It was so gratifying to learn Narges Mohammadi of Iran won the Nobel Peace Prize a couple weeks ago.
Even though she is imprisoned, she is the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which is led by a previous Nobel Peace Prize recipient, 2003 laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Mohammadi was honored “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” That’s a tall order in this cruel world, but it’s perhaps the most important fight of all.
That fiercely courageous woman has long been an advocate of civil disobedience against the “hijab” (head/face covering) that females are forced to wear. At least one woman was recently beaten to death by “morality police” for refusing to wear a hijab.
In 2016 Mohammadi was sentenced to 16 years in prison for starting a human-rights movement to abolish the death penalty. Released four years later, she was re-imprisoned in 2021, where she remains. She has written about the practice of keeping some imprisoned women in solitary confinement – a form of torture. We can only hope the Nobel Prize does not prolong her prison nightmare.
The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Mohammadi. Go figure. What don’t Iranian “officials” condemn? They have long persecuted anyone who dares to question their rigid, theocratic patriarchy. And they’re not alone; it happens in all too many countries. The Taliban in Afghanistan are ruthless in shutting up women, forbidding them education to pursue careers, spying on them, demanding they cover their faces. It’s patriarchy gone berserk.
It all reminds me of 1979 during the “Iranian Crisis” when Americans were held hostage for so long in that country. The secular Shah of Iran was overthrown. Theocratic rule was established, headed by an Islamic leader, Ruhollah Khomeini.
Back then, as a student/ reporter at St. Cloud State University, I decided to track down some Iranian students to interview. Four male students agreed. They told me how they hated the Shah and admired Khomeini. My story was published in the SCSU “Chronicle” newspaper.
A week later, a woman with a foreign accent approached me.
“Those men you wrote about are full of crap!” she said in a furious staccato voice.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Kobra Araghi. I am Iranian and a student here. Those men are so full of CRAP! I hated the Shah too, but this Khomeini is worse!”
We agreed to meet for an interview. As she talked with passionate anger, peppered with “colorful” language, she reminded me of spitfire Italian actress Sophia Loren. All through the interview she railed against the “chador, chador, chador.” That word was like an exclamation point popping up from her comments.
The chador, I quickly learned, was a fabric Iranian women must wear to conceal themselves in public. To Kobra, the chador had become a vicious symbol, an embodiment of male dominance and oppression of Iranian girls and women. Kobra made for an interesting story, to say the least.
For years I wondered whatever became of her. Then, one day almost 20 years later, I answered the phone.
“Hello, Dennis? This is Kobra. You perhaps remember me?”
“Kobra! Of course! A blast from the past!”
We had a rapid-fire conversation during which I learned when she returned to Iran, the authorities detained her for a time. They had the feature story I’d written about her. Kobra’s hunch is that one of those men “so full of crap” had sent it, like tattletales, to the “morality police.”
Fortunately, they released Kobra from custody. She eventually emigrated to France and then to Calgary, where she married a man whose name is – no kidding – Davy Crockett!
I’m sure Kobra would be as pleased as I am that the courageous chador-spurning Narges Mohammadi has been honored with a Nobel Peace Prize.
