Shaking a Woman’s Hand and Political Judgment

The former President of Iran, who headed a reformist administration, has recently come under new attacks and accusations by the anti-reformist media. They have published reports claiming that a movie clip on Internet sites shows Mr Khatami shaking the hands of four foreign women on a trip he had to Italy

These reports echo similar claims, by certain pro-reformist groups, that the current President (Mahmud Ahmadinejad) who heads an ideologue Administration, had kissed the hand of a 70+ year old woman teacher. Keyhan newspaper is said to have published such a report.

While publishing this news, Keyhan tried to act as the divine judge and classify such behavior as sins, in its well-known self-righteous manner. About the news relating to Mr Khatami’s action, the newspaper “hoped” that the reports were false. About those relating to Mr Ahmadinejad’s handshake, it stressed the woman’s age and that she was wearing gloves. When Keyhan’s Hossein Shariatmadari elevates himself to “higher” grounds, he not only “knows” the conscience of the Iranian nation, but even reaches the hand of the woman teacher and announces with certainty that she had been wearing a glove at the time of the incident. After that, he returns to his position of authority to supposedly wash away the sins of his comrade-in-arms. Khatami’s sin however remains intact, which is also regularly repeated. Even Mr Khatami’s official explanation and rejection of the news does nothing but add to the documents against him!

Keyhan of course believes that it is better than others and we do not wish to discuss that here now. These are the consequences of the revolution that has taken place in Iran. While the past 28 years since the victory of the 1979 revolution, are full of mind-boggling events and announcements, we continue to experience events that are even more surprising.

Now, a people with a great historic past and civilization are in the claws of a monopolistic group whose judgment on and evaluation of a government is solely based on the handshake of its president with a woman. Under their rule, there is no room for the level of welfare that people enjoyed under an administration. Levels of unemployment among the youth the number of students who are physically attacked or deprived of higher education or those that have to make false statements under torture while in prison, and others are irrelevant in the judgment over a government.

From their perspective, even the fact that almost all women activists advocating equal and human rights are prosecuted and criminalized bears no relevance to the performance of a President. The fact that journalists are forced to follow daily instruction issued by the government in performing their professional work, or otherwise face detention, torture or imprisonment are not considerations in judging a president’s performance. Even the state of civil society in the country is outside the purview of such a verdict by Keyhan. What remains then is the level of the President’s contact with a woman’s hand in public. Sometimes the issue is Mr Khatami’s contact with a woman’s hand, at other times it is Mr Ahmadinejad’s contacts, which are carelessly skimmed. When Keyhan writes that the woman was elderly and emphasizes her age, it is really saying that the woman was in menopause. and so there are no religious consequences for the act.

It is astounding where these dishonest men have taken us. How distant we are now from civilization, this planet and our own ancient civilization. All this hue and cry is for nothing. Instead of talking about ways to attain a modern small government, we are dealing with such frivolous issues.

But we must not leave the grounds for Keyhan and its associates and likes. So I will make my contribution to this silly political discussion. We all know that Mr Khatami is a cleric and wears a black turban, and is a Seyed (i.e. claiming lineage to Prophet Mohammad himself). He is of course aware of religious texts, and certainly more so that Mr Shariatmadari of Keyhan. Still, Shariatmadari aggressively pretends to be a true believer. Mr. Khatami on the other hand is probably well versed in religious studies, something that we do not have. He abhors the separation of state from religion as mush as we love it. In many of his public talks he usually throws a negative remark at this separation and those who support it. Her is a religious reformer, or at least tries to be one.

But at least he respects in public the traditions and norms of Iranians, for whatever reason. At the same time he does not retreat an iota from his political-religious views. He does not, for example, announce the termination of religious punishments in Iran. On one occasion when a student listed the violent nature of some of these punishments to him, Khatami appeared displeased and argued that when violence is sanctioned by law it ceases to be violence, and become law that must be observed. Many left that meeting after that exchange, and those who stayed tolerated the heavy atmosphere.

I say these things to clarify things to Mr. Shariatmadari and colleagues. They should sleep calmly at nights and dream of heavens whose gates will be opened to them by angels. What a shame that they have arrived at their haven right here in this world by stepping on people and holding their positions.

Let’s return to the original subject. If the standard of a virtuous and deserving president is that they not shake hands with a woman in pubic, then both Presidents have faulted. But if being qualified has other standards, then people will probably forgive them both for this act, while not so regarding other acts.

The Iranian nation knows that it lives on precious land. It knows that God has endowed them with natural resources. And it also knows that to turn these resources into useful productive and exportable goods it needs a qualified and deserving government which is accountable and lets the public, rather than Shariatmadari and co, judge it.