From the moment I met Yanar Mohammed, I was in awe of her. She was dressed in a soft pink blouse and gray slacks, with shoulder-length hair. She didn’t look anything like what I was expecting, which is probably mostly because I was ignorant to what an Iraqi woman dresses like if she’s not wearing a burka and a veil.
When I arrived at Luther Bonney’s Talbot lecture hall Oct. 11 to interview Mohammed before she spoke, I expected to have to throw a couple of elbows around to get an exclusive interview. I was prepared to toss Kim Block around a little bit, if necessary. What surprised me was the lack of media coverage at the event. There is so much rhetoric about Iraq, so much news coverage on the war, so many misconceptions about the Iraqi people and what they want. Here, we had the opportunity to hear the voice of a woman who grew up in Iraq, was educated with a bachelors and a master’s degree from Baghdad University, and continues to live in Iraq today. It was the first real voice, the only first-hand experience I’d ever, and maybe will ever, have to listen to someone’s first-hand account of life in Iraq before and after the United States Occupation.
Yet, I was the only reporter there.
I relished the opportunity to have a private conversation with Mohammed that day. We sat in the back row of the auditorium, as the sound guy checked the system, blowing into the mic and saying goofing things like “ch ch ch checky, check, check.”
Though Mohammed discussed the horrors of war amongst such interruptions, she wasn’t put-off by them. She smiled shyly and giggled as his loud microphone interrupted her.
What struck me the most about Mohammed was her soft manner and polite disposition. It’s almost difficult to picture her doing the things she does on a daily basis; confronting US soldiers pointing guns at her and telling her to move along, questioning corrupt police officers and demanding answers on an epidemic of prison rapes on women, running from place to place in Iraq fearing being attacked every moment.
She speaks slowly and deliberately about the realities facing the women of Iraq today. Within the chaos of war, she knows that she faces an uphill battle. Especially as Shiria law becomes increasingly part of the constitution, women’s rights in Iraq are succumbing to fundamentalist Islam slowly but surely. Besides the political implications which include a reduced, if any, say in government, women are afraid to even leave their homes because of an increase in rape, kidnapping and in the worst cases, honor killings between religious militias.
Mohammed, president of Operation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, sees the worst of the war. Women who’ve been the victims of tribal gang bangs, among other crimes, secretly come to her shelters for help bruised, battered, emotionally crippled.
Though she sees the worst of things, she believes in Iraq and it’s future, and takes offense when people refer to Iraq as a backwards place that has always been that way. She says that the US occupation of Iraq is what has reverted the country to barbarism.
Despite all of this, she remains an optimist.
“You have to have a vision. This is the society that I want the women in my country to have, a place where we have full equality. And the constitution has to acknowledge that.”
She says visiting places like the United States and seeing a packed crowd, like the one at USM the night she spoke, gives her strength.
After three interviews where I persistently asked questions about the horrors Mohammed deals with on a daily basis, I thanked her for being so gracious with a measly college student such as myself. Afterall, Mohammed has been interviewed by hundreds of media outlets, outlets that could swallow up and spit out The Free Press.
Mohammed, humble and gracious as always ended our conversation giving me hope, rather than the other way around.
“Measly college student?” she said surprised. “No, Angelique, you can change the world.”
And then she went back to doing what she’s spent her every day doing since March 2003 when the US invaded her country.
Trying to change her world.