A delicious enemy we can`t resist to fight

Ms. Ghahraman, you are an Iranian woman and a Canadian, you are a mother and queer, you are a member of an intellectual community, a migrant and more. What is identity for you?

Identity is the slogan; it is the battle field where I fight all my fights.

At times, also I fight to redefine my identities in order to own them, and not be owned by my identity.

Identity is what makes my fights seem a matter of life and death, confronting all the things opposing me, for example, a traditional community expecting me to oblige to rules and regulations of motherhood, and an advanced community expecting me to oblige to margins of queerness, and so forth; I am what I am, nothing defines me better then How I Live What I Am.

There are lots of stereotypes on women in Iran (for example women as passive or the reduction on a victim status). How do you deal with those images? How do you react to them in your works?

These stereotypes are based on facts of the time and space in which we live in, in Iran. The conditions calling for such stereotypes are challenged by Iranian women.

Women in Iran have a long history fighting the image of the victim, going back to the turn of the 20st century. Today, even though we are caught in the traps of a backward regime, Iranian women are nothing like victims, with all their wounds from an unjust battle, Iranian woman, with their goals and the unbeatable energy to reach these goals, are inspiration to the society at large. Islamic regime, so hostile to the idea of women’s rights, gave us a delicious enemy we can’t resist to fight.  It is true that majority of women lost their livelihood to discriminating laws against women, but I don’t think women in Iran are reduced to mere victims. For thirty years, as much as it tried, the regime couldn’t even keep the veil on women head- they made their head slippery for the mandatory scarf.

These image are not mine, I don’t accept them as my image. I leave it to Iran to fight me if she doesn’t like me and my non-victim image.

Based on my personal experiences, I don’t advocate women’s right in work; I let my poetry and fiction live the women’s right. I believe this is a better way to knock out the image.

You are a poet and a queer activist. In which ways are these two aspects of your life connected?

I show up in my poetry as a whole. My activism also, is not a part-time job. The two are connected because I write with all I believe and I work with all I have.

When I started publishing my work, although my sexual orientation was not announced, critics picked up the difference in my work with the work of other Iranian female poets, and focused on it. By the time I announced in my readings my sexual orientation, I was known as both, poet and queer. I can say that my name as a poet helped me have a stronger hand as an activist. Now, if by my activism you mean my work in Iranian Queer Organization, I must say that my poetry has always been charged by means of challenging norms and boundaries. Connection between my poetry and my activism is the connections between my poetry and it’s context- inseparable. One of colleagues spoke about my poetry once, saying: “Her poetry is hammering down the limitations and boundaries faced by women and men in our (Iranian) culture.” The same hammer was at work when I spoke not as the Poetess but as the Lesbian Poet, to break the silence.

I must add here, that my Canadian citizenship helped me to speak up without paying too high a price, as my gay and lesbian colleagues would, inside Iran. Working and publishing in Canada, and distributing on-line in Iran made it possible to undermine the horrible punishments other queer writers in Iran face when they publish on-line. Today, my name is known the queer poet. But the most prominent gay essayist and poet, Ham-seresht lives and writes anonymously. He is The Activist, and The Poet in our Persian Contemporary Queer Literature.

What is it that you desire to express in your poems? What can your words give to yourself? What do you want to give to others within your poetry?

I don’t know. What I want to say in my poems, is like love-making, you get the orgasm, still you’re done. The yearning remains there. I don’t know what is it that I want to say, I just keep writing. This is how it is, to me.

I love to live with my words.

I think what I want most, is for them to look at the world from this window and see what I see. It might be a kind of connection, or a kind of forewarning, still, I don’t know. I only know that most of the time, there is this violent urge, a wise and all-knowing urge.

When I write, I rewrite until the piece looks exactly like that urge, the image.

In an interview you once said, you want to unveil the female body and sexuality with words. Can you explain more deeply what you mean when you use the term unveiling?   And why is the body so dangerous for the Iranian regime?

Confining woman inside the inner-houses, under Hejab/Veil, or within the walls of chastity, is another version of reducing women and stripping us of our rights. This unveiling thus means taking back what is taken away. In my poetry I spell out the prohibited, the un-moral and the shameful words as if they are the most conventional words. Body parts, when mentioned, are free to proceed with the rules of body and mind, not the rule of law.

Iranian regime is afraid of women’s body for the same reason the body is created. We are born with a body; we are dead when the body dies away. To dominate the person, the body must be dominated. There is no danger in women’s body beside the fact with her body not denied, she is a person demanding her rigtful place in the society. If her body is confined/denied/dismissed inside Hejab/veil, her vote is taken away, making her a non-person, benign being. Keeping women inside Hejab and keeping an eye on the dress code of men, the regime governs our actions and our opinions with less effort.

