Equality

Friday Meeting

08 – 09 – 11

This Friday 11 people participated, shared their hearts and talked about ‘equality’. This Friday was somehow special, for having guests from Japan, and also these days the exams of schools and universities are approaching, so many people are very busy. After praying, Noor Navayee started elaborating on the topic.

 He said that equality meant having the same rights and privileges amongst the members of human society. Essentially all individuals have been created equal; they have been gifted based on equal criteria, so in worldly systems they cannot be preferred over one another, while they stand on the same and equal footings. Most of the religious scriptures have emphasized this point. However, the reality has been far more different, and people have been discriminated based on different lines and deprived from their very natural rights.

One of the principles of creation is that each individual is unique and differing from others in their appearance, color, way of seeing the world and their beliefs. So, such a reality has led to the formation of different culture, racial groups, communities and nations. Equality means that none of these natural tenets make an individual, group or nation superior to others or better than them.

The lines of differences, in contrary to the original purposes of such differences, unfortunately have brought about an allusion to give a base for unjust discriminations. Difference in sex, difference in color of skin, difference in shapes of skulls and skeleton, differences in languages and cultures have been used to justify the prejudices, unjust treatments of one group by another.

Navayee, then, suggested focusing more on sexual equality. He emphasized that being male or female does not give an especial right to anyone. He asked the participants to talk on this and share their experiences. He quoted two versus of holy Koran, first versus 13 of Hojarat which reads; translation:

‘O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you might know each other. Verily the most honored among you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous.’

The second, 195 of Al –e-Emran; translation:

‘And their Lord answers them, “the labor of any that labors among you, be you male or female – the one of you is as other.”’

The first verse teaches us of the fact that being differentiated in male, female, tribes and nations is a blessing of God, and a concomitant of human earthly knowledge, language, art and communication. At this stage of life these different characteristics make our lives possible and beautiful, at the end of the day we are judged based on our deeds and righteousness. The second verse rules out any discrimination on the basis of these differentiations in eternal judgment.

Javid: “We have been created equal and we have been given talents and potentials on equal basis, but the will for power has made us blind and has led to a culture of discrimination. In respect to women situation in our country, I can say that many reasons and conditions have created discrimination against women. If we go to the Independent Human Rights Commission or some other civil society organizations, you can witness women’s grievances. You see women who suffer from malnutrition, from husband’s violence, from ignorance (being denied from the right to go to school). They are given as BADS (when someone has been murdered, an unmarried female member of the family of murderer is given to the family of victim, so that to make peace), they are deprived of their rights to inheritance. Women cannot go out to work or to get education, and this is sometime justified as that we are respecting women; they are too precious to us that we do not want them to get dirty in the outside world. Look at something valuable such as gold and diamond, people keep them in boxes and in safes, same is the case for women, we do not let them go out because we respect them a lot. Look at this logic, this reasoning forgets that women are human; they need to improve their God given potentials just like men.”

“However, the situation of women has improved a little in our country. Now there are windows of opportunities for them. They can get education, they can work outside, and they can become lawyers and prosecutors and so on. Still we need to work hard and build on these.”

Asif Sultani: “Nowadays, the situation of women is better in cities, but in many villages if you go the situation of women is terrible. People have wrong believes and ideas about women. Some rural areas have changed dramatically, for example central Afghanistan, girls can go to schools and their conditions have improved. Now we have some organizations, at least, which can talk about women’s rights and raise the public awareness in this respect.”

Mrs. Yamanoy: “Men and women are equal, but they have different characters. It means that they seek life through different tactics and have different outlook on life and life affairs. For example most of the women want to talk a lot and be listened too. While man is in search of the points that he needs. Men are intentional and exact, but women are not only intentional but also emotional more. They do not talk only to make a point or seek something; in addition they talk for the sake of talking and feeling. Back in Japan, a friend of mine was telling that once, she had talked for three consecutive days until her husband had collapsed listening to her. I myself, in the beginning of my familial life, I used to talk a lot. My husband, however, was very kind. Once he also collapsed listening to me. Latter on I came to realize the differences, I tried hard to understand him, and through love and sharing we could understand each other more and every thing settled down peacefully.”

Mrs. Kawai: “In Japan people do not know a lot about Afghanistan, and the women in afgahnistan, only those who work here or their organizations work here know in detail about the situation of Afghanistan.”

“Talking about my own experience, I and my husband did receive especial teachings about the goal of life and family life. So, we had vey common base for starting a family. When I joint WFWP my husband supported me a lot. Now when I am too busy, he helps me a lot with routines. He never talks to me in bad way for, say why the food is not tasty. My husband is a doctor and a very knowledgeable person. He is very quite and never talks even to our close relatives. I try to help him in this regard and help in making relations.”

Arif: “Difference and variety is a blessing of Allah. So no one should try to assimilate people. Equality does not mean to get rid of differences. Equality means having equal rights and privileges in a legal, political and economic system.”

Ebrahimi: “Equality does not mean sameness in rights. It means having the rights to what one deserves. For example, in family context husband has to provide alimony and life expanses of his wife, while for this rights the wife herself has certain obligations. So husband and wife’s rights and obligations are not the same but they are equal.”

“In my own experience, as a child, I used to go to school, and my sister went too. When my sister got older, the family did not allow her to go to school, I could do nothing. It was the condition at that time. When the situation changed my sister started going to school again, but now she is a little older than her class.”

Miss Shafayee: “I am coming from a mediocre family in terms of education. My parents are literate but not very educated. My family went to Iran when I was a child. The culture over there was a little different. There the girls were free to go to school. My parents were good before though, the conditions in Iran affected them a lot. We went to school there. When we came back here, we had problems with our relatives. Most of them, especially my elder uncle did not like the girls to go to school. So they were always trying to stop us from going to school. My parents did not accept and encouraged us further to continue our education. I wonder why people in this country have so negative idea about women.”

Miss Moradi: “My father has studied ten grade of school, my mother is illiterate. I am very thankful to them, they encourage us a lot to go to school and get education. They tell us if we want to be someone in the future and be able to positively contribute to our country, we have to learn education.”

Conclusion: Navayee concluded the session with pointing to the fact that our very creation has been based on masculinity and femininity. So, any ideology, way of life and system that do not concede the equality between men and women will lead to an imbalanced family and society. The implication of this for us is that we need to endeavor to overcome the derogatory look and culture towards women in our own personal context, so to keep and develop our psychological integrity and improve the situation for next generations.