One in Three Women

By Azar Majedi

Today all speakers talked about honour crimes as a widespread form of violence against women. What bewilders me is the name given to this horrendous crime: honour. Honour has a very positive connotation. Regardless of one’s world outlook and beliefs, the word honour has a good ring to one’s ear. When you hear this word, you fill up with positive and good feelings. The combination of these two completely opposite concepts to describe one phenomenon brings a lot of contradictions and confusion: “honour crimes!”

I have given this phenomenon a great deal of thought. I posed this question: Why is this brutal act being described so positively? After reflecting on this issue for some time, I came to see a pattern. It is like crimes committed under the name of patriotism and nationalism. The more you kill, the more brutal you become, the more heroic your status. This is exactly the same. The more inhuman you become under the name of misogyny, the more elevated your status among the community.

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RomeConference, 2008

By Azar Majedi

On Saturday May 31 and Sunday June 1 Casa Internazionale Delle Donne (the International House of Women) in Rome was host to a great conference, entitled “Feminists for a Secular Europe”, organised by European Feminist Initiative. The theme of the conference was to build a secular Feminist Europe which respects human equal rights and dignity and freedom. More than 100 activists from France, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Croatia, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iran took part in this historical event.

The participants were all activists or representatives of different organisations working for women’s rights, human rights and secularism and campaigning to make the world a more humane and better place to live. They had come to Rome to build new movement together. They were all focused and determined. They had an important goal and an inspiring vision. They all were eager to push this new campaign forward. Two days of heated debates, passionate discussions and comradeship brought enormous energy into the movement. A strong feeling of solidarity was present at all times.

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