Posted on 07/26/2003 12:51:30 PM PDT by freeforall
2003-07-23 3 women all died seeking freedom
SALIM MANSUR, For the London Free Press
In a world full of mayhem, the deaths of three Iranian women about the same time touched the hearts of millions everywhere in our global village.
The 54-year old Zahra Kazemi, a Montrealer and a Canadian citizen of Iranian birth, died in a Tehran hospital.
The 29-year old Bijani sisters, Laleh and Ladan, died on an operating table in a Singapore hospital, thousands of kilometres away from their home in Iran.
A common thread binds these three women's lives in death with those around the world who paused to pray for their souls and reflect on the meaning of their fates.
That thread is the irrepressible desire for freedom as a gift from our Creator in each one of us.
While so many of us in the West take freedom for granted, others continue to struggle for the lack of it. Some struggle to wrest freedom from those in power who use spurious ideologies to deny it, and others confront social taboos that confine it.
The story of Zahra Kazemi is simple.
She was a photojournalist devoting her professional life to telling stories of those, especially children, affected by war and its brutal aftermath.
Recent events in Iran -- where the young and the bold have rebelled against the corrupt, tired, fanatical and authoritarian rule of clerics -- irresistibly pulled Kazemi to return to her native land and strive to capture this unfolding story for the rest of us.
She knew the risks, yet she persisted.
We are informed she was arrested when taking pictures of the infamous Evin prison in northern Tehran. Here hundreds of Iranian students have been incarcerated recently by the clerical regime.
Kazemi was arrested on spying charges by Iranian authorities. She was beaten and fell into coma. She subsequently died in questionable circumstances that may never be fully disclosed.
The story of the Bijani sisters is somewhat more complex.
Laleh and Ladan were exceptionally rare twins, joined at the head by a freak of nature that occurs in an estimated five out of every 10 million births. In every other way they were normal, intelligent, exuberant and desirous of achieving their goals in life as separated individuals.
Ladan wanted to be a lawyer, and both sisters studied law and graduated with law degrees. Laleh, however, dreamed of being a journalist.
They were adopted children in a culture where a woman's life is twice as hard and demanding as that of a man.
In a free and democratic society such as Canada's, their lives would still have been a mountain of difficulties.
In Iran, under the rule of clerics, where a woman's life is hobbled by regulations from another age, the conjoined lives of Laleh and Ladan must have posed an unending strain on two sensitive women.
We cannot imagine their fears of growing old together, of never being able to have male companions other than their adoptive father or other male family members, while coping with a society that at best remains indifferent to women'ts needs.
They knew the dangers of the surgery but chose to accept the risks over living conjoined.
For Laleh and Ladan, freedom meant in the most immediate sense the liberty to become full-fledged individuals in separate bodies, as they were unique in their respective minds and souls.
All three women chose freedom, risking death to live as they wished. The choices they made spoke of their tremendous courage against the odds men and nature placed in their paths.
They touched our hearts, for their courage reminded us of our fortune to be free without having had a choice to make or a price to pay.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Wednesdays.
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