For women of the third world

 

What always fascinated me is the question of dignity of women in many countries is unfair. I call them so, and whether they feel disenfranchised is another matter. I think that to get to the need for equality in the present century, will have to go very fast path that women in advanced countries have already walked for centuries.
 

In my 40 years of touring I have visited for a long time only  United States, Mozambique and Angola and of course Bulgaria. For the short time I've bean in, some other countries, where there are Muslims - Turkey, China and Taiwan. Recently, I was in Dubai and Israel. On this occasion, it occurred to me to share the numerous episodic impressions of women gathered there. I picked the listed countries for discussion consciously, because I saw them in a different form of inequality.

I was a child, when for the first time in the Bulgarian town of Shumen saw a veiled woman. She worked in the public bathroom and her name was Emine. My mom didn’t explained to me a lot and I was thinking this is a group name for women who hide their faces – Emines. I asked childishly why, are they ugly or something bothers them? I finally received the necessary explanations.

Do you remember the wise green eyes of Afghan girl Šarbat Gula, its name in the Pashto means freshwater flower? A decade ago we watched her face  on television screens often and on one of the covers of Smithsonian magazine, unsettling the powerful eyes, staring at us. Šarbat disappeared somewhere for a long time.

After several years  a journalist found her and took a picture of her. So was changed, It had to make the retina-test to confirm the authenticity of the photograph. Where are already those eyes-projectors? By veil was snooping with indifference tired broken-down woman's face. It seems to me that the only thing she accepted by the Foundation, was the education subsidies to his son.

Two years ago another case has attracted global attention, the little Pakistani schoolgirl Malalas Ûsafzaj, hired with an impossible task for adults. After the attempted of murder this very matured, for her age girl recoverd from severe trauma, operations and phsychological stress. She devoted her entire life to the cause - the right to education for Afghan and all the girls on Earth. Time magazine ranked her among the 100 most influential personalities in 2013. Malalas received other honors, including a proposal for a Nobel Prize...

These are just two examples of the fate of two beings placed in extrim situations. I ask myself: How long time will take for these as Šarbat to reach the thinking of the little Malalas?

 I saw various forms of inequality among the various layers of the population.  Wealthy women in the Oriental world live in splendor, but outside the home, they still become black silhouettes. I watched them in Dubai to come out of expensive cars. From under the broad black "shrouds" I sew for the moment, luxury clothes and expensive shoes, but only so much. How to handle in this heat? I sew them to go out of expensive stores with a lot of packages. Sew them seated in expensive restaurants and cafés, but is that enough? Well, that very few of them hiding their faces.

I have to admit, I couldn't figure out how those with covered faces drink coffee on public places. For me it is not an easy destiny to live "under the burka", but Muslim women for generations are like this. We see most of them already concerned about their rights.

Long ago in Alaska Eskimos women wore in thick warm ugly cloths to protect from frost. Why the women of mostly desert countries not covered themselves end protect from the Sun and dry desert wind?   If we delve in religious traditions, we will see that many of them follow hygiene rules, but let us not forget that we are now in the 21st century, by when? Is it time to change an iittle bit living condition, sufficient to move towards more practical?

 In the end, who should decide, such as me or Muslim women themselves?   I read somewhere recently that they are spending the most money for cosmetics, but what's… under the burkas?  What these women feel like watching a compatriot to them dressed in a light, elegant clothing, showing their pretty black hair as only orientals can have?

 A friend of mine years ago was on the Congress in Cairo and its co-workers invite her to the party in a house. Even at the moment of entering black vestments  were gone and Egyptian turned into elegant European. Then? Why obsess them these standards?

To go to pray in the temple, to be separated from her husband and her sons, to look at the world through the wooden bars. 100 years ago, I accept to somewhere, but now? Not to have the right of public appearances, of education, to drive and how many more restrictions?           

 In fact, maybe men know, what they did. The Socialist Bulgarian heaps of things I hated, but I take my hat off to one. The legacy of Ottoman rule to suppress woman, was liquidated for several years.   Do you know what happened, smart girls, resilient and in no case less clever part of the Bulgarians showed what they can do. It got to the restrictions to protect men ....Some number of seats in the universities and many competitive positions maintained for them. Naturally, when Mother Nature care any grown kids, has given a little too much for women to continue the mankind. 

  As I see now, some aggressive Muslims by Malthus's idea, surely, try to purge the world from individuals that dare to oppose them. Unfortunately, the fire does not burn only dry wood and. ..

             Speaking of Muslim restrictions, you only need to add that in poorer families, who often have no elementary living conditions, expensive price is paid by women. To raise a family with income "below the level of survival, to keep household without running water, to see your child sick because of a lack of money for a doctor and medicines? And all this on a woman's head clock. You say, nothing new, sunny little tales. That is, whatever happened, happened, but why to go back again to the limitations to the slavery of women?

Where are most of Muslim men in this moment? They fight, in Africa, the Middle East and make attacks worldwide. How can, why the world accept this?  What again is set in Muslim lands? New state - ISIS or  killing machine? While you kill in the name of fanaticism, who pays? The expensive price is paid from women and children, mothers who mourn for their lost sons.        

We finish this year with 51 Ml people refugees of whom the majority are women and children, the victim of religious bigotry, what do you think of that?     Can we count the depth in the World, their victims?

  We started with the clothes and we came to the brutal truth, Muslims are subject to mutual destruction and the most expensive price is paid by those with the burkes and their children, until when?