While still many regard the oppression of women an inherent biological trait of men, the root lies not in biology, but in social conditions inclusive of the cultural and religious barriers.

As far as women’s right is concerned, basically there are two major ideologies: One is “Feminism” and the other “Socialism”. Feminists, generally set women against men in most of their arguments and in effect try to prove their inequality in the society they live in by usually highlighting their values, abilities as well as attainments. Socialists however, try to forge solidarity between male and female, especially among the working class, often not for rectifying the struggle but repelling capitalist exploitation. They often use solidarity as a tool for another form of oppression, for the sake of being against another system.

So, then what needs to be done? Where is the truth lying? How and when this oppression of women will end?

In my view, the truth is lying in women’s thoughts. First and foremost, women need to change their own ‘Perception’. Change of perception can translate itself into change of paradigm, change of paradigm into verbal and physical action, and action into desired change. For example, change of perception in men in the way they perceive women among others.

There are many examples of this but here I share two of them with you. One dates back to over 80 years ago and the other just this week.

Ghamar-Ol-Molook Vaziri. First Iranian Woman singer, who dared to sing in public without veil, for the first time 84 years ago. She performed her first Concert in Grand Hotel in Tehran, when and where women had to follow Islamic law and were heavily oppressed by male domination and religious orde. What she did 84 years ago was change of perception in herself, which translated into an unprecedented action. An action that changed many perceptions. She became a household name, a celebrity throughout Iran and a role model for many.

She became a voice for women by demonstrating how the change of perception can have a domino effect in the society at large. Over 80 years ago, she became the champion of Iranian women, who were struggling with their freedom of expression at the time.

And now, this week, Golshifte Farahani, actress and singer, has posed nude for a Madame Le Figaro magazine photo-shoot in a move that is seen to defend freedom of expression and oppose the strictures against women. I unequivocally support Golshifteh Farahani and applaud her daring action. As the result of her change of perception, a greater domino effect is yet to be seen.

Once the main objective of culture was to create arts & literature and assist the promotion of such productions through exhibitions and performances, but it no longer serves as the prime-serving goal for culture.

Culture is having a diplomatic role in global governance and in this respect “Cultural Diplomacy” is increasingly playing an important role in promoting liberal and democratic values. It fosters dialogue and democratic participations. It facilitates human development, expansion of education, human rights, freedom of thought and expression. It also assists recognition and understanding of value oriented causes and missions.
The importance of Cultural Diplomacy is mentioned in the Lisbon Treaty and the UNESCO convention: ‘culture should be mainstreamed and be an element of every programme from students and teachers to journalists and artists exchange’.

With the new crucial role blogs and social networking sites are playing, the EU parliament is now emphasizing on new strategies to utilize digital mediums to further cultural diplomacy.

Interactions over the Internet could break censorship and taboos, help foster dialogue and engage people in democracy, and all these are part of culture.

In my view “Digital Diplomacy” is on its way to enhance perceiving and prevailing Cultural Diplomacy.

On the basis of the latest statistics of UNHCR Global Trend, there were about 42 million forcibly displaced people around the world at the end of 2008. This figure shows 15.2 million refugees, 827,000 asylum-seekers with pending cases and 26 million internally displace individuals.

Due to the forced nature of the refugees situation, their migration is often a traumatic experience. They are often in specific needs in order to support their integration.

They are often the most vulnerable group in society while they could be resilient as well; therefore, it is essential to recognise their needs and assist them during their integration process.

Such groups and individuals who go through conflict and war often require emotional understanding, security and safety and a warm sense of belonging.

Here is where the trained professionals working with refugees are expected not only to have extensive knowledge on Human Rights,Trauma and Torture issues but also have a good command of ‘Cross-cultural mediation’, ‘Mental health’ and ‘Psychosocial dynamics’.

To address the refugees Psychosocial needs here we support and share the following free training materials developed by IHAD- Turkey; iMiR – Germany; CEIPES – Italy and Respect Refugees Europe – Spain.

