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The girl on the bike is breaking taboos in Iraq
11 January 2018

 

Nisaa FM: - It is not merely about riding bicycles, but about breaking taboos and pushing for women’s rights and freedom in the conservative Iraqi society. Marina Jaber’s “I am the society” has inspired dozens of Iraqi girls to ride bicycles in the streets of Baghdad, defying traditions and causing controversy.

 

'I am the society'

Jaber, a 25-year-old artist, said she had the idea of riding a bicycle in public during a visit to Europe. “I felt really sad then because Baghdad’s girls are deprived of enjoying such activity,” she said. “This is how I got the idea of the initiative. It is just a beginning to break the status quo in the Iraqi society, which became even more closed and conservative after 2003.” She added that her mother and grandmother used to ride bicycles, so it used to be normal in Iraq.

It started off as an art project, but has now become a social media meme and a civil society movement. A group of women now gathers regularly to cycle in Baghdad and break new ground.

Riding a bicycle is not the end objective to Jaber, but a means to make a statement. She started her project in areas considered less conservative to gather courage to cycle in more traditional areas. She posted pictures online under the Arabic hashtag “I am the society”.

She has had to put up with insults and hostility. She has been pushed and cursed. But she is determined to continue and accept the challenge. “I thought: 'How do I want girls to rebel against their society and take their simple rights if I don’t dare to ride my bicycle?’” She started receiving lots of messages, mostly from young girls.

Jaber’s initiative was also applauded by poet and activist Aya Mansour, who shared the same objective. “Everybody is concerned in making a change. It is a matter that concerns men as well as women,” Mansour said. “Iraqi women have always been pioneers in acquiring their rights; notably in the '60s, '70s and '80s of the last century.”

Iraqi women were pioneers in the Arab region in gaining their rights, notably since the enactment of the personal status law in the 1950s that enabled them to practise key professions, including medicine, engineering and law and enrol in the armed forces. Iraq’s Naziha al- Dulaimi, who served as minister of Municipalities in the late 1950s, was the first Arab woman minister.

 

Opponents have described the movement as unethical

Aya Mansour lashed out at male intellectuals and academics who claim to be civilised by preaching personal freedoms and rights. “In fact, they were the harshest and most hostile against us. Their comments on social media platforms evoked hatred and puritanism that is hard to believe could come out from so-called intellectuals,” she said.

While it received large support from Iraqi youth, Jaber’s initiative was lambasted in intellectual circles. A journalist, who asked to be identified as “Sami”, described the move as “unethical” for women and an affront to the conservative Iraqi society.

“It is incorrect to impose the will of a bunch of girls on the whole society. This initiative could usher in a larger use of bicycles which will inevitably lead to more harassment and provocation and consequently to angry reactions resulting in additional social problems, which we can do without,” Sami said.

He argued that supporters of the initiative were not much different in their practices from religious parties that control Iraq. “They cut off Abu Nawas, which is a vital road in Baghdad, to organise their ride, notwithstanding the hassle they caused to others.”

Despite the harsh criticism by conservative men and women and hard-line religious leaders, Jaber – 'the girl on the bike’ – said she is determined to uphold her initiative, which she illustrated in an art installation made from a dismantled bicycle. Her red bicycle became the centrepiece of her installation at an exhibit in Baghdad in 2016 and Jaber's action joined a long global history of cycling as a symbol of women's emancipation.

“I wanted to show the public that a bicycle is a very simple tool made of metal and two wheels,” she said. “So, why is it rejected and the girls who ride it are slammed as immoral?”

 

Source: www.thearabweekly.com