Since 2006 you are an active member of IRQO as well as editor of the monthly magazine Cheraq. What lead you to the decision to fight in that way for Iranian queers and sexual refugees?   

I am queer so what I do in IRQO is not far from home. I have been known as queer and my poetry was analyzed as the work of a queer poet and I read in public-readings my queer poetry for many years before, along with a group of six we decided to launch IRQO. Before IRQO, I had searched for other assemblies and groups to promote queer ideas, abroad. Working with IRQO though put me in-touch with those of Iranian LGBT community who lived inside Iran and had begun their fight many years ahead of us. I also got a chance to know LGBT refugees in Turkey, and their vulnerable situation in asylum. That was when I decided to leave all other affiliations and work only with and for the queer movement in Iran, and also for the cause of LGBT asylum-seekers. The need of the community inside Iran, and the refugees in transit countries, such as Turkey, is so great we can’t even miss a minute to assist them.

Have you been active before in the queer community – either in Iran or in Canada? And who are the people that receive help by the IRQO?

When I left Iran I was 23 or 24. I was working with a communist party’s women branch. At that time I had only begun to notice my loss after the revolution compared to what I had before the revolution, as a woman. I was raised in an intellectual family setting which didn’t give me much reason to fight for my rights. So women’s rights existed only inside the pamphlets; it was not an everyday reality. Differences between women, and queer women, showed up later on, as I grew older, and away in exile. I had personal challenges as a queer woman, but it wasn’t a part of my work with the party.

Iranian LGBT asylum-seekers and refugees in transit countries, and in Europe and LGBT new-comers in Canada are the ones who contact us and receive assistance in many various ways. We advocate for refugees and asylum-seekers; communicate with UNHCR and Embassies to help expedite the process until they are resettled in a third country; we send financial assistance and donations to the ones in need.

We help operate the on-line library where literary work of the LGBT writers is published as E-book.

IRQO works in accordance with the larger Iranian LGBT community. We watch closely the inside community to align our steps and the pace. Our reason for this is to keep the LGBT in Iran from paying a price for any radical action taken from the outside, insensitive to the inside political atmosphere. In IRQO we look up to the Pioneer Gay Movement mentors as our mentors even though we keep away from any sort of direct connections, for security reasons.

 In which way the queer people in Iran want to be supported by the “outside world”?

There are two areas where the global community can step in to help; first, by way of supporting the LGBT community in their struggle for the human and civil rights; pressuring the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop discriminating against us. Second, which is more practical, and as much urgent, is assisting Iranian LGBT asylum-seekers find refuge in Europe and North America. We have a number of more or less 100 LGBT refugee claimants in transit countries such as Turkey, and Europe. They are in need of legal and financial assistance. Many European governments are of the idea that LGBT community have an easy life in Iran and don’t need to flee their country. In IRQO we have many reports of prosecutions, kidnappings, stabbing to death, rape, and harassing individuals into forced sexual relationships by agents of the government and also by their own family members. Iran’s penal code asks for capital punishment for gay and lesbians. Parents can kill their queer children without any legal punishment, as a form of honour killing. Many members of the Iranian LGBT are victims of government agents and their own family, and they have to no way to protect themselves but to run away. These individual are in dire need of financial assistance. At present we have 30 of our clients in Turkey in need of shelter and food; the number exceeds out budget, and so they are in very critical condition. Their monthly expenses to rent a room and pay for necessities sums up to $200.00 per month.

How strong is the participation of women in the Iranian queer movement?  What is the difference in being identified as a queer man or as a queer woman in exile in your opinion?

Lesbian women, based on the information we have from individuals, weblogs and lesbian groups, begun their activities no more then four or five years ago. Although they gathered in a sort of getaway house parties and gatherings, and also collaborated in the first Homosexual On-line publication, Maha Magazine, but the first official movement started when a lesbian couple launched their on-line, all-lesbian magazine, Hamjens’e Man, which was followed by the all-lesbian Hamjens’e Man’s chat-room, on 2007. Iranian Lesbians from all over Iran, and around the world joined in to discuss crucial issues such how avoid family and societal pressure on them to get married. How to secure jobs, and rent apartments in society were in every step women are expected to be accompanied and supported by male kin. The movement is not as strong and structured as the gay movement, which begun many years before the lesbian movement, a couple of years before the 1979 revolution.

The difference in not as much between being queer man, or queer woman, as it is in being Queer. The Iranian community in Diaspora is not accepting towards queer community. Queer community, it can be said, is shunned by the Iranians in Diaspora. Still, only because gay men are more in their numbers, they managed to have a little bit more community support.