Training Material for Psycho-Social Needs of Refugees

Human Rights number 15: The Right to a Nationality. Really?!

It has been over three decades that Iranians have lost the meaning of the right to a nationality. Not only many are not welcomed to Iran but also are treated unfairly in other countries. In the list of nationalities requiring entry visa to other countries with harsh scrutiny, Iran is at the bottom of the list, or to be precise, the one before last, last being Afghanistan.

Thirty years ago, before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian passport holders were welcomed all over the globe, but today, they are simply unrecognized or unacceptable, due to many, many politically justifiable reasons. Then this question always comes to mind that why Iranians in and outside Iran should take the burden? In retrospect, from the start of the Persian Empire, this land has always been of great interest or shall we say envious desires of leaders of other nations. Many invaded this land, stole its wealth and scratched its identity. The people were brutally enslaved, their beliefs criticized and other beliefs forcefully imposed.

This good nation’s initial belief and motto of “Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds” has not only been disregarded but forcefully replaced by foreign ideologies, which have roots back in the 6th century in remote deserts of Saudi Arabia.

“Where are you from?” is the question most Iranians detest and avoid, because as soon as they say they are Iranian, their basic rights of being is under question and denied. Iranians’ being is now associated with the present occupiers of their country, who have very little respect for freedom of thought and a ruling government that has no vision of tolerance and cares nothing but forcing their ideology at all cost.

Yes, the right to a nationality is denied to many Iranians and what’s left for them to say is: “I am Earthian!”

Held in the United Nations ‘Palais des Nations’ in Geneva, the event was attended by delegates from 30 countries and over 60 UN diplomats.

The 2010 Summit was co-sponsored by the Uganda Permanent Mission to the UN, the Haiti Permanent Mission to the UN, Village Suisse NGO, Friends of the United Nations, Ariel Foundation International, the African Diaspora Foundation and Youth for Human Rights.

The Summit included presentations on human rights activities by the Delegates; special addresses by human rights NGOs; a panel discussion on the human rights education draft resolution currently under discussion by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations; and presentation of Human Rights Hero Awards for stellar contribution to human rights education.

In this event the past International Human Rights activities of the Dorbayanis were screened and they were honored with a Human Rights Hero Award.

Human trafficking differs from people smuggling. In the latter, people voluntarily request smuggler’s service for fees and there may be no deception involved in the (illegal) agreement. On arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is usually freed. On the other hand, the trafficking victim is enslaved, or the terms of their debt bondage are highly exploitative. The trafficker takes away the basic human rights of the victim.

Victims are sometimes tricked and lured by false promises or physically forced. Some traffickers use coercive and manipulative tactics including deception, intimidation, feigned love, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt bondage,or other abuse.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, everyone is entitled to “a standard of living for the health and well-being of oneself and of one’s family.”

Recently, Human Rights are being used to understand poverty. And communities experiencing poverty have used Human Rights to act against injustice, build alliances between desperate groups, and articulate their conditions and claims.

But what is poverty really, and where is it? Let us have the answer directly from Poverty!

Hey, I am Poverty and I would like to say that I could visit you everywhere!

I am not passing nights with ‘no food’; I am passing days with ‘no thought’!

Image courtesy of ‘Talkingitglobal.org’

Many good authors have written about different ideologies born in different centuries all mainly utilized as a cover up for governing people and manipulating them for ulterior motives.

Ideologies are born to practice ‘good’ against ‘evil’, but throughout history their extreme use in controlling nations has ended in ferocious wars and historical disasters.

Some see ‘belief’ as a cover up for insecurity and use that against the believers, and some believers sadly stop in time and resist adapting themselves to evolution.

