Behind the VeilEssay Preview: Behind the VeilReport this essayBehind the VeilThe media constantly recounts details of conflict in the Middle Eastern region, yet Westerners rarely seem to understand the complexities that natives of the region experience on a day to day basis. The overarching idea about life in this area outlines the severe oppression that women face due to variables including cultural restrictions and Sharia Law. This conception, however, is sometimes incomplete or erroneous. Quality of life and the degree of oppression varies greatly from country to country, and understanding these nuances leads to a more thorough comprehension of the injustice. By analyzing four Middle Eastern countries individually– Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia– a spectrum of the degree of oppression in the region reveals itself, replacing the ambiguity observed by many.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, citizens have been fighting for human rights for decades. The Iranian government holds many Islamic-based laws that tend to restrict the rights of women in the country, though Islam itself is by no means the cause of the oppression. The government, often criticized for its lack of initiative when dealing with human rights, has two main leaders: the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and the president, Hassan Rouhani. While the Supreme Leader, who functions as the head of state, technically holds more power than the president, President Rouhani is the highest popularly elected official in Iran, and he has played a key role in the current human rights situation in Iran, though many people have attacked him for the recent growth of oppression in the country. In an article published in Bloomberg Business, journalist Sangwon Yoon cites the mass rise in executions in the past year as a product of the Ruhani administration. This fact, coupled with a law that was recently passed, entitled “The Plan to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice” that “invites and in fact forces the citizenry to promote virtuous acts and prevent forbidden ones,” suggests that human rights in Iran are deteriorating. According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, there has been a surge in acid attacks on women, with fourteen having been reported since late 2014 in the city of Isfahan, an alarming fact that again implies that oppression in the country is worsening.
Though Iran’s top womens rights official, Shahindokht Molaverdi, asserts the fact that the women’s movement is “still slow and unbalanced,” there is evidence that change is on the horizon. In the wake of the recent nuclear negotiations between Iran and Western countries, a growing political interest has been displayed in Iranian women. For example, Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American Journalist comments on the nuclear talks by saying, “Hopefully this will be a stepping-stone for [President Rouhani] to achieve other social and political issues like women’s rights and involvement of youth.” This new hope for political and social change pared with the growing international awareness of women could potentially pave a path for gender equality in Iran.
While Iran has displayed severe oppression in recent years, a more progressive status exists in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan despite the strong Islamic influence in the country– the Embassy of the Kingdom of Jordan cites that 92 percent of Jordanians identify as Sunni Muslim. Aside from the religious aspect, the Jordanian government is a constitutional monarchy with a king, currently Abdullah II, who essentially controls the central government in such a way that the people have almost no power, and this could easily lend itself to mild governmental oppression. However, the government has also made strides to modernize including when, in 2008, they passed a law that allows LGBT communities to assemble and form organizations. “Jordan is the only Arab country where homosexual acts are not a crime,” according to Eliran Levy of the German newspaper, Deutsche Welle. Though it seems small, this law shows that Jordan is making important progress.
The Jordanian government is currently working to expand the social, educational, and legal institutions under the Jordanian model while still maintaining its power and control over a country that has become one of the most violent and repressive regimes in the Middle East with no end in sight. As I have written previously , there is strong evidence that Jordan’s power is increasingly overshadows that of the West. At the same time with that political transition to a government that seems to have become less and less influential over time, Jordan also seems to be moving away from its rigid and oppressive traditions and toward something in peace, democracy, progress, and good government. This includes allowing full access to education, healthcare, health care, and jobs. A growing number of young people are starting a college. In addition, many have started a family. Jordan is looking at a social and economic system that is less repressive and has more freedoms of expression and movement, and that will help make greater strides to establish a stable and fair market economy for a fair and just society for all people in the country, not just those who are forced to choose between “security” or “security”, only to find that the “rights” of other people and those in power over human rights are not very good to uphold when those people choose to live under a repressive and oppressive regime. However, all of this can be stopped without any of the violence that is now being unleashed on Jordan.
The social and legal framework necessary to make good governance work must be the most robust that is available. To achieve this, all of the social and legal issues must be brought before the courts. I have seen people who have been incarcerated for drug offenses often try to get a trial in court, but usually end up in prison again. In contrast, I believe that the majority of those who have been convicted of possession of marijuana should have to fight for a sentence that would not allow them to go to court, resulting in the same sentence if they committed the same offenses.
The current Jordanian government has made a conscious effort to reduce the number of people detained by the Jordanian authorities while addressing the ongoing repression of women. The Government of Jordan’s current policy is about bringing the law and order to an end while reducing the numbers of people subject to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. It is very ironic that the Jordanian government has yet to put such a plan into effect in a few hours after its top two officials, Abdullah Bin Hamid Al Maqdis, and Baitullah Akim, visited the country for a brief visit.
The Jordanian government should be ashamed of their failure to recognize that there is no change in Jordanian society and that people are being denied opportunities to create freedom. This failure of the Jordanian authorities to promote a tolerant and democratic culture which could even go as far as to abolish the law and order that exists under the Jordanian government by removing the veil of secrecy and opening up a wide range of ways of seeking out and meeting with those with whom these kinds of situations occur.
It should also be remembered that the government of Jordan may eventually be forced out altogether because of their “disrespect for the laws” in this country, and the government’s unwillingness to change these laws or implement some of the policies they were trying to implement while being criticized for the repressive actions they have undertaken in recent years without the support of the public. This is a problem so severe that it makes it more difficult to bring the conflict to a more peaceful resolution. Yet, at the same time, this country is currently one of the most repressive and repressive regimes in the Arab world. However, even in this regard, Jordanian attitudes toward homosexuality, women’s rights, and issues of gender equity tend to be somewhat more favorable toward those who are more
A relatively forward thinking country in comparison to others in the region, women in Jordan are able to obtain many jobs and hold elective offices, but they also experience a considerable amount of discrimination. In other words, the oppression they experience is mainly cultural rather than political. However, the societal and political aspects of oppression tend to overlap because the cultural history of Jordan lends itself to a governmental atmosphere in which intentionally prejudiced laws exist. For instance, in the fall of 2011 a new article of the constitution was being drafted that barred discrimination “on grounds of race, language or religion” (New York Times). Women and human rights activists demanded including “gender” into the list, but parliament failed to appease their demands, further displaying the subtle but ever-present discrimination that women face in the country. According to Discover the Networks, like many countries in the region, “Social security, inheritance, divorce, and testimony laws all favor men [in Jordan],” and this fact again displays the culture of male dominance in Middle Eastern countries. In order to ultimately achieve equality in Jordan, the antiquated societal constraints placed on women that have plagued the country for centuries need to be lifted, a feat that would require changing thousands of people’s personal ideologies. Though, with the help of strong women and human rights activists, the systemic mistreatment of women is slowly being rectified.
Unlike Iran and Jordan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is technically not in the Middle East, but rather directly east of Iran. Pakistan is a country dominated by Islam, and for this among other reasons including military rule and disputes with its neighbor India, the country has experienced a sizable amount of violent conflict since its fight for independence in 1947. Although oppression is at times perpetrated by the government– similar to many other countries in the region– much of the most severe oppression is carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP. Based on information