fitted pantsuits that do not conceal her full figure.

"I told them it was not anybody's business what I wear under the chador," she said.

Asked if she would ever want to throw off the head scarf in public, she asked, "Do you want to issue me my death sentence?"

Just as remarkable is Ms. Eshraghi's willingness to share her feelings with someone outside the family. Iran is a society with high walls between public and private life, walls that are even more impenetrable among the clerical class. "I am sitting here, and I feel I cannot be myself," she said. "It's not the true me. I have to wear a mask."

Her husband, by contrast, a medical doctor by training and one of the most visible politicians in the country, declined to be interviewed.

She recalled a favorite song, a pre-revolutionary ballad (banned after the revolution) in which a singer laments the fact that people have to hide behind masks. "I used to play that song over and over because it seemed like my life story," she said.

No matter that her grandfather condemned music shortly after the revolution as "no different from opium" because it "stupefies persons listening to it and makes their brains inactive and frivolous."

"I still sometimes sing at home and dance," Ms. Eshraghi said. "I can't kill those feelings."

Most of Ms. Eshraghi's life has revolved around the Islamic revolution. When Ayatollah Khomeini settled in a suburb of Paris before returning victorious to Iran to make his revolution, she was brought along at age 14. Four years later, she married a medical student four years her senior whose father was a famous ayatollah who was well acquainted with her family.

Her family did not allow her to study her favorite subjects, music and painting, in college. So she turned to philosophy instead. Even then, it did not please the ayatollah, who told her philosophy was a subject that had to be studied all one's life and was therefore too difficult for her. "There was always a lot of pressure on me," she said. "I lost a lot of my youth."

When Mr. Khatami, then a relatively unknown mid-level cleric who ran the national library, first ran for president in 1997 on a platform of reform, she opened a campaign headquarters for him.

Now she has abandoned hope that the political reformers will defeat conservative clerics who want to keep a rigid political system in the name of Islam. In a blunt criticism of her brother-in-law, she said, "I feel President Khatami's speed has been like that of a turtle."

She longs for a more peaceful life, without politics. "I used to think we could change the situation, but now I have come to the conclusion that only one set of beliefs can rule," she said. "I feel haunted that our phones are tapped, our rooms are tapped. I have spent my life in political wars. Now I count the days when my husband leaves politics."