I myself, faced with denial at the beginning, more then hostility. The community and my friends preferred to think I was joking, when I spoke about my feelings for women. They thought this is another of my outrageous ploys.  My close friends, women who were only friends of mine without any romantic connections, asked me to stay away from them in public. They said, if you are too close to us, people might think we are in a relationship with you. So, naturally, in public, I was careful not stay to close to my friends. This didn’t bother me, but I took note. As a result of my life style, my poetry, and my decisions, I learned to walk my path alone, and not feel lonely.

Were there any changes for the queer community in Iran on the tide of the “Green Revolution” last year? Was/is there a special involvement of queer people in the movement?

Queers were involved in campaigns for opposition presidential candidates. Their aim was to elect for the office someone who was less likely to deny their existence, and their rights. Queers were involved in all the demonstrations after the elections results were officially announced. Once right after the elections Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran’s much despised president said in his first speech after the election date, that the disputers of the elections were nothing but the dust and the dirt of the community and a bunch of misfits and fagots. Four months later, in two various occasions, two of key figures in the government counted the queer community among the groups most active after election’s ongoing protests. Many members of the gay community were harassed by the plain cloths. While most people were shot on the chest, every gay-looking (gays dress differently then other men) young man was shot over the groin. Some gay men cried out in their weblogs: They’re shooting at our genitals… it’s not random, they’re aiming at us.

As a result of many campaign, and widespread on-line activities by the queer community, the young generation of intellectuals and civil activists are very much open and supportive of queer’s human and civil rights.

Where do you get the strength to move and fight on?

This is life. We either live it, or we don’t. And living it comes with all the challenges of walking on and on. I don’t know any other way to live my life. As much as I can’t pretend I am a bird, or a cat, I can’t pretend to be anything but a queer woman who lives in the year 2010 western calendar and 1388 Iranian calendar, concurrently. This, then, calls for the  challenges thrown my way.

Finally, is there anything more you want to give young queer people along the way?

I want to go back a few years in time, to the roots of the term queer, and then I’d like to confide in the young generation, based on my own experiences, that we are what we are, lesbian, gay, transsexual, bi-sexual, heterosexual people – queer are those heterosexists who still don’t get it.

Thanks a lot for your patience

My pleasure

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http://www.univie.ac.at/unique/unique/index.php/feuilleton/1341-10/03/2205-qa-delicious-enemy-we-cant-resist-to-fight

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Interviewed by Helmout Gabel

Could you please describe what are the goals of IRQO?

IRQO is a union of like-minded human rights activists – gay, lesbian and straight – who are committed to attaining and maintaining the civil and human rights of the Iranian LGBT community living in Iran and abroad. In IRQO we are working for decriminalizing homosexuality. Our goal is to have tolerance and understanding of Homosexuality and Tran-sexuality in Iranian culture inside and outside of Iran. The work IRQO does in extended, because of the needs and the circumstances to advocate and support Iranian LGBT refugees in transit and host countries.

Why and when was IRQO founded?

IRQO was founded in 2007. We came together as we realized increasing number of our Iranian LGBT members were being forced to flee Iran due to torture and fear of execution and lack of social justice which deprives them of most basic human and civil rights.. Meanwhile those who chose to stay and live in Iran have been subjected to executions, torture, sex changes and humiliations by their family and the society. The Islamic republic of Iran considers homosexuality illegal and their laws are in total violation of articles 1,2,3,5, 7,9,10, 11,12,13,19, 20, 26, 28, 29, and 30 of Universal Deceleration of Human Rights. IRQO is committed to serve the Iranian LGBT refugee community whose number has increased by 25% as of last year.

What kind of activities are the members of IRQO up to?

We are involved in ALL aspects of Iranian LGBT community whether inside or outside of Iran. We assist our clients who are refugees seeking asylum in Europe, Canada, and the USA; we are involved in promoting as well as archiving our LGBT history through: 1. Blogs, our own and other media blogs such as Radio Zamaneh, Koocheh, etc., 2. IRQO’s publication called Cheraq Magazine, and 3. Establishing of an online LGBT bookstore and library; we work closely with other human rights groups such as Human Rights Reporters of Iran, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Human Rights Watch, etc. to globalize our voice and our message; we help promote and educate people about the Iranian LGBT community that exist inside Iran.

How many persons do you estimate concern themselves to be queer in Iran?

There is no data on this issue and only some of the transsexual members of the LGBT community are registered officially with state appointed institutions. There aren’t any way to find out the number of gay and lesbians in Iran as they live extremely low profile and underground. There absolutely no number of bi-sexual as the term is not even defined in Farsi; it is used to define another meaning. But, it is known generally that 7 percent of any population is homosexual. That’s as much as we can say. More then that, we know that during the last decade, the LGBT community in Iran has been considered loud, even though via multiple pseudonyms and only on-line, and only in larger cities, and that is enough to know that We Are Many.