Ken Follet has beautifully portrayed extreme ideologies and their results in the 11th century in his two marvelous books of “The Pillars of the Earth” and “World Without End” or Umberto Eco carefully characterizes the dark side of strong ideologies in the 14th century in “The Name of the Rose”, and of course Dan Brown artfully shows the still ongoing extremism in the 21st century in two of his best sellers: “Angels & Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code”.

We must all look more carefully to the lives of remarkably prominent thinkers and their great vision and tolerance such as Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, who invited all people of the newly conquered territories to live in peace and brotherhood and to accept and respect each other’s faith and traditions.

And Eleanor Roosevelt who underwent arduous efforts to once more get the nations to sign their approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to respect the 30 Basic Human Rights after the second World War when fascism and communism were widely limiting freedom of expression and thought even in the free land of the United States.

Therefore let us once more review which centuries some of the ideologies and beliefs are coming from and try to help nations to see better and to adapt them to the present century. Let us learn to respect and tolerate each other’s beliefs and accept to live with each other in peace and in harmony.

- Learn about UDHR HERE
- Learn about the Cyrus Cylinder HERE

Having inherited the foundation of Human Rights 2500 years ago from a just Emperor, Cyrus the Great, we are responsible to work on developing human souls to eradicate crime; whereas, shamefully enough, we are witnessing the fact that today all the basic human rights are simply being violated in the very land of the founder of them! Inviting viewers and encouraging them to throw a stone at a defenseless half buried body is only an encouragement to potential inclination to crime.

The very person who throws the stone out of rage can simply be considered a murderer. The executioners of this barbaric act are not only involving people in an outrageous crime of stoning another human being, but also risk getting into a more violent consequences. A healthy education provided to all would reduce crimes from happening in the first place. Stoning is indeed a failure in our spiritual education. We definitely need to improve the level of education and human awareness to develop better souls for the future, if we really believe in having one for Iran and eventually for the world.

The world is watching, so, as children of Cyrus, a just and tolerant Emperor, we are responsible to portrait a true picture of the Persian tolerance. Every generation is responsible to learn from the mistakes of the last and evolve to higher spiritual levels of humanity, and for sure repeating the primitive way of dealing with crimes is stepping backward rather than forward. Various human rights organizations, human rights lawyers, activists, and concerned individuals have called on the Iranian government to abolish the barbaric and violent practice of stoning, which sadly to this day, has not been eradicated. Hope that one day we see an end to this horrific practice of stoning forever.

Help eradicate hate and anger from your souls to be able to embrace a better and fairer society. Violence has never been the solution!

“No nation in the history of the world has ever survived the ravages of success. All great nations rise and fall, and we’d better understand why….’
Richard D. Lamm, Former Governor of Colorado.

By reading Mothers, Leadership and Success we can find studied reasons to the fall of civilizations, empires and great nations. Issues that perhaps all of us are familiar with throughout our history.

Guy R Odom’s book is a brilliant and creative interdisciplinary synthesis that in the process of explaining why “the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world”, provides answers to contemporary questions about human behaviour and sheds new light on historical events.

Guy R Odom offers a code-breaking solution to questions about origins of achievement and success, and proposes a key to explain intelligence. He brings evidence of the role of women in child rearing practices as the source of both high achievement and superior intelligence.

A truth which according to the book has been largely overlooked; patriarchal societies, especially, are blind to it. The book is suggesting that mothers and their level of dominance will determine the ‘intelligence’ of their children and consequently the society.

No wonder for a society like Iran where women are considered second-class citizens devoid of equal rights and opportunities we may only predict danger of another historical failure.

Perhaps if we knew of the important role women play in every society and studied it more like Guy R Odom did, we would certainly think twice on the issue of equal rights for women.

Men and Women complete each other, and nothing but Equal Rights for both would guarantee a balanced society and a promising future for all nations.

We shall only remain hopeful that one day the male dominated societies will value the importance of unity between genders and start taking an active role in changing their attitudes towards women.

On this topic:
Interview with Voice of America – VOA TV in Washington DC
Language: Persian with English Subtitle