How many have fled?

According to our records in IRQO, in every given year we have about a hundred seeking asylum in Turkey, or other countries such as Malaysia, India, Pakistan, and European and North American countries. In addition to the number of asylum seekers, there is a large number that leave Iran to study in the west, and normally, they plan to go back and reside in Iran.

How many are in similar situations as Matin Yar (a gay refugee in Turkey)?

Almost every LGBT asylum seeker in Turkey is in the similar condition as Matin. But not everyone who has left Iran has experienced jail and execution order, as he did.

Why are these persons under threat in Iran?

According to article 110 of Iran’s Penal code, homosexuality, or sexual encounter between two willing mature men or women is punishable by death. The judge will choose the form of execution. The only difference between men and women homosexual in receiving punishment is the women are executed after the fourth time they are arrested with the same charges. But that’s not all of what homosexuals face in Iran. The tragedy is that families too, are tolerant of the idea of having a homosexual child. Homosexual adolescents learn early in life that they must hide their identity as best as they can, to escape parental punishment and furry. Many times, parents also kill their own children as a form of honour killing, or they kick them out to live out in the street, or, in some cases where parents are more educated,  they leave their children with therapists and in clinics to undergo electroshock in order to “make them straight”. These young men and women are forced to take treatment and take heavy medication for years. Many carry the scars of the shock-therapy, and the pills, for many years afterwards. Parental abuse of their children and their insistence of the changing them into “normal”, we believe, is in most part due to the fear of the penal code that will arrest and execute homosexuals and bring shame to the whole family. We believe that had it not been for the regime’s hostile attitude towards homosexuality, and homosexuals human and civil rights, it would be easy to educate parents and the society in general about the individual right of the LGBT individuals to live and love a partner of the same sex, within the boundaries of the ethics the main stream society practices. Homosexuals and transsexuals are no different of their brothers and sisters with respect to morality and chastity if they are given the chance. In addition to the abuse gays and lesbians and transsexuals experience from the system and society, their immediate family, they have not much chance of pursuing education, acquiring a carrier, and having a home and a family. This means that a homosexual or a transsexual is not allowed to live, they only survive under harsh and hopeless circumstances.

 

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Meanwhile all the best and good continuation

Helmut N. Gabel

Interviewed by Radio 1, Austria

For a short moment we had the impression that new times were broken in, in Iran. The opposition was ruling the streets, protesting against Ahmadinedjad who took power with a doubtful election result and defended it with police force. Censorship and show-trials have let the so-called green movement disappear – really? An exile Iranian contradicts to this statement: the fight of this new movement is forming up to a political movement – more about this we hear in the report of Barbara Ladinser:

Saghi Ghahraman has snow-white hair. The 52-year old poet and human- rights activist is president of the Iranian homosexual association, coming from a community of homosexual civil rights activists who have been active for 20 years already. Saghi lives in exile in Canada, is connected to her native country, and always have had to find a way to challenge censorship which still very strong in her country today. She says spontaneous public protests have become less even though in various cities

Ghahreman: “The most important activity right now is what Mr. Karroubi is doing, day by day he confronts the government with new documents of torture and rape of prisoners – Moussavi fights with a more systematic means and tries to organize the movement with plans of action. Ghahraman says: “So they told people, don’t come into the streets because they are gonna arrest you, we don’t want that.”

Moussavi and Karroubi are strong leader figures for Saghi Ghahraman and they are firmly trying to help and encourage people in their fight against Ahmadinedjad’s regime.

Ghahreman: “People are backing up, but not in the streets. So this is not important at this point how many people are in the streets but that people like Ayatollah Montazeri or Ayatollah Sanei become louder. The aim of the movement is now to find an alliance with the clergy that feels endangered by the power behind Ahmadinedjat – the Guardians of the Revolution that in fact are anti-clerical don’t believe in clergies interference with the governing of the country; Shiite clergies of have major influence in religion and economy in Iran.

GHAHREMAN: “So if Ayatollahs want to stay in power Ayatollahs must fight the Guardians of the Revolution. “ The resistance against the Ahmadinedjad and his backers is much bigger than we realize from outside and is already going through all institutions and many groups of society.  The promising scenario Ghahraman drafts is that more and more interest- groups like bureaucrats, banks, bazareis refuse collaboration to Ahmadinedjad’s Regime and in that way they will topple it during this term of office. In this way it would be reformers turn, politicians who come from the system itself and are going to maintain it, and who are not ready to fight as fast as many groups in the oppositional movement would have liked to.

GHAHREMAN: (laughing) “we are one of those (who want the reformers act quicker and more radical), but we know that if we want to move fast we might fall.”

In her gentle character the patience of many Iranians is found. Step by step, she says like many Iranians, is the only way to fight